And Today I Weighed

And Today I weighed….

15stone 0.6lb

This has been an incredibly strange 10 days or so since the last post. I’ve been well and truly off the rails with alcohol, take-aways and carbs after 7. At one stage I weighed 15stone 6lbs. I know you shouldn’t weigh yourself every day but for me, at the moment it’s the only thing that works. When I hit that 15stone 6lbs I definitely took myself in hand, gave myself a stiff talking to and it’s onwards and upwards from here.

I’m not sure if my small, sustainable lifestyle changes were just too big. If I was on a downer because the big kids were away. If the lack of training sent me into a downward spiral. If I was a greedy cow and just looking for excuses. Whatever the reasons I’m back on track now.

I’ve had my ankle X rayed and I’ve had blood tests.

I’ve got a little over 4 weeks to my next triathlon so I’m upping the training, which in turn gets the old endorphins going plus there’s the psychological screaming at yourself “I do not intend to sweat blood in a morning only for you to undo the good work with wine in an evening.”

What I’ve read this week…

Anita Bean – Daily Express Monday 16 June 2008

It is easy to make excuses. It’s tempting to blame your genes, your metabolism, your lifestyle, other people, even diets themselves. But eventually you have to face up to the fact that you will lose weight only when you truly believe you can do it.

Your mind is the most powerful tool you have. It controls the way you think about food, how you feel about your weight and the way you look. It determines your relationship with food and it is central to your weight loss.

By changing some of your beliefs about food, you can change the way you eat. Your attitudes about your weight can either hold you back or set you free.

Think Like a Slim Person
Slim people are slim because they have chosen to be slim. They have accepted responsibility for their weight and they control it through their eating and exercise habits. By changing your beliefs, you can begin to think like a slim person.

Be Organised
If you feel out of control in other areas of your life, this can add to low self-esteem and out-of-control eating. Even if your day revolves around your children or your boss dictates your workload, you can gain a greater sense of control just by being more organised. Start by cleaning out cupboards, tackling overdue paperwork and keeping a diary to manage your time better.

Take Time To Change
Don’t expect instant results after making a change. A lot of people are disappointed when the scales register only a modest change in their weight after a weeks dieting. It may take a few weeks to reap the benefits. After all, it took you a long time to become overweight, so give yourself a realistic amount of time to reverse the process.

Banish Negative Thoughts
If you keep thinking that you’re deprived or missing out, you’ll never succeed in losing weight. Once negative thoughts creep in they can drag you back and keep you enslaved to your old (unhealthy) eating behaviour. You need to talk yourself into a positive attitude and stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Have A Strategy
Weight loss is not about willpower. Those who succeed at weight loss do not have greater willpower than those who fail – they just have better strategies.

Keep A Food Diary
One thing that is clear from the hundreds of studies on dieting is that people who write down what they eat each day lose more weight and are better at keeping it off than those who don’t.
Keeping a food diary will give you a much clearer idea of where your calories are coming from. Write down everything you eat and drink for one week (or longer if you can manage it), noting the portion, weights and sizes. Try to be as accurate as possible recording the weights of everything and remembering to write down every snack and every drink. You may be surprised at how quickly the calories add up or how often you nibble.
Look at your food diary and identify the foods or drinks that really aren’t helping your fat-loss efforts. The main culprits are likely to be calorie –dense, low fibre snacks, biscuits, puddings, crisps, ice cream, cakes and chocolate bars.

Identify The Trigger
Work out which foods cause you to overeat and keep them out of your home. If they’re not there you won’t think of them as much and be tempted to overeat.

Eat Regular Meals
If you eat chaotically, you lose the ability to make the connection between hunger and eating – and the result is overeating.
Developing a predictable and stable meal pattern is crucial. The reason most diets work initially is because they give your eating habits structure, usually three meals a day and maybe a healthy snack.
Often dieters become fixated with some other diet rule (such as calories or carbohydrate units) and alter the structure of their eating habits, skipping breakfast or delaying lunch and that’s when the diet starts to go wrong. Plan to eat three meals a day plus two small healthy snacks.
Never under eat. Don’t skip meals or snacks. Depriving yourself can lead to overeating later on. When you let yourself get really hungry it’s harder to make slim choices. You are more likely to give in to temptation as you pass the baker’s shop or grab a chocolate bar on the run – or you can convince yourself that you need extra food to satisfy your hunger.
Plan what and when you will eat and avoid long gaps between meals. Take a healthy snack with you so you won’t have to eat whatever is to hand.

Don’t Exclude Forbidden Foods
Consistently denying yourself a forbidden treat isn’t the way to lose weight. It tends to set up a psychological state of deprivation and once that abstinence is broken, you will feel rebellious which can lead to eating every scrap of food you can get your hands on.
If you always restrict what you eat you are more likely to lose control and overindulge when you taste the forbidden food. Allow yourself to eat what you want but decide beforehand how much you are going to have – and stick to it.

Be Better Balanced
A slim person automatically compensates for overeating. If they overeat one day they just get back on track the next. If you’ve overindulged, eat a little less at your next meal or the next day or take a bit more exercise. It’s called calorie balance: making sure your calorie intake equals your calorie output.

www.anitavean.co.uk

No Training = Weight Gain - Simple

Not a good week in terms of weight loss - I’ve put on 3 pounds, but a very good learning curve.

The plan for the week was no alcohol and no takeaways which I managed with comparative ease.

The plan was no training because of work commitments and generally seeing if no training would stop me feeling so tired. I’m still tired and obviously the lack of training has meant the gain in weight so the plan for this week is

No alcohol
No takeaways
No Carbs after 7pm
Back to training

Just a little footnote. The ankle I broke 3 years ago has come up like a balloon the last day or two. I need to get it checked.

Lessons learned this week from others:-

“One of the best pieces of advice I've been given was to make a note of what you eat, then half an hour after you've eaten, really think about how you feel - mentally, physically, emotionally and also if you have any cravings. Do the same again two hours after you ate.I learnt a lot about my own body through doing this exercise. I used to eat a lot of pasta, but realised I felt exhausted after eating it and had serious sugar cravings. So I cut back in favour of rice, potatoes and extra veg. Just through this one simple change I feel much more alert and energetic.Try it, and see what you learn about your own body. Experiment with different foods and let your body tell you what is wrong and right for it.“

Well this morning I weighed exactly 15 stone. A weight loss of 4.8lbs and I am absolutely delighted.

It wasn’t a particularly good week last week being half term and I must confess:-

McDonalds
Chinese
Pizza
Kebab
Sunday Lunch in the pub

Horrendous isn’t it?

But I did say small sustainable lifestyle changes and the change last week was the reduction in alcohol which I achieved.

This week it’s a no alcohol and no takeaways.

What have I learned from other people this week?

Healthy fruit can trigger sugar cravings so be careful

Exercise doesn’t need to be strenuous – gardening can work just as effectively

If exercise is fun it is more sustainable – mini trampolines and whooshing downhill on a bike can’t fail to make you smile.

If you have a bad day it’s a blip – just get back on that horse

Fantastic, healthy, easy, inexpensive recipes in the Somerfield magazine

Oh and I pinched this off The Tesco Diets

In this article, I’d like to cover a variety of topics - multiple bits of valuable information, or as I like to refer to it, “stuff you should know.” I’ll cover exercise, training technique, nutrition and fact versus fiction. If you love scanning information, learning quickly and then moving on to the next thing in your day, then this article is for you.

Whether you are a beginner, novice or experienced exerciser, here‘s some “stuff” I think you should know:

The Magic WorkoutGet it into your mind that there is no “best and only way” to workout. I get a multitude of questions concerning the efficiency of “super slow rep” workouts, “the best video tape workout,” “the best number of days to workout” etc. In reality, it’s all good if it works for you, but you don’t want to stay with any of it for too long.

Don’t let the body or the mind adapt. The body will adapt to any exercise routine in approximately 4-6 weeks. Vary volume of sets, time between sets, reps, exercises, cardiovascular exercises, exercise tapes, etc. Manipulate your routine every 3-4 weeks and view CHANGE as the key constant.

NutritionWhen a person starts eating less food than their body uses on a daily basis (calorie restriction), intermediate energy sources are needed to make up the caloric difference. These sources are blood sugar, liver and muscle glycogen (sugar) and blood lipids (fat). After a few days of intelligent calorie restriction, the liver begins to convert stored body fat into new glucose (carbohydrate). This process, known as glucogenesis, will convert as much body fat to glucose as necessary to make up any caloric deficit. That’s part of the major process in losing body fat.

Exercise form and techniqueCheating on form and technique while weight training catches up on everyone eventually – by way of injuries. In weight training, we often place too much emphasis on how much weight to lift and not enough on how or why we perform the lift. Always perform your weight training with perfect form and technique. This way you’ll make great progress and prevent injury.

Fatigue during exerciseMost people think too much along the lines of “no pain, no gain” or “if I workout two hours a day seven days per week, I’ll improve.” Don’t seek fatigue; instead, MANAGE it during the workout. If you have lots of energy during a certain workout, do a few more sets or add five minutes to your cardio routine. If you’re super tired, back off a few sets or reduce the time of your cardio session. Relish in your ability to manage your energy and your mind.

Stay with the basicsWeight train for about 35 minutes to an hour three to four days per week and perform cardio 3-4 days per week for 30-40 minutes; eat a little less; take in enough protein; drink a lot of water; get plenty of rest and be consistent. That’s how you make progress. If you don’t have time for this much exercise, that’s okay. Simply scale back the programme - but remain consistent.

Height and WeightHeight and weight rarely tell you all you need to know. The key is finding out how much muscle versus fat that’s on your body. One person can be 5’4” and weigh 9 stones and look great. Another person with the same height and weight may look soft and out of shape. The first undoubtedly has more muscle mass.

The best way to lose body fatFall down, get back up… fall down, get back up… fall down, get back up. No matter how many times you waver from your diet plan, don’t give up. Try to focus on the emotion you’ll eventually feel when you achieve your goal. That’s the key. We live in a very “hand holding” society. I encourage you to challenge yourself and call upon your own levels of discipline. It sits there waiting for you, always waiting for you to exercise it.

Beware of magic potionsDon’t get hooked into supplements that promise to magically reduce body fat or commercials that sell ineffective products and make claims to flatten your abs. Remember, these companies are just in it for a quick buck and don’t provide all the information you require to make a wise decision. They prey on emotion and impulse buying. Stay away…far away.

Applied knowledgeI know you know this, but I have to say it anyway. No matter how much knowledge you have about nutrition and exercise, it doesn’t matter unless you apply it. Application does not mean perfection. It simply means that you steadily move towards your goal. You do know what your short and long-term goals are, don’t you? Gather as much knowledge as possible concerning exercise and nutrition and how YOUR body reacts to it. That way you will see the results you want – a healthier, fitter body!

Oh and by the way I got the Letter of The Month in Zest – quite a remarkable achievement me thinks bearing in mind I never wrote to them!

Thea - there's not a lot going on in the world of Triathlon at the moment however the AOL blog will continue http://journals.aol.co.uk/lynneevans19/from-slob-to-super-fit-triathlet/

I've also got a triathlon blog under this profile - I've published the whole blog and will add updates.