What are you doing for motivation?

Today I did Taebo Amped Live in LA. A 43 minute workout, one of a set that we gave son Greg for his birthday on December 9. My arms are really feeling the work of the weighted bar!

I just don't have time for hour long workouts right now....

Trying also to re-read some fitness and health books, amid the busyness of late Advent and almost-Christmas rush. Wanting to remain motivated to lose weight and get healthier and fitter. Although my weight is kind of the same...

What are you doing for motivation , for weight loss or maintenance, for fitness and health, this Advent?

Isn't This Better Than Dieting?

A quote from the old classic FIRM workout Volume 1.


Such an 80s workout classic. Yet so effective. Cardio and weights. You can do the whole 70 minutes or break it up into parts. I'm addicted to the high impact cardio, the push ups on the dumb bells, the killer legwork, the chest work, the abs....I don't often do the whole workout but have been doing parts since Wed of last week, every day, after I heard of the untimely death of the workout's creator.

The FIRM used to promise visible results in ten workouts. And it is kind of true. I've done six days of the FIRM Volume 1 in a row and people have already asked me if I have lost weight.



It is more fun than dieting..I find I need tough-ish workouts to help me lose weight, to keep that waist line in shape...And I need to watch what I eat...That is the tricky part right now!

I am reading the book I mentioned a few posts back - Finally Thin.

At first, I didn't feel the book was helpful for me. She lost a lot of weight, as I did, but she looks thin and gorgeous while I look...fat and ugly.

The author raves about never having to worry do I look fat in this? But I worry about that most days.

Amd she doesn't do a lot of talk about emotional eating. Eating to cover up emotions.

But then, I gave myself a mental shake up. A mental slap. Come on, girl!

I realised that maybe I was just being way too negative and that this negativity was attributing to my inability to lose a few more kilograms.

Now, I am reading the book with a positive frame of mind. I might be old. I might be fat. But I am not as fat as I was. I might never be as thin as the author. I might never rejoice at what I see in photos. But I can learn some more positive food habits .

Like - thinking, really thinking, before I eat.

And returning to my own, personalised sort of food plan..meals and calorie allowances that suit me. Not someone else.

Knowing there is never just one way.

And learning that it is okay to take care of myself, too.

Ouch!

Forgiveness

Listening to Jeff Cavin's talk called The Hidden Power of Forgiveness as I straigten up and prep the house today.

He is talking about how Jesus said we all will face trouble in the world. Trouble means worry, strife, pressure.

Then he explains how when we are faced with trouble often that is caused by feeling offended. We have all been offended many times.. by things other people did or said, didn't say, didn't do.

Often, Jeff says, we feel offended and hold that in and it can lead to us... using excessive amounts of alcohol, food,... work, hobbies.... etc.

I saw this in real terms of eating. Feeling offended.. then finding refuge in food.

I continue to ponder the relationship between stress and eating. Could definitely relate to the feeling of being 'offended'.. and do see his connection.



Here are some notes I am taking as listening..

Being offended- is a carefully laid trap by the evil one.
To be offended is to be 'scandalized'. Our pride. It is a trap-which means:

1. We don't see it as it is hidden.
2. It immobilzes us.
3. It is stronger than us

When we are offended.. we are trapped.

When we are offended...when something happens to offend us... what do we do?
When I am hurt, or gossips about me or my friend, child, family.. or my spouse or someone ticks me off... I get offended- angry. I shut down.

Wall goes up.

Enemy wants that.

Trap can cause obsessive behavior.

Forgiveness means release. Releasing someone from what they owe you. They owe us in our minds because they offended us. We want to pay them back, by building walls, or other behavoir. Make them pay with emotional weapons.

Jesus shows us new way. Absolve them. Release them of what they owe us.

Matthew chapter 18- best story of forgiveness.
Matthew 18:15

Hummm.. what do you all think?








God bless you all this Thanksgiving-- Cindy

What is your holiday goal?

We're heading into that season of foody delights and every pre-Thanksgiving WW meeting I've been to always emphasized holiday goals.  Where do you want to be on New Year's?  How are you going to get there? 

This week when I stepped on the scale, I saw that I was very close to my goal.  I haven't changed my eating dramatically despite my efforts, but I have increased my exercise to 5 days/35 min each.  With that in mind, I decided that this year's holiday goal will be for me to maintain my weight through maintaining/increasing my workouts. 

Have you set goals? 

Accountability is my middle name (not)

Hi all--

I wrote a really long comment to Leonie's comment about helping each other with accountabilty. You all may have disucssed this aleady, as I have not read all the back posts yet.. but I would love to have help.. and maybe we can post here what we want to be held accountable for?

I would like to focus on just staying on the Weight Watchers plan for a few weeks to see if I can get some portion control back in my life.

Here are my comments from the other post. Please post anything you want acccountability on.. and we can help each other.
-------------------------------------------------------------
My comments on previous post:

Yes, let's hold each other accountable... but in a very positive way.. which I know you are.. but I used to have a friend I asked to yell at me if I messed up. lol I am getting too old for that.

I thinking today about your post about standing up eating M&Ms etc. Oh I could relate. I do 80% of my mindless eating on my feet, at the island of my kitchen with the news on.

lol

I thought today... next time I start do to that (my nemesis is usually chips..) I am going to think of Leonie. (or anyone else here who struggles with this) and think.. what would I want Leonie to do right now? I want the best for her-- she is so sweet and must be feeling down or tired or stressed.

I am going to hope she stops.. gives herself a hug and maybe even take a moment to sit and have a cup of tea and be kind to herself. Just like I would be kind to her if I were there.

I found it so much easier to thinking these things for others than for myself! For myself I just think.. 'you dummy! Why did you eat? You should be cleaining the house or working... you blew it again!"

lol

I would never say that to one of you.. so, maybe my virtual support of you when *I* am about to mess up will train me to also be kind to myself.

Does this make any sense? But I will hold you accountable and want to hear your succeses and challenges.

One thing I have done since starting WW is stocked my fridge with lots of good stuff.

I found I would be STARVING and no time- eating on the fly and no good choices. So I got tons of great stuff.

Also cleand out the fridge (it was packed adn a mess) so I can find everything.

The first week went pretty well until a dinner party we were invited to Fri night. I budgeted pretty well.. but then had some wine.. and when I got home ate half a bag of chips. How embarrasing?

Oh well, I am what I am!

So ate light today.. tomorrow is my first weigh in at WW.. lol.. silly but now my Monday mornings will be my little benchmarks....

Let me know what kind of support you need.. maybe we can all post?

I will make a new post for that.

hugs,
Cindy

The Good, the Bad and the APFRI

A month ago I had an opporunity to participate in an Executive Wellness Assessment by the Army Physical Fitness Research Institute (APFRI) which has been offered to the students and spouses at Bill's school.  Bill is a Major and the soldiers at this school are all in their mid-30s, and already APFRI has found plenty of people who need to improve their overall health and fitness.  The amazing thing to me is that soldiers must pass weight and physical fitness tests to retain their jobs.  If these are the fittest Americans, what must everyone else be like?  (You can tell I don't get out much.)

The preservation of the Soldier's health should be the commander's first and greatest care.

--George Washington

APFRI's slogan is printed on the front of the packet I received after my 3 hour assessment which included an Army body-fat tape test, a bod pod trip, a treadmill test, a flexibility test, a weight lifting test for leg and arm strength, nutritional analysis, and blood work.  Inside were all sorts of helpful sheets on how to improve in the areas I needed to work on, namely upper body strength, body fat, weight, and aerobic fitness.  A staff member talked me through my results in a judgement neutral way.  What I loved about the whole thing was that it felt really thorough and somebody took the time to show you how you did on each result.  They didn't just summarize like the doctor does; they explained the reasons for and the ranges of results for each of the tests and showed me where I fell in a green/yellow/red spectrum.  And for the areas where I'm not in the green, they set up consultations for me with a personal trainer or a nutritionist.  Now I just have to do  what they say. 

Here are some of my results:

blood pressure--green range

Glucose, triglycerides, cholesterol--green, and with the risk factors I have, I could take up smoking and still be risk free (Bill argues that is my own interpretation of the results)

Army body-fat tape test--green

BUT:  Bod Pod body fat test puts me in the red with 31.60% body fat.  I should be below 23.9% 

Weight: yellow at 138.61 lbs

Upper body strength: yellow

Nutritional Analysis:  I eat my entire caloric allowance in starches/grains every day, and I still eat from all the other food groups!

So why share all this? A little to have it recorded in a place I can come back to, but also because I thought it was a great idea to have a benchmark, a real snapshot of my health and wellness at 36.  I would love to have something to compare this to from when I was 25 and 35 pounds overweight and just starting this whole healthy lifestyle journey.  And I think that most of it would be replicable without APRFI.  A trip to the doctor with an appointement to discuss results, a tape measure, a heart monitor, a scale, and a few minutes assessing my eating and workout habits would cover 90% of what APFRI did.   Have you ever done something like this?

From the comments

My check in...and looking for help in dealing with that stress eating. That picking at food here and there...Any ideas?

Rachel and Niamh - looking forward to updates!
Today I did a new workout - Tracy Mallett's Sexy in Six - terrible name but a good mix of cardio, light weights, yoga, pilates. Nice for me cos lately I've been doing more walking/jogging.

Eating not so great - stress eating, you know? But I am determined to get there - lose those pesky 10 kg!!