I HATE Cheat Meals!

Man.... I have a real problem with this whole "Cheat Meal", or worse yet, "Cheat Day" concept.

First of all, could we please stop using the word "cheat"?  Cheat makes it sound like if you don't over-indulge in foods that are horrible for you, you've failed your mission.  Do you really want to cheat yourself out of your healthy eating plan?

Additionally, for someone who is a recovering binge eater (like me), it's an open invitation to gorge.  I can easily do 3,000 or more calories worth of damage in the span of just an hour or two.  It's really not that hard.  (Proof: At Applebees, 1/2 order of onion rings- 645 calories, Riblets platter- 1700 calories, 1/2 Chocolate Chip Cookie Sundae- 775 calories.  Total:  3120 calories, even when I shared the appetizer and dessert.  And I was drinking un-sweet tea!)

One pound of fat is approximately 3500 calories.  If I managed to eat 500 calories less than my daily caloric intake for a week, that should add up to about a pound of weight loss that week (500x7 days in the week=3500 calories).  Which would be great, except I pretty much packed all of those calories into the above Applebees meal.

And people wonder why they aren't losing weight with cheat meals.

If we move into a bigger meal, or (God forbid!) an entire cheat day, it's easy to see how weight gain could actually occur despite eating well 6 days out of 7.

Look, I don't mean to be Negative Nancy about enjoying a treat every once in a while.  But we need to rethink the way we view foods in regards to how we are going to live our life from here on out.  It all really DOES make a difference over the long haul.

In David Greenwalt's book The Leanness Lifestyle (which I have frequently referred to as my Fitness Bible many times), he purposes a Splurge Meal.  This is a much better thing to call it, IMHO.  You are not going off the rails with cheating, you are planning an indulgence.  And it is going to factor into your weekly caloric intake.

How do you make this work?  Personally, during the rest of the week I'd shave another 100 calories off  of each day.  This gives me 600 calories more out of my diet I can "play" with for my Splurge meal.  That's step 1.

Next, I'd cut back on my carbs the day of the planned splurge.  I'm taking it out of carbs, because let's face it, people don't usually splurge on turkey breast.

Here's how I'd put it into action:

I'd bring my regular morning oatmeal from 1/2 C dry measure (before cooking) to 1/4 C.  That's 75 calories.  I'd probably also skip my fruit for my mid-morning or after-workout snack and have just protein powder.  There's another 80 or so calories, all from carbs.  Lunch would be reduced by about a single portion of carbs, for about another 80 carb calories.  So right there, I've got 235 calories in the bank.  Add it to the 600 I managed to cut back on during the week, and I'm 835 calories ahead.  Plus, I still have my regular dinner calories to factor in, which is normally about 500 for me.  Add that to the 835 I already saved, and now I'm at 1335.  This I can do.

Now, it's time to plan (not haphazardly wing) that splurge.

Before I go to Applebees I decide what it is I most want to splurge on.  For me it's the cookie Sundae, which I am going to split with my teen daughter (she's skinny).

Knowing this, I look up the nutritional information online before I ever leave the house.  Then when I get to the restaurant I order, according to plan, the 9-ounce house sirloin (I'm hungry!) for 310 calories with the garlic mashed potatoes for 250 calories and the seasonal veggies for about 40 calories.  That's 600 calories for a very decent dinner that is still a splurge over what I would normally eat.

Dessert is another 775 for 1/2 of that Cookie Sundae.  I'm at 1375 calories, just 40 over my 1335.  No big deal.

The trick immediately AFTER the splurge is to stick to the plan.  If you are anything like me you tend to go a bit off of the rails once a splurge has occurred.  This means I still have my protein shake before bed, even if I don't feel particularly hungry, just to get myself RIGHT BACK on track.

And what's important is that I did NOT cheat, so I have nothing to feel guilty for.

The closer you get to goal the more important honesty with yourself and planning like this will be.  Fat doesn't take a vacation, so please don't believe it isn't going to show up if you invite it by eating with abandon.

And for Pete's sake, stop calling it a Cheat Meal.  At least, in front of me.

Punching Bags

This isn't the typical kind of advice-giving blog I usually do. I may not even keep this one up long. It's more of a story: Something I want to share, because it will perhaps help someone else somehow.

This has been what I have begun to refer to as "The Summer From Hell".  A culmination of events spanning over almost a year that came to a head this summer, with lasting effects.  I won't go into specific details, but suffice it to say in many ways it's been like a nightmare I can't wake up from.

I've been under a tremendous amount of stress for the past 10 months or so.  More stress than I ever have been before in my 45 years of life.  And watching family members go through even more stress than I am going through is the most stressful thing of all.

The reality of the enormity of the situation came to light last Thursday afternoon. I went to the gym Friday morning. Coincidentally, Friday my workout partner, Ivory, was not able to be there. I was on my own.

My first exercise was split squats on the Smith machine. I did my first set, but my heart was not in it.

I stood there, leaning against the Smith bar, and thought of all that had come down: How much all the garbage had impacted so many areas of the lives of so many people.  How much I personally ached with the tremendous loss I felt.  There seemed to be a suppressing weight on my shoulders that there simply are not words to describe. The closest I can come is that it felt like I was literally being broken inside.

I thought to myself "I don't want to be here." If ever I had justification to leave the gym for emotional reasons, this was it. If you knew the circumstances, you'd tell me I could have left and had no reason to feel guilt, too. I knew this. I was ready to walk out the door.

Normally Ivory would be there to tell me to finish my workout, dang it. Or I would stick around simply to not leave him hanging. But he wasn't there. Maybe, I thought, that was a sign I shouldn't be there that day- that it was okay, just this once, to leave.

Then I looked up, and directly in my range of vision, not 20 feet in front of me, was a man in a wheel chair. I have seen this man at the gym almost every time I've been there since I started coming about a month ago. It is clear his handicap leaves him unable to walk. But still he comes in and does what he can. Which, in our gym, is not a whole lot. Most of our machines and the set up are for people who have four functioning limbs.

But there he was, boxing away at a punching bag- the only form of cardio he can get. And he doesn't even have anyone to hold the bag, so it's just swinging around wildly. Hardly the workout it should be. But still, he was doing what he could with what he had.

As I watched him I slowly began to realized how blessed I was. Did my situation suck? Yeah. Was I under stress? Yes- tremendous stress. Were family members hurting and suffering in ways that were going to more than likely have devastating effects for years to come? Yep.

But the fact was that I still had things to be grateful for. I HAD family to hurt me- Maybe this guy did not. I HAD legs to walk me around- this guy did not. I drive a truck to the gym- This guy drives his wheelchair. I have a workout partner (most days). This guy works out alone.

I still didn't want to work out, but suddenly I didn't feel as sorry for myself anymore. So my mind made a bargain with my body: "I'll just finish my 5 sets of this exercise. If at that point I feel like going home, I can. No guilt."

I kept my deal with myself and finished those 5 sets. The guy in the wheel chair kept punching away at that bag.

And you know the rest of the story, don't you?

Well.... humor me and finish reading it, anyhow, K? (You made it this far!)

No surprise- Exactly what I had hoped would happen, happened. By the end of the 5th set of split squats (15 each leg per set), I had completely forgotten the deal I made with myself and went on to the next exercise, and the next, and the next. I finished a very challenging glute and ab workout (over an hours worth), then did a full cardio routine, and THEN spent 15 minutes stretching. I didn't even think about the fact that I'd wanted to leave until long after I'd gone home.

I've learned a few things about myself over the past 26+ years of working out. One of them is that with my propensity towards severe depression, working out helps to keep me off of head meds. It gives me a sunnier outlook. That was a lot of the reason I made the bargain with myself to stay there- I wanted the mood-boosting effects of the workout, if I could just stick around that long.

Working out also gives me something steady and sure in the often-rocky waters of life. The iron will always be there. It's not going to fail me. It's not going to lie. It doesn't care who believes what about me, and it's never going to sling a zinger meant to pierce my heart. It's just there, steady and sure, giving me a positive place to channel my emotions, be they the height of happiness of the pit of despair. The gym gives me a place to pull myself out of my emotional hole. It's my safety zone.

My problems aren't going away. I know this. But the man in the wheelchair? His problems aren't going away either. And yet there he is, day after day, week after week, doing what he can to make himself the best him he can be. He doesn't use his obstacles as an excuses to quit, so why should I?

Maybe some day I'll thank him. Or.... Maybe next time I'll simply hold the bag for him, and let him slug away.

Tip For Females to Adjust Cardio Calories Burned

I have a tip I use when figuring out how many cardio calories I have burned.  This stems from something I read in David Greenwalt's book "The Leanness Lifestyle", which I consider my fitness bible.  In the book he states that it's reasonable to assume that a man working very hard burns 10 calories a minute and a woman 8.  Since he goes off of scientific studies and not hunches, I trust David's book and the things he says in it.

I've always felt like cardio machines are a little generous when it comes to how many calories they say I burn.  I wanted to adjust it to be on the safe side of realistic for my logging purposes.  So, working off of the 10/8 rule above, it's fair to guess that we women burn about 80% of the number of calories men doing performing the same activity at the same intensity.  (8 is 80% of 10.)  I assume the machine thinks I am a man, since while I have had a machine ask my weight and age, I've yet to see one that asks my gender.  Given that, I take the total amount of calories it says I've burned and reduce it by 20% to give me 80%.  (This is easier mental math for me than multiplying it by 80%)

So if I worked out on the elliptical machine for 45 minutes and it says I burned 450 calories, I assume I burned roughly 360 calories. (20% of 450 is 90: 450 minus 90 is 360.)

To break it down even further for my usually-exhausted mind at the end of a tough cardio workout, I just double what 10% is to come up with the 20% number, since 10% is easier to tell at a glance.  So in the case of the elliptical workout above, 45 is 10% of 450.  45 times two is 90.  So 90 is 20%, or what I need to subtract from the total the machine is giving me.

Everyone following?

My personal method for logging my food and exercise is in my Weight Watchers tracker, which we all know uses a point system instead of calories.   I assume every 50 calories is 1 Weight Watchers point.  So I round the number I came up with (360) down (not EVER up- I am trying to err on the side of caution) to the nearest 50.  For the aforementioned elliptical workout, this would give me 350.  Then I just divide by 50 to come up with the number of Points to check off in my exercise tracker- in this case 7. (350 divided by 50 is 7.)

This is all very rough and by no means terribly accurate, but I've found it's a good way to guess.

If you are a man, forget it.  As long as you entered your age and weight into the machine, just go with the number it gives you.  If you are a man using the Weight Watchers system, round that number down to the nearest 50, divide by 50, and there 'ya got your exercise points.