A quick recap of Thanksgiving week:
Day 15: lots of work on and around the house, plus PCP workout 6.2
Day 16: day trip to Monticello, did a 3 mile hike in the mountains plus lots more general walking around. Nearly let myself get too hungry. Body Attack class in evening. Found out I burn closer to 450 calories in this 60 minute class, not the 600 they tell you you can burn.
Day 17: Thanksgiving. Time enough for two short walks but stuck in the car for 4 hours. Definitely ate in a caloric surplus. Planned 'rest' day so no PCP workout.
Day 18: Another day of manual labor around the house. Intended to do PCP workout 6.1 again but time just got away from me.
Day 19: PCP workout 6.1 at the gym. Used the assisted pull-up machine instead of doing floor body rows as I do at home. Definitely feeling that one today. Had a lot of foot pain during jumping rope...only got about six minutes of my planned 12. Did 15 minutes of stair running to get in the rest of my high intensity workout, then about 30 minutes on the elliptical.
Day 20: PCP workout 6.2 at home. Long walk with the dog as well. Back on the food plan wagon 100%. Significant upper body water retention and in the lower part of quads as well.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Day 14 - In which my problem is revealed.
So I mentioned that I got a GoWear Fit armband last week. This thing has basically already paid for itself in motivating me to move a lot. But today I purposely did a 'normal' day for me IE not climbing the stairs, and it just so happened that I had to take the bus because it was raining and couldn't bike or walk to work. I knew the results would be depressing, but just how much has shocked me.
I thought maybe I'd have burned 1400-1500 calories by now, but as of 4:30 my burn is only at 1100, and I've eaten about 900 calories. I feel hungry but not crazy low energy yet since I ate and moved a lot Saturday and tapered down yesterday but still ate more than a weekday. Even yesterday although I didn't work out in the gym or go for a 2 hour walk I still moved around a lot (and walked to and from the opera) and only burned 2000 calories. I say only but I'd sure take that over the 1400 or so I might rack up.
So maybe eating a 300 calorie smoothie for dinner I'll have to move a lot to even approach a good 500 calorie deficit. I feel really sad. But also motivated to go do my PCP workout and maybe walk the dog as much as the weather allows. So no wonder working out 3 days a week, even eating 1500 calories a day, wasn't really working, and any deficits I managed to rack up were probably erased by less careful eating on the weekends. Damn that Leigh Peele! She's always right. No wonder I gained weight in grad school - working all day at a computer and then sitting for four hours in class. And I ate more moderately than a lot of people might have.
*Update* While I did the PCP workout, I burned 250 calories. I started on week six, which was mentioned in the original e-mail as "the beginning of the real PCP workouts", the first five weeks having been just enough to get us in shape for the real workouts. I felt I chose wisely, as it was definitely work but not impossible, I just had to keep going. Plus my family arrived for the holiday and I had to unload luggage and two big pieces of furniture they brought. So being fairly active in the evening is going to help.
I thought maybe I'd have burned 1400-1500 calories by now, but as of 4:30 my burn is only at 1100, and I've eaten about 900 calories. I feel hungry but not crazy low energy yet since I ate and moved a lot Saturday and tapered down yesterday but still ate more than a weekday. Even yesterday although I didn't work out in the gym or go for a 2 hour walk I still moved around a lot (and walked to and from the opera) and only burned 2000 calories. I say only but I'd sure take that over the 1400 or so I might rack up.
So maybe eating a 300 calorie smoothie for dinner I'll have to move a lot to even approach a good 500 calorie deficit. I feel really sad. But also motivated to go do my PCP workout and maybe walk the dog as much as the weather allows. So no wonder working out 3 days a week, even eating 1500 calories a day, wasn't really working, and any deficits I managed to rack up were probably erased by less careful eating on the weekends. Damn that Leigh Peele! She's always right. No wonder I gained weight in grad school - working all day at a computer and then sitting for four hours in class. And I ate more moderately than a lot of people might have.
*Update* While I did the PCP workout, I burned 250 calories. I started on week six, which was mentioned in the original e-mail as "the beginning of the real PCP workouts", the first five weeks having been just enough to get us in shape for the real workouts. I felt I chose wisely, as it was definitely work but not impossible, I just had to keep going. Plus my family arrived for the holiday and I had to unload luggage and two big pieces of furniture they brought. So being fairly active in the evening is going to help.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Day 12 - Where My Girls At?
So yesterday I realized why I gained weight last week and now I really don't feel bad about it: I was PMS'ing. I've heard of people who gain 5, even as much as 10 lbs (mostly water) and thank goodness I'm not one of them. But anywhere from .5-2 lbs is definitely in the realm of possibility every month and even that sucks when you're trying to see steady progress that's masked by swelling. I also got my new GoWear Fit which has been a lot of fun so far.
I spent a lot of time at work this week listening to podcasts. One of my favorites these days is Leigh Peele, who I became aware of via the Fitcast but she has her own thing as well. I actually got annoyed with Fitcast because their episodes are like 1.5 hours long, and really 15-30 minutes is about optimal for a podcast, and she sticks to that. I swear she's also psychic; that or her other readers basically have many similar questions as I do. Leigh's a big proponent of most of the things I have learned to do: eating real food, fueling your metabolism, lifting weight, and so forth. She does recommend against full body and suggests body part splits, which I can't even wrap my head around. In any case it's moot because next week starts the PCP workouts proper so I won't be lifting weight but doing the resistance bands again.
She calls herself the 'fat loss troubleshooter' and a lot of the problems she describes her clients having seem to pertain to me. Two things that I am doing she actually recommended against: eating roughly the same amount of calories every day, and doing interval training. Even though the PCP has broken a lot of my bad habits, it actually gave me a lot of 'food guilt' that's probably hindering my progress now because you can't work out well and not eat right. The reason the PCP works is because the workouts are actually not that taxing, energy wise. I think it's also why jumping rope seemed so hard sometimes, and doesn't really seem hard when I'm properly fueled up.
So this weekend I'm purposely eating a bit more (still healthy) and moving more but not doing interval workout. For example, today we went to the gym early. I had a bowl of cereal, about 400 calories, instead of my usual "eggamuffin" to get some extra carbs for energy. I still burned off all of that plus some more lifting weight and doing 45 minutes on the elliptical. Then I had a nice bowl of Vietnamese Noodle Soup, came home and took the dog for a 2 hour walk, burning another 600+ calories. And we have a birthday party tonight, so I'm hoping to hit about 2400 calories burned and about 1900 calories eaten. If I did my calculations right I get to eat dang near a whole "low" day's worth of food between now and bedtime, and still be on target to lose another pound this week.
I spent a lot of time at work this week listening to podcasts. One of my favorites these days is Leigh Peele, who I became aware of via the Fitcast but she has her own thing as well. I actually got annoyed with Fitcast because their episodes are like 1.5 hours long, and really 15-30 minutes is about optimal for a podcast, and she sticks to that. I swear she's also psychic; that or her other readers basically have many similar questions as I do. Leigh's a big proponent of most of the things I have learned to do: eating real food, fueling your metabolism, lifting weight, and so forth. She does recommend against full body and suggests body part splits, which I can't even wrap my head around. In any case it's moot because next week starts the PCP workouts proper so I won't be lifting weight but doing the resistance bands again.
She calls herself the 'fat loss troubleshooter' and a lot of the problems she describes her clients having seem to pertain to me. Two things that I am doing she actually recommended against: eating roughly the same amount of calories every day, and doing interval training. Even though the PCP has broken a lot of my bad habits, it actually gave me a lot of 'food guilt' that's probably hindering my progress now because you can't work out well and not eat right. The reason the PCP works is because the workouts are actually not that taxing, energy wise. I think it's also why jumping rope seemed so hard sometimes, and doesn't really seem hard when I'm properly fueled up.
So this weekend I'm purposely eating a bit more (still healthy) and moving more but not doing interval workout. For example, today we went to the gym early. I had a bowl of cereal, about 400 calories, instead of my usual "eggamuffin" to get some extra carbs for energy. I still burned off all of that plus some more lifting weight and doing 45 minutes on the elliptical. Then I had a nice bowl of Vietnamese Noodle Soup, came home and took the dog for a 2 hour walk, burning another 600+ calories. And we have a birthday party tonight, so I'm hoping to hit about 2400 calories burned and about 1900 calories eaten. If I did my calculations right I get to eat dang near a whole "low" day's worth of food between now and bedtime, and still be on target to lose another pound this week.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Day 9
An exciting day around here for all concerned: I took off work because we were getting new windows. Well, we ended up only getting 5 of the 7 new windows we ordered actually delivered to our house. Rather disappointing in that winter rapidly approaches and our old house needs to level up its armor class substantially.
But a day off work isn't a day to take off working toward Peak Condition! We made our semi-monthly trek out to Trader Joe's, where R. gets his favorite Weetabix cereal, and I get lots of yogurt, liquid egg whites, fruits, veggies, and nuts. I stocked up more at our regular grocery run. Even 4 days worth of food takes up a lot of room in the fridge. I need to get to cooking.
Tonight before the gym I whipped up a new type of smoothie - instead of apple I used a mango. It wasn't quite at its peak ripeness but it was nice and flavorful. I forgot how much I miss the convenience of dinner. And after the gym I had a few nuts and some cherries.
Last PCP I regretted not taking more frequent measurements so I went and did that tonight, too. They were exactly the same as week 8!
October 15 2008 (Week 8)
B 37.5
W 30
H 42
November 11 2008 (Week 12)
B - 37.5
W - 29
H 40.5
November 18, 2009 (Re-PCP Week 1)
B- 37.5
W - 30
H- 42
And here's the pics from Week 8 (left) and today (right). I admit that they are some grainy photos. I'm probably about 7 lbs lighter now, mostly in my midsection. I've been wondering if I should just start right in on the old PCP workouts, and where to start, and maybe week 8 would not be such a bad place to start after all. I was kind of sad about my hip measurement (let's be honest, I'm always sad about my hip measurement) but I realized that some of that is my hard work deadlifting and building glutes. I was wearing my bike shorts the other day and I could really see it. I'd much rather have my butt be nice and muscular than just have wide hips! So even the measurements don't tell the whole story.
But a day off work isn't a day to take off working toward Peak Condition! We made our semi-monthly trek out to Trader Joe's, where R. gets his favorite Weetabix cereal, and I get lots of yogurt, liquid egg whites, fruits, veggies, and nuts. I stocked up more at our regular grocery run. Even 4 days worth of food takes up a lot of room in the fridge. I need to get to cooking.
Tonight before the gym I whipped up a new type of smoothie - instead of apple I used a mango. It wasn't quite at its peak ripeness but it was nice and flavorful. I forgot how much I miss the convenience of dinner. And after the gym I had a few nuts and some cherries.
Last PCP I regretted not taking more frequent measurements so I went and did that tonight, too. They were exactly the same as week 8!
October 15 2008 (Week 8)
B 37.5
W 30
H 42
November 11 2008 (Week 12)
B - 37.5
W - 29
H 40.5
November 18, 2009 (Re-PCP Week 1)
B- 37.5
W - 30
H- 42
And here's the pics from Week 8 (left) and today (right). I admit that they are some grainy photos. I'm probably about 7 lbs lighter now, mostly in my midsection. I've been wondering if I should just start right in on the old PCP workouts, and where to start, and maybe week 8 would not be such a bad place to start after all. I was kind of sad about my hip measurement (let's be honest, I'm always sad about my hip measurement) but I realized that some of that is my hard work deadlifting and building glutes. I was wearing my bike shorts the other day and I could really see it. I'd much rather have my butt be nice and muscular than just have wide hips! So even the measurements don't tell the whole story.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Day 8
Barely one week into my experiment, I think I'm starting to figure out what's missing in this equation.
My job (reduced to its very basic terms) is to make maps. While sitting at a computer. No computer, no maps, no money. It's not terribly uncommon for me to come in, log on, tackle an issue for 4 hours until lunch, grab lunch, and work for 4 more hours and then go home. Trust me, I'd LOVE to have a job where I'm out and about and active.
I work out at least 3 days a week, and I have varying levels of activity on the weekend and evenings when I'm not in the gym. And I work out hard. Mostly because I want to feel like I'm maintaining my fitness level and because I want to feel like I actually did something instead of just zone out for 45 minutes on an elliptical.
Which means I need and want to eat. And so I think all this sitting around and then working out is just not working out. Like today. I ate according to my roughly 1500 calorie meal plan, but I was up and about much more, and I rode my bike to work AND to class tonight (probably close to 10 miles all told). I could very well be looking at a 750 or 1000 calorie deficit. Which is not a good feeling and probably not just all fat being used for that deficit, either. On the rainy days last week, however, that same amount of food felt just fine with a much lower level of activity.
I'm going to trade in my usual workouts for the actual, prescribed PCP 6-a-week workouts next week. Even though I work out at a high level of intensity, three times a week is basically maintenance level and I can go back to that when my 90 days are up. This will actually be harder for me than going back to the eating plan, as I'm very attached to my workouts. Especially Body Attack. I may actually count that as my workout and not skip it because I feel like it's similar enough to a PCP workout.
And the week after that, I'm going to concentrate on NEAT. Which means I'm going to set a timer and get up and do something (walk around, climb the stairs, do some push-ups or dips or what have you) every hour.
I went crazy and bought a GoWearFit today. It's going to help me track just how much I'm not moving and how much my efforts to do more non-exercise moving around are going to make a difference. I also plan to use it to figure out just how much more I need to eat on any given day and not feel guilty (because I'm going off the "plan", but instead planning out different portions and healthy snacks at the appropriate times on active days. Unless I can convince my boss to buy us a treadmill desk. You can be sure I'll write volumes about my new toy.
My job (reduced to its very basic terms) is to make maps. While sitting at a computer. No computer, no maps, no money. It's not terribly uncommon for me to come in, log on, tackle an issue for 4 hours until lunch, grab lunch, and work for 4 more hours and then go home. Trust me, I'd LOVE to have a job where I'm out and about and active.
I work out at least 3 days a week, and I have varying levels of activity on the weekend and evenings when I'm not in the gym. And I work out hard. Mostly because I want to feel like I'm maintaining my fitness level and because I want to feel like I actually did something instead of just zone out for 45 minutes on an elliptical.
Which means I need and want to eat. And so I think all this sitting around and then working out is just not working out. Like today. I ate according to my roughly 1500 calorie meal plan, but I was up and about much more, and I rode my bike to work AND to class tonight (probably close to 10 miles all told). I could very well be looking at a 750 or 1000 calorie deficit. Which is not a good feeling and probably not just all fat being used for that deficit, either. On the rainy days last week, however, that same amount of food felt just fine with a much lower level of activity.
I'm going to trade in my usual workouts for the actual, prescribed PCP 6-a-week workouts next week. Even though I work out at a high level of intensity, three times a week is basically maintenance level and I can go back to that when my 90 days are up. This will actually be harder for me than going back to the eating plan, as I'm very attached to my workouts. Especially Body Attack. I may actually count that as my workout and not skip it because I feel like it's similar enough to a PCP workout.
And the week after that, I'm going to concentrate on NEAT. Which means I'm going to set a timer and get up and do something (walk around, climb the stairs, do some push-ups or dips or what have you) every hour.
I went crazy and bought a GoWearFit today. It's going to help me track just how much I'm not moving and how much my efforts to do more non-exercise moving around are going to make a difference. I also plan to use it to figure out just how much more I need to eat on any given day and not feel guilty (because I'm going off the "plan", but instead planning out different portions and healthy snacks at the appropriate times on active days. Unless I can convince my boss to buy us a treadmill desk. You can be sure I'll write volumes about my new toy.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Day 7
One week done! And guess what? I actually gained .4 lbs. but I don't feel like a failure at all. With that small of an amount it's hard to tell exactly what happened. Maybe I re-hydrated some? It could just as easily be gain of muscle, fat, muscle glycogen, or undigested food or any combo of the above. In any case, I didn't see any fantastic results and so I don't think that my water intake is too poor and now I'm going to stop kicking myself and feeling bad that I don't drink gallons of water every day. That said having consciously made an effort to drink a moderate amount more water did seem to have some effects on my hunger levels/cravings and oddly enough, I swear I sweated more in the exercise sessions that I did. That's really weird. I'm going to keep up at least drinking 20-40 more ounces of water than I normally would.
I had a very bizarre experience in the middle of the night last night (where I briefly wondered if I might have to call an ambulance) where I woke up sweating and dizzy and very weak feeling. I was a bit worried about my first day "on" the PCP diet proper, back to weighing grams of carrots and what not, but by about mid-morning I was feeling mostly back to normal. I wonder if all that sweating actually messed up my electrolytes?
Anyway, I just tried not to let last night affect me too much. I had a good workout tonight and did yoga class afterward! A good way to start the week. I even went and bought $15 rechargeable batteries especially for digital cameras in hopes that I can get some new pictures up. Compared to the start of my last Peak Condition journey, I'm feeling much more mentally prepared. I know what's in store and I feel ready to rock it and overcome any obstacle.
I had a very bizarre experience in the middle of the night last night (where I briefly wondered if I might have to call an ambulance) where I woke up sweating and dizzy and very weak feeling. I was a bit worried about my first day "on" the PCP diet proper, back to weighing grams of carrots and what not, but by about mid-morning I was feeling mostly back to normal. I wonder if all that sweating actually messed up my electrolytes?
Anyway, I just tried not to let last night affect me too much. I had a good workout tonight and did yoga class afterward! A good way to start the week. I even went and bought $15 rechargeable batteries especially for digital cameras in hopes that I can get some new pictures up. Compared to the start of my last Peak Condition journey, I'm feeling much more mentally prepared. I know what's in store and I feel ready to rock it and overcome any obstacle.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Day 4
Friday was a weird day. I remembered to pack my water bottle and remembered that I had gotten a packet of Special K Protein Water from my mom or somewhere free and it had been sitting in my desk drawer. So I went ahead and mixed it up and fully expected it to be gross. I had to run to the dentist for three hours in the middle of the morning and when I got back it was nice and dissolved (the whey protein in the drink comes in medium sized white grains that don't dissolve immediately) and it really didn't taste too bad. I don't think I'd buy any on my own.
After work was over I immediately had to run out the door again for an event I was helping to put on. I did my best to have some healthy nosh for everyone (yummy fresh sushi and some miso too) and veggies. I had probably my last alcohol for a while a margarita - and I really won't miss that. But I had a large glass of water along with it to be a little bit good.
After work was over I immediately had to run out the door again for an event I was helping to put on. I did my best to have some healthy nosh for everyone (yummy fresh sushi and some miso too) and veggies. I had probably my last alcohol for a while a margarita - and I really won't miss that. But I had a large glass of water along with it to be a little bit good.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
