It’s Not Just About the Calories

by Tracy on January 20, 2013

For nearly three months my scale didn’t budge. I was getting frustrated. It would fluctuate up and down about 2 pounds, but I couldn’t get it to go any lower. Through the New Year I was hovering around 163.2, the highest of that 2 pound fluctuation. I was staying within calories. I was working out, changing things up a bit, but nothing changed. Then I thought about making a few food changes to see if it would help. And as I got on the scale this morning and saw that I was down to 160.8, I knew that these small changes made a huge impact.

The first thing I did was decide that I wasn’t going to be eating out of boxes or cans for lunch anymore. As a busy teacher momma, it was super easy for me to get into this habit, especially with all of those low-calorie boxed foods out there.  I’m happy to report that for two weeks now, all of my lunch foods have been whole foods that I’ve made myself. I’ve made big batches of soup and portioned them out. Baked up some chicken breasts to quickly pack up. Loaded up on fruits and veggies. And my lunch pack is overflowing these days! (A post is to come on some recipes I’ve been using.)

I’m also focusing on limiting my carbs. I’m a carb-a-holic and MyFitnessPal was letting me know so. I manually adjusted my food goals and set them to 40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% fats. I play around with meal planning to get as close to that ratio as possible. And some days I even get to the end of the day and realize I could use a bit more carbs. After all, they do help to fuel workouts.

Another food alternation that I made was to really pay attention to ingredients all of my foods. I spent a couple days really researching what GMO’s where and what the effects of them could be on not only my body, but my family’s body. I was horrified and made a plan to take small steps to unjunk my kitchen. I decided to start with dairy and beef, especially easy with the latter since my local butcher only has grassfed beef and the prices are competitive with local stores’ beef which isn’t grassfed. And as I use up some staples, I’m beginning to replace them with Organic and GMO-free counterparts.

With the latter change of buying more Organic/GMO-free products, I was worried about my grocery bill. I had a feeling it would go up, but I was worried that it would go up too much and not be a sustainable change. What I realized, though, is that it only went up about $10-$15 each week. I’ve done my shopping this way for 2 weeks now, adding in more organics the second week, and still, around the $15 extra. First I think it’s because I’m choosing more whole foods, and cooking them myself instead of living out of boxes. And second, I think I’m lucky that I live in a crunchy place where eating healthy and organic has become more of a norm (hence my butcher only carrying grassfed beef) so prices are more competitive.

I’d love to shop regularly at Trader Joe’s where a bunch of their products are GMO-free, but the closest one is a hike, so I ventured over to Fred Meyer’s, a Kroger brand grocery store, to discover that they just launched their own natural/organic brand called Simple Truth. Their organics are a lot cheaper than nationally brand organic labels. (I paid $3.69 for a dozen organic eggs, though once my co-worker’s chickens start producing more I’ll get to purchase a dozen for $2.50.) As well, my local grocery store where I get the bulk of my food is Winco, where their prices are ALWAYS cheaper than other grocery stores and they’ve begun carrying more Organic/GMO-free products. Yes I have to go to three places to get groceries now, but it’s so worth it.

My plan for the future to keep up with these new, and better food products is to trek up to Trader Joe’s the next teacher/school break I get, which is next month. As well, I’m seriously debating shopping Amazon for bulk GMO-free products. Like these taco shells from Garden of Eatin’. I can order a pack of 12 boxes for $30 (or Subscribe and Save for regular deliveries of this product to save 5%) and each box is roughly $2.55 a box, which would last me for 5 or 6 months. That’s not bad at all for Organic/GMO-free products!

So the two lessons I’ve learned since the new year started as far as my lifestyle change is concerned is that:

  1. It’s not just about limiting calories, but rather choosing good, whole foods, to fuel your body.
  2. Going Organic/GMO-free doesn’t have to cost a ton more. You just have to shop around and you can make it affordable!

I really don’t think it’s any coincidence that when I began making these better food choices that my scale started to go down again. Workouts and calories have been the same, but the fuel I’m putting into my body has changed. Now if I can only get my husband to stop eating the last of my GetUnreal nougat bars!

What about you? Have you seen food changes like these help to bust through a plateau like I have?

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Making a lifestyle change is like quitting smoking. You have to be 100% ready to make it stick.

by Tracy on January 13, 2013

I had a light bulb moment the other day. And of course I think figuratively because I can never turn my English teacher brain off so it’s in simile form. And it all stems from the fact that this is the longest I’ve kept up with a health regime. I’m 8 months in and going strong. Just like the title of this post goes….

Making a lifestyle change is like quitting smoking. You have to be 100% ready to make it stick.

I started smoking cigarettes when I was a junior in high school. I tried several times through college to quit. And a few more in my early twenties. It never stuck. I’d get stressed or bummed that I was using food to cope with emotions and bummed about weight gain, and I’d start up all over again.

One day I noticed, though, that I was smoking less. I was 24 at the time and in a new relationship. (I totally married that dude I was dating at the time, by the way.) He was a smoker, but for some reason, I just decided I was reader to stop. I was at a good place in life and I was ready. I didn’t tell anyone I was doing it. I just did it. I started exercising to deal with stress and combat all the eating that happens when you try to break a smoking cigarettes habit. The quitting smoking stuck, but the exercise and weight loss didn’t.

That was 8.5 years ago, and for 8 of those years I was a yo-yo dieter along the way starting and finishing graduate school, starting a teaching career, buying a house, getting married, becoming a mom, losing my aunt to a silent heart attack and stroke so suddenly, going back to school for a year to get my professional teacher certification, and changing schools I teach at. So yeah, a lot of stress obviously goes along with all of those life changes. Stress that I dealt with by consuming all my emotions. (I wrote about this insight last May on my other blog.)

On May 17th, 2012, though, I got on the scale, saw the highest non-pregnant weight I’d ever seen and swore to myself I would never weigh that much ever again. And I haven’t. In fact, I’m 16 pounds lighter already. Slow and steady.

I was thinking about how this time is different. This weight loss journey is different. I decided to no longer be chained to a “diet” but rather focus more on food as fuel. I knew that was the only way I’d succeed and make it stick. Plus I’ve noticed how much happier I am when I get a bit of exercise in. And that means the rest of my family is happier. I’ve even gotten to the point that my husband encourages me to go workout when he sees I’m getting stressed. I’ve finally figured out how the rest of my life falls into place in such a great way since I’ve made these positive changes.

I don’t know what it is, but it’s just clicked in my head. It feels different than all those other yo-yo dieting days. I’m in it for the long haul. Just like I was only able to quit smoking cigarettes once my head was in the game, the same is true for this healthy journey of mine.

What about you? Do you feel different on this weight loss journey of yours? Do you feel like your head needs to be 100% for something like this to stick? Have you tried unsuccessfully in the past like I have?

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Focussing on the Small Changes

by Tracy on January 6, 2013

I have a lot going through my head as this new year has begun. I need a change. And as I’m thinking about small ways to alter my life to amp up my lifestyle change, I’m also relishing in the small changes I’ve already made. And I thought I’d start there.

1. Burpees are getting better. A while back I wrote about my love/hate relationship with burpess and how I found some modifications to make them work for me. When I first began doing burpees, once I hit the ground, I had to step back one foot at a time, drop to my knees to do a push-up, and step up one foot at a time. Now, I’m able to jump back for a good portion of a set of burpees before I revert back to stepping one foot at a time, but ALWAYS I hop back to the front. I mostly do girly push-ups, but I can muster up a few full on push-ups.

2. Lunges and Squats. About a couple months ago I realized that I could go deeper into a lunge. And then one day, my knee hit the ground. All the damn way down to the ground. My mobility is improving and I can go deeper into this move. And the same goes for squats. I’m able to squat down further to the ground. Yes, it’s harder to do this, but I feel it more. I sometimes do them slower, but I figure slower and more intense is better than quick and sloppy.

3. Stretches. The more I’ve been working out, the more flexible I’ve been getting. I’m not saying I’m doing wide splits or anything like that, but reaching down to the ground standing up and I can brush my fingers on the floor. But the kicker, is my quad stretches done standing up. This is the stretch I’m talking about:

quad stretch

My left side was always a struggle, and doing it with my right foot I’d always have to hold on for balance. With my left leg, I could never reach my leg up far enough to be able to grab it. But now I can. I can swing my left leg around, grab it, and get a killer stretch. Up until 2 months ago, that was not possible. And my balance is way better and I don’t need to hold on to anything to get this stretch done.

Now on to some changes I’d like to make…

1. Pack better lunches for work. I have this tendency to eat out of boxes and cans when I don’t have left overs to bring for lunch. And that’s not the best. Even those low calorie options, well, I can’t control all the additives in there, nor the sodium content. So I’ve vowed…NO MORE BOXES or CANS in my lunch pack. This weekend I prepped two different soups from scratch to bring, plus I have homemade calorie tracked tuna salad to bring. Week 1 with this new goal and I’m already set.

2. Work on my sugar intake. I have a huge sweet tooth. My motto was always that if I just built in space for calories involving sugar, then it was OK. But I wonder what would happen to my body if I lowered the sugar intake. I’ve tried stevia and liquid agave in my coffee as I need to break my vanilla creamer habit. The liquid agave is the winner for coffee, though a packet of stevia in oatmeal does work well. NOTE: Slivered almonds in oatmeal once it’s cooked is amazing too!

So what about you? Have you noticed small changes in your abilities since working out? Are there any changes you are making this year that are small, in the hopes to boost your health?

NOTE:  For those of you following along with my foot injury, I’m at the point now where the last option for a speedier recovery is a cortisone shot. I feel OK going this route because I know I’ve tried everything else. I know it’s not a fix all, but I’ve heard from enough people that it has helped so I know that it’s worth a shot. I hope to be up and running by the end of this month and start half-marathon training in March.

Image above via lululemon athletica on Flickr

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