No one forces us to gain weight over the holidays- we choose to do it with our actions.
No one makes you eat three slices of Aunt Maude's famous Rum Cheesecake- you choose it.
No one puts a lock on the gym doors to keep you from working out- you choose not to go.
No one is holding a gun to your head making you bake (and eat) holiday treats every day from Thanksgiving through New years- you're the one who chooses to do it.
Ouch, huh?........ Yeah.... me too!
As a holiday-weight-gainer myself, I am well aware that when I point a finger at anyone else for these choices, there are three fingers pointing back at me. But I've also decided that the weight gain is no longer worth the indulgence. So I've decided to make some changes this year. I hope that by sharing my strategies I inspire you to take responsibility for your not only your own health but also for setting an example for your loved ones this holiday season:
First of all, I've made the choice to view the holidays as just a few days or meals instead of a period of weeks. It's a lot less overwhelming to think of Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Years as four individual days. Anyone can stay in control for four days!
I've chosen to make smarter food choices and plan ahead what I am going to eat. No, it's not as fun as a feeding frenzy, but I'd sure rather budget it now than have to work to get it off later.
I'm not cooking an overwhelming amount of food that will throw me off, and I'm not keeping a lot of stuff in the house that will tempt me. As the chief holiday cook, I have the power. If the family really wants fudge, they can go buy it and eat it outside the home.
I'm purchasing a cheesecake with nuts for dessert on Thanksgiving. I'm allergic to nuts, so this totally eliminates a temptation. I will also be baking pumpkin pie, but it's not one of my favorites, so one piece should be plenty for me.
I don't plan on spending a lot of time in tempting situations, like holiday parties. And when I do, I plan to drink zero-calorie beverages and make one pass through the buffet making the best choices I can. I'll allow myself one special treat, but after this single trip past the food I'm staying away from it.
I'm already visualizing how I will handle temptation. I'm thinking through the holiday parties, the friend showing up with the unexpected treat to share, and the food being close at hand while I cook holiday meals. I am picturing myself handling these situations with wisdom and grace. If I've practiced it mentally, it should be that much easier to handle it in reality.
I have marked on my calendar my weekly Tuesday Weight Watchers meetings, complete with weigh-ins and staying for the meeting. For me, they are a non-negotiable appointment.
In addition to my Weight Watchers weigh-in's, I've added a weigh-in on Saturdays at home.
I've scheduled my work-outs and put them on my calendar. I also consider these non-negotiable appointments.
I've hired a personal trainer. It's a splurge, but knowing I have to look a big, buff 20-something in the eye twice a week helps to keep me honest.
I've consolidated the family holiday birthdays (5) down to one big family party. I plan to make this a very fun annual tradition. We don't need 5 separate cakes, and I don't need all of those parties in addition to the regular additional work of the holiday season.
And, probably most importantly, I have made up my mind that I am not going to gain weight between now and January. This is my body and my choice. I have the power, and I'm seizing it.
Hey, I'm not trying to make anyone feel guilty for eating holiday goodies. I'll have a few that are budgeted into my eating plan. And if you want to view the holidays as an opportunity to eat everything you like and gain 20 pounds, that's your choice and I won't hold it against you. But I want you to know that you can take steps to not go down that path if you don't want to.
It's all a choice.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Mix it up to maximize benefits!
How to move to move past a plateau, prevent one in the first place, or get max benefit for your efforts? Mix it up!
- Change your caloric intake from day to day. If you regularly eat 1600 calories, vary this amount of the course of the week, keeping 1600 as an average. For instance, on Sunday you could do 1700, Monday 1400, Tuesday 1600, Wednesday 1500, Thursday 1800, Friday 1400 and Saturday 1800 again. When I do this I lose faster.
- Change up your cardio frequently. I rotate between step aerobics, floor aerobics and kick boxing tapes at home, and the stationery bike, recumbent bike, elliptical, and treadmill at the gym. Or, as my former trainer advised, you could do 10 minutes on several different pieces of equipment one right after the other.
- Change the kinds of weight lifting exercises you do from workout to workout. This helps to create more symmetrical muscle groups with no weak areas. Even within the separate sections of a muscle group it is possible to develop one segment of that section stronger than another. The possibility of injuring yourself from muscle weakness is reduced when you lift weights, but diminished even further when you change the types of exercises you do for each body part, ensuring all areas of the muscle are equal and balanced.
Bodies adapt very quickly to whatever you demand of them. By changing it up, you keep the body adapting and therefore the positive changes happening.
- Change your caloric intake from day to day. If you regularly eat 1600 calories, vary this amount of the course of the week, keeping 1600 as an average. For instance, on Sunday you could do 1700, Monday 1400, Tuesday 1600, Wednesday 1500, Thursday 1800, Friday 1400 and Saturday 1800 again. When I do this I lose faster.
- Change up your cardio frequently. I rotate between step aerobics, floor aerobics and kick boxing tapes at home, and the stationery bike, recumbent bike, elliptical, and treadmill at the gym. Or, as my former trainer advised, you could do 10 minutes on several different pieces of equipment one right after the other.
- Change the kinds of weight lifting exercises you do from workout to workout. This helps to create more symmetrical muscle groups with no weak areas. Even within the separate sections of a muscle group it is possible to develop one segment of that section stronger than another. The possibility of injuring yourself from muscle weakness is reduced when you lift weights, but diminished even further when you change the types of exercises you do for each body part, ensuring all areas of the muscle are equal and balanced.
Bodies adapt very quickly to whatever you demand of them. By changing it up, you keep the body adapting and therefore the positive changes happening.
Everyone can exercise like a man!
You know what irritates me? When people refer to the difference in the way that women and men "should" work out. I'll admit we have our differences in many areas, but women don't need a special workout regime that is different from a man's. Why? Because we have the exact same muscles (to include the heart) as men, and what is being worked is muscle!
The differences we do have act as a safeguard to keep women from getting as big muscularly as men (as covered in an earlier post).
Therefore it is perfectly Okay, and even beneficial, for a woman to work out as hard as possible with the same types of workout formats and programs that men use. The female generally won't be able to lift as much as the male, but she can do the exact same exercises in the exact same way as a man without worrying that it's wrong because of her gender.
To further review my earlier post: If she is one day able to lift as much as the big boys in the grunt-end of the gym she won't be as muscular as said guys, because of the lack of testosterone in her body. The only way a woman gets big, gross, man-like muscles is if she uses steroids.
In the same vein, my good friend Kim asked that I discuss the difference between male and female push-ups. I call them "standard" and "bent knee" push-ups.
There is a reason men have an easier time with standard (strait-leg) push-ups than women- It's because they tend to carry a lot more muscle in the upper body than women do, so they are using their strong parts to lift their light parts (this is the same reason they have an easier time with pull-ups, aka "chins").
Additionally, because of the structural differences in how weight is distributed between men and women, the typical man has a higher center of gravity in a horizontal position, so this swings things in his favor when doing push-ups with legs extended: He just doesn't have to work so darned hard to balance, since his center of gravity is so much closer to the wide base of his hands.
This is also why women who are smaller through the bottom half and/or have built the muscles in their upper body usually don't have issue with strait-leg push-ups, and why men who do have a hard time with them frequently carry a lot of weight below the belt.
It's simply a matter of physics.
So, bent-knee push-ups are a perfectly acceptable place to start. However, going back to the theory that everyone can exercise like a man, no damage will be caused to a woman (and great benefit can be gained) by executing regular strait-leg push ups. Or performing chins, for that matter.
Personally, when doing push-ups I do as many in the strait-leg position as I can (usually only about 8), and then drop my knees and do them bent-knee until I can't do any more. If the push-up is my main chest exercise for the day I'll take a rest, then repeat this a couple of more times.
And, for the record, I've yet to be able to do a single chin. It's a goal of mine to be able to do 10. That's quite the feat, if you've ever seen these hips!
The differences we do have act as a safeguard to keep women from getting as big muscularly as men (as covered in an earlier post).
Therefore it is perfectly Okay, and even beneficial, for a woman to work out as hard as possible with the same types of workout formats and programs that men use. The female generally won't be able to lift as much as the male, but she can do the exact same exercises in the exact same way as a man without worrying that it's wrong because of her gender.
To further review my earlier post: If she is one day able to lift as much as the big boys in the grunt-end of the gym she won't be as muscular as said guys, because of the lack of testosterone in her body. The only way a woman gets big, gross, man-like muscles is if she uses steroids.
In the same vein, my good friend Kim asked that I discuss the difference between male and female push-ups. I call them "standard" and "bent knee" push-ups.
There is a reason men have an easier time with standard (strait-leg) push-ups than women- It's because they tend to carry a lot more muscle in the upper body than women do, so they are using their strong parts to lift their light parts (this is the same reason they have an easier time with pull-ups, aka "chins").
Additionally, because of the structural differences in how weight is distributed between men and women, the typical man has a higher center of gravity in a horizontal position, so this swings things in his favor when doing push-ups with legs extended: He just doesn't have to work so darned hard to balance, since his center of gravity is so much closer to the wide base of his hands.
This is also why women who are smaller through the bottom half and/or have built the muscles in their upper body usually don't have issue with strait-leg push-ups, and why men who do have a hard time with them frequently carry a lot of weight below the belt.
It's simply a matter of physics.
So, bent-knee push-ups are a perfectly acceptable place to start. However, going back to the theory that everyone can exercise like a man, no damage will be caused to a woman (and great benefit can be gained) by executing regular strait-leg push ups. Or performing chins, for that matter.
Personally, when doing push-ups I do as many in the strait-leg position as I can (usually only about 8), and then drop my knees and do them bent-knee until I can't do any more. If the push-up is my main chest exercise for the day I'll take a rest, then repeat this a couple of more times.
And, for the record, I've yet to be able to do a single chin. It's a goal of mine to be able to do 10. That's quite the feat, if you've ever seen these hips!
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
What's your Why?
I'd first heard the concept of having a "Why" from David Greenwalt, a fitness expert who has helped many with his program "The Leanness Lifestyle". He emphatically stresses that until you have good, solid, concrete reasons for taking superb care of yourself (he calls these reasons your "Why") it just can't be done. I've come to find that he's right.
Until I just recently found my true motivation I went through the motions, and that was good. Without going through the motions I'd weigh easily 75 pounds more than I do now, have cholesterol through the roof, and more than likely I'd be a diabetic headed strait for heart disease. But if I was going to be successful at this over a lifetime, I knew I was going to have to find my true Why.
In the course of mulling this all over (which, by the way, has taken about 5 years since first hearing the concept of a Why) I did some counseling about weight-related issues and the counselor observed something that was revealing to me: I am more motivated by running FROM something than TOWARDS something.
I just had to find something that scared me bad enough to run from it for the rest of my life.
Then, something shifted: I started to acknowledge my family history of heart disease and diabetes. The reality that these things were more than likely eventually going to kill me sunk in. And when it sank in, it scared the devil out of me! I started doing whatever was necessary to keep these things at bay and maybe even avoid them all together:
-I upped my game and got more organized and methodical about how I lifted weight
-I started incorporating more aerobic activity into my workout regime
-I cut back drastically on white flour, sugar, and diet sodas (I'm not convinced enough research has been done on diet sodas to have a steady stream of them pouring through my body.)
-I stopped drinking alcohol
-I started eating less processed foods
-Probably most importantly, I joined Weight Watchers and began the process of losing weight.
I had finally found something truly worth running from.
I'd heard the term "Lifestyle", and phrases like "It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle", countless times. But it wasn't until my trainer, Ross, said that he wanted to work with me because he can tell I have a passion for this lifestyle that it finally clicked for me. I really HAD made it a lifestyle- he saw it, and now I see it. I have found my core reasons for taking care of myself. Not something I do just because I should, but something I do because I want to. Now, it's a part of me.
And last night I was able to write out my true Why. I'll share it with you if you'd like to see it, but I'm not going to bore you if you don't. :-)
I realize that me sharing this is not going to help anyone to immediately figure out their Why, but it may be the seed that starts the process growing within you. I'm relieved I've found my WHY. I'm grateful for the process it took to get me here.
This lifestyle is who I am. It will be until the day I die. I'm sure of it now. I want you to be sure of it, too.
Until I just recently found my true motivation I went through the motions, and that was good. Without going through the motions I'd weigh easily 75 pounds more than I do now, have cholesterol through the roof, and more than likely I'd be a diabetic headed strait for heart disease. But if I was going to be successful at this over a lifetime, I knew I was going to have to find my true Why.
In the course of mulling this all over (which, by the way, has taken about 5 years since first hearing the concept of a Why) I did some counseling about weight-related issues and the counselor observed something that was revealing to me: I am more motivated by running FROM something than TOWARDS something.
I just had to find something that scared me bad enough to run from it for the rest of my life.
Then, something shifted: I started to acknowledge my family history of heart disease and diabetes. The reality that these things were more than likely eventually going to kill me sunk in. And when it sank in, it scared the devil out of me! I started doing whatever was necessary to keep these things at bay and maybe even avoid them all together:
-I upped my game and got more organized and methodical about how I lifted weight
-I started incorporating more aerobic activity into my workout regime
-I cut back drastically on white flour, sugar, and diet sodas (I'm not convinced enough research has been done on diet sodas to have a steady stream of them pouring through my body.)
-I stopped drinking alcohol
-I started eating less processed foods
-Probably most importantly, I joined Weight Watchers and began the process of losing weight.
I had finally found something truly worth running from.
I'd heard the term "Lifestyle", and phrases like "It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle", countless times. But it wasn't until my trainer, Ross, said that he wanted to work with me because he can tell I have a passion for this lifestyle that it finally clicked for me. I really HAD made it a lifestyle- he saw it, and now I see it. I have found my core reasons for taking care of myself. Not something I do just because I should, but something I do because I want to. Now, it's a part of me.
And last night I was able to write out my true Why. I'll share it with you if you'd like to see it, but I'm not going to bore you if you don't. :-)
I realize that me sharing this is not going to help anyone to immediately figure out their Why, but it may be the seed that starts the process growing within you. I'm relieved I've found my WHY. I'm grateful for the process it took to get me here.
This lifestyle is who I am. It will be until the day I die. I'm sure of it now. I want you to be sure of it, too.
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