I’m back. I know its been awhile since I posted anything and I’m feeling a little guilty that I let my labor of love drift off into cyberspace. In any case, I went on vacation and totally lost focus on my goals for my body and also for my blog. I came back from vacation and feel lost, completely out of my rhythm and wondering how to get my focus back. I actually feel depressed, so I’m glad I’m blogging today.

On my vacation, of course I ate too much, drank too much, got too much sun. On a good note, I did jog in the morning everyday except one, so that helped keep my weight in check.

When I got back from vacation, I weighed in at 127lbs. One week later, I’m back down to 121lbs without really trying and with only exercising twice  this week for 10minutes at a clip. So weight-wise, I’m not really up, but my spirit is down.

My husband is staring down the barrel of losing his job again, so I’m anxious and wondering what we’re going to do. Candy at work has once again been a negative coping mechanism.

I’m realizing though, that I need to commit to my goals, even when it gets hard. Looking at my life, I’d have to say that I’ve never really reached my potential in terms of body, career and finances and it all has to do with commitment. Commitment is scary. What if you throw every bone of effort into reaching your goals and it doesn’t work? There are no guarantees. What if you sacrifice things that you know and love, that are comfortable to you – only to find out that you sacrificed in vain? I think I’ve kept my heart-felt goals and desires at arms length, trying to diminish their importance in my life for fear that I don’t have what it takes to achieve them and therefore I never fully commit myself to reaching them. How’s that for deep?

In any case, where I’m going with this is that to achieve the body that I want, I need to commit my heart, mind and body to taking the steps everyday to reach my goals.

Here’s a quote that I like

The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating — in work, in play, in love – Anne Morris

Commitment makes decisions easy. The decisions either fall in line with your goals or not. Commitment boils everything down to black and white. So, the next time I pass that candy dish or decide that I’m not going to work out, I need to ask myself if those decisions help me reach my goals. Sounds easy enough, but then emotions get in the way. If it weren’t for emotions, I probably would be totally ripped and a multi-millionaire. I once read a Zen quote that was something to the effect

The path is smooth, don’t throw rocks in it.

The logical steps to take to reach a goal, somehow get tangled up in my emotional ocean. If I can put the emotions in their place then I’m golden.

Thanks for reading.

I was doing GREAT with my diet and workouts, that is until yesterday at work, right at witching hour (3′ish).

I was working through a problem at work that I didn’t quite understand and wasn’t really interested in. On top of that, I had a ton of boring administrative stuff to do that I didn’t really want to do. I just wanted to leave, but with about 2.5 more hours left in the work day, I couldn’t. For me, all of this creates stress and I guess my coping mechanism was pigging out on candy.

I complained to my husband afterwards of how I blew it, let myself down, yada yada yada…He said that things, like weight loss, don’t go in a straight line. Two steps forward and one step back. Also, that there’s no traction forward without resistance, otherwise, you’d just be floating. That’s an interesting concept. I get that, but this is the bad habit that plagues me and that’s going to keep me from reaching my goals.

Looking on the internet as to what I can do to control cravings, I find the following link. They’re looking to sell something, but it gives a pretty good explanation of why cravings happen.

http://www.womentowomen.com/understandyourbody/symptoms/cravings.aspx?id=1&campaignno=cravingsforcarbs&adgroup=ag2sweets&keywords=sugar+cravings+causes

Let’s see what else I find…here’s one… this one says chew Gymnema Sylvestre leaves…”In the following hour or two anything that is unsweetened will taste better than anything containing sugar.”

http://www.wikihow.com/Stop-Sweet-Cravings

Here’s another, and I like this idea…”Practice “urge surfing.” Cravings have cycles of highs and lows, like a wave. When your craving is intense, spend five to 10 minutes distracting yourself and change your environment by doing a different activity, going to another location or brushing your teeth until the craving is low. It will pass. ”
http://www.mylifetime.com/lifestyle/health/diet-nutrition/curb-sugar-cravings-now

Ok, not new information for me. I’ve been here before, but hopefully the spark I need to keep moving forward. 

Thanks for reading.

Last week, I was out of steam – mentally and physically. I realized I had reached a plateau and had lost my motivation. I also realized that if I didn’t re-capture that motivation that I wouldn’t be able to make more progress.

So, I read some articles on moving past plateaus and decided to change two things: 1. my diet and 2. my workout.

I re-introduced starchy complex carbs into my diet: brown rice mixed with chickpeas, sweet potato and oatmeal.

I also focused more on lifting weights to build muscle instead of my usual aerobic activity with a little bit of weight lifting.

At the end of the week, I feel great and motivated to continue. I weighed in at 124lb and my thigh measurements were down a bit. Left thigh was about 20.75″ and my right was on the nose at 21″.

I just looked at my stats page and the last time I weighed in at 124lb was on  5/2/09, so I haven’t really made much progress during the past month, but I feel that now that instead of being at the end of my rope, I’m at the beginning and feel fresh, motivated and ready to start again.

So, I’m excited to see what next week’s ‘Week in Review’ will be with my new found motivation.

Thanks for reading!

Based on some things that I’ve been reading, I need to mix things up a bit. I haven’t been eating many starchy carbs for awhile, so maybe it’s time to re-introduce them.  Also, it sounds like I need to change my workout routine too. I’ve been doing about 20 minutes of aerobic exercise 4 to 5 times per week and getting in about 10 minutes of weight lifting about 3 times per week. I think for the next two weeks, I’m going to really hit the weights hard to try to build some more muscle.

So my plan is more carbs and more weights. Let’s see what happens.

Here are two good posts on some simple steps for working through a plateau:

http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2006/02/27/5_ways_to_break_a_weight_loss_plateau.php

http://www.googobits.com/articles/2235-11-ways-to-break-out-of-a-weight-loss-plateau.html

Wish me luck and thanks for reading!

I’ve been doing pretty well this week food-wise and I’d like to think that its due to the positive affirmations that I’ve been practicing. But realistically, I think its partially due to the affirmations and also the fact that I’ve been at a training class this week and plucked out of my usual environment. Of course, there is a lot of goodies that the training company sets out for breakfast and breaks, and I’ve managed to avoid the worst of it.

In any case, I’m interested in learning more about this affirmation stuff. It seems to me, that one can effectively brainwash oneself for the better.

There are a ton of sites out there all offering a positive affirmation system to achieve the goals in your life. I’m looking for something a little less gimmicky.

Here’s another link that I think is worth browsing. The front page offers a lot of things for sale, but if you click on the left menu, there’s a lot of good articles there:

http://www.successconsciousness.com/index.htm

I have a feeling that I’ll be taking a trip to the library soon, to see what kind of books I can find on positive thinking and affirmations. Maybe I’ll just check out Nordine Zouareg’s book again, Mind Over Body. That was my introduction to meditation, visualization and affirmations.

I’ll let you know what else I find.

Thanks for reading!

I was about to delete what I wrote above because it’s so negative, but decided to keep it to examine my choice of words.

“I can’t seem to mentally get myself past this point. I don’t have the motivation to exercise or stick to a diet. Even when I do exercise, I can’t focus…”

Interesting. A book that I read a while ago, Mind Over Body: The Key to Lasting Weight Loss Is All in Your Head,described how your sub-conscious mind will believe whatever messages you say to it and it can’t tell the difference between real or imagined. So, if I keep thinking these negative messages, that’s what my mind will believe. If I replace them with positive ones, eventhough that’s not exactly what I feel right now, then eventually they will become true and that’s what I will feel.

So, let’s try it.

• I’m motivated to lose weight.
• I’m motivated to get rid of my cellulite.
• I’m motivated to exercise to reach my goals.
• I’m motivated to stick to my diet to reach my goals.

Hmmm. I feel more empowered already just writing these down. It must work – so much has been written about it. Let’s see what I can find on the internet…

Whoa, check these out. Just what I was looking for:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/14700-self-affirmations/

http://bmindful.com/articles/affirmation-class-questions-and-answers

http://stress.about.com/od/optimismspirituality/a/positiveaffirms.htm

I’m going to cut this post short to work out now. I’m actually motivated to do it for the first time in about 2 weeks. Must be something to it!

Thanks for reading!