Note: This is part of an ongoing series. To begin the journey start here (or visit the site and check under the Post Index for this series).
I’m reporting in from my last report which was prior to Thanksgiving and Christmas. The bad news is I have gained back 5 pounds since that time (and I don’t think it was muscle!).
The good news is that Christmas was relatively stress free. We spend each Christmas in Alamos, Mexico. My husband’s family is from there and my folks live there in the winter. Family affairs went really well. Normally I get sick from trying to deal with it all, but this was an idyllic time. Perfect warm weather, lots of fun socializing and I stayed physically active, walking every day. I did manage, however, to eat a lot. My nemesis food seems to be white flour. Flour tortillas, fresh and hot off of the griddle, and Alamos’ special bread, baked every day in an old style brick oven heated by wood, were the two things I couldn’t stop eating.
January seemed to be an off month for me. I couldn’t get down to the gym like I wanted and my eating choices were not exactly stellar. Then our gym offered a Biggest Loser Competition. I decided to dare myself to join to see if it would get things moving again. That was two weeks ago. There are three teams with four people on each team. My team…black, has one of the owners of the gym for our trainer. She is tough. If you ever watch the Biggest Loser on TV, she is like Jillian (except she doesn’t yell in our faces).
After meeting with the trainer and getting lots of information, such as figuring out how many calories a day to consume based on some fancy mathematics (good thing I’ve been helping my son a lot with his math) and what our target heart rate should be during exercise, we got our workouts for the first month.
Up until now, I’ve been primarily using Contours (circuit training) for exercise. It’s really helped me get stronger, but not done much in 2 years to help with overall weight loss. It’s considered a bit “fluffy” by serious exercise addicts. My new workout has moved me into the main gym with the big machines. Treadmills, stationery bikes, elliptical trainers, and more that I can’t even name are all in this gym. With very dedicated exercise people working out. There’s also all the weight training equipment. Very serious equipment with very serious people. A bit intimidating. The first week I just hoped I didn’t fall off the back of the treadmill or something.
My new exercise regime is quite a bit more intense than what I was doing. My trainer identified that my body adapts very quickly to a routine. I’ll get some initial benefits, then I just maintain. These past two weeks I have been building up my stamina a bit, plus intense weight training with reps (ouch!). Nevertheless, I’ve had a couple nights of just lying in bed and moaning.
On the food side of things, we are journaling what we eat and counting calories. There are so many diets out there. Low carbs, low fat, high protein, and food combining to name just a few. Counting calories is kind of a relief. It takes the anxiety out of it. I still can’t eat my white foods (sugar or flour) because of high blood sugar problems, but if I have some chocolate covered almonds I don’t have to wig out about it. With journaling, I discovered that my view of myself that I eat a lot isn’t exactly accurate. I don’t eat that much…but what I do eat has a lot of calories in it.
Although I gained five pounds during the months of Dec/Jan, I find that I have a new ability to listen to my body’s needs. To be able to do this Biggest Loser Challenge, I can’t afford not to. One night I stayed up too late. The consequences the next day were severe. I couldn’t finish my gym time (that elliptical machine whooped my butt), my thyroid and pancreas destablilized and then my eating got out of hand. Deeply listenting to my body’s needs as far as type of food is also important. This is a new approach for me. I’m noticing the difference between a true hunger, and a false hunger (that latter always wants to eat food that is in the “white” category). If I respond to the true hunger, that latter comes up a lot less.
Our first official weigh in for the competition is today. Who ever loses the smallest amount of percentage of weight gets “eliminated.” Basically, this means you get moved into a subcategory in the competition. There’s the all time winner of the competition and then the winner of the “voted off” folks. No one wants the humiliation of being the first person “voted off” so this first weigh in is pretty important.
When I initially started this experiment I vowed to write something every week. Because I only post 2-3 times a week, the blog would have ended up being a bit “heavy” on just on topic. Now, however, for those of you who would like to follow my weekly progress, I have an alternative place for you to check out for weekly reports. It’s on the Squidoo site (I know strange name) which is a totally fun site that lets you build pages for free while adding all kinds of things like YouTube videos, etc.
I’ve decided to “up” my game by asking for your support in a very concrete way. On my Squidoo page of weekly reports you are invited to “Click for pounds.” This means that you pledge your support to weight loss intention by clicking so many times on the ads on the page. You decide how many clicks per pound you want to pledge. It won’t cost you anything but some time on your end. Each click, however, will be generating income that will be donated to Heifer International, a nonprofit dedicated to eradicating hunger in the world (seemed like karmic balancing to me). This will motivate me to lose even more. Click here to check it out. If you sign on as a supporter, be sure to bookmark the site and visit it every week. Hopefully, I’ll have your clicking finger worn out by the time I’m done! I’ll be announcing on that site whether or not I’ve been eliminated today.
My intention during the next three months of the Biggest Loser competition (and beyond) is to be a winner for myself, discovering the inner athlete within and eating in a way to promote my overall health and weight loss. Doing this with your support and the support of the other competitors will make all the difference.
To our health!
Copyright © 2008 gia combs-ramirez. All rights reserved.
Thank you so much for posting your weight loss experience on line. It is a big motivator for me personally. I do have a question regarding the “energy” of weight loss that I have been pondering.
As an energy worker I find it is easy to get caught up in the “shifts” of the earth, which used to cause me to go in and out of my body so to speak. I have corrected this and found myself firmly grounded into my body but on the down side I think I might be using my body for energetic grounding as an extra support when big shifts within me or the earth are happening. I can not eat like I used to and find it harder to lose weight. If this is the case it is uncontentious and needs to be corrected.
I do not know if this is the place to post but if it rings a note with you maybe it could be addressed in a blog?
Thank you again your work is inspiring me to get off the computer chair.