Ramping it up!

I have decided to participate in a meet-up group for a 90 day weight loss program. Last Monday we had our first meeting where an expert gave advice about how to set yourself up for success at weight loss.

I have noticed something about me. I get really offended if people tell me what I love to eat, I cannot eat. Personally, I don't believe that diets work at all. Depriving yourself of the food you love will only set yourself up for failure, as inevitably you will cave and eat the food, and you will eat it like it's going out of stock. It encourages binging, and encourages feelings of guilt when you do "fall off the wagon" and eat it.

This group seemed to be promoting all of the typical "diets" out there: high protein, low carbs, free-range, gluten-free, yada yada yada... As they were talking about their plan, I was almost ready to leave and say "Nope! I cannot do that!" as I did with my failed attempt at joining a bootcamp a couple of years ago. As I said, I get royally offended when people tell me I cannot eat the food I love to eat.

However, as I sat there feeling the rage about my connection to my food, I also remembered what I said when they asked me why I came to this meeting. My answer was "because I wanted to find a support system as I need to find some kind of accountability towards my weightloss goals.

I am still basically tackling the Dr. Phil's Ultimate Weight Loss Solution. Key 7 is to get a circle of support around you, which is something a loner like me lacks. So joining this group was my attempt at finding a way to incorporate key 7 in the plan and find people that can hold me accountable towards my actions.

I agreed to join the challenge and paid $30 to do so. I will be following my own "diet" plan which was what I developed with the Dr. Phil plan, which is more tailored to my food. I must admit that joining the challenge has reinvigorated my resolve to lose weight. Now I feel like it's a competition. I am somewhat competitive and don't really like to lose, so if anything, this 90 day challenge is creating more of a personal drive in me that I haven't had in awhile.

There were a few things discussed at the meeting that I did find helpful. First, I loved their visualization exercise that we did where we imagine ourselves in our ideal shape. Second, their exercise plan was definitely another benefit.

Previously, I was attempting to do 30 minutes on the exercise bike every day, Tuesdays were half of my strength training regiment, which I called my "Upper Body Workout", and Thursdays was the other half of the strength training regiment, which I called my "Lower Body Workout", which also consisted of back, abs, and core. Fridays were my "optional" day for working out, Saturdays I added either a walk or a round of golf at the Pitch and Putt, and Sundays I was supposed to be doing the combined strength training program. I say "supposed to be", but it never really happened.

What I learned in this group was that I should be doing more exercising than that. So I have increased my time on the exercise bike to one hour every day, and I alternate every odd day with upper strength routine, or even day with the lower strength routine. Saturdays I still have the option to walk or play a round of golf (which I haven't done in awhile), and Sundays I add in housework. And yes, housework counts as exercise!

Simply by doing this and by finally getting back to sticking with my diet plan, in just two days I dropped 2 pounds. I started this challenge at 207.8 pounds which was recorded last Monday, and when I weighed myself on Thursday morning I weighed 205 pounds. Yes, I can definitely keep this up. The challenge of course will always be around my period, as I don't feel like exercising and tend to crave pizza and chocolate during that time, but there really is no excuse why I cannot do this plan the rest of the time.

Another weird thing happened during this first meeting. I realized that a lot of people use "I have no time" as an excuse for not exercising. Most of those people are parents or spouses, and that usually takes up their time. I don't have that issue at all. I realized I have loads of time, so really the only excuse I have for not doing it is that I am lazy and just don't want to do the work. I really don't want that to be my excuse anymore.

I don't want my weight to be an excuse for anything anymore. I don't want to keep using it as an excuse why I believe people don't like me. I don't want to hide behind this fat shield anymore. I want to love myself and I want to be proud of myself for accomplishing something that I always think in my mind is way too difficult to achieve: lose weight and get back down to a healthy body size. I would love to be a size 8 again.

Incidentally, when I was a teenager, a size 8 was considered a normal body size, 6 if you were small-framed. I have no idea why a size 3 or size 0 is what everyone is trying to achieve in this day and age. How can there even be a size 0? To me, that's not a healthy weight. I just want to look good and wear whatever looks good on the racks.

A couple of weeks ago, I was watching an episode of Extreme Weight Loss, as I just happened across it on TV one night while I was bored. Something said on that program kind of also inspired me, or gave me a "Bing!" moment. On this episode, there was a person who did not meet her first weightloss target and was asked how that happened. She explained, "I thought I could go over my daily caloric in-take as long as I exercised afterwards." The trainer on the show practically chastised her for that, as she explained "that is not how you lose weight!"

It lit something up inside me. I realized I was doing that, too! I have been using the Lose It! app on my iPhone to record what I eat and what activities I do every day. Anytime I went into the "red zone", I told myself I just have to exercise it off. That's exactly why I haven't been losing any weight at all in the past 2 months, as I've just been going up and down from 205 to 208. So you can learn things from TV! LOL

I have now altered my thinking (right thinking is supposed to be key 1), and am going back to the plan as I created it. Hell, a big reason why I am attending EA meetings is because it's an attempt at key 2: healing feelings.

So far I've been keeping this up for a week. I can definitely do this more.

Thanks for reading. I hope this somehow inspires other people as well.