Getting back on track with Tabata

It's been well over a year since I have written and this last year hasn't been a good one. For one thing I didn't pay attention to my diet/exercise much at all and as a result I gained 20lbs back. I am disappointed but not defeated. In May I decided to start working towards a new goal, to run a 5K. I have not ran a 5K since High School! But I was determined. I found an app for my iPhone that coached me through a series of workouts to get in shape for this run. Two weeks later I experienced one of those wonderful "I'm so graceful" moments where I tripped over my slipper while coming back into the house and landed my full weight onto my right knee. I couldn't bend or straighten it out. While I could put my full weight on it, I could not move it and had to use my arms to lift my leg, or move it in or out. I was so upset! It took nearly 2 months before I could do a normal 3 miles walk.

In August I paid for 20 sessions with a personal trainer at CMU where I attend school. He worked with me to strengthen my knee and to raise my endurance level. I still had not, to this point, lost any of the 20lbs I gained, but I was still working out and striving to be healthy. In September I ran my first 5K! Ok, well I ran/walked my first 5K. But I did finish eighth!!.....out of eight runners. LOL. Still I was happy I finished and felt motivated to keep going. At the end of October I ran/walked another 5K and was scheduled to do another one on Thanksgiving day but was too sick to go. Now my goal is to run enough this year to run a 10K! Next year will be a 1/2 Marathon and the following year, the year I turn 50, I plan to run a full Marathon. 

The problem right now, is that I really don't have any endurance to run, something my trainer is helping me to work on. So starting this year I've tightened up my diet and started a new type of workout called a Tabata. In the last two weeks I've lost 10lbs!! I've used Livestrong's 'MyPlate' to keep track of my calories and have worked out three times or more a week and I'm seeing results. The great thing about Tabata is that you not only burn 700 calories in an hour's workout, but your EPOC (Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption) is  so high, you can burn upwards of 650 more calories over the next 24 hours. It is an INSANE amount of Calories to burn. However, it is an INSANE exercise. WARNING DON'T TRY TABATA IF YOU ARE NEW TO EXERCISING!! Seriously, this is to be tried when you've gotten in much better shape. So here is what Tabata is all about. 

Tabata is dubbed the 4-minute miracle because you can seriously do this exercise in 4 minutes each day (great if you don't have a lot of time). However, realize you won't burn 700 calories in 4 minutes!. To do that, you'll need to do Tabata for a full hour. So how you perform Tabata is to choose your exercises, like Burpees, or Step-ups , you can also add in Sit-ups, Squats  or really any exercise you want (go to the links to see how to properly perform these exercises). The key is to find something that challenges you. In a Tabata, the goal is to go all out for 20 seconds, the rest for 10 seconds, and repeat this set a total eight times. Once you've done eight 20 second/10 second rounds, rest for one full minute. After the one minute rest, move to the next exercise and do eight 20 second/10 second rounds. Do this for each exercise resting for a full minute between each one. Remember, if you're feeling faint or dizzy to stop and rest. You'll build up to being able to do a full hour of this. Also remember to warm up well before hand, and stretch well afterwards. This is a KILLER workout, but you feel so great for the next 24 hours that you'll be ready to do it again on your next workout day.

I am now doing a Tabata a couple of times a week and I can feel the difference in my endurance level. If you want to know more about Tabata here is an article from Shape Magazine. Also if you have a phone you can get a Tabata timer app, or you can also get a timer online. Just Google "Tabata Timer", or go to your app store on your phone and type in "Tabata". Both will get you to a timer to help you with this workout. 

Good luck and I'll come back in a few weeks to update you on how Tabata has changed me!!

Sized Right

At a dinner over Christmas I sat with a dear friend of mine who, like me, wants to lose weight but is struggling with it. She commented at the end of the meal that she ate nearly 3 times more than I ate. That one comment gave me the idea for this post, namely serving sizes.

One of the ideas born of the American Revolution was that we can make things better, and usually that better is by going bigger. In many things bigger is better; a bigger paycheck, a bigger garden, a bigger TV set; all those things are definitely better bigger. However, an off shoot of that bigger is better attitude is the idea that a bigger portion sizes are better. This has really affected the obesity rate in America more than any one single thing. Take a look at a typical nutrition label and you’ll find that the numbers are based on portion size. Example:

This label shows that the food is 200 calories, 1 gram of fat, 36 grams of carbs and 13 grams of protein. Most people will look at that and say “Hey I’m good it’s only 200 calories”, however, look closer the serving size is 172 grams…or ¾ of a cup. This label is for black eyed peas, knowing that, would you be satisfied with ¾ of a cup of peas? Knowing how to read labels is very important in keeping on track with your diet. Learn to read labels accurately. A good place to go to learn how to read these labels would be at WebMD http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/how-read-nutrition-label. This gives you a step by step instruction on how to read the label. Also read and learn about food in general so you know what foods are good for you depending on what diet you choose to follow.

I’m not going to talk about what foods to eat, or not to eat in this post, rather I’m going to talk about keeping your sizes in the right portions. This is a problem for everyone, people don’t want to have to bring measuring cups wherever they go in order to make sure that they are eating the right amount. If you learn to read labels right, however, you won’t have too.  Many labels now have two columns listing both the nutrition per serving size and the nutrition per the entire package. They’ve also started showing the nutrition when prepared, for example, cereal with ½ cup skimmed milk, such as this Fiber One label.

So when planning your meals for the day and your caloric intake, if you were eating this cereal it would be one cup of cereal and ½ cup of skimmed milk. The problem is that most people just fill the bowl and cover the cereal with milk, which ends up being 2+ cups of cereal and at least 1 cup of 2% milk. If that was the case here, instead of a 200 calorie meal, it would be around 470 calories, more than double what you planned. So as you can, see paying attention to the label and the serving size is important when planning your meals.

The next thing you need to learn is how to “eyeball” portion sizes. Once you get used to what a portion size is, that’s easy, but the tricky part is learning those sizes. A good way to do that is using your hand. A proper portion of carbs is a hand full, from the heal of your hand to the tip of your fingers. A portion size of proteins is a palm full and for fat it would be enough to equal your little finger from the tip to the first knuckle. So say you go to a potluck and don’t want to overdo it, so as you fill your plate, choose carefully what proteins, carbs and fats you want and then put enough of each for those as I just listed. The one thing you don’t need to worry about is salad. Lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers etc: fill the extra space on your plate with that so you don’t overeat with fatty foods. Another trick with salad is making sure you don’t put too much dressing on. For this, put the dressing on the side, then dip your fork in before each bite. This way you get the taste of the dressing, but not too much calories. Another thing is to “trick” your eyes. At home this is easy, instead of using a dinner plate which can leave a lot of empty space making you thing how little you’re eating, use instead a salad plate. Smaller plate, less empty space, you’re retraining your body to accept a smaller amount of food and fooling your eyes into thinking there is a good portion of food.  At a restaurant ask for a dessert or salad plate and then transfer the food over.

The last trick I’ve learned is substitutions. I have a love of soda, it is my nemesis! Losing weight is hard enough but when you’re addicted to soda it’s dang near impossible. Since I hate plain water (unless it’s ice cold or during my workouts,) finding something to satisfy that soda craving without the soda is hard!! My solution, Crystal Light flavor packs (cue heavenly music.) Wal-Mart has a cheap version of it that tastes great too. So I have my flavor, but without the calories. With this I’ve been able get off the soda and keep up with water intake. A great substitute for candy is fruit, in particular for me has been the Cutie oranges, I love those things. But sweet peas in a pod are great too, apples, bananas, blueberries. If you need a more intense sweet taste, dried fruit is a good substitute. One way to make sure you’re getting the best nutrition is to buy the fruit and dry it yourself. This may be impractical for some, but you can guarantee you’re getting a healthier snack when you know for sure what has gone into it.

So keep an eye on your portion sizes and find healthy substitutes for your cravings. For most any bad habit with your foods you can find a healthy substitute….except Chocolate, some days you just need chocolate!! For those days savor the chocolate and let it melt slowly in your mouth, make it last and then move on. One bar a week won’t kill your diet, and just may help you stay on track! Make good choices, push yourself to keep to your goals and the weight will come off. Good luck!

Success Begets Success

When you talk to people about exercise and weight-loss you’re likely to get the reply “I’d love to do that but I just don’t have any motivation.” It’s true, motivation is the hardest thing to come by when you’re working to either lose weight or exercise more, so that really makes motivation the most important ingredient in a new life style. But, how do you get motivated? I wish there was an easy answer, some sort of formula that said ‘do this, than do that and viola, you’re motivated’, but it just doesn’t work that way. When I’m asked how I got motivated to lose weight I really can’t give a definite answer, I just did, however, after thinking about it all week I can tell you some things that have helped.

I don’t know about you but, when I’ve decide to lose weight and get healthy for the first week or two I’m all gun-ho! After a couple of weeks, however, not so much! Usually it’s because I miss eating sweets, or drinking soda etc. So this time I tried some simple tricks. First, with the HCG I have so little calories to take in each day that I really couldn’t cheat. I learned quickly not to do empty calories like soda. I found that flavored water (like Crystal light), made a great substitute for soda and without the calories. With the HCG I dropped the weight so fast that I felt the success right away and therefore was motivated to keep going. After all who would not feel motivated after losing 42 pound in 40 days! With a normal diet however, the success is not as immediate, so you have to be motivated to stay on it. Try finding little things to motivate you, like how long did you make it on the Elliptical when you first started? How long can you go now? Successes don’t need to be huge or grand to motivate you. Make competitions with yourself. For me, when I first got on the spin bike I thought that with having been working out for several months 20 minutes on the spin bike would be pretty simple. Yeah, not so much, I only made it 3 minutes before I thought I was going to die. So my new competition with myself was to work hard to get to 20 minutes on the bike. I can now do 30 minutes on that bike! Use little successes to stay motivated. Why? Because:

Success begets success!

Remember that motto, success begets success. Use your small successes to stay motivated to reach your big successes. For example: The first weeks of a diet you lose a lot of weight, then you start slowing down, when this happens most people get discouraged and start cheating on their diet thinking that because they didn’t lose the same five pounds this week, only one pound, well then they are failing, but they’re not. Why? Because they still lost one pound. Even if you only lost a single pound you’re one pound closer to your goal. I blame Biggest Loser for this attitude. Everyone is so disappointed when a contestant only loses one or two pounds, well of course they are. People on the Biggest Loser spend every day, all day, exercising and working on their diets! It’s only natural that with all that time they’re spending working on losing weight that they feel like a failure for losing only one pound. But people, be realistic, we don’t spend all day every day exercising and working on our diets. We have normal everyday lives to live. We have dinners to attend, business lunches, kids to get to events etc. Finding the time to exercise, planning our healthy meals, all of that is hard when your time is already stretched thin. My philosophy is that, if I’ve lost a pound I’ve been successful at losing weight....because I’ve lost a pound. As long as I don’t gain I haven’t failed. Many feel like they failed because they cheated, that is not true. So you ate a candy bar today, well fine, don’t do that tomorrow and you’re good. Cheating is not failing, GIVING UP IS FAILING. As long as you don’t give up you haven’t failed. Keep going and you’re succeeding.

Use each pound you lose as your motivation. Think to yourself, “I’ve lost three pounds this week, next week I’m going to lose another three pound.” Then work for that goal. Did you lose just that one pound, like I said that’s cool, but think about what you did to drop from your normal two or three pounds to that single pound. Maybe you had a couple of candy bars, or maybe your skipped a day of exercising, didn’t drink enough water. There is a reason you didn’t lose as much, find it and correct it. Did you do everything right? Well then maybe your body is getting use to the amount of exercise you’ve been doing, sucks I know, I just had to move from ½ hour a day cardio to a full hour (ICK), because my body adjusted to the amount I’ve been doing. You need to challenge your body, vary your exercise to get different results. For maximum results do at least an hour of cardio a day, and vary the cardio; running, rowing, spin bike, elliptical, stair stepper etc. Find several different kinds of cardio and mix it up. You’ll start losing again soon. Also, use that need to change as motivation too, your body is getting stronger, CONGRATS!!! You’ve accomplished the goal of getting healthier. That success can beget more success is losing weight.

One thing I did when I first started out was not to tell everyone that I was on a diet. I told my best friend and the lady I bought the HCG from. I didn’t even tell my husband that I was doing this. Why? Because once you’ve told people you’re dieting they start analyzing everything you put into your mouth. You’re already analyzing all of that, you don’t need others to analyze it for you. So keep it to yourself. People didn’t know I was dieting till I had already lost 60 pounds. Now at 85 pounds off everyone notices, even if they don’t know it’s your weight that is changing. I had one lady a couple of weeks ago that swore I had gotten a different haircut, when she finally said “Well something is different about you” I told her I had lost 85 pounds, her reaction was priceless, you know the whole jaw drop and bug eyes. HA HA!! It was great. That success of telling people how much I’ve lost motivates me to keep going. Once people learned I was working on losing weight, and they saw the success I’ve already had, their cheers, kind words and encouragement gave me the motivation to keep going. Now my motivation comes from them. I have become, as I said in my last post, a role model for others. That motivates me when I’ve been on the treadmill for 30 minutes and I’m dripping in sweat and my legs are burning and I just want to quit. I can keep going and moving for another 30 minutes because I don’t want to disappoint, I don’t want to discourage, so I keep going. Success begets success. I have 40 pounds left to go, but that is only a third of what I’ve already lost, so easy peasy as my son would say. I’ve done that, I can do it again.  I’ve been successful and that will help me to continue to succeed is this final push to get to the ultimate goal.

Success begets Success. 

Getting Started

One of the hardest things to do is get started. Depending on how much you have to lose, it can seem overwhelming. When I started out I was afraid to even get on the scale, last known weight was 275, I believe I was higher than that at one point. That would mean I needed to lose 125lbs. That's a WHOLE person! Very daunting.

I decided to start small, little things ya know, keeping bread to a minimum of once a week. Not grabbing a snickers for a snack, trying to get off (and keep off) the soda. I also started walking, or waddling which ever it was to start. I was pretty successful at first especially with the bread. I lost 15lbs and kept it off for 1 1/2 years. But I never could seem to get past the 260 point for more than a few weeks. I'd get down to 255, 257 or so than bounce back up to over 260. I was very discouraged, thought 'well this is it, I'll be this weight forever'.

In November of 2010 my friend Michelle told me about HCG. With the HCG diet Michelle had lost, and kept off, 45lbs. I was impressed with what she told me. It sounded hard, but weird. HCG is produced by both men and women and so is safe for anyone, but it is the main hormone produced by pregnant women. HCG stands for Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, and basically it helps to control a woman's metabolic functions during pregnancy. When combined with a very low calorie diet (VLCD) it can help you to lose 1-2 pounds a day. Sounds good doesn't it, but I tell you it is not easy to stick to. The VLCD is 500 calories a day, plus lots and LOTS of water. I was, however, determined to make this year the year I dropped below 200lbs. A tall order, especially since when I weighed myself on January 3, 2011, I was at 262lbs. Could I really lose 63lbs in one year? Well, let's try! I did fantastic!

By mid April I lost 60lbs! I was THRILLED. Three more pounds and I would be below 200 for the first time in 19 years. I was tired, however, for all but two weeks of those four months I ate only 500 calories a day. I WANTED A BURGER!!!! So I decided to take a few months off, and I did. I did my maintenance phase for three weeks suggested and made sure I ate a healthy well rounded diet for the next three months. I gained only 3 pounds back. I was VERY pleased.

I decided to go back on the HCG diet in August when the new college semester began, but this time my body did not like it. I was very sick, I had very bad headaches, stomach aches and felt cruddy all the time. So, I stopped the HCG and started a normal, 1200 calorie a day diet with a strong exercise schedule. Since August I have lost another 25 pounds for a total of 85 pounds this year. I'm trying really hard to make that 100 pound mark!

Some people have made the comment of how I cheated doing the HCG diet. Well if you've ever tried that diet you'll realize it is in no way cheating. It's a very hard diet to stay to, but it gave me some very good benefits. First off it taught me good portion control. Portion control is key to losing weight. Now that I don't eat the "normal" American sized portion but eat the proper sized portion, I'm able to keep from gaining. I even lost a pound over Thanksgiving week! I didn't skimp on my favorite foods either, I had sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie. But I ate small portions and stopped when I was full. Another benefit HCG gave me was the knowledge that I was strong enough mentally to do this. I had the will, HCG gave me the way. It was a jump start to a healthier life style.

There is one last benefit that has come to me that was nothing I expected. Being a role model. Now this is something I never thought I would be. ME?? I still struggle to see myself at a size 16 (and shrinking), and people think I'm a role model? WOW. That amazes me, but, knowing that also motivates me to keep going. Motivation is hard to come by, it's the hardest part of losing weight. So my next post will be about motivation!

Stay tuned....

Introduction

Hello Bloggers!

I've started this blog because I have had so many people asking me how I've been losing weight. So each week or so I will be posting my successes and failures, how I pick myself up after a bad week and keep going.

I also want your questions and suggestions. I hope to be able to encourage you in your choice to lose weight and to make healthier choices in food, exercise and in life. If you want to see something specific on this blog please let me know.

So enjoy reading the lessons I've learned along the way to a healthier me!