It seems like when the world starts swirling around me in the massive cacophony of noise I start seeking out little things I can control so I feel like I can hang onto something and not get sucked into the vortex of craziness around me (while fully acknowledging that I had something to do with creating the craziness in the first place).
I started reading 'Thinner This Year,' by Chris Crowley and Jen Saheck, Ph.D., this week. This book takes a similar approach to not being fat as 'Younger Next Year' took to exercising every day. This book is more focused on nutrition, while the first book was focused primarily on exercise. The doctors Chris partnered with have different specialties. Jen Saheck specializes in nutrition.
I like 'Younger Next Year' better than I like this book. I'm not sure if that is because I am now a little tired of Chris Crowley or if it is because I really like Dr. Henry Lodge and I miss him a little bit, or if it is because I so needed to hear 'Younger Next Year's' message that it just spoke to me. I don't feel like I am learning as much from this book as I did from 'Younger.' On the other hand, reading 'Thinner' is helping me get refocused on why I am doing all of this in the first place.
Basically, Jen says that being fat is bad. I mean, really bad. She goes into detail why being fat is bad. She talks with frustration about the "levels of nonsense and downright deception about diet and exercise that the average person in the country encounters." Her goal in writing this book is to provide accurate information to the reader about the impact of eating what she calls "Dead Food" and being fat, vs. eating the "Good Stuff" and being at a healthy weight. She feels there is a desperate need for accuracy and truth, so she provides a lot of scientific evidence about nutrition and, to a lesser extent, exercise; while slamming the "boloney fed to Americans about nutrition and weight loss: do-nothing diet pills, "miracle" supplements, "eat everything" diets, "eat nothing" diets, four-minutes-a-week exercise regimes - easy "solutions" that are nothing of the sort."
There are a few things I learned from the book already. First, she talks about the inflammation cycle that occurs in the body when you eat Dead Foods. I can't remember the details off the cuff, but basically your body releases too many inflammatory signals when you eat the wrong things and those signals mess with all of the cells in your body. Then she talks about the fact that fat is not an inert substance in your body. Fat is actually a living organ that is constantly sending out these inflammatory signals. This is one of the reasons that belly fat, in particular, is so bad. That fat is wrapped around the internal organs, exposing those organs to all of these inflammatory signals and chemicals. This is not a good thing. Jen goes into quite a bit of detail about what happens chemically and physically when we eat well vs. poorly. I can tell I am going to have to start re-reading the book to be able to report back with any accuracy on this blog. Suffice it to say, for now, that reading the book has me recommitted to staying thin for my long-term health.
In that vein, I have recommitted to being 150 pounds and to not eating food that isn't good for me. I confess that when I reached my goal weight I was tired of watching every last thing I put in my mouth and I got a little lazy and sporadic about my food. I snacked more, ate healthy foods a little less. My weight stabilized around 153 and I rationalized that that was OK. But as I read this book I am reminded that every pound does count. I am also reminded of how important it is to eat the Good Stuff and not eat Dead Food, at least not on a regular basis. A few days ago, I recommitted to eating the Good Stuff and avoiding Dead Food. You can see the result on my chart:
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| 3/10/2013 Chart |
It is kind of obvious that the main focus of this chart is exercise, but I am charting my weight, too. You can see that my weight has centered around 153 since mid-January with a spike to 155 last week when all hell was breaking loose around me. Then, in the middle of last week I started reading 'Thinner This Year' and look what happened. I lost almost 4 pounds. How? I stopped snacking on junk and focused on eating healthy foods, only. Really, it was easy. I just had to decide to do it. For two months I have thought about this, rationalized this and that, made little excuses for myself, and just been non-committal towards this particular issue. On Wednesday I made a commitment to myself and I see the results immediately. As Caden would say, "That's a Humph!" I am pleased with my renewed commitment to eating the Good Stuff and avoiding Dead Foods. I am OK with the occasional celebratory meal or party, but day-in and day-out eating needs to be healthy choices 99.9% of the time.
I am very excited about the rest of this chart. It turns out that marking my chart after I exercise is part of the reward that I really crave. It feels good to finish the week and see that I have completed 100% of my exercise goals for the week. It is easy to exercise when I look at my schedule and can see what I am supposed to do today. I love this chart. I think the bar graph at the bottom is a lot of fun. It indicates what % of scheduled swimming, biking, running, upper body, and lower body workouts I got done each week. Week 8 was great! In spite of the uber-load of stress, I got all of my exercise in. It helps a lot!! The exercise, I mean. It does help me manage the stress and feel like I have control of at least some of the things in my life.
OK - enough of the heavy stuff. Jack and I have had a little fun in the last couple of weeks. As most of you know, we had a couple of huge snows. How big? Check out this snow bank beside our driveway:
I asked Jack to lay on it to give you some perspective. Yes, I counted shoveling that snow as exercise in week 7.
After shoveling the driveway we made a snow woman. Here we are:
I know she looks a little angry, I think it is the eyebrows that do it. But really, she was happy to be with us! We had a blast playing in the snow. I even made a snow angel...my first in decades, I think.
It's about noon and I am still in my PJs. I need some spring clothes that fit, so I am going to sign off for now and do some shopping with Jack. Have a great day!
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