Plateaus

Getting fit is hard work! Anybody who tries to tell you that it's easy is either lying through their teeth or has

never truly tried to do it before. Or they're selling you some diet pill that down the road will turn out to cause cancer or heart damage or both. The first two months of the year I worked my tail off, both in the exercise arena as well as the nutrition arena. I was pushing myself hard and being very vigilant about what I ate. And it was hard. It's hard to decide every day that you're going to get up and work out even if your 4-year-old was in your room at 1 in the morning asking for water and then you couldn't get back to sleep for the next three hours. It's hard to pass up that brownie 9 times out of 10 (don't want to put myself into deprivation mode after all) and take the time to make a healthy meal as often as possible even though you know your kids are going to whine about it--again. So it's not terribly surprising to me that I've slacked off somewhat these past 2 weeks. My eating has really gone downhill--lots of treats, not enough vegetables. My exercise has been mediocre at best--I'm still doing it (most days) but I'm not putting quite as much effort into it as I was before. And I'm "escaping" more often, which means getting to bed way too late and waking up too tired to exercise or even to look forward to the new day.

And my weight has stopped dropping. Shocker, right? I lost a total of 11 pounds in the first two months of the year--11!--and now I am fluctuating between the same 2 or 3 pounds, unable to break through the 140 barrier into the 130s. I have officially hit a plateau. However, instead of whining about how I can't seem to lose weight, I am choosing to look at things as they really are. I have been a big slacker these 2 weeks, and it's absolutely no surprise to me that my weight has not continued to drop. It's disappointing, perhaps, that I can't lose weight without working; but not surprising.

I've been thinking today about what a plateau really is. If I were hiking up a steep mountain and part-way up I came to a plateau, I'm sure I would be happy and relieved to be there. The ground is flat, after all, which means less work and a chance to rest a little before I continue the upward climb. However, if the ground stays flat forever, I will never reach my destination. One way or another, the only way to get to the peak is to go up. And as nice of a reprieve as the plateaus are, the more there are, the longer it will take me to reach the summit. Seeing it from this perspective, I am recognizing that plateaus are actually an important part of my progress toward my goal. I do need a chance to rest a little after working so hard. But I don't want to stay here too long because that goal is still calling.

This little analogy is helping me to not beat myself up about these lazy last 2 weeks. Perhaps they are just what I needed to give me time to rest and find renewed motivation and dedication to my goal. And I do feel motivated again. I feel excited to keep moving forward, more excited than I have in weeks, actually. Hopefully the next plateau will not come for at least another 2 months. And when it does come (which I recognize now will be a good thing), I will take that time to relax and renew so that I can be even stronger once I start heading uphill again. Forward, march!

January's Results Are In!

This month has had a lot of ups and downs for me. And while I was not very good about posting regularly, and it may even have seemed that I had given up completely after my last pathetic post written on a very down day, I didn't. I kept going, never letting a day go by without exercising (except for rest days, of course, which are a very important part of any exercise program). And I did surprisingly well with my nutrition to the tune of 5 lbs. lost over the month! Yes, you read that right. I lost 5 lbs. in January! And I'm even happier to report that I shrunk 1.5 inches around my waist! So while I definitely had my setbacks over the course of the month and felt some days like for every step forward I was moving 2 steps backward, the persistence paid off. What a great lesson for me this has been. In the past I have gotten discouraged after 2 or 3 weeks when it didn't appear that I was making any progress, and with the discouragement came a huge hit to my motivation to the point that I stopped exercising or eating right or both. So what has made the difference this time? Well, I think there are a lot of factors involved, but here are just a few things I have recognized as making a difference this time around.

1) Weighing myself every day. I have always been strongly against this in the past because people tend to get too emotionally attached to the number on the scale. But what I found with myself is that weighing every day has actually helped me to decrease my emotional attachment to that number. Instead it serves to provide me with information about what/how/when I ate the previous day, and I no longer fear what number might appear when I step on that scale each morning.

2) Eating 3 meals a day with no snacking in between. I know this seems counter-intuitive because of what every personal trainer out there seems to be teaching, but this has helped me tremendously. I don't think we realize how many calories we are actually consuming in those in-between-meal snacks. Even though I definitely eat bigger meals now, my total caloric intake is lower, and my weight is dropping as a result.

3) A strong support system. Notice the word "strong." I love my twin sister dearly, and we have made dozens of goals together in the past several years. But despite how much we love each other, I would not necessarily say that we have been a strong support for each other--until now, that is. This time we have stopped having binges together when one of us is down, and we have set up small reward systems to help motivate us to keep going. We share our triumphs and setbacks with each other on a regular basis. I'm sure I would not have made it this far without my sis. So thank you, dear Sis.

4)Reviewing my goals. While I have set a million and one goals in the past, I often completely forget about them within a few weeks. But this time I have been reviewing them every single day, deciding what I can do each day to progress toward each goal, and finding small ways to reward myself every time I make a little bit of progress.

I can't say this is the formula for everybody out there, but for me these have made the difference. Will it make a permanent difference? I can't answer that yet, but I can say that I am optimistic about my future. 

Consistency is Key

Have you ever had the experience where you get super excited about something--a big project or a weight loss plan or a race you're training for--and you go for it with full force at first? But then, when you don't immediately see the results you were hoping for, you kind of fizzle and lose momentum, sometimes giving up completely? I have gone through that exact cycle more times than I care to admit. Recently I was starting down that path with my business. I am so excited about what I do! I can't wait to share it with everybody! But the problem is not everybody wants to listen. So when my passion didn't immediately translate into people banging down my door trying to sign up for my program, it kind of took the wind out of my sails. I started making excuses for why I should back off and stop working so hard, consoling myself that this was for the best. But thankfully I received a wake-up call yesterday that helped me realize what I was about to do--give up--before I completely went down that path, and I quickly made some course corrections.

How many times have you done the same thing this year with your fitness goals? I, like so many, tend to set unrealistic expectations for myself, and then when I don't drop 10 pounds AND 10 inches in the first week, I get discouraged and start to doubt whether the program is really going to work for me. The truth is, any exercise program is better than no program at all. But they are all going to take time if they're worth anything.

So my message today is be patient! Don't give up just because it's hard. Whether it's a business, an improved way of eating, a relationship, a new exercise routine, or anything else new you might embark on, you've got to be consistent. What you do now WILL make a difference, but it will likely be weeks or even months down the road. And you know what? That's wonderful! Because by then the change will have become integrated into your life and is much more likely to remain a part of your lifestyle for the rest or your long, healthy life.

For now, put your focus on enjoying the journey, loving yourself, and keeping faith. Those changes will come. But they will come one step at a time. Gradual progress is the best kind there is.

Exercise for the Brain

As I was literally spoon-feeding my 3-year-old son his breakfast this morning, as I do with at least a portion of every meal of every day, I once again found myself fast-forwarding 15 years and imagining myself feeding my 18-year-old his breakfast before he drives off to school or work for the day. I wondered if his wife will be willing to keep feeding him his meals when she takes on the responsibilities of being married to him. Should we include that in the marriage contract? Now, this is not meant to elicit comments about my bad parenting. I actually want to talk about this habit that I would guess many of us have of projecting ourselves into the future. While this is not necessarily a good thing when I am seeing my 9-year-old as a juvenile delinquent 7 years down the road because he runs off to play with friends instead of doing his chores today, or my 7-year-old flunking out of school and not being able to keep a job because she forgets to turn in a homework assignment, I do think it can have its uses if we choose to change the vision.

Our minds have so much power, more than we realize. If we will take that ability to project into the future and just change the picture a little, it becomes a very powerful mental exercise. If, for example, you lack motivation to do physical exercise at all, start envisioning yourself as someone who likes to exercise and who looks forward to getting up and doing something active every day. The more you visualize the future you want to create, the more you will lock that into your subconscious and get the wheels in your head moving so that that vision can start to be created. Most of what we do every day is controlled by our subconscious thoughts, so if we can just lock those more positive thoughts into our subconscious mind, the things we do when we are on auto-pilot will more likely be things that help us reach our goals. And in our conscious mind, visualizing what we want our future to look like will keep us motivated to keep working toward our goal. 

So take 10 minutes today and try it. Visualize something that you would like to see in your life, whether it’s a healthier body, a better job, an intimate relationship, etc. and paint a picture in your mind of just how it will look. How do you feel? What are you doing as a result of this change? Where do you see yourself? What are the sights, sounds, and smells, surrounding you? The more detail you put in, the more you will be able to lock it in. Take a few minutes to do this every day, and see how your life starts to change. You may surprise yourself!

One Marathon Down . . .

Wow! Has it really been an entire week since I ran my marathon??? I have definitely been remiss in my duty by not giving an update until now. Please forgive me. I'm still getting used to this blogging thing, and as any of you moms out there know, no matter how much fun blogging is, family takes first priority.

Just to recap, as I trained for this first marathon, I went into self-sabotage mode for a good 6 weeks or more, eating terribly and running very infrequently right up until a month before the race. At that point I kind of freaked out and kicked myself in the buns to get moving. For that last month, my runs and diet improved tremendously, and even though I knew one month of doing the right things wouldn't completely make up for an entire summer of doing the wrong things, I was still hopeful that I would get a decent time in the marathon. And admittedly, I still had dreams of qualifying for Boston floating around in the back of my head.

Well, perhaps needless to say, I did not qualify for Boston in this, my first marathon ever. But I still feel so proud of myself for finishing the race! Yes, I did finish, and I was crying as I stumbled across the finish line 5 hours and 15 minutes after the gun went off. I hurt soooo much, and I felt soooo proud that I had made it even though at times it was all I could do to keep moving. I am so proud of myself for pushing myself back into a run so many times in those last few miles when no part of me had any interest in running anymore. And I am so grateful and happy that, even though I started having stomach upset within the first few minutes of the race that then lasted through the ENTIRE run (I realized later that I had caught the stomach flu bug that had my 3-year-old throwing up 2 nights before the race), I still ran, and I still finished! So while I am not proud of the time I got on my first marathon--in fact, I'm really quite embarrassed about it--I am proud of myself for doing it and finishing it despite the setbacks caused by the lack of training and the stomach flu. As I look back on the whole experience, I feel very positive about the entire thing and very excited to do my next marathon.

My post-race recovery was extremely quick thanks mostly to Danny Dreyer and his Chi Running method. If you've never heard of Chi Running, you can find out more about it at http://www.chirunning.com/. I have been actively practicing Chi Running for about a year and a half now, and I'm completely sold on it. While I was so stiff immediately after finishing the race that I could only hobble, I recovered really quickly and had very little soreness in the days following the race. It was truly a miracle! I was expecting to hardly be able to move by Sunday or Monday, but instead I felt great! I did have some sore leg muscles, but they were mild and really only noticeable when I tried to walk down any stairs. That, my friends, is why I am so excited to become a certified Chi Running instructor (more info about that later)!

Finally, I would be extremely ungrateful if I did not take a few lines to thank my friend Kris for supporting me through this entire experience. Being the awesome friend that she is, she agreed to leave her family and drive up to the race city with me, where we tried not to stay up too late talking and giggling like school girls at a slumber party. She then got up at 4:00 am to help me get ready to go. And if that weren't enough, she drove her car up and, after running a few miles with some other friends of hers who were also doing the marathon, she met me at mile 18 and ran those last 8 miles with me, encouraging me and helping me to keep going at times when I thought I was going to die. Admittedly, I did threaten her life a few times during those last miles because she was just too dang cheerful! But in all honesty I am so grateful for her support and her friendship. I never could have done it without her and all of the other friends and family who were sending love and prayers my way that day.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to see how much improving my diet for the last month helped, and I have to say that if I had not changed my diet, I would not have been able to finish the race. I believe it was my whole foods way of eating that allowed me to keep going and fight off the flu bug enough to keep from throwing up or cramping up or collapsing in the middle of the race. My unsettled stomach caused me to not be able to consume more than a small fraction of the nutrition I brought with me on the run, but I still had enough energy to make it through 5+ hours of running! Healthy eating: I'm a big fan!

The Holiday Challenge Grand Finale!

Okay, I think we can safely say that the holidays are over. So how did you all do? I have to admit that I ended up gaining a little bit from all of my celebrating over the weekend, but not so much that it has me at all worried. I am so motivated to start out this year right, and by the end of this week, I know I will have lost that weight and then some! And that's my final holiday challenge tip for you: keep up the great work! Just because we are officially done with this challenge doesn't mean you should stop trying to be a healthier, happier person. Let's make 2012 our best year yet in every way! And of course, that starts with treating yourself right on the inside and the outside. Love yourself and your body, and give it the good, healthy things it needs to look and feel great. That includes regular exercise and fresh, whole foods.

I am going to start a challenge group really soon, so watch for more information on that. Just so you know, though, the word "challenge" is a little misleading since people in the group are actually working together to help each other succeed with their own personal goals. The challenge comes in challenging yourself to stick to an exercise routine for a month. I think it's a great way to start off this year!

This has been a lot of fun for me! I hope you received some benefit from it. I of course will still continue to blog, so come back and visit often. I welcome your comments and questions!

Holiday Challenge Tip of the Day: Eat Your Vegetables!

Okay, since nobody shared their weigh-in results, I'm taking that to mean you weren't happy with the numbers. So let's move forward here and not throw in the towel. Remember, every treat you don't eat leaves you better off than if you did eat it. So give yourself a pat on the back every time you pass one up, and resolve to do better every time you don't. Also, think about how many fruits and vegetables you eat on a daily basis. If you are anything like me a few years ago, I could easily get through an entire day without eating even one!

Let me just say, even though you already know this, that fruits and vegetables are sooooooo good for you! What's more, vegetables are typically very low-calorie, high-fiber foods. That means you can eat as many as you want and not worry about getting too many calories. And the bonus is that they will help fill you up so you don't eat as much of the not-so-good stuff. So my challenge for you is to add at least one more vegetable into your day than what you typically get. If you don't usually eat any, try putting at least one in. If you eat one at dinner, try adding one to breakfast (in an omelette, for example) or lunch (slice up a cucumber to eat with your sandwich). Your body will thank you for it.

Remember to love yourself and be kind to yourself! That's the best Christmas gift you can give yourself this year! And you deserve it!

P90x Day 13

As of this morning, I've made it through the first 2 weeks of P90x workouts combined with healthier eating (Sundays are my day off). Overall things have been going well, and I'm excited to move forward. I have had a few ups and downs this week, though.
First of all, at the end of last week, at weigh-in time I had lost 3 pounds! I was feeling really good about how much better I was looking even after just one week. I imagine what I was experiencing was no more water retention thanks to the healthier foods I was eating. I was fine with that, though. You have to start somewhere after all.
This week has been a little tougher. I've struggled with more cravings and more hunger, something I didn't experience at all last week. I think part of it may be my body adjusting to a higher activity level as well as just my regular hormone cycle highs and lows. Part of it too, though, I believe has to do with how much I've been focusing on that and stressing about it. I did so well the first week and dropped that weight so easily that this week I started feeling all of this anxiety about every single thing I put into my mouth: "Is this going to make me gain weight?" "Are my portion sizes too big?" "Am I not eating enough and slowing down my metabolism?" "Is this really the best thing for me to be eating right now?" etc. I think I stressed so much about it and focused so much negative energy on it that it was constantly on my mind, causing me to think about food more and thus feel more hungry more often. By the weekend I had added back two of those pounds that I dropped last week.
On another note, this week I had a colonoscopy done on me. Six years ago I went in for one, and the doctor found polyps in my colon, something unusual in someone as young as I was at the time. As a result, I now have to go back every 5 years or so to get another colonoscopy. So this was my return appointment. On the upside, I have improved my eating habits and overall lifestyle choices so much that I knew he wouldn't find any polyps this time, and I was right! Everything looked great.
On the downside, the nasty, vomit-tasting stuff I had to drink to clean out my system in preparation for the colonoscopy combined with the anesthesia given to me during the procedure did a number on my system. Now, even though almost 3 whole days have passed since the colonscopy, I still don't feel quite right. I've been so tired, and I seem to now be fighting off some bug. Plus my body doesn't seem to be handling any food I give it very well. Every single time I eat now, I feel bloated and stuffed, only to feel quite hungry again within a couple hours. I think this weird reaction probably contributed to gaining back those 2 pounds this week.
Despite that, I am still glad I had the colonoscopy done. It was a testament to me that the way I'm eating now, i.e. a plant-strong diet, very little animal-based protein, no refined sugars, and very few processed foods truly are helping to create health and longevity in me. It really has been a long road of trial and error to finally find the right eating lifestyle for me, but I am grateful for how much I've learned along the way, and I'm excited to be doing something to share that knowledge with other people! (Did I mention that I signed up to be a Beachbody coach? I am so excited about it! Check out my website at http://beachbodycoach.com/coachdkmom. Beachbody is a great company with some really fantastic products!)
So, moving forward into week 3, I intend to really focus my energy on what I'm doing right and the success I've already had (like making it through 2 whole weeks!) rather than stressing about what I might be doing wrong. To help with this I will focus a lot of my EFT exercises on having confidence in and love for my body no matter what.
I'm also going to continue using a new nutrition product that I've recently discovered called Shakeology. I am really excited to see the results this new protein/nutrition drink will bring me. So far I've only been using it for about a week, but I really like the taste of it, so it helps me stay away from the sweets because I know I will be getting some Shakeology later in the day.
Third, I am going to focus on getting 8 hours of sleep a night whenever possible so I don't end up in overtraining mode. I am confident that as I continue to exercise, get enough sleep, and eat right, my body will be back to 100% very soon.
Week 3, here I come!