Adjusting to my New Exercise Regime

I’ve gained weight, which wasn’t surprising. None the less, it was disappointing. I was right at my target weight and it slipped away. No matter. I’m still within healthy BMI status, and I’m confident that I’ll get out of this recent binging bend. Another thing that also contributed to my recent gain was that I’ve been slacking with exercise. A part of it is because I had fallen out of it from my exercise hiatus due to illness. Then right after I recovered I had a bout of Achilles tendonitis, so I had to rearrange my routine to accommodate for that. The other part is because I’ve changed my exercise regime in general, and with every change there’s always that awkward adjustment period.

The first change actually occurred over a month ago. I decided to change aerobic exercise from 5 days to 3-5 days a week. Before, it HAD to be 5 days a week with NO excuses (except sickness or injury that is). I had decided this exercise regime in the beginning of my weight loss efforts, when losing weight was the ABSOLUTE priority. Now that I reached a healthy BMI, it doesn’t feel like such a priority anymore. The books have said that 3-5 days was what was necessary, so I decided to ABSOLUTELY do aerobic exercise 3 days a week with an optional two more days if time allowed. It felt uncomfortable doing this. I was afraid that allowing myself to exercise so little would cause me to fall out of it, but I don’t think it was the case.

The second change was my letting go of the weight machines. Much to my surprise, I recently discovered that they were NOT safer than free weights and bodyweight exercises. Go figure.

Letting go of these machines, however, has been a challenge. I found myself lost in the gym, when before I felt like an expert. I had mused to myself when personal trainers offered their services. I mean, come on, the instructions were right on the machines. Now, I’m not so sure. I went into the free weight room this weekend for the first time, and there were no instructions. Just a bunch of benches in different shapes, dumbbells, and barbells. I was stupid enough to go in there with no plan. I thought that I can make my own routine with the wealth of knowledge I had accumulated through different group exercise and DVD instructors. No such luck. For one, the lowest weight was 8 lbs. The most I’ve ever used and that all the instructors always recommended was 5-lb weights. There were barbells, but I’ve only ever tried them once before with guidance. I was concerned with hurting myself. I was also concerned with looking like a total idiot. Everyone else seemed to know what they were doing, and I felt strangely watched. However, it could have also been because I was one of three girls in what I deem as No Woman’s Land. No matter I was determined to utilize what I believed was my right, so I ignored my feelings of intimidation and trudged on. I did two exercises in No Woman’s Land. The rest, I scurried back to Weight Machine Land. Not because of intimation, mind you, but because of plainly not knowing what to do. That evening I used Women's Strength Training Anatomy and exrx.net and I created a routine that I plan to use next time.

The last change I’ve made have been the hardest to implement simply because I'm having difficulty remembering to do it. I’ve decided to stretch my calves and hamstrings every day. Because my calves are extra tight, I’m prone to plantar fasciitis and Achilles tendonitis. My recent bout of Achilles tendonitis had puzzled me because it came on when I wasn’t doing any high impact exercises at all. I realized later that I only stretch after a workout and being on exercise hiatus has also kept me from my stretching routine. This was when I decided to stretch my calves every day. I decided to also stretch my hamstrings while I’m at it. Even though they haven’t given me any problems, they are also extra tight and I’ve heard that extra tight hamstrings can result in back injures. The only problem now is figuring out a good time to do them.

A Week of Intuitive Eating

I’ve been reading “Breaking Free From Compulsive Eating” by Geneen Roth, which I heard was an older edition of “Breaking Free From Emotional Eating”. Actually, I started a while ago but dropped it because of several reasons:

1) I had started reading it during my despair period when lost faith in myself, but I had gotten over it and no longer needed outside wisdom.

2) I had come across activities that the writer wanted me to complete. Because I tend to be exacting, I had wanted to do each activity before going on to the rest of the book. But I found the activities to be too demanding and overwhelming.

3) The new Harry Potter book came out, and I wanted to devote my reading time to that instead.

I continued reading “Breaking Free…” on Monday. Last week there were tons of family in town, therefore there were tons of get-togethers. I noticed that meal times together were scheduled later than regular times. Lunch at 2pm. Dinner at 8pm. This is probably because they were all waking up late from going out and staying up late every evening. As a highly regimented individual, this put me off, but I decided that I wanted to be more flexible and accommodating. Come Monday, after our last late-night get-together, I found myself eating breakfast at 10:30am! I had thrown myself off, but I couldn’t wait until an “appropriate” time. I told Ly of my dilemma and he said, “Why don’t you eat when you’re hungry?” What a concept, huh? And I started to think about Intuitive Eating and how Ly was a natural at it and how I wanted to live my life more like him and everyone else. So flexible and unrestricting. That was when I decided to continue reading “Breaking Free…”

That and because I had no idea how hunger felt like at its beginning stages and I was hoping that the book would describe it to me. Nope. She’s into the whole discover-things-for-yourself method. Which is not surprising coming from a be-in-touch-with-yourself technique like IE. She did, however, described methods of being more in tune with your hunger, which I tried to follow.

This time as I read the book, I decided to not follow it exactly. Instead I wrote down all the activities that I would someday like to do. Other than that, I was doing what I felt comfortable doing at the moment. I’m sure Geneen would have wanted it this way.

The most challenging concept was to remove distraction when eating. I found it easy to not watch TV or read when the family was in the house, because they were naturally distracting with their demands during meal times. And when they weren’t being distracting, it felt like a welcomed relief to not think of anything but my food. It was the day when the kids were at my in-laws did I found eating without distracting myself a challenge. It was lonely, and I couldn’t handle it. How pathetic, huh? There are others out there whom live alone, and I couldn’t handle one day of a quite house while I ate. So I sat myself down in front of the TV and watched until the loneliness went away. It was then that I was able to eat the rest of the meal in silence. Maybe someday, I will be more comfortable feeling the loneliness.

Last night, we had dinner at my in-laws’ and I discovered that practicing IE has helped me reach some kind of Zen-state when I ate. Things that made me react in the past didn’t this time. For one, I didn’t react to Linh noticing my eating habits. Normally, I would try to eat like everyone else when this occurs, but then I thought that she probably doesn’t think anything of it, because she has often embarked on her own eating habits. This was what was strange. I was able to think this all at the moment when usually I needed to reflect after the fact. It was as if time froze.

However, Ly’s incessantly offering me food did eventually bother me. There’s only so much Zen I can maintain. But I think I still did well, and I was more understanding of Ly’s behavior when in the past I would get angry with him. I was sitting and doing nothing for long periods of time, because the conversations at hand did not include me. It felt uncomfortable, and I would have been eating to fill it up but I was practicing IE. Ly probably felt uncomfortable at my discomfort, which was probably why he kept bothering me with food. This I was able to see, and I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t tapped into a different plane of eating.

Paradigm is a Shifting

I don’t want to deprive myself and I don’t want to starve, but I also want to lose weight. How do I do this? I’ve decided to look into diet and weight loss books again. I’ve had a run of not so good experiences from these books, but I can’t say that I didn’t learn anything from them. I just have to learn to not follow them to a T. I mean, a lot of these books are written by experts, right? But they don’t know me personally, so there’s no way they can modify their program to tailor to my personality and lifestyle. That’s up to me.

These are books on my wish list:
“The Volumetrics Weight-Control Plan” by Barbara Rolls and Robert A. Barnett
“Breaking Free from Emotional Eating” by Geneen Roth
“The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person” by Judith S. Beck

I will probably buy them as a way to reward myself (if I ever earn any anymore). For the month of June I only earned $1 and that was from turning down a tempting offer. I didn’t have a good run of with-in calorie range eating for the whole month! It could be because of my lack of motivation in the beginning of the month or it could be because of my little paradigm shift. Nonetheless, I’ve been doing poorly.

Yesterday, I had a baby shower to go to, and the food was all so good. It was at an odd time (2pm) and I ate poorly beforehand (chocolate covered almonds and a banana), so I was definitely hungry before the party. I went over 2,000 calories, and I felt guilty. Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten that chicken when I was already full. Maybe I shouldn’t have had 4 servings of tortilla chips. Maybe I should have eaten something less calorie dense before the party. This guilt is another thing I don’t want to live with, but what else will keep me on track?

On a good note, I found an older version of “Breaking Free from Emotional Eating” on BookMooch. That should arrive shortly. I’m feeling confident that intuitive eating will help me accomplish my goals. I did some more researching, and I found a study that demonstrated its superiority over traditional methods (AKA behavior modification). It was only one study and I was only able to get the abstract, but it demonstrated its effectiveness after 2 years. Very promising.

I also did a little researching on CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) towards weight loss, and I found a lot of studies demonstrating its ineffectiveness. One study even demonstrated behavioral modification to be more effective in the short term and no difference between the two in the long term. However, there was one article that talked about a modified CBT approach that was effective. I was able to get the full article, and I’ll look into it later.

Obsessing and Researching

I’m obsessing about weight loss again, and when this happens everything else is neglected. Father’s Day was last weekend, and I didn’t do anything for Ly! And it’s not like I didn’t have time. It’s just that I was preoccupied with myself. Last night I spent two hours writing a blog entry, ignoring my kids’ cry for attention. Then when I was preparing Hunter for bed, I realized he’d be going to my mother-in-law’s today, because Ly won’t be home in time for me to go to my sewing class in the evening. That means I wouldn’t be seeing him the whole day! I felt regret and wished I had paid more attention to him. I wished I could be more balanced.

In trying to find ways I can insure my weight loss and maintenance, I've been thinking of intuitive eating. I unknowingly tried this method twice using "A Lifetime of Weight Control & Fitness" by Debra Waterhouse. It didn’t work out for me, because I was too particular about rating my hunger/fullness and had difficulty being attuned to my body. And although this method was suppose to eliminate the guilt that comes with dieting, I still felt guilt and maybe more so when I fell into social pressures. I know that everyone (excluding those with extreme and special circumstances such as autism or anti-social personality disorder) is subject to social pressures, but I like to fancy myself as above it. Intuitive eating has helped me discover that I’m not. Also it suggested that I should eat without distractions, which was impossible when feeding two kids at the same time. And I didn’t want to give up eating vegetables in front of the TV, since it helps me eat them.

Despite my issues with this method I do still utilize its techniques somewhat, but I wonder if I should look more into it. Maybe buy a better book regarding it. But I have great hesitation making purchases for myself, so I decided to do a little academic research on the effectiveness of this method first (I have my student access to the academic journals on-line until the end of the summer). I discovered that I couldn’t find any existing research whether it was or wasn’t effective. I guess it shouldn’t have come as a surprise, considering how new this method is. Although this may indicate a better prognosis than traditional methods since most research only demonstrate how unsuccessful they are, it’s not enough for me to back it up with my money.

Then I ran across ”The Beck Diet Solution” by Judith S. Beck while perusing on Amazon and I remember reading about it on jen’s blog. It talked about utilizing cognitive behavioral therapy towards weight loss. Currently, this method is all the rage in my industry, because it’s backed by tremendous empirical evidence regarding all different kinds of situations (although I’m not sure if there’s evidence directly towards weight loss). Never the less, it has peaked my interest. And I’ll look into it …later. Right now, I need to give some attention back to the family.

My Goal Weight

Ah, numbers! How I hate thee! For those whom share my hatred, I must warn you that this post is heavy with them.

If you’ve been following my blog since the beginning you’ll noticed that my goal weight has changed several times. At first I aimed for 120 lbs, because I had read somewhere that 120 lbs was the upper threshold of the healthy weight range for my height. I had what my research professor called, JGBD (Just-Get-By Disorder). When I started blogging, I wanted to be honest with myself. I realized that the mind tricks I do to maintain my self-esteem and disillusionment was preventing me from losing weight. One of my disillusions was my goal weight. I decided that it made more sense that I aimed for the middle of my healthy range rather than at the very top, so that once I reached it, I can bounce around in my healthy range rather than be fearful that I will gain a pound and automatically be overweight. Being lazy and fearful of numbers, I looked to the Internet to find my new target weight. I found Joanne Larsen's site, which told me that my target weight should be 110. 110! Holy cow! It was scary, but I decided to bite the bullet and place it in my blog. A contract with the rest of the world. This is what I’m trying to achieve. The more I saw that number the more comfortable I felt with achieving it.

Then one day, I was perusing through the Internet, and I happened across a post that Marshmallow placed in her bog about the Asian BMI being smaller than the standard. This frightened me. I told my husband about this and that when I was less than 110 lbs I felt very unhealthy. I only achieved it because I was following a very low calorie diet. I doubt my ability to obtain and maintain it now when age has decreased my metabolism. My husband told me that I should just lose weight until I feel healthy and not worry about the numbers. I wanted to go with what my husband was saying, but I promised myself that I wouldn’t fool myself anymore, so I asked Marshmallow for more information. She led me to an article in Wikipedia that only provided me with the healthy BMI range for Asians, so I had to calculate my target weight myself. I took the number in the exact middle of the healthy range and calculated my target weight using Kiss Guide to Weight Loss. I came up with 115 lbs. The answer surprised me. It was more, not less, than my current target weight which Joanne Larsen specified using the standard healthy range. I looked at other places in the Net and in my book. Joanne Larsen was wrong.

Now, I’m a very happy camper. My goal is closer than I had thought it was. Recalling back, when I was 115 lbs., I felt my absolute healthiest. This goal, I like. Thank you Marshmallow for setting me straight.

Moral of the story: Beware of on-line calculators!

Yo-yo Dieting Fears

Yo-yo resting at speed
Originally uploaded by canardo.

Another one of my fears about loosing weight that I failed to mention in my Hopes and Fears post was the fear of the adverse affects of yo-yo dieting. I believed that if I lost the weight, and I wasn’t able to keep it off, I would gain even more weight then I started out with and that it would be even harder to take off the pounds. So underneath my resolve of loosing weight there’s a voice that tells me it would be better that I don’t try at all. That the chances of me gaining it back again and then some would be so great that it wasn’t worth the risk of trying. Well my fear and any one else’s fear of this can be laid to rest. According to Barbara Ravage in Kiss Guide to Weight Loss (page 174):

Although some people say that yo-yo dieting messes up your metabolism and does lasting harm to your health, this is actually not true. Medical experts call it weight cycling, and this is what they have to say about it.

1. Weight cycling does not have a permanent effect on your metabolic rate.

2. Weight cycling does not increase the amount of your fat tissue.

3. Weight cycling will not turn you into an “apple,” causing you to regain lost weight as fat deposits in your abdominal area.

The main thing wrong with yo-yo dieting is that it is discouraging.

After reading this passage I felt a little better with trying.

Other fears about yo-yo dieting that I did mentioned was my fear of becoming my mom and what others would think of me. The fear of me becoming my mom is so complex, I don’t even understand it myself. All I know is that in my head I feel that my mom is inadequate because she can’t keep the weight off. I feel that others have the same opinion. I think I’ve seen it on TV where a comedy skit makes fun of Oprah Winfrey’s “weight cycling”. It doesn’t seem right. At least she’s trying.

And that’s what I’m doing. Trying.

It’s stupid to care what other people think, when I know it’s keeping me from doing what’s best for me. I’m no longer going to let the opinion of others keep me from trying. Or trying again when I fail.

"You try and you fail. You try and you fail. You try and you fail. But the real failure is if you stop trying," said the crystal ball in Disney's "The Haunted Mansion"

Two Week Food Journal - Completed

I did it! I finished my 2-week food journal. Whew, it was tough. My problem was that I didn’t record right after I eat. Good thing I took pictures so that I wouldn’t forget.

As my reward for my accomplishment, I bought myself a self-help book. "KISS Guide to Weight Loss" by Barbara Ravage. I’m finding that I am not satisfied with the books I own. I wanted a more comprehensive book that was still simple. This one had pictures.

Taking Advantage and Changing My Routine

I have a tendency to only be able to focus on one thing at a time. I also have a tendency to obsess over that one thing 24/7 until the intensity fizzles off to obscurity. Right now my focus is 100% on strategizing on my weight loss plan and blogging. This usually takes between 2-4 weeks. Afterwards I cycle to unfocused boredom then on to the next obsession. I'm trying to temper my cycle so that I don't waste my time in the extremes of it where I can't seem to be productive in other facets of my life. At the same time, I am trying to ride on this intense focus to set-up a time-efficient workout and weight loss plan, so that when focus disappears I can go on cruise control. Analyzing my plan so far, I realized that I had made my efforts too time consuming and tedious, which was one of the reasons why I had fallen out of focus in the recent past (more on that later).

Back in January 2004 I had developed a workout routine that I held myself to religiously (except when sick or amnesic). It when like this...

5 days/wk aerobics 30-60min
3-days/wk strength training 10-30min
Stretch muscles used after each workout
10 mins of warm-up and cool-down each workout

Now I'm revisiting that routine, hoping to make it more efficient. The new one looks more like this...

3days/wk aerobic 45-60
2days/wk strength training at least 20min
3days/wk stretch 10min
10 mins of warm-up and cool-down each workout

This will change my typical workout session from 1 hour to 1 hour and 30 minutes, but it will decrease the frequency from 5x/wk to 3x. I'm hoping I can cut back on prep time and time it takes to warm up and cool down.

If anyone has any feedback out my workout routine so far, I would appreciate it.

These are the books I use to develop my workout routine…

Getting in Shape (Barnes & Noble Basics Series) by Carol Leonetti Dannhauser, Sandra Michaelson-Warren, and Sandra Michaelson Warren

and

“A Lifetime of Weight Control and Fitness” by Debra Waterhouse
Does anyone else know of any other books that are easy to understand?

Food Journal

This is what I'm doing right now after much revising, refocusing, and re-strategizing...

A long time ago... Well not that long. 5 years ago. I borrowed a manual from the hospital's library called "A Lifetime of Weight Control & Fitness" by Debra Waterhouse. It presented a behaviour modification program towards weight loss. It said that the program should take about half a year to complete. I got to the part where it asked me to track what, how, where, and when I ate and I lost it. It was so tedious for me. I dropped the program after a week. Looking back now I think I made it more tedious then it really was. I was too concern with being accurate and perfect. Well 5 years and two kids later, I've learned my lesson. Now I think I'm ready to revisit the program. (Good thing I decided to copy and keep the manual). So far, I've recorded for one week. The manual suggested that I do this a minimum of two weeks. Although I have accomplished so much so far, I'm starting to forget to record, and not so long ago my focus was so strong that I was recording while I was eating. Now I'm lucky that 3 meals have not pass until I finally get my act together. By then I'm struggling to remember the details. Well I only have one more week to go. Then I can analyze myself and figure out what I need to work on.

Above are pictures of typical meals I eat. From top to bottom: breakfast, lunch, and dinner