Body Pump

So I signed up for a YEAR of cardio classes at a strictly cardio studio:

Because they offer a ton of Zumba, which is where my heart is.  But I dropped in to a class called Body Pump that started the hour before Zumba.  It uses weights and a mat and it's set to music.

You work your back, arms, tush and quads.  My inner thighs were really feeling it after, just from the squats.  My biceps are killing me, and my traps are letting me know they're there.  I do wish they had more abs, but the rest of me is getting a great workout.  There's a lot of "Bring it down in 3 counts" for slow reps that really require control and focus along with "Down 1 Up 1" for your cardio.

I've only ever had one Zumba instructor that I disliked.  I hated everything about her class.  Her routines didn't go to the music, there wasn't a lot of arm choreography, and she even kept screwing up the routines.  Her class just felt very half assed.  I actually signed up at this studio to get away from this girl, but now she's teaching one of the Zumba classes here!  Why me??

Even with that, though, I'm really liking the studio.  Kari is my favorite instructor, and there's an Alli who was great, too.  Check out this pic of my from their open house:

Check out that shoulder!  And my "Booty tooch!"  I feel like I'm starting to get my body together.  Seeing that picture made me feel really good.

Rye Naan? Why not?

 So, I ordered gluten flour and rye flour from amazon.com.  I'm super excited to try out some low carb recipes!  But first, check out this super adorable packaging.

 They are SERIOUS about not using a box cutter.

 Which made a lot more sense once I opened the box.  That would have been a mess.

 So, I mixed equal parts of gluten and rye flour and replaced the flour in this recipe with that mixture.

So, I made 5 pieces of naan.  I took some liberties with the recipe to make it smaller.  My recipe is:

1/2 cup of gluten flour
1/2 cup of rye flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 packet splenda
1 egg white
1/2 cup of plain yogurt
1/2 cup 1% milk

So the nutrition information I calculated: 577 calories, 66.3 g protein, 70.7 g carbs, and 15 g of fiber.

Not too shabby, I think.  The bread was totally tasty.  I've certainly had tastier, but not with that nutritional profile.

My thoughts on emotional eating.

Hey,

Sometimes I get sad.  Sometimes when I get sad, I want a brownie.  And when I'm sad, and want a brownie, I'm going to eat a brownie.  Anyone who tells me not to is a meany.

I hate when people tell me that I shouldn't eat to soothe my emotions.  If something makes me feel good when I'm feeling sad, I see nothing wrong with indulging.  There are always caveats, but in general I think indulging when you're sad is an acceptable coping mechanism.  The trick for me is making sure I'm only eating until I feel better.  Savoring one brownie long enough that my mind realizes it's been given a happy food is a bit tricky.  Usually I'll go to Starbucks or a similar place so that I'm limited to one (or shamed into asking a barista for a second.)  A bonus is that no one can eat three of these cuties and still be sad!

I did say there were caveats.  I have some that I'm very serious about:

1.)  I will not eat to make myself feel better if I'm sad because of my weight.  This seems obvious.  I won't shop to make myself feel better about being broke.  I won't smash my phone to make myself feel better that my screen got scratched.  I won't run to make myself feel better that I pulled my hamstring.  It's actually crazy how natural it feels to do more of exactly what's making you miserable, and I try hard to suppress that impulse.  We humans love setting ourselves up for failure, right?

2.) I pay attention to whether or not eating actually made me feel better.  Chocolate does it for me, pasta doesn't.  For the longest time I'd turn to salty carbs and creamy pastas to cheer me up.  Finally I was indulging with a girlfriend and she pointed out that I'd gone through two bags of chips and I was still crying.  Yea... I didn't really know what made me happy, it was just a habit.

3.) I always burn off the calories I eat to pick myself up.  It might take me a few days, but I make sure to work them back off.  Just like you'd save money to shop, or listen to a friend complain the week after you complained to them.  I can do what I need to to cheer myself up, but I have to pay the piper.  That's not a bad thing, I just need to hold myself accountable.

4.) Most importantly, I write down every time I eat (or shop, or run, or smash my phone...) because I'm sad.  I suffer from depression.  I've been to some great therapists through my university and I'm on some fantastic medicine to treat it, but the reality is I'm always in danger of falling back into depression.  What's funny is that I'm actually very lucky that I'm aware that I'm depressed.  As women we're trained to just keep going.  We're told that everyone has it bad, so we should suffer in silence.  Throw a smile on, eat a bonbon and keep going.  That's bullshit.  If you are sad, WRITE IT DOWN!  Keep a tally.  The next time you go to your doctor, show her the list of times you were down and the severity and ask if that seems like a lot.  Keep track of how you coped with it, if it affected your job, your family, your love life.  Food is a great pick me up, but it is not a substitute for mental help.

Emotional eating is not my problem.  Mindless eating is.  Eating crazy amounts of food and at the end of the day not even remembering the binge.  Eating to make myself feel better may not be a bad decision, but I need to make the decision.  I need to be aware of my choices and how big my problems are.

Hey! I ran! And Pilates!

First, just to keep me honest, check it out! I'm running!  This picture is a little old, but I'm running every other day.  I'm super proud of myself.

Now, I'd mentioned I've been looking through free fitness videos on my Roku.  The latest channel I found was NetFit.tv.  I tried their Pilates 1 video.  Now, I have a lot of prejudices about fitness, and one is that Pilates should be taught by women.  This is completely irrational, Pilates wasn't even started by a woman, there's no reason only women should teach it, but I still feel that way.  So I rolled my eyes nearly out of my head when this big body builder guy started talking to me about not driving around parking lots.

He started with upper body using 5-10 lb weights, which reminded me that I need to go back to the weight room, stat.  I'm wiggling my arms and shoulders right now to see how sore I am, and it's clear that I definitely did some work, though my triceps aren't crying or anything.  In the video one of the backup exercisers, a huge dude, was kind of a wimp about this, which made me push harder.  I'm totally tougher than him.

Then our instructor started abs, and the routine was pretty rough.  There was no Pilates 100, mostly leg lifts with a butt lift at the top of each.  It worked me, my abs aren't happy, but was pretty boring.  I skipped the plank stuff, I'm not a fan of plank work and just did some teapots.

Finally this guy did lower body, which surprised me.  His lower body exercise was straight out a Mari Windsor video.  I don't do Pilates for lower body work, personally.  I'd rather push out some squats and hamstring curls and get on that Chinese-torture-contraption for inner/outer thighs.  This was a good workout, though.  I was just very surprised at how closely it followed that set of Windsor-Pilates videos.

So, do I recommend it?  Yes, but only because it's free.  It was a good, solid workout, but not very engaging mentally.

A brilliant idea!

 Alright, stop noticing how watermarked my container is and listen up! This tip may not have changed my life, but it definitely changed my mornings.

My biggest problem with dieting is portion control, bar none.  When I first start a diet I'm faithful to measuring out every little thing.  Eventually, however, I start to feel like I 'know' how much a cup is, and the measuring cup doesn't make it out of the cabinet.  Measuring takes time, and it dirties an extra item.  It's an easy step to skip.

So, a week or so ago when I didn't have any clean bowls left, I dug through our tupperware for a container that I could use.  The one above is the one I found, and when I dumped my cup of cereal in it, it filled it exactly!  So then I got excited.  I poured half a cup of 1% milk in the container and marked a line where that was.  Now this is my cereal bowl!

The line came off in the dishwasher, but it's a bit above halfway.

This particular container came from Kroger.  Sometimes I buy containers of pre-cleaned fruit, and this was the smallest one.

We have a lot of these containers of different sizes.  I have a few from cheese spreads that have lids.  They're a cup size as well, but they're opaque, so I'll put soup or beans for lunch in them.  One less step is one less step, right?

Now, you don't need to save every single container you get food in.  Most of the tupperware we get at the grocery store has a capacity measurement written on the bottom, and definitely on the packaging.  This may be in metric, but you can get out your smart phone and ask google to translate into cups.  (I'd say to mark it on the container with a marker so you can see it better and remember, but my dishwasher will have none of that.)

There's another bonus to this that I haven't mentioned.  Since these containers are exactly as small as they can be to accommodate your portion, you'll also be eating off of smaller plates, which many claim will trick your mind into thinking you're full sooner.  Twofer!

What do you think? Am I the last person in the world to figure this out?

My weight chart

So I decided to include a graph of my weight loss to date (well, to yesterday's date) to show two things.  One:  I'm obsessed with charts.  But more importantly Two: There's definitely a correlation between not recording my weight daily and gaining weight.  The sad thing about this is that I was still weighing myself daily!  That's right, I was just too ashamed of a lb of weight gain that I didn't put it down until I'd gained back 7 lbs.  As if not writing down my new weight would somehow trick my body into getting smaller.

The other funny thing is that all of those little increases like, say, in early October felt huge and motivated me to work that much harder.  They felt like huge setbacks.  If I didn't lose for two days I'd start thinking "Am I at a plateau?"  How do I get through it?  This was great short term, but I can't keep that kind of neurosis up long term.  I'm going to try to focus on more reasonable reactions to my weight gain.  I want to hold myself accountable, but not have a panic attack.  There's got to be some middle ground, right?

I did it!

Well, after a month long break from running I hopped back on the treadmill today.  I started super easy-- just 2.5 miles, but it was a start.  I was glad I could run the whole time, but I hit 3 walls during the run, which is an awful lot for such a short run.

A while back I signed up for a free trial of GymBox, a workout channel on the Roku.  I wasn't using it enough to justify the cost, so I cancelled, even though many of the classes were good.  Well, with my new resolution I decided to look into it again, and I found out that there are FREE channels now.  Yes, they have commercials, but I'm looking forward to trying their Pilates class.

Looking forward to getting back on the bandwagon!

Happy New Year!

I'm sure many of us had plans to start the New Year off right-- super healthy, super happy, super motivated. I started the new year off with a terrible cold I caught from my sweetie.  I'd planned on getting in a run.  I stopped running after the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving, and I really need to get back to it.  That will have to start on a different day, however.

The biggest hurdle for my weight loss has always been overeating.  The past 3 weeks have been filled with binges.  Since food is essentially the only thing I can focus on today, weight loss wise, I'm paying close attention to what I eat.

New Years Health Resolutions:

Weigh 133-136 lbs!!
Run a mile at 10 min/mile
Run 20 miles/week
Bike to work

That's a bunch, but I have a whole year.  I have more resolutions that you'll hear about soon.  Knitting resolutions and work resolutions.  Here's to a happy and less sniffly new year.