Counting…

I am extremely guilty of counting. Whether it’s counting calories, points, carbohydrates, grams of sugar, I feel like I’m always counting. And it’s exhausting!

Me, circa 1997-1999

I remember the first time I dieted. I was 17, and was at my boyfriend’s house when his mother mentioned that she was going on a diet to reduce her carbohydrates, and that I should join her because i could stand to lose a few pounds. At the time I  was your typical self conscious teenager, but I didn’t have many hang-ups about food. I felt comfortable eating just about anything, and pretty much just ate when I was hungry. For the first time in my life, I thought I needed to lose weight. I had no idea what sort of long-term impact this would have on my life.

The first time I dieted on my own, it was the Atkins diet when I was 17. To say the least, it was horrible. The concept at the time was to remove carbohydrates from your diet, and step-up the animal protein. It could be anything (music to the bacon-lover’s ear). It left me feeling tired, sluggish, and I was always broke.

The next trick I tried was with my sister when I was 18. She and I started taking Hydroxicut pills, containing the potent hydroxin. I didn’t actually lose any weight, I just felt like I was having a heart attack all the time.

By the end of these first three diet attempts, I actually weighed more. I went from about 140 to 180 during that year and a half. I became obsessed with food, I struggled with cravings I had never had before, and am just now learning to understand.

At the age of 19, I was up to 210. I walked into a Jenny Craig convinced that i was severely obese, and that it was critical I lose weight immediately. This worked for about 3 weeks before I gave that up (along with my $350.00).

Since then I have spent my life either binge eating, or calorie counting to counter-act the binge eating. I have read countless books, watched countless documentaries, purchased countless pieces of exercise equipment, and countless exercise videos. I have driven those in a relationship with at the time absolutely mad at the amount of money and tears I would waste.

I’m tired. Actually, I’m exhausted. I came to this realization this morning when my wife was talking about the book she was reading about food. She expressed that she thought I would like it, and I sort of… snapped. Not at her, mind you. I just started to ramble on about how tired I was to be so wrapped up in food, and it’s meaning, and it’s control in my life.

I don’t want to count calories. I don’t want to eat 6 times a day (it doesn’t feel good to me). I don’t want to restrict myself, it only leads to me crashing and “giving in” to my craving.

I could think of a million other things I could be doing with my time. I could actually be preparing breakfast, being creative with the vegetables in my eggs, rather than spending that time counting how many calories those vegetables will be. I could be doing an extra set of dumb bells at the gym instead of counting the number of calories I would be burning doing that extra set.

Do you see the sheer insanity?

I forsake you, calorie counting. And dieting can go die in a fire.

So, what do I do? I count something else.

Looking For A Fitness Challenge…

Let’s be honest. I’ve been sparse at best with posting in my blog. I have all of these fantastic ideas I want to write about, but when it comes time to committing on a regular basis, it doesn’t seem to stick.

That’s about as close to an apology as we’ll get, I suppose :).

What have we been doing lately? LOTS of walking! The wife and I recently invested in a neat little device called the Fitbit One. It tracks our steps, our sleep, our active calories, and links to our MyFitnessPal accounts.

This little device has really challenged us to do things differently. We’ve started going to the gym again, we stopped taking the elevator (99% of the time), and I am being crazy diligent about what I put in my mouth. It feels good.

Anyway, I’ve been hunting for a fitness challenge at home, something that is more than just squats, more than just lunges, but still needs to be something that meets my current fitness level (not exactly Arnie-worthy). I called our EAP to see if they had something, or could direct me to an online location, but didn’t come away with very much. In the past they did send me some great reading materials, but the unfortunate thing was it contained things I already knew (such as good fat vs. bad fat, portion control, balanced diet, etc). I’m great with my food, but need help in the exercise department.

I’m not interested in joining any groups, or hiring another trainer. I just want something to supplement my cardio, preferably while I’m at home.

Any ideas?

Oh, and NSV, new notch on my belt, woo!

The Power of “I Will”

Also known as Willpower.

I was recently perusing my twitter feed, and came across a tweet @Livestrong_com for the article Strengthen Your Self-Control: How to improve your willpower and overcome urges. The first sentence alone sucked me in,  reading it to the wife on our drive to work.

The thing is, it made sense. It first discussed the idea that willpower acted similarly to a muscle, lower weight over a long period of time results in an energized muscle with high stamina, as opposed to a higher weight over a short period of time results in a short term gain (water retention) that often results in exhaustion.

At this point you should read the article for yourself and then return to this post.

I will often start out strong, change my entire diet, attend the gym every day, and track, track, track. After about 30 days I peter out because I’m so tired and bored with the whole routine, I crash, and undo the work I have perceived myself to have done.

I usually say that my main goal is to be healthy, and it is, but my real, hidden agenda is to lose weight and look good. Who doesn’t have that secret agenda?

I decided to try this. I cleaned my desk at work and was determined to keep it organized for the rest of the day. I did it, and not only that, I didn’t once touch the candy stash on my neighbour’s desk, which is unheard of!

Okay, let’s try this again. I made a goal to complete some house work, but instead of trying to get a week’s worth of work done in one day, I simply set aside a period of time to do it, and stuck to the time goal. Again, it happened! I said no to grazing in my fridge all day.

What the heck is this all about? I keep setting all of this goals, as small as they are, and I feel accomplished, and when realizing that I made other, better choices around my lifestyle, feel even better, and this brings me back to setting more small goals.

I’d be interested to see if this has longevity, and based on the research (I try to ignore the second half of the article because it’s such a downer), this new and lovely behaviour should stick around!

What have been your experiences of willpower?

iPost: Tweeting The Truth

Posted from my iPod

While reading my SELF magazine, I came across a page inquiring about what I would do for a million dollars. One of the suggestions was to tweet everything you eat for one year. Well, a year is quite a commitment, but what about 30 days?

For the next 30 days you will see me tweet about every bite I put in my mouth over at @theheavytruth, #everybitecounts. Yikes! Wish me luck!