to fast, or not to fast; that is the question

I'm doing a two day detox with an Arden's Garden product. They give you the recipe for it on the website, but I bought it for $15 @ Whole Food's. The contents say that it has distilled water, fresh grapefruits, fresh oranges, and fresh lemons. But it tastes like there's only grapefruits and water in it.

So I'm almost at the end of day 1 of no food and just liquids. I'm actually not that hungry. I woke up really late today and that has helped me. Tomorrow (Monday @ work) will be completely different. I have a habit of stopping somewhere in the morning and getting something to eat or drink (usually coffee or fast food). So I'm looking at this 2-day detox as a spiritual means to squash and interrupt this dirty little habit of mine.

I'm not going to workout during these two days. Today I rested. I should have gone on a walk or something, but I didnt. Tomorrow I will clean my room and get rid of all hints of fast food in my car and elsewhere. (Right now I have a Sonics bag poking out of my trash can ...). Just purge it from my life! So instead of telling myself, "Well I wont eat that on the way to work tomorrow" I'm going to put some thoughtful energy into this and actually MEAN it.

With my general experience with fasting, I dont like to do shorter ones because you are hungry most of the time (I'd say up until after the 3rd day). So I know I'm going to be hungry until I eat something again. But longer fasts dont suit my lifestyle right now because I teach yoga and like to exercise more than the light stuff you are supposed to do during a fast. Oh, and I also like to eat out with friends! I personally suggest starting off with 1-2 day water fasts. I would not go over a 7 day water fast unless you are really read up on the information and have practiced fasting before. On your fasting days, light to moderate exercising will help move impurities through your system, but dont go doing anything extreme. Read up more if you want to try a 7 day water or 30 day juice fast thing.


A few notes on fasting
What is fasting: fasting is the practice of abstaining from food for the purpose of improving physical, mental, and/or spiritual health. There are many different kinds of fasts but the most common kinds are water fasts and juice fasts.
What can/do fasts do?
~ Dr. Joel Fuhrman has written books claiming that the body can redirect energy from breaking down toxic foods elsewhere in the body - for purposes of self healing (and he went as far to say to cure diabetes, migraines, arthritic tendencies, strokes, heart disease, allergic reaction, etc. Serious stuff). So in layman's terms: once your body stops digesting food, it will search for other things to break down that it couldnt because it was too busy breaking down food. Hopefully that means I'll get a better complexion!
~ Gives your digestive system a break. So again - during a fast, digestion stops. Digestion is a draining process. After you intake your pizza and Coke and are asleep on the couch, the body's work has just begun. Food is our external energy source but sometimes we overburden our body with too much food. So our organs that eliminate foods (kidneys, liver) tend to be overtaxed with toxins, alcohol or chemical additives.
~ Declutters the body. During this time that the digestive system is stopped and the body is looking elsewhere for energy, it also eliminates what you dont want or need until all the waste is gone (dead or damaged cells, extra fat). After that, you must begin to eat again because we dont want the body burning what you need, like too much healthy muscle or too much fat.
- Mental clarity. You know how you feel after you eat too much - sluggish, lazy, almost drugged. Fasting can lead to shaper mental acuity, faster response time, quicker comprehension. Fasting can give you a mental edge. It's important to stress here that fasting is NOT starvation. Starvation dulls the mind; fasting sharpens it.
~ Fasting makes you younger. You'll live longer. Plenty of medical studies exist. Look them up if you dont believe me.
~ Greater spirituality. Since your body's energy is directed elsewhere, fasting can be a great tool to forget the sensual pleasures of eating. It's a great time to meditate or pray. Many religions and people and prophets practiced fasting. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus all have spiritual leaders or holidays involving fasting.

Well, this blog is really long. I could say so much more about fasting! It's a great tool in not only losing weight but in increasing your standard of life.
Now, if I can just carry on my fasting attitude with me to meals then I'd be grand and not grande.

Pound for Pound Challenge

So, the NBC Pound for Pound website is not letting me submit my story so I'm going to do it here. This is what I had written up to "share my inspiration to lose weight."

My inspiration to lose weight comes from the fact that I simply can't fit into my clothes anymore. I got into a bad habit a few years ago to not weigh myself regularly. I think I was in denile, and ignorance was bliss. When I finally decided to weigh myself a few weeks ago, I had a scary awakening. I was 20 pounds lighter three years ago. I know I can lose the weight, I just need a boost on motivation. I think this site will help keep me focused on the all end goal- to be 20 pounds lighter once again.

Short and sweet and to the point. That's what it is. I have to say it is interesting to read the pound for pound stories. I guess other people are "authorized to submit" unlike me. To read stories of others, go to this link: http://pfpchallenge.com/ShareYourStory.aspx

The key to longevity: Dont eat anything

I was watching Oprah (big surprise) and they had Dr Oz on talking about people living forever. Okay, to 150 but who's counting? Here's a link to the show.

I've read about calorie restriction as a healthy way of living from Dr. Joel Fuhrman as well. He also talked about eating less helping you reduce inflammation in the body. Inflammation seems to be a precursor to a lot of disease.

Calorie restriction isnt a starvation, pro-ana diet (800 cals or less). From what I heard on Oprah, the practitioners of the calorie restriction lifestyle ate about 1500 cals a day for women and about 1900/2000 for men. Another important key to this lifestyle is making sure the calories you eat are nutrient dense - like nuts, fruit, veggies, etc. Not ricecakes. . . . The man on Oprah ate the apple skin only because thats where all the nutrients were. He had a bowl of the apple skin, 2 oz of nuts, and maybe some berries (?) and made the statement [loosely quoted] "this is my breakfast, it has more nutrients than what most people eat in a day or two." That REALLY made an impact on me. Why do we eat? A huge part of that is to receive nutrients. And when you eat chocolate or fast food or sugary drinks or even diet drinks, you aren't intaking nutrients. What good are the chemicals that make up that food if it doesnt nourish your cells in any sort of helpful way?

My diet has been mediocre over the past few days. I will use the Oprah show (maybe not Oprah necessarily ...) to be my thinspiration so I can eat a nutrient dense, low calorie diet.

Yayyyyyyy. (that was sarcastic sounding).

:D

The Power of Self Control

So, it's Friday, and I did weigh myself. Body Fat is 21.5%, weight is 133.4 lbs. Granted, I felt bloated this morning and gross, but I still decided to weigh-in because it does keep me in check. Thanks to my awesome gmail chat friend who resides in Atlanta, I have been able to achieve a few positives this week. For one, I have denied myself chocolate ever since that little episode on Monday. It's really a magical thing when I actually follow-through with my self control. I think I'm going to deny myself chocolate longer than what I originally intended, which was this coming Sunday.

Speaking of self-control, I've also been quite proud of myself regarding Lent. I won't say that I've been PERFECT, but on those days I wasn't perfect were the days that you can technically cheat, which is Sunday. One Sunday, I had two bites of asiago cheese bread at Panera Bread. When I noticed what I had just done, I stopped.

I feel like since I have done so well with Lent, and with this most recent notion of giving up chocolate, I can achieve my goal. I think the key is to move with consciousness. When I eat mindlessly or eat so fast to not truly enjoy the food I am doing myself no good. I'm also trying to truly ask myself what I want to eat. If it's not what I truly want, I won't eat it.

So yes, my weight has fluctuated up, and my goal was to be under 130 sooner rather than later. My new goal is to continue to choose food wisely and even make better decisions than I am now. I'm also going to run more regularly. I know I can do this. Think thin. Think thin. Think thin.

THINK THIN! not FAT!

After a day of eating everything in sight, I need to have a self evaluation. I weighed this morning- 131.4 lbs and 24% body fat. I know I can make strides by this coming Thursday. My plan is to have a nice long run after I teach spin in the morning. I'm hopeful that my calf is not hurting in the morning. I like to run only because it's a huge calorie burn. Today I ate an insane amount of LINDT chocolate, and then came home with the intention of not eating dinner because I had eaten so much chocolate. Well, WRONG! I had started off okay, as there was cooked broccoli at my fingertips. Then I noticed that no one had eaten the wonderful goodies from Corner Bakery that I had purchased yesterday. Sunk cost, I know. I should have just ignored it or tossed them. But, I couldn't. They were staring at me, saying, "Eat me!" So, I gave in. I wasn't even really craving sweets; they were just there and I didn't want to go another day without them being eaten.

Game plan:
1. EAT LESS! Geez. It's not that freakin hard.
2. DO NOT EAT CHOCOLATE! Yeah, I know I'm a woman... but I can still have self control for goodness sake.
3. MOVE MORE- take more breaks at work to walk

Let's just see if this little trick works... progress report in three days.

Currently losing the game

Well, I thought I was off to a great start. Key word is "thought." I weighed myself this morning and the scale welcomed me with 24.5% body fat and 133.8 pounds. It doesn't really make sense to me. I have to admit that these past few days haven't been perfect, but to see a 133.8!? What the heck? So I think this means I just need to be a little bit more disciplined. Granted, I'm not the initial 135 pounds, but still. In the past three days, I've run 13 miles and I've been to yoga twice. I've also taught two spinning and one yoga class. So this is not due to lack of activity. The culprit is food. I've just got to be better. Think thin. Think thin. Think thin.

It's like a game

Losing weight is like a game. You say to yourself, "what can I do today to make sure that number on the scale goes down tomorrow?" I am very eager to see that number go down, especially since the number was extremely high exactly one week ago. Since then, the number on the scale has decreased 5.4 (135 to 129.6) pounds, but the body fat percent has increased from 20 to 24.5%. Granted, last week I weighed myself in the evening. I have this goal that the next time I weigh myself- Saturday morning- I want it to be somewhere around 127.5 to 128.5. Of course, today I don't feel like I ate that well, so I'm not sure if I will see a number in that range. I started off strong with a protein shake from Smoothie King, but then had a footlong sandwich from Subway because I was just craving bread; my stomach did not want another shake for lunch. I couldn't believe I ate a whole footlong. But then, I had chocolate at my desk. Then, this evening, I grazed. So, I guess you could say today was my "cheat" day. But, shouldn't a "cheat" day be when you are socializing? I get frustrated with myself when I'm not good on my diet, especially when I'm by myself. But, as long as it's not every day I guess I'm okay. I have to think thin and keep telling myself, "I am so grateful that I weigh less than 120 pounds. I am thin. I like healthy foods." I need to continue with positive self talk.

not so fast, negative nancy

so i weighed myself. about a year ago (o god, has it been that long?) i realized i had gained 25 lbs above and beyond my low weight (and my current weight is 15 lbs more than my high school weight). therefore, i would pretty please like to lose 25 lbs. after a month of working out at least 3-5 times a week and watching what i eat, i thought i could drop off weight pretty easily. nay, i was wrong! a few things happened. one of the worse things was that i lost hope in myself. i would restrict, exercise, diet for a week and then weigh myself and not see a big enough drop (or even a gain!) and get really upset with myself and then eat fast food the next day or binge. that was happening about november/december of 2008. beginning of january, i started eating better but still checking in fast food a few times a week and eating out with friends but working out a little more diligently. i expected to see some weight loss over the 2-3 weeks i had decreased my eating out and increased my working out. WRONG! another weight gain. this time, 4 pounds on top of the 25 i wanted to lose. talk about devastation.

so i told myself i wouldnt weigh myself until the end of february.

so d-day came and i weighed myself today. out of the 25 lbs i will lose, i have only lost a pound.

typically, i would be really tore up about this. a month? and all i've lost is a freakin pound?!?

but, not so fast, brain. i could have possibly lost something closer to five pounds (since i had gained that four pounds over christmas/january - even though i still to this day think it impossible that i gained so much bc i really cut down on my fast food and increased my working out). and, thankfully, i had taken my measurements. i forgot my waist measurement, but i know i lost over an inch in my hips (still need to lose about 2-3 more but its a start).

according to my past behavior, i would have ran straight to the closest fridge or mcdonalds. but, aside from the number, im actually pretty pleased with myself. i feel better, stronger, and healthier. i am liking how i can say no to fast food easier; im not going to lie, i still dont have a perfect diet but its getting there.

what number on the scale would i have been happy about? i honestly was shooting for 10 lbs! that was my "happy" number.

but i am not going to let the scale dictate my life and how i view myself (and, oh, how it has done so in the past). i will live in the present and change what i dwell in. i wont say i didnt do enough in the past ... because i cant change the past. i can only change the present ... the now. i think this helped me because i did some boxing and yoga tonight and had a great time at the gym even after i had weighed myself. now, i think working out is fun ... and not just a means to an end to help me fit into my jeans. i actually feel energized after going to the gym. and, for so long, i was sluggish because of my inactivity and going to the gym was a chore. now working out is fun - i feel the benefits - and i am looking forward to my new eating healthy lifestyle! i dont want to be a slave to the scale chasing a number or to food finding comfort in some fries. i want to live my best life!