Slacker Karma

I've made no bones about my dysfunctional relationship with the stairs by my gym.  They've been like a metaphor for my weight loss journey as I conquered my fear of them (yes, I used to fear plummeting to my death on the stairs the way some people are afraid of spiders or heights) from the days where my trainer Jeff would patiently set goals for me to go up just a few until I was doing the full set, to the encouragement my team mates and friends would give me to take the stairs down to class instead of the elevator, to eventually writing a workout for myself and our group that included running up and down said staircase five times. 

I've also recounted the many ways Jeff would pop out at me when I was least expecting it and make me take the stairs, as well as the various cat and mouse games I've played trying to avoid him and take the elevator (my best attempt is here if you're interested). I mean hey, I felt like I was getting ready to go to the gym and burn major calories, didn't I deserve an elevator ride?

Today my slacking karma caught up with me.  It was Monday and I had finally managed to drag myself to the gym a little after three o'clock. I was tired and feeling squinty after staring at my computer screen all day. I could have sworn my gym bag was filled with heavy rocks as I made my way down to the fitness center and rounding the corner I came across two choices: the stairwell or the elevator.  Slacker that I was today, you can imagine my choice.

Yawning with the afternoon sleepies, I got on board, scanned my badge and hit the button for the gym's floor.  Doors shut closing me in and I waited.  The elevator didn't go anywhere.  I pushed the button for the gym again.  Nothing.  Scanned my badge and pushed the button again.  Nothing.  Pushed the button again.  Nothing.   Pushed the button for my current floor.  Nothing. Said a bad word and pushed the button.  Nothing.  Started to hyperventilate and pushed all the buttons.  Nothing.  Saw myself plummeting to my death.  Nothing.  Pushed all the buttons again and imagined my tombstone reading, "Here lies Jenn.  She should have taken the stairs." Still nothing. Hit the emergency call button and then wouldn't you know it, the elevator doors opened up on the floor I started out on.  

I flew out of the elevator with wobbly legs and heart palpitations and guess who just happened to be walking by at that opportune moment.   My trainer Jeff.  After hearing of my ordeal, he laughed, shook his head and said, "you should have taken the stairs." 

Challenge: Staying Motivated

I've been taking a poll on this blog to find out what challenges us most about the weight loss journey.  All of the challenges I've listed come from personal experience, and I don't think I'm alone.  No matter if you're just getting started, have started and stopped, getting back in the game, or in the thick of the battle, we all face these challenges. I'm no expert and my journey is far from over, but I've been at this long enough now to have a little experience with the hurdles that come along.  I'd love to say that it gets easier once you've been fighting the fight for a while, but these trials tend to come in like the tide every so often to test us. But the good news is that getting through them is not impossible..you just have to know them for what they are and then you can be prepared to overcome them.

So, tonight I'll tell you what I know about the challenge of finding the motivation to stay going. We've all been there: starting out fresh on a weight loss journey, pumped and ready to go.  We are raring to go, we jump in with both feet into working out and new food plan, the first week is challenging but then a good number on the scale puts a fire in our spirit and we're ready for more.   The weight starts coming off, we hit our stride in the gym, we start to feel better, people start noticing a change, we become hooked on that workout high, we get some new gym shoes,  our energy level goes up, we feel strong, we sleep better, there's a pep in our step - and then BAM! Something happens to throw us off our path.  It could come in many forms: an event like Thanksgiving or Christmas when we just can't seem to resist the seasonal treats, a hard and stressful situation that sends us running for the chocolate or a bag of Doritos, or it could be the weeks and weeks of fighting our basest urges with food and sweating it out in the gym only to face an unforgiving scale that either stays stubbornly the same or worse, goes up.

I've chosen to address this challenge first because it's close to home with me right now.  My program ended a month ago and the scale hasn't moved up or down.  Without my trainers to be accountable to, I've let the food slip a little bit and I struggle with pushing myself the way they did.  My team mates and I have had different, demanding work schedules so we haven't been able to work out together and motivate each other in the gym as often as we'd like.  Not to mention the various assorted and sundry injuries I've had lately that make workouts more challenging. Just writing this now makes me start to panic a little bit about how things were in my program and how they're not now.

But, what I realized today was that I am in a period of testing.  Left to my own devices, I now must face this challenge to keep myself motivated.  Do I let my old behaviors take me out of the game or do I reach down deep inside and prove to myself that I can do this on my own? Do I pass or fail the test?

The motivation to keep going doesn't come easy. My friend Debbie has a great saying, "weight follows behavior, just not right away." Basically this means that if you keep doing what you know is the right thing to do, eventually the weight will come off.  This doesn't mean you have to be perfect every day.  This just means that you have to show up.  You don't have to have the best workout of your life every time, you just have to move your body and know that every step taken, whether its a walk around your neighborhood or a rotation of the elliptical machine, is a step in the right direction. The pain and struggle of working towards your healthy goal is so much better than the pain of feeling unhealthy any day. I read somewhere (and the author of the quote was not known): "Losing weight is hard.  Maintaining weight is hard. Being fat is hard.  Choose your hard."

This week I chose my hard.  I put myself back on my plan of eating whole foods and I showed up at the gym every day to do anything I could, strained foot and pulled quad and all. I trust that my weight will follow my behavior, even if it's not right away.   My motivation this time around is to prove that I've conquered that old bad part of myself that got me into the place that I was, so I say this: whatever you need to grasp onto, use it.  It might be fear, as in my case, or it might be a special event or a health scare or the need to feel better to keep up with the people in your life.  Whatever it is, use it.  And choose your hard.

Plateau, Oh No!

Plateaus are frustrating.  For four solid weeks that blankety blank scale hasn't moved up or down one bit and despite my efforts, I find myself at the same weight (almost down to the tenth of a pound) as I was one month ago.   Plateaus are inevitable; this is the third one I've experienced on this journey, but they are oh so aggravating especially when I am this close to the milestone of losing 100 pounds. 

Plateaus can also be constructive.  They force you to re-evaluate your process and shake things up.  I myself have been relying way too much lately on Lean Cuisines and the like, rather than the whole foods that have brought me success. While the calories between the two ways of eating are comparable, whole foods are a lot less sodium and a lot better for you at the end of the day. 

One thing I've learned going through this process is that you can't keep things the same for too long; our bodies lose weight when they are confused whether in response to different food or new exercises. Today I started back on my whole foods and left the frozen diet meals in the freezer. If you find yourself frustrated due to a plateau, keep your head up and resort to trickery.  Eventually the storm will break and the scale will be your friend again. 

And, speaking of frustrations: I am taking a poll to find out what is the most challenging aspect of the weight loss journey.  It is on the right hand side of the blog.  I'd love to know your thoughts!  Thanks!

Day Two in an Ace Bandage

Today was Day Two of having an ace bandage on my foot.  My Transformation Team Mates took off to 5K training and I was benched, at least for that activity.  It was kind of a bummer to miss out on training with them, but I knew not to push it and hurt myself worse.  So, once again I found myself at the gym trying to find a work around. 

Lucky for me, my friends Autumn, Sharon and Dana were down at the gym when I got there. I have worked out with them before and I always end up learning something new from them.  After doing some cardio on the treadmill (I put the speed low and the incline high in order to not stress out my healing foot), I learned how to do my first bench presses with Autumn.  We did burn out sets (among other things) that I am sure I am going to feel tomorrow.

I was so grateful to have folks to work out with today when my motivation was low, folks that will push me to try new things and challenge myself.  In exercise, as in business, it's good to diversify.  This way, you not only confuse your muscles and learn new things, but you make your network of support even greater and that's always a win/win.

Where There's A Will

Getting injured was one of my early fears on my weight loss journey.   I wasn't scared of getting hurt in the gym because I trusted my trainers, but what I feared most was the (at the time) inevitable injury or sickness that would take me out of the game. This was a fear of mine because in every other attempt at exercise and weight loss before this one, that injury or sickness would be the excuse I needed to take myself out of the game, a convenient little escape clause.

Call it bad luck, call it Murphy's law, or call it the devil, but over a year ago in my first month of working out, I came down with bronchitis, a two bugs (one respiratory, one stomach), various strained muscles, and had a terrible cut under my arm that cracked and bled every time I worked out my arms. I worked out through all of those and did whatever I could in the gym because I knew that if I let one of those things take me out at that stage of the process, I was likely to be out for good.  Now, some of those times I definitely pushed myself too hard and probably shouldn't have been working out, but just showing up to the gym and doing whatever I could do was what I needed to do for myself so that I still had that accountability.  Do I recommend it?  No. But that's just what I had to do to overcome that hurdle and change that part of my behavior.

Prior to my lifestyle change of last year, I got sick a lot.   At least every other month I had a cold or bug or virus.  Prior to that change, I had terrible balance and fell down and hurt myself, a lot.  Quite quickly, however, my weight loss, improving balance, and stronger immune system due to better nutrition caused another unforeseen change: I quit getting sick and quit getting injured. And that was even being in a gym constantly where germs run rampant.   Just goes to show that the many benefits of a healthy lifestyle change aren't just limited to what happens on the scale.

Over the weekend I managed to pull or strain something in my left foot, causing me to not be able to put much pressure on it by the time Sunday rolled around.  Confined to the couch for the day, I found myself in the old position of being hurt and laid up.  This time I didn't panic however.  This time, as I propped my wrapped foot up and caught up on the backlog of my Tivo, instead of panicking about not being able to work out, I formulated a workaround plan. "Looks like it's an upper body kind of day tomorrow," I told my husband.  "What if you can't stand?" he asked.  "Well then I'll just do it sitting down," I said.

And that's just what I did. I'm not advocating pushing yourself beyond the safety point when you're injured or sick and there are always times to throw in the towel and trust yourself to get back on the horse when you're better, but if you can find a safe workaround, where there's a will, there's a way. That's the difference in me now versus who I was fourteen months ago: the will.

The Big Secret

More often then not when people find out or remark that I've lost weight, the very next question they have is how did I do it?  And isn't that one of the biggest questions we face in this era when so many of us are struggling to lose weight and the nation is facing the obesity crisis?  Well I am here to tell you that there is no secret to how I've done it.  There is no magic pill or medical procedure or crazy eating plan. I'm not knocking other ways of weight loss because you have to do what works for you, but I knew that for me to make this work this time, I would have to fight my way through this rather than take a faster way out so that it would be a true lifestyle change that would be permanent. I'm not a professional trainer or nutritionist, but if you're interested in my weight loss process, here's the high points:

• I started by simply getting moving.  For the first week or two, I didn't change my way of eating at all and got to the gym twice a week.  Gradually I started adding on workouts until I was at the level I'm at today of working out five to six days a week.
• Next I changed what I ate. I watch my calories and try to make the majority of what I eat lean protein and vegetables and try to limit the carbs.   Carbs are my weakness and I've noticed that I lose more on the weeks that I really try to eliminate them, regardless of my calorie consumption.  I've also learned that the cleaner I eat (i.e., the less processed food), the better my weight loss and the greater my energy.
• Water is so important, but I struggle with drinking enough of it for some reason. I have noticed that I am a lot less hungry when I push the water and that I have much more energy.
• I'm still not good at going to bed early, being the night owl that I am, but they say that aids in weight loss.  I'll report back when and if I ever manage to go to bed at a decent hour.
• The true difference this time around is the friendships I've made with the people I work out with.  A lot of times when my will to work out is waning, just knowing that my buddies will be in the gym motivates me to go hang out with them. On days when I feel discouraged, they lift me up.  When I feel like I can't do something, they cheer me through it.  They provide constructive competition to push myself harder, and I hope that I do the same for them. 
• The last piece of advice that has made the difference for me this time around was that I took my safety net away. When I was getting ready to start my change, my instinct was to keep my goals to myself and let people notice my weight loss when and if it happened, but then I realized that in doing this, I was giving myself an out. So, I decided to not give myself a loophole.  I told everyone I knew what my intentions were: my friends, my family, my co-workers, random strangers in line at Subway... That's how this blog was born. I wanted to make sure that if I gave up on my goals, I would have major egg on my face. Some days, that's all the motivation I need to keep myself on target.  Take your safety new away and see what happens, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

 So, no great revelations right? No new innovations or fancy tricks.  Just the basics, but as my friend and workout team mate Millie says, "This weight loss means more this time, because we've fought so hard and worked so hard for it." Well put Millie, and very true.

Winning!

Earlier this year Charlie Sheen's bizarre ramblings on the Today show sparked several popular catch phrases, including the most quotable, "Winning!" The phrase quickly went viral and made Sheen even more newsworthy, to the point where his likeness was even one of the most sought after Halloween costumes this year.

So what constitutes "winning"? Charlie Sheen's perspective is all over You Tube, but for those of us who fight the weight loss battle every day, we don't always feel like we're winning.  It's easy to feel like a winner when the numbers on the scale drop, but if you've hit a plateau or feel frustration, it's hard to keep your head up sometimes.   I am seven pounds away from the milestone of losing 100, and I've hit a plateau.  It happens from time to time, but it still sucks when you fight the good fight every day.  The natural tendency is to be hard on yourself, but after several plateaus and pitfalls, I'm starting to learn to step back and look at winning in a different way:

• If you show up at the gym on a regular basis and do anything for any amount of time, that's winning. 
• If you mess up on your eating plan, but get back on it, that's winning.
• If you have the guts to step up on the scale, that's winning. 
• If you show up for class and stay till the end, no matter how many moves you mess up, or how many times you have to stop and catch your breathe, that's winning.
• If you can't do an exercise like everyone else, but you modify it and keep going, that's winning.
• If you've fallen off the path, but got back on it, no matter if it's the second or the twenty-second time you've made a fresh start, that's winning. 
• If your muscles are sore and your will is weak but you push through anyway, that's winning.
• If you know you're the underdog, but set out to prove everyone wrong, that's winning.
• If you've ever resolved to "go down swinging," that's winning.
• If you draw strength from others and pour that back into those fighting along side you, that's winning.
• If you keep fighting, keep moving, keep caring about your goal, keep showing up, that's winning...no matter what the scale says.