diet thoughts

[abka]

Today the assignment for (not so crazy) diet plan is to have vegan day. This isn't terribly difficult although I do keep having to stop and ask myself "is this from an animal?" the meat's no problem, but I do eat a lot of dairy. Veggie stirfry with tofu and quinoa for lunch, yummy.

I freaked out a bunch in February, stopped seeing the trainer, cut down on my gym time, and was a little more flexible in my food preferences. Shockingly I stopped losing weight (although I maintained, go me!). Now I've been back with the trainer for a couple weeks and I'm losing (but more slowly) again. (This may also be due to Edy's samoa icecream, icecream with girl scout cookies, so freakin good.) This should be obvious, but every once in a while I forget and stop going to the trainer to save money and get frustrated when I don't progress. So a note to myself. (And really the trainer is one 30 min. session a week, but I think when I have the time and energy to go I am better with the habits for the rest of the day and week so the effect lasts beyond the 30 minutes--and usually he gives me 45 if there's no one after me).

I don't think I ever posted about my day of fasting. It wasn't as bad as I thought. I even went to dance class in the evening. I didn't have hunger pangs (then at least, I did earlier, water helped) and was fine with the stuff we usually do. However, I had difficulty learning new steps and got really frustrated and emotional about not picking them up. Earlier that day I didn't go to the gym because I was irritable and didn't want to deal with people. Conclusions...

Fasting:
-better with added god (or at least with added cultural/social norms)
-not as bad as you think if you do it out of necessity (as in you don't have enough food)
-interesting as an occasional experiment on yourself to sensitize you to physical hunger vs. emotional hunger, and external hunger cues (food advertising, etc)
-not for me as a regular weight-loss/diet aid, best in this way if you don't have to do any thinking, physical activity, or social interaction during your day (and doesn't that sound like fun!)

Comments

[lifeinlondon.livejournal.com]

Last year I was working out 6-10 hours per week and though I definitely firmed up, I didn't change size at all and didn't lose an ounce.

One of my gym teachers was fired and I was getting bored with the other half of the class, so for the new year I decided to ease up and try something different. Now I work out only two hours per week. In January, I lost two inches each off my hips, waist, and bust.

Probably the biggest factor in that weight loss was that I stopped using hormonal birth control entirely. The side effects were annoying and I feel so much better without them. At some point I'm going to have a non-hormonal IUD put in, but I'm never going back on the hormones. (And my side effects weren't crazy by any means - they were mild, but many mild side effects adds up to one big annoyance.)

That said, whatever impact the hormones had, I think I was overworking it last year. The two hours I do now are very intense (it's a boot-camp-style circuit training class), but overall I'm less hungry and less tired than I was when I worked out more.

I'm lucky that the class I take is very small, so there's a lot of opportunity for one-on-one chat with the instructor, but I would love to do some personal sessions with her as well. If my freelance work keeps picking up I might do that.

The fasting exercise sounds interesting. I know I get very cranky if I'm hungry. I'm trying to do the "eat something every three hours thing" - I definitely ignore my hunger pangs and go way too long between meals sometimes.

What is this diet plan? Are you working with a nutritionist or taking a class or something?

[abka.livejournal.com]

Wow 6-10 hours a week seems like a lot, although the program I'm on now recommends 5. The plan is Precision Nutrition (http://www.precisionnutrition.com/) and I'm doing the Lean Eating for Women (http://www.precisionnutrition.com/products/consultation-coaching/lean-eating-for-women). So far it's worked pretty well. We started around Thanksgiving and I've lost around 15 pounds (more depending on when you start counting), over 3% bodyfat, and a couple inches off my waist and hips. They also recommend eating around every 3 hours, among other things.

[lifeinlondon.livejournal.com]

I was underemployed and bored, so I spent a lot of time in the gym.

I recently found out from talking to my gym teacher that I have was doing my cardio too hard - working out at the cardio level instead of the fat-burning level, so my body was drawing on sugar and muscle instead of fat reserves. So I'm going to slow my cardio down a little bit.

For the most part, my diet is very healthy as it is - I eat mostly local, organic vegetables, whole grains, beans, and lean protein. But I also have a sweet tooth. My aunt lost a ton of weight by cutting all sugar and flour, but I'm not willing to do that - I love to bake way too much and I do think eating should be fun, not just fuel.

I know I could lose more if I cut out sweets, but since I actually really like my body the way it looks now, I'm not going to. I'm just going to try the three-hour thing and keep doing my gym class because I like the new arm muscles I'm getting.

[lifeinlondon.livejournal.com]

Oh, there is one thing I have changed - lately when I bake I've been sending a good portion of the results to work with Dan. That way the two of us don't have to eat everything, and I still get to bake lots of fun stuff!

[abka.livejournal.com]

working out at the cardio level instead of the fat-burning level, so my body was drawing on sugar and muscle instead of fat reserves

huh, I've heard that that's really a myth and somewhat misleading. The argument I've heard is that even if you burn a higher percentage of fat while at the lower level, you're still burning fewer calories than if you exercised at a higher level so the sugar you didn't burn will be converted into fat anyway. But certainly too much will burn away muscle.

Still it sounds like you were doing quite a lot/too much. I'll send you an interesting article I found.

It's awesome that you've found a program that works for you and that you're happy with your body and your eating! That's the goal right? yay :)

[abka.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on keeping the sugar and flour. Some people on the message boards are doing a no-sugar program, but I'm just not willing to go there.

[coffman.livejournal.com]

Erin and I have found this technique to be key as well. Baking is awesome but if we keep everything Erin bakes around, we'll eat it all ourselves...