Change from last week : +2
Ok I expected that. I'm not making any excuses for it, I had a blast this past weekend - did more in 2.5 days in Vegas than at any other time I've been there. Actually learned that playing table games is way more fun than losing dollars into a machine (they don't even take coins anymore). And given how far off the routine of diet and exercise I went for that weekend, it could have been a whole lot worse. So instead of touting a success story of vacation, let's turn this negative into a positive in another way.
Gaining weight in a single week is where a lot of diets will fail due to unrealistic expectations. And I suppose if you watch shows like The Biggest Loser it unfortunately compounds this problem - as much of a help in inspiration as TBL may be, it is NOT a realistic weight-loss scenario. And I don't blame them, because realistic weight loss would make a lousy TV show. The people on that show have their environment regulated to the nth degree by the trainers you see on TV, supported by the support staff that you don't (doctors, physios, diet consultants, etc). And yet, there's weeks where they put in a ton of exercise and continue to eat everything they're supposed to - and get horribly disappointed when they don't lose anything or gain a couple pounds.
That is the real part of it. My environment is not regulated by anyone other than me. If I wanted to do nothing but lose weight consistently week in and week out, I would not go away on vacation. I would never go out to dinner, I wouldn't even buy lunch at a deli or Subway. I wouldn't drink a drop of alcohol or consume any sweets, it would be all about deny deny deny until I hit my goal. And THEN they tell you, only THEN can you do what you want.
But if that's going to be your life forever and ever - SCREW THAT. I want to go on vacation, and drink some beers, and occasionally eat some stuff that would have any trainer on my case throwing a temper tantrum to rival Kanye The Biggest Bitch Of All Time. It's called enjoying your life - I mean, why else are you losing all this weight, so you can live the rest of your life in misery? I think this is also why a lot of people "yo-yo diet", because they hit some arbitrary mark and then go right back to the lifestyle they had before. And I know because I've done it myself.
On the flip side of that, I understand why nobody talks to FAT people that way - because we all have that FAT selective hearing as well. Someone says to you "go ahead and enjoy yourself once in a while", you hear "go ahead and enjoy yourself" and eat every minute as if it were your last. Someone says to you "eat six small meals a day" and your brain tacks on "that would choke an elephant". Someone says "eat only one bad thing per day" and your one bad thing is an entire pizza. Someone says "start small with exercise" and you hear "let me walk over to the couch to find out what's on cable". You are not in your right mind. Trainers and weight-loss professionals know this so they are taught to talk down to you by omitting details like you would with a grade-school kid. This results in a truly unreal "all or nothing" type philosophy that intimidates a lot of people and is really difficult to maintain. I might talk down to you because you still need it, but I'll only do it with the truth.
The reality of it is - you're not on Biggest Loser. You're not trying to win $250 large by not being large. There is no time limit. You're just you and the only reason you should be doing this is to live longer through healthy living. I've seen all sorts of diets out there, and they all suck because they all END. And as for getting that "perfect bod", you might be able to get into body shaping later if you get down far enough, but since so few people are really able to accomplish that feat, why not just have your initial goal to be healthy? To help you out with this mindset, let me re-introduce something I briefly mentioned on Thursday last week : the 80/20 rule.
In software programming, the "80/20 rule" (technically called "The Pareto Principle") can mean one of two things - either 80% of the problems with software are caused by the top 20% of bugs OR if something works for 80% of your use cases than perhaps the other 20% are not as worth it to pursue. Read that link above and you'll see it can mean a whole host of different things, so I'm going to re-brand this all-purpose rule for this blog - the 80/20 rule shall now be :
"If 80% of the time you can stick to your diet and exercise regimen, then the 20% you might not will matter less."Now let's understand the meaning there so it gets past the FAT hearing - I'm not saying that you should block off 20% of your time and diet to screw up, far from it. The closer to 100% perfection that you get, the faster your results will be, and my case is no different. This weekend I ate two meals a day, ate at restaurants from Friday evening till Sunday night where the fat/salt content is higher, hung out in the desert drinking alcohol like Prohibition was coming back, and failed to utilize the hotel gym like I'd planned to do (largely due to hangover/sleep issues). I got some exercise by walking a lot, but it was nowhere near as intense enough as my body needed. I also wound up partially dehydrated - I say partially because it's not like I was in any physical danger or anything, but due to the alcohol and the diet and not drinking enough water, I ended up constipated and only pooping once the whole weekend when I usually go 1-2 times per day. Couple that with the late-night sleep loss on Wed/Thurs last week and that's enough to throw anyone's routine off. Like I said, it could have been a whole lot worse. But I'm not saying I'm sorry cause that weekend rocked.
The key to the next part of this is bouncing back. You have a bad week where you don't lose as much as you thought, don't lose at all, or actually gain weight, big deal - it happens. That was your 20% moment. What matters now is that you get back to the routine, put the disappointment behind you, and keep at it.
Take a look at my chart again:
Notice once again that there have been more than a few "down" weeks in my quest, those are marked by the red text. I don't consider the "0" weeks to be a problem, because I at least maintained the level I had, so throw those out. That leaves only 4 weeks out of 26 where I've gained weight back, or roughly 15%, and the results speak for themselves - but I've had these moments a few times, and I don't suspect this will be the last. Now back to my regularly-scheduled lifestyle...
Diet for Monday 9/14/09:
Breakfast
- Fiber One Original, 1 serving w/fat-free milk
- 4 oz orange juice with vitamins
- 2 pieces wheat toast w/yogurt spread
- big cup of coffee
Lunch
- Turkey sandwich on wheat with one slice fat-free cheese
- 3 large carrots
- water
Dinner
- Subway foot-long roasted chicken breast sandwich (you know what to put on it by now)
- 2.5 oz bag Baked Lay's potato chips
- regular Diet Coke
Dessert
- 1.5 servings Safeway fat-free chocolate frozen yogurt
Exercise for Monday 9/14/09:
- 5 min warmup on treadmill @ 3.5 mph
- 10 min stretching
- 30 min @ 7 mph on the treadmill trying to get caught up with Premier League soccer
- 5 min cooldown
No comments:
Post a Comment