No Such Thing As a Day Off

April 23, 2010 @ 10:09 am

I don't really get to take days off.  I run my own business and aside from always needing to be working on something, I could be essentially on call on any given day in case of a server meltdown ... or a client meltdown (though I don't really tolerate those). Sure I take it easier on the weekends and I love to travel and get away, but I'm never truly far from the office as long as my phone is in range of a cell-tower.

Similarly, I don't really believe in "cheat days" when it comes to my weight loss journey. I hear tell of diets and dieters who work hard to eat nutritiously five or six days out of the week and then go hog-wild on the weekend. I have a few problems with that notion (for me):

• Eating nutritiously is not a temporary hobby to lose weight. For me, I have no intention of going back to processed foods and weeks-worth of pasta and bread. I may loosen the reins a little bit - some day - but when I reach my goal weight I'm not going to go back to the way I used to eat. I love real food, I intend to keep eating and cooking real food.
• It's too easy to overdo it on the cheat day; you can have 800 net calories a day (net! including exercise) for five days, but then skip the gym and go out on the town and easily eat 3500 or 4500 calories a day on the weekend. The risk is to completely negate the whole notion of eating well the rest of the week ... it's merely treading water.
• Looking forward to cheat days subconsciously associates eating right with negative connotations. You have to cheat because "the diet" is so awful. That will just lead to more cheating during the week, and before you know it, the "diet" is blown and we're starting over again.
• Cheat days do make "the diet" awful. If you reserve every notion of sweetness and tastiness for one day a week, then you may be forcing yourself to live on bread crust and water during the week. Another recipe for failure.

I don't have cheat days, but I do vary my calorie intake. "Cheat days" are colloquialized versions of the science that we should vary our caloric intake over the course of a week. It's not good to subsist at very-low calorie intakes every day of every week, our bodies will flip into starvation mode. So instead, on some days we should eat more, but not a lot more, than the average to tell our bodies there isn't really a famine out there.

So that's what I try to do. Rather than "cheat" and gorge myself silly on ice cream and Starbucks (or ice cream WITH Starbucks) one day a week, I enjoy my little treats every so often on any given day. One or two days a week I eat more than the average, and I keep switching it up to keep my intake varied, but my overall weekly caloric deficit constant.

Anyway, a bit of my philosophy. And by the way, this applies to the gym, too. I will take days that are much lighter or even skip the gym, but it's because the body needs a rest day, and I tend to work really hard the rest of the week.

0 comments | Topics: exercise, food and eating, strategy-philosophy

Well, F*ck.

April 7, 2010 @ 09:32 am

It's been six and a half weeks since my last weigh in. Today's weight:

306.2 lbs.

That ... is not what I was expecting.  Not even close.  I thought maybe I'd maintained around 297. I thought maybe I'd even lost a little bit more. I've been hitting the gym really hard - so hard I've frequently had to take quick naps afterwords just to see straight again. I feel better, even if my clothes aren't as loose as I'd like ... I guess that should've been a bigger clue.

Sigh. I'm not happy this morning; not at all. I'm shamed. I'm confused.

And clearly I've been eating way too much and all-wrong. I've known this. I've known I've been drinking too much, eating the wrong things, and most egregiously I've been eating a lot late at night, whether I'm hungry or not. I can go all day and not feel a bit of hunger and forget to drink water and then I just binge come nighttime. I eat, and eat, and eat.  I eat a bowlful of ice cream or a whole pint of Ben & Jerry's.  I raid the fridge for leftover meat, cheese, and bread. I scarf down 100 calorie packs in a single gulp (well, almost) and then go back for more. I have a glass of wine, and then another, and then probably another.

I'm doing great at the gym, it's my routine, I feel good. But good exercise cannot make up for poor nutrition, and this morning I was hit upside the head with the fact my nutrition has been for shit.

Dingaling, time to wake up. Time to be tracking my food with the @LWDFoodLog twitter account again. Time to stop eating after dinner just because I'm bored or have a craving. Time to cut back on the alcohol for the forseeable future. Time to guzzle 3-4 litres of water a day. Time to be taking my vitamins and supplements like I'm supposed to. Time to get back on track with meditation and stress-relieving visualization.

Basically, it's time to do the things I know I'm supposed to - beyond just going to the gym.

(Interestingly, the scale says my body fat percentage was unchanged ... maybe some of the weight is muscle, but then, body fat percentage is a difficult thing to track accurately so I always take it with a grain of salt.)

2 comments | Topics: exercise, food and eating, mistakes, progress, shame

Workout Momentum ... Gymentum?

April 6, 2010 @ 07:55 am

Yummy Endorphins

When we feel pain, stress, or sense danger, our bodies release endorphins to mask or minimize that pain. Exercise is pain. Therefore about 30 minutes after we get our tired, cramped legs movin' and groovin' on the elliptical, our bodies release endorphins to help the physical ailment it senses ... and damn does that feel good! This endorphin release is often associated with a sense of euphoria just well-being. The cause of which may be the endorphins themselves (they bind to the same receptors as morphine or opium), or the fact that since they mask pain we are more sensitive to other chemicals being released as a result of exercise like serotonin.

Either way, after a while, it actually does feel good to exercise. This isn't always the case, sure. It usually starts to kick in for me about a week or two after starting or restarting a regimen. And even then, since it can take upwards of 30 minutes for the endorphin release to hit, I find I actually need to be exercising a bit longer than that to feel it. 40 minutes on the elliptical is about right (10 minutes of pain triggers the release 30 minutes later and by the time I'm in Cool-Down mode I suddenly feel good again).

Go Go Go!

So all that to say, the gym is somewhat starting to feel good again! After a nearly two week break due to work, schedule and vacation, I got back into the gym two weeks ago today. Within 10 days I was feeling the happy little endorphins by the end of my cardio and I was ready for more. Same goes when it comes to strength training. I get off the equipment or I wrap up my set and I stand there and think to myself "I could do more ... I should just stick around for another hour or so."

Of course there's a line between feeling good and working hard, and working so hard that I collapse as soon as I get home. I have to balance a good workout with having a life, and some sometimes that means not necessarily using every last shred of energy on the equipment. But it still feels good. And since the endorphins are like opiates, one can get addicted to them, driving me back to the gym. It still takes willpower, it still takes planning and dedication, and it still hurts, but somewhere in there it feels good, too, and keeps me going back for more.

1 comment | Topics: exercise, gym, motivation, workout