Wednesday, March 28, 2012

A Quick Pic

This morning my husband took this picture of me before I headed off to work.  He said if he were still single and so was I, he would be chasing me around!  What a cutie.  Anyway, I put it in a side by side comparison photo as I hadn't done that in awhile.  What do ya think?  Worth the effort or what?  :)

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Losing Again!

Not even sure where to start today.  There is so much to tell you!

I went through the 5 day cleanse and did very well; lost six of the pounds I had gained with my travel and non-activity, getting back down to 189.2.  I eased back into my normal eating and activity again.  The scale was up and down and up and down again.  I sought out the Body Bugg Facebook page to see what others were saying on the topic and read some interesting ideas but was not convinced.  In a moment of frustration, I placed this post on the Facebook wall for Body Bugg users hoping for some sage advice. 

"...been working on closing the gap on my too high deficit days - on Mon/Weds I end up burning over 3000 cals with my workouts plus BMR, so my typical 1500 cals leaves me with too large a deficit based on all I'm reading here. Have been closing that gap to be 1000 and hoping for the best; it just feels weird to eat more when I don't really feel like I need more...thoughts? oh - I'm going for 1000 deficit/day as doing 1500 one day and 500 next day are not getting me results."

Almost immediately I had several messages from more experienced Body Buggers telling me my deficit was too high and I needed to lower it to 750/day.  {The deficit is the difference between calories burned and calories eaten - you are shooting to burn more than you eat.} 

That means on my heavy exercise days, like Monday/Wednesday/Saturday, I would need to eat 2300-2600 calories that day.


I needed to take a moment. I took a few moments when I read those suggestions.  I questioned them...wow, I'm trying to lose weight here, and you're telling me to eat more food?  

I was incredibly skeptical, but what did I have to lose?


This 7 month plateau wasn't going anywhere. I'm SO SO SO sick of weighing in the 180s.


So this week I gave it a try.  I watched my calorie burn closely each day and kept my deficit to 800 or a little under.  This means I was constantly eating.  I really wondered what would happen.  I ate as much as 2695 calories one day!  I was sure I was not going to lose.


The 2nd day I was down a pound.  

As of today I'm down a total of 4 pounds, and 1% body fat.


Whoa.


By eating more food.


In researching this a little bit, I found that if you eat less than your BMR (Basic Metabolic Rate) then your body may go into starvation mode.  Add one of my crazy workouts to it (to the tune of 1200 calories burned) and I'm seriously holding on to fat.  My BMR is around 1850 according to my body bugg measurements.  So if I lay around all day, I will burn 1850 calories.


I was eating 1500/calories day.  I didn't necessarily feel hungry, or bad, so I don't know if I would have figured it out had I not asked the question.  PLEASE realize I have not done this on purpose!  If you've followed my blog at all, you know that I'm all about a healthy lifestyle, NOT starvation, NOT dieting, etc.  I truly thought 1500 calories/day was healthy for me.  And it would be.  If I laid around all day. :)

I was literally, inadvertently starving myself.  I just cannot get over this.  Doesn't it go against everything in the world to be "dieting" but eating plenty?  The difference between before and now is that I'm an athlete now.  I need to feed the athlete!



Part of me is ecstatic.  The other part really frustrated that it took me this long to figure it out!  I'm going to focus on the ecstatic for now.

Honestly, not losing consistently was getting frustrating.  I was sure I was doing something not perfectly, but would never have guessed it was that I wasn't eating enough.


Now, I can actually see how this healthy eating lifestyle is going to work - forever.  I can see this last 20 pounds coming off and reaching my goal in the next 6 months or so.  I can see myself no longer stressing trying to fit only 1500 calories into my day - do you know how hard that is?  I can finally see myself being, well, normal.


Though I must admit its also been difficult to find 2000 calories of healthy food to eat.  I find myself eating 300 calorie snacks now - so my Larabar with an apple.  Or a cheese stick and a protein bar before a workout.


Yes, I'm elated.  And hoping to continue to report on this awesome downward trend here.  Maybe I will ditch the 180s soon! 


When I first got the Body Bugg I was interested in how it would work.  A few people asked me what I thought and while I liked the program, the device, etc., it has taken me 7 months to figure out how to REALLY use it.  My fault for not asking my question sooner!  Really, for me, I would have had to play with my calories to figure out how to find the perfect balance.  I absolutely know now that the Body Bugg is going to do its thing for me and take me on to my goal weight and athletic/strength goals.


Please keep in mind that not everyone should eat 2000-2500 calories a day.  I don't want a bunch of emails and comments from the peanut gallery that they listened to Clara, upped their calorie intake and gained 10 pounds, ok?  You have to match your activity to your eating and not overdo it.  If you seem to hit a plateau, try to eat a little bit more and see what happens!  Everyone is different. 

A few random things:


If you are interested in a Body Bugg, I wanted to share that they are on sale right now.  (I don't use my blog to make money so don't worry, I'm not making anything off of sharing this with you).  Typically it is $298.95 for the whole system, but its on sale right now for $188 which is less than I paid last year!  This set includes the Body Bugg, digital display watch (very handy for tracking your burn throughout the day) and 6 months online subscription to their program.  The program is where you log everything in and sync up your bugg.  Once the subscription runs out, its still affordable, I just paid $50 for a year renewal (there are coupon codes out there constantly on the facebook page).  Click here for more info!


I had someone ask me once how to eat healthy at a Mexican restaurant.  Well I'm lucky enough to have one that serves this:


That is a grilled chicken breast, steamed broccoli and a side of guacamole and jalapenos.  Yeah, I ate a few chips too, and put a few tablespoons of cheese sauce on my chicken.  I don't recommend the chips on a regular basis because they are fried, but a few won't usually put you over the edge.  This was SO good!


And I'll leave you with a recipe here.  It's super simple and forgive me for not measuring, but its just how I roll when it comes to these types of things.


Skillet Zucchini
3 small to medium zucchini squashes
2 tsp olive oil
smoked paprika
sea salt
curry
white pepper
chili powder


Heat olive oil in a non stick pan.  Slice the zucchini into rounds, halve them if it is a fatter squash.  Sprinkle all spices and mix.


Sautee on medium high heat just until they are lightly browned.  If you overcook them, they will get mushy!  You want them slightly crispy still.


SO yummy!  And very good for you.  1 cup equals 43 calories, 1.8 g fat (1.3 of that being the good, monounsaturated fat), 455 g potassium, 7.1 g carbs, 2.5 g dietary fiber and 3.0 g sugar, with 1.2 g protein.  You also get almost half of your Vitamin A need for the day met with just 1 serving!


Hope you enjoy - I do a very similar sautee with asparagus and it is ALWAYS a hit!  My husband prefers my sauteed asparagus to french fries.  That says alot.


Have a great week everyone! Thanks for all of your support. It means a ton.


~Clara

Friday, March 9, 2012

Update on the Blueprint

Hello World!

Here is an update on everything blueprint related.

I have had a CRAZY few weeks of travel and work, this week being my first week back in the office for the entire week.

The first week away, I did GREAT when it came to my eating...for the first day or so.  A biscuit here, chocolate frosting (from the cake) there, bread pudding...yeah, a few indulgences.  I did exceed my calorie burn every day, in fact, I burned 4,078 calories total one day when I ran 3 miles that morning, worked the conference and then danced for hours that night.  It was fantastic.  {I have never actually danced in front of people like I did at this conference - I am giving full credit to Zumba for giving me the confidence to cut a rug...though I have to say, I didn't learn the Sprinkler or the Shopping Cart at Zumba - lol!  Since I don't drink alcohol it isn't even like that would loosen me up...I was just my own crazy self and it was a BLAST.}

I was exhausted coming home from the conference, and had 2 days to pack then turn around and fly to San Francisco for another conference - this one I did not have to work or help plan, I was just an attendee.  My healthy eating lasted until lunchtime on Monday.  Oops.  Yep, I had a brownie after lunch, and a bunch of pieces of dove chocolate later (literally I lost count) it was bad...lets just say the rest of the week included many indulgences, white bread and not so healthy breakfast choices (I say choices because most of the time, healthy options were available to me...and I just chose the not so healthy options).

I also did not exercise on purpose.  I say on purpose because I did go hiking around with my brother and his girlfriend when we saw some of the sights of SF (he lives there and that was a huge bonus for my trip).  I had planned a run or two along the Pacific Ocean, but it turned out to be way cold that week, so I did not want to go out.  The hotel had a fantastic gym.  I did not get out of bed to try it out.

Pretty disappointing.

Needless to say, I returned home and eyed my scale with disdain.  It was my birthday when I came home and I didn't want to burst my bday bubble so I put off weighing.  I celebrated my birthday for a few days (with chocolate cheesecake, chocolate chip cookies, muffins with cream, a yoyo from Publix, fried green tomatoes...) really I shouldn't go on.  I decided I was going to repeat my cleanse this past week so I could get myself back into gear and rid my body of all the toxins I filled it with.

I felt SO sick on Saturday night I was miserable.  Sunday I felt like I had a food hangover.

Did I mention I picked up my caffeine addiction again?  In just 2 weeks?

My weight was back up to 195.  Holy smokes.

This week I've been back into my routine.  Running, Zumba, Boot Camp and the 5 day cleanse.  My body began ridding itself of all the icky fat laden food, sodium and caffeine addiction.  I had some amazing headaches, but my body felt better than it had in WEEKS so I kept with it.  Five days later I'm down 9 pounds, so at 186.  I'm pretty pleased with that for now.

It has me pretty off track for my goals, but I will go in again and readjust them this weekend.  Sigh.  It happens.

Am I mad at myself?  Not really.  Partially because most of the damage has already melted off.

But mostly because being mad at myself accomplishes NOTHING.

You gain NOTHING by wasting time on the what ifs, or wish I hads (or hadn'ts!).

You can gain momentum, however, by moving forward and learning from your mistakes.  You may be reading this thinking I'm a loser because I keep making similar mistakes, in different situations and time frames and more than once.

Well, then stop reading my blog because you won't ever see me as a winner and I'm really happy I'm not participating in your competition.  I'm never going to sugar coat this journey and tell you or anyone else that it is easy and you are 100% completely fixed when you lose a substantial amount of weight.  It doesn't happen that way.

I have lost 100 pounds and kept it off (mostly - one pesky pound left from last week's craziness) for 7 months.  Even though my weight hasn't changed since August, I have dropped another 2 pants sizes due to replacing fat with muscle. 

I'm good with that.  In my eyes, I'm winning.

While I am not, nor will I ever be perfect, I'm real. And I'm ok with me.  And in this case, my opinion counts most. 

Since, ya know, I'm the one working towards these goals.

I'll readjust my goals and post them sometime later this weekend.  In the meantime, I'm going to sync up my body bugg, finish logging today's food and go to bed early so I am up and ready for my 7am run.

Have a great week!

Clara