Truth Serum - Please be Gentle

I have been on this weight rollercoaster for 10+ years now and have lost a bunch and gained it all back more than my fair share of times. I've been to a nutritionist who told me I couldn't possibly eat a healthier diet. All she suggested I change was to drink more water and take vitamin D supplements. That's it. I've had my metabolism tested. Turns out that I do have a slower metabolism than I should for my age, height, weight, sex. Okay, so I work out just as hard and eat just as healthy as someone losing 2lbs every week but I lose 1lb. I've had my hormones tested and my doctor says I'm perfectly normal. No thyroid problem here. I've worked with a personal trainer because I thought maybe I'm working out wrong or just need that extra push that I'm not giving myself. She was great. The cutest little Russian girl named Olga and she kicked my sorry ass all over that gym. I loved it but it just got too expensive to keep doing. I learned a lot from her and I think it helped me push myself harder than I knew I could. I've done the Body for Life challenge...twice. :( I've read books on fitness and nutrition. I have a nutrition text book for crying out loud. I have a friend that use to be a body builder that has given me tips for more efficient fat burning as well as other resources to refer to. I've looked into allllll of them. I have all the fitness and health magazines. I've created massive spreadsheets to track my meals, exercise, and goals.

Let me tell you a little about this spreadsheet of mine. There are templates for 5 meals per day in there and it breaks each meal up into carbs, protein, and fats by grams of each and percentages of my total daily diet so I can maintain a healthy balance between the three. Then there is another template for my heart rate which calculates how many calories I burn at a particular heart rate for a specified amount of time. Yes, I know this information. That's what I learned from getting my metabolism tested. I learned exactly how many calories my body burns at each heart rate. And yes, I wear a heart rate monitor when I do any physical activity. I even wear it when I'm on my hands and knees scrubbing my kitchen floor. Hey, that's some decent cardio too as far as heart rate is concerned.

I have to admit, after all these ups and downs, I really thought I finally figured out the secret for ME to maintain healthy and regular weight loss. I had the diet down. When I say diet, I don't mean restricting anything. I mean eating regular well balanced meals and snacks. If I want a soda, I can have one, I just need to track the calories and make wise choices the rest of the day. And I don't mean starve myself. I maintain a 1400 calorie diet. That's plenty for me. And I have a regular work out schedule. Six days per week at the gym. I do 45-60mins of cardio Monday through Friday, lift weights Monday, Wednesday, Friday, swim Tuesday and Thursday, and do yoga on Saturdays. Sundays are rest days. This schedule was working for me. Of course it was. It was like my own personal boot camp. But I just couldn't keep it up. One problem, was that I was doing it all by myself so I got lonely. Another problem was that I tend to get bored quickly with daily routines. I'm a little ADD in that I don't like to do the same thing every day all day long. I need to change stuff up to stay interested.

I responded to those problems by doing a couple things. I started asking my friends to be my workout buddies. So now I have two girlfriends that I see a couple times every week at the gym or for tennis or other activities. And when my husband isn't at work or in class (business school) he will work out with me too. So that was a helpful change in pace. And I've managed to find great workout buddies and friends. Very reliable and accountable. The other thing I did was to create a blog about living active. I figured that if I want to be a more active person and have my body reflect that lifestyle, I should commit to just being active. So every month, I choose a different physical activity to do and I blog about it. I figured, that would help me keep more interest if I'm changing up the activity every month. And it might help with accountability if I have others following my blog that I don't want to let down. Great ideas. And they're all good for me. Win-win stuff going on here. Too bad I just stepped on the scale again and I have gained back all the weight I lost since I started tracking my progress in February. Okay, I gained back all the weight plus one pound. How did I do that to myself? WTF!!!!

I looked back on my spreadsheet and um...I see a pattern. Three weeks of good stuff followed by a week or two of disaster, three weeks of good stuff followed by a week or two of disaster....over and over and over again. Every month, I do then undo. I'm running around in circles. Chasing my tail. Why bother? I'm just driving myself crazy with all this nonsense. Don't worry, I'm definitely not giving up. NEVER! I just want to make it happen once and for ever. I'm so tired of this pattern of effort and self destruction I seem to be in. I've analyzed this beast to death. I just need to stop undoing all my efforts. How do I do that? I'm tired of asking why. I'm tired of the analysis. I just want a solution. I just want to help myself be successful. I like everything about myself...except this. This is my nemesis.

So here's the truth. All of it. I'm 32 years old, 5' tall, 179.4 pounds and 39.9% body fat. That's 71.5 pounds of fat on my tiny little 107 pound frame. I wear a size 14 most of the time. I have a few things in a 16 and a few things in a 12. My problem: I'm inconsistent and self sabotage when I get a little emotional. I blame the moon but who asked me anyway.

My goals:


Don't freak out...I'm not hoping to get to 9.7% body fat. That's just where it would be if I went the entire 60 weeks losing exactly 1 pound of fat every week. I'm hoping for more like 13-15% body fat which would put me at about 123lbs and a very athletic physique. Honestly, I really just want to be comfortable in my body again. I don't particularly care about the numbers as much as I care about how I feel. And, since I'm being perfectly honest here, I really just want to be able to wear whatever I feel like wearing and know that I'll look damn good. There it is.

Here is my plan for how I'm going to do it:
1. Blog every day
2. Track my diet and exercise
3. Eat 3 squares and 1 snack every day
4. Drink 60 ounces of water every day
5. Burn 400 calories by exercise every day
6. Get my full 8.5 hours of sleep every night