Do what it takes to get the results you want

Lately, I have been overly concerned with the amount of excess skin and flab that I have and will probably continue to have for a while.  I read an article that suggested weight lifting as a viable option to combat some of the adverse effects of weight loss.  My first thought was: I am not a bodybuilder nor do I want to be.  It doesn't have to be that extreme though.  I would love to have the beautiful muscles that I had as a teenager.  I was buff and I will be again even if that takes having surgery.  If I can do that by lifting some heavy weights - Let's do it!  So when I get back from my mini-vacation, I am going to start the Strong Lift 5x5 program.  It's simple, straightforward and doesn't require any special skill.  Anything I can do to reduce my need for surgery I am willing to do.  I even ordered a body fat tester today so I can know what impact this is having.  I'm sure I will see it in my clothes too.

Speaking of clothes - I remember saying there is no way I will ever be under a size 10 or 12 because of my bone structure.  I was wrong.  I am in a very loose 14 right now and could go to a size 12 depending on the brand.  I still have 60 pounds to go.  Imagine what size I'll be in then!  Not complaining mind you!  It's just interesting how you can live with an idea in your head for so long that you think it's fact.  I suppose when I was a size 28 the dream of even a 10/12 seemed unattainable.  Nothing is impossible!  You just have to do make it happen.  Whatever that takes.

Easy vs Effective

So I am on Facebook and this gal says:  Trying to lose 65 pounds - what's the best product to make that happen?  Or best exercise product.  She went on to say how she needs someone to tell her what to eat so it would make it easier.

Really?

My answer:  There is no product that is going to do that long term.  Nothing can replace the simplicity of reducing/eliminating processed food and moving your body.  How you do that is up to you.  Everyone enjoys different things in terms of exercise.  Find something that you like to do and do that.

Here's the problem:  If someone tells you what to eat, you don't learn to make healthy decisions on your own.  You don't change your relationship with food by having someone else tell you what to do.  Don't get me wrong.  That can be helpful initially if you are learning new methods but long term you need to figure it out or you will just put it all right back on.  

The thing is that there are so many variables involved with weight loss that no one thing will work for everyone.  We are all different.  We are motivated by different things.  Different programs work better for different people.  We have our own preferences.  I can tell someone what worked for me.  Is that a guarantee that it will work for them?  Absolutely not!  

Here's what it boils down to.  Easy vs. Effective

The easy way is to just eat lettuce.  Every day for the rest of your life.  You don't have to think about what to eat you just eat it.  Obviously that's a bit of a stretch and certainly not enough to sustain you or give your body the nutrients that it needs.  But it's easy!  

Easy doesn't always work.

Simple works.  Don't eat processed food.  Get some type of exercise.  Can't get much more simple than that.  It took me a long time to get to that point but I can tell you 100 pounds later that it works.  I don't believe in dieting anymore.  I love food and I love to cook.  There is nothing wrong with that.  The type of food and the ingredients I use have certainly changed.  But I have learned that I can be just as creative with vegetables as I can with sauces.  The best part is:  I feel better.

Effective weight loss is something that you can sustain over a long period of time.  If it's too restrictive you'll just rebel and be in the same place you were when you started.  That's why so many "diets" fail.  We get gung ho for a while but then our motivation fades and we have to start all over.  How is starting over all the time easy?  It's not.  It's hard and more than that - It's frustrating.

So before going the "easy" route, think about what you want your long term goals to be.  Think about what you want your lifestyle to look like.  Do you want to be limited to eating salads everyday?  Or would you rather enjoy the benefits that all food have to offer.  I say all foods and I mean all foods.  It's not that pizza's fault that I got fat.  It's the fact that I ate that entire large pizza by myself repeatedly that made me fat.  It's all a matter of perspective.

I would have said the same thing

I came across this today and I have to say I would tell them to take a flying leap.  Be proud of your accomplishments.  Don't let anyone diminish your success!  Here is the link :)

Shape Magazine Refused To Let This Woman Wear A Bikini On Its Site

Brooke Birmingham says the fitness mag is hiding what weight loss really looks like by asking her to cover up. Update: Shape responds and blames freelancer for “misunderstanding.”posted on May 6, 2014 at 3:24pm EDT

Julie GersteinBuzzFeed Staff

Meet Brooke Birmingham.

Facebook: brooke.a.birmingham

She’s the 28-year-old, Quad Cities, Ill., blogger behind the site Brooke: Not on a Diet, where she chronicles her incredible weight-loss progress.

Over the past four years, she’s managed to lose more than 170 pounds.

brookenotonadiet.com

And she’s kept it off for the past year too.

That’s pretty impressive and inspiring!

Shape magazine thought so too, which is why it contacted her to be a part of its “Success Stories” series.

shape.com

shape.com

“Success Stories” chronicles inspiring stories of real people who have lost weight and changed their lives.

But when Brooke submitted this “after” photo of herself in a bikini, Shape insisted she send in another of herself in a tee.

When Brooke asked why they wanted a different photo, she was told it was “policy” to show “Success Stories” in tees.

shape.com

“lt’s just their editorial to be fully clothed, simple as that,” the writer explained.

But a quick glance at Shape’s site and other “Success Stories” quickly proves that’s not true. There are several women, including the woman above, who are shown in bikinis on the site.

Not surprisingly, Brooke felt singled out. “I felt like my body wasn’t good enough to be featured on their website,” she told BuzzFeed. “When you log onto their website, the first thing that pops up is a woman in workout pants and a sports bra. There have been other success stories with women in bikinis.”

After going back and forth with Shape, Brooke eventually decided not to allow them to use her story.

brookenotonadiet.com

“If I couldn’t have the picture of me in my bikini to go along with my story, then it wasn’t MY story,” she wrote on her blog. “The story I wanted to tell and shout out to the world, not their ideal story. So, if I couldn’t tell it my way, then they weren’t going to be able to tell it at all.”

“It all boils down to, I want people to know they shouldn’t feel ashamed of how they look,” she told BuzzFeed. “They should love their body no matter what. I wear a bikini because it makes me feel good. Just because you don’t have what the media portrays as the ideal body, you’re still beautiful.”

As for what she hopes others will take from her experience, Brooke says that she wants to open up a dialogue about what bodies really look like after extreme weight loss. “I get that they’re a business. I get that America is judging on appearance, but at the same time, some of us need to see the real thing.”

A spokesperson from Shape said this has all been a terrible misunderstanding:

shape.com

“This is a result of a misunderstanding with a freelance writer. This does not represent Shape’s editorial values and the comments made about Shape’s ‘editorial policy’ are absolutely untrue. Shape prides itself on empowering and celebrating women like Brooke, and any indication that we would not run the piece with the photo provided was wrong, as we would have been proud to share her inspirational story.​”

When BuzzFeed reached out to the freelancer handling the story, Jessica Girdwain, all she would say was, “I totally support what [Shape] says.” Girdwain is not currently under contract with Shape.

Misunderstanding or not, since Brooke posted about her Shape experience on her blog last week, the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

“The response has been, ‘I needed to see a picture of this. I needed to know that my body is OK like this,’” she told BuzzFeed. “Yes, there’s been negative people, but I didn’t do this for those people. I did this for people to know that they are not alone in these issues.”

Getting healthy is a process

So, in my last real post I talked about feeling like EVERYTHING I did revolved around my weight loss.  I have found that I have regained some semblance of sanity now that I don't log everything I do in 5 different places.  I still religiously log my food and exercise in MFP.  I do not blog as often.  I still check in on my DietBet that is in progress.  Other than that, I have chilled.

I think that people forget that this is a lifetime journey.  Once you hit that goal you're done.  I don't think it works that way.  I have known many people that get with 10 pounds of their goal or even reach it and then turn around and put all 100+ pounds right back on.  How frustrating is that?  More importantly, wouldn't it be easier to just check in to ensure that you stay on the right track?

That being said, there is no reason to eat a salad for lunch every day for the rest of your life.  I believe the key is moderation.  Many people talk about the 80/20 rule.  Eat healthy 80% of the time and give yourself a break the other 20%.  I am leaning more toward the 90/10 side of things only because there is NO WAY I am gaining all of this back!  Granted, I am not to the maintenance phase yet but I will be soon.

People focus so much on what they CAN'T eat or CAN'T do.  Why?  I can eat whatever I want.  Can I eat it all day every day?  Sure.  If I want to ruin what I have accomplished.  But that doesn't mean that I have to say no to every slice of birthday cake or worry about what I am going to eat at a dinner party.  Moderation.  I have to be able to live life without constantly worrying about it.

On that note, I also see a lot of people beat themselves up over the scale.  1 pound and their life is going to end.  Obviously, weight fluctuates.  They talk about "falling off the wagon" or "cheating".  I don't believe in those things.  I believe in building certain things into your program so that you can be successful.  Are there days that I want to eat everything in sight?  Of course.  I wouldn't be human if I didn't have those days.  Give yourself some room to breathe.  If you find that you are 200 mg over in sodium after you make dinner, then what?  Oh well.  1 day, 1 meal will not change your life.

Variety is good for the body.  It keeps it guessing.  I believe that's why I am having good success with carb cycling.  My food is constantly switching and then I have a day where I can eat whatever I want.  I am aware that it could be damaging but it's not.  Moderation.  I give myself an extra 1,000 calories to have my way with and I'm happy.

Bottom line:  Getting healthy is a process.  It's not always easy but it's definitely worth it.

FACE OFF

So, I was going through old pictures today.  I found this one from college and decided to do a face off.

September 2002 to March 2014

Just a little bit of a difference I would say :)  About 95 pounds worth.  Another 70ish to go!

5 Simple Ways to Become a Consistent Food & Fitness Tracker

I HAVE to track or I have no idea why I lost weight or gained it...and...I need to know.   So I can repeat it - good or bad.  I have also found My Fitness Pal very helpful.  I used to use the Daily Burn Tracker; however, just this week I decided to switch to MFP.  DB is much more limited than MFP is.  I ended up looking up foods on MFP anyway.  Also, I loved the simplicity of the DB Tracker but I was needing more in the way of interaction.  My Fitness Pal definitely gives you that in a variety of formats: Friends, groups and forums.  I brought many friends with me from my Diet Bet.  The fact that so many of the Diet-Betters use it was the final straw that made me switch.  So, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.  What works best for you?  Let me know in the comments.

Here's how to get started: 5 Simple Ways to Become a Consistent Food & Fitness Tracker

Something to think about

I am part of the 6 month Transformer Diet Bet and we have a Facebook page for feedback.  It's awesome.  There is a lot of encouragement and a lot of interaction between the participants.  One thing that I have learned recently is that I may not be eating enough.  I was focusing on 1200 to 1400 calories except for carb day which would get me up to 1600 or so.  Of course on my free day it was a lot higher but it was supposed to be.  I am not finding out that I should be closer to 1600 to 1800 on low carb days.  Potentially even higher.  According to the calorie calculator that is going around the group - my Basal Metabolic Rate is 1621.  Which means that if I were in a coma and not active at all, that would be the calories needed to sustain myself.  If I did little to no activity, I need at least 1,556 and if I work out 3-5 days a week (which I usually do) I should be eating 2010 calories.  These numbers are based on the desire to lose weight at a safe and healthy pace of a pound a week.  That is a FAR cry from the 1200 to 1400 I was averaging.  I have decided to follow this and increase my calorie intake.  I am still doing the carb cycling I will just increase those targets to reflect it.  I have been doing it for the last few days.  I have gotten up to 1500 for the last 2 low carb days.  It seems like A LOT of food.  Rationally I know it's not but it sure seems like it right now.

Below is the info that I was reading from Weight Loss Problems.  Decide for yourself if it's helpful to you.  I think it's worth a try.  I know that I wouldn't be able to sustain 1,200 calories a day forever.  Especially since the smaller I get the more I active I get and I will need to make sure I continue to feed my body.  Anyway, here's what they had to say.

A lesson on BMR, creating a calorie deficit, and what the heck “NET” calories means

Okay, so every single human being and animal has something called a BMR. This stands for basal metabolic rate (some may call it resting metabolic rate). Your BMR is the amount of energy your body expends daily, simply at rest. We all know calories are just a unit of energy, so to equate our BMR, we calculate it in terms of calories. Basically, if you were to be in a coma, your BMR is how many calories your body would burn just laying on the ventilator. You do not have to expend any extra energy to burn those calories. 

So, what the heck is YOUR BMR and why do you have to eat that much? Well first, calculate your own BMR using this site. To help explain better, I will use my own BMR for an example. When using that site, I calculate my BMR out to be 1688.3 calories. This number is often lower than your true BMR, especially if you are a fairly active person. As you exercise more, your body burns calories (and provides you with energy) more effectively, so your metabolic rate increases. Now you want to multiply this number by how active you are. This will give you how many calories you should be eating every day to maintain your current weight. So if you’re just starting out on this journey and you have lived a fairly sedentarylifestyle until now (no exercise or sports, not working a job that requires being on your feet most of the day), then you will multiply your BMR by 1.2. If you are a lightly active person (you work a job that requires a lot of standing, you’re usually on your feet 1-3 days a week), then multiply your BMR by 1.375. If you are moderately active (you’ve been on this journey for awhile and tend to jog, bike, or use the elliptical 3-5 days a week) then you will multiply your BMR by 1.55. If you’re very active (you do hard exercise and/or sports 6-7 days a week consistently and have been doing so for awhile), you will multiply your BMR by 1.725. If you are an athlete(very hard exercise and/or sports every day as well as sports training; basically you never sit down and are working out 10+ hours a day), then you multiply your BMR by 1.9.

So, you can use the above equation to get your daily caloric needs, or some people, myself included, do not like to use that part of the equation because they use a tracker like myfitnesspal, which calculates the calories you burn in your workout every day for you. The most effective way to calculate your burn during your workout is to invest in a heart rate monitor. When your heart rate is elevated, you’re burning more calories. That’s how those machines at the gym determine how many calories you’re burning: they take the average person (155 pounds), and what their heart rate would be at the level, resistance, and speed you’re going at. So obviously, if you’re not 155 pounds, or if you’re going at a level that’s easier for you than someone who’s never worked out before, your heart rate is going to be different from the “average” that these machines provide. Take the number of calories burned according to the machine (or even according to myfitnesspal) as a close “guess-timation.” 

So let’s go back to my example of my BMR, 1688.3. We’re going to round it to 1690 to make it easier. In my daily workout, I often burn (according to myfitnesspal) around 600 calories. So let’s say today I went to the gym and burned that 600. If I wanted to maintain my current weight, then today I would need to eat 1690 + 600 = 2,290. Sounds like a lot of calories? That’s how much energy I need to keep my body healthy and active. If I don’t eat enough, then my body is going to find other ways to provide me with energy, like breaking down all of my muscle, lowering my metabolism so I don’t burn through my food so quickly, and making me weak to signal to my brain that I need more food. 

But I’m trying to lose weight! So what do I do if I want to lose weight? Healthy weight loss consists of losing 1-2 pounds per week. Slower, steady weight loss has been proven to show long-lasting results, less excess skin, and concrete, healthy habits. So how many calories do I need to burn to lose one pound of fat? 3500 calories is equal to one pound of fat. Here’s where it gets a bit tricky, so try to stay with me. Since there are 7 days in one week, we’re going to easily divide 3500 calories by 7. That gives us 500 calories. That means every day this week, I want to have an excess burn, or “deficit” of 500 calories. Let’s go back to my calorie consumption. I burned 600 calories today, so if I didn’t want to lose any weight, I would need to eat 2,290 calories. Since I’m trying to lose weight, I’m going to subtract 500 calories from my calorie goal of 2,290. That gives me a grand total of 1,790 calories. So for the entire day, my calorie consumption should equal out to 1,790 calories. To some, that may sound like a lot, but my body is working hard to provide me with energy, so I need to fuel it back up.

So what’s up with myfitnesspal only giving me 1200 calories? Myfitnesspal has to cater to thousands of people, so they set their baseline at a number that already creates the calorie deficit for you. Let me repeat that, if you did absolutely nothing the whole day and did not work out, the calories myfitnesspal gives you (1200) is what you NEED to eat just to sustain your body, AS WELL AS LOSE WEIGHT. For those of you who have a myfitnesspal account, click on the link labeled goals. It will take you to a page where it breaks down your calorie deficit for you. Here is a picture of mine:

According to myfitnesspal (again, guess-timations), my natural caloric burn every day is 2,180 calories. I set my baseline calorie consumption at 1300 calories. So even if I were to not work out and barely move the whole day, I would still create a 880 calorie deficit. If I eat exactly 1300 calories every day, without working out, it is projected that I will burn 6,160 calories in one week, which equals out to a 1.8 pound weight loss. This is why you need to eat back the calories you burn in exercise. BECAUSE FOR THE VAST MAJORITY, 1200 CALORIES IS THE BARE MINIMUM TO SUSTAIN YOUR BODY AND STILL LOSE WEIGHT AT THE SAME TIME. I encourage most of you to up your myfitnesspal calorie goal if you feel a NET calorie goal of 1200 is too low (to do so, go back to that Goals tab, and click the green “change goals” button. Then choose the custom button instead of guided, and it will let you input how many net calories you wish to consume). 

What happens if I don’t eat 1200 net calories every day? Your body is smart, and it will recognize that it’s not getting the fuel it needs. It will go into something called starvation mode, where your body wants to protect itself from starving and dying. It will break down your muscle, slow your metabolism, weaken your body, and eventually shut down your organs. Think of your body as a car; you can’t expect your car to move without fuel in it.

I know this seems like a lot to handle, but weight loss can be achieved if you fuel your body properly. If you find you’re eating your BMR with the deficit and you’re still not losing weight, go ahead and lower your calorie consumption by 100-200 a day. Every body is different and like I said, these are all guess-timations. As long as you don’t drop below 1200 net calories, you don’t need to worry about not eating enough. Eat well, eat enough, and exercise daily and you will see success.

(Source: weightlossproblems)