As a preview to this post, please feel free to peruse this one from spring 2012. Back then, I was contemplating the 2 Kristyns that live within me - the really healthy one who cooks, exercises regularly and doesn't fall off the wagon of a healthy lifestyle everytime a tasty treat is presented to her (let's face it.. this life is full of tasty treats!) and the one who relishes a slovenly life of chilling out on the couch, elbow deep in a tub of ice cream, grinning wildly. Somewhere between these 2 Kristyns I was hoping to find a balance, and a healthy lifestyle. That was 2 years ago.. I'm still on this mission.
This past March I had a really excellent conversation with someone who challenged me to put away my scale, my bodybugg, my measuring tape and all my other weight loss/weight maintenance paraphenalia and really try to live in between these two Kristyns. The principles are the same I outlined all the way back in March 2012:
- eat relatively well, focusing on cooking healthy meals at home
- stop eating when you're full (we talked a bit about punishment eating, where you're full but for some reason you're almost mad at yourself and keep cramming it in? YIKES!)
- allow yourself to have treats when you want them, knowing treats will always be available so there's no need to eat ALL THE TREATS
- stop measuring health by the number on the scale and instead use how well your clothes fit and how you feel
- exercise a few times a week
It was really weird to stop counting calories for the first time in as long as I can remember. Over the past 6 months, some counting has crept back in (when something is both a lifelong habit and an effective way to measure how much you're (over)eating, it's hard to keep it at bay!) but for the most part I just tried to focus on putting healthy things in me as much as I could and stopping eating when I was full. It's not that easy though, is it? I don't always stop when I'm full, because some food is delicious! Especially the stuff that's really bad for me! UGH!
I have greatly enjoyed the reprieve from the scale. My pants all still fit (somewhat..) so I know that I don't need to be on the scale having the battle with those 2-3 pounds that likely don't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Plus, does this happen to anyone else, I noticed that when I'd be down a few pounds I'd reward myself with eating.. and when I was up a couple of pounds I'd be sad and comfort myself with eating. Not a particularly effective strategy! I actually have only been weighed ONCE in 6 months (for a former scale addict, this is crazy!) and it was at the doc's office and I gotta say I didn't LOVE the number, but it wasn't the worst thing I've seen (up about 8 lbs from my wedding weight for a reference point to anyone following this silly journey). With my summer of nearly non-stop hiking when I'm out in the field, plus at least 1-2 dog walks per day with Bailey, at least I know I am relatively mobile and therefore can`t pack on 20 lbs without trying REALLY hard! I worry though about how much precious muscle has turned to flab and how my heart and other valuable are functioning without high intensity cardio - wish I could know more about the inner workings of me.. it might be an interesting wake up call!
All that aside, I feel that I'm teetering on some sort of edge here. I've barely been cooking, and that means dinner mostly consists of whatever's in the fridge/garden/pantry which isn't always the best thing. Accidentally planting 24 tomato plants instead of the 6 I'd planned for mean there are so many cherry tomatoes I'd feel guilt NOT to make caprese salad almost every day which has been great. However, the all too tempting bowl of cereal or peanut butter on toast dinner looms.. and with that the all too troublesome "I don't want to eat cereal for dinner.. what can I pick up from x local fast food restaurant?!". So while I'm managing to stay on the edge of this cliff, which I picture shaped as a pair of my jeans which still.. JUST BARELY.. fit... I wanted to take a moment to check myself.. before I wreck myself.. and have an honest chat with myself and the internet about my plan going forward to ensure I can cling to this side of jeans fitting and a healthy life. I have absolutely no idea what is about to come out of my fingertips onto the keyboard!
In an ideal world everyone in my life would stop encouraging me to eat badly because "we're out!" "it's a treat!" "how often do you get dessert anyways?" (often, people, the answer is OFTEN!). I already comfort eat the crap out of life when I'm in the field. When I walk 15km a day in rubber boots or got my shoe stuck in ANOTHER mucky wetland (at least 10x this season), you can bet I'm going to be packing in some ice cream that evening. So my life isn't exactly some healthy beacon during the week, which would allow for gratuitous eating all weekend long. I get the sense this is what most of my peer pressure friends and family do, so news bulletin that the weekends are often my chance to redeem myself!!! If anyone is reading this who hangs out with me regularly, please help me resist the all to great temptation that is junk food. Maybe we can all mind our own foody business and then this pressured group eating will stop. And don't get me wrong, I'm as guilty of it as the next person. If I'm eating badly, you're coming down with me! There`s also the contagious eating that happens without any peer pressure at all. Last night my neighbours put out a giant platter of candy and chips while we watched Bachelor in Paradise in our pjs together. Had they not been all over the chips and candy I probably would have sat back instead of diving in with my face.. but there they were, two people who I consider fit and healthy, eating away.. well if they can eat all the candy, so can I! Such a bad mentality. I've got to be more on point with thinking about what I want to put in my body, what I want to consume and let's be honest, what I should and should not consume and let that be my guiding force - not the actions, and words of the people around me. To the end of guilt/group eating! (because if I say "I'll try".. I probably won't. Must just do.)
Cooking. If I was tech savvy enough to find an emoticon that was sobbing, I would use that. I really like cooking, but I've had absolutely no desire to cook for the past ~4 months. It was like after Italy no food could be that good, so dinner was to be cheese and crackers. Jeff has also fallen off the cooking wagon, hard, onto a bowl of yogurt and a box of protein bars. We are not helping one another. We don't know why, but neither of us feels like cooking AT ALL so we barely do. Anytime we make a nice meal, we rave about how great it is, and how we should do this more often. I don't know what the hindrance is.. my intern Laura told me that she spends about 1 hour per night cooking, consuming and tidying up after dinner. To me, 1 hour is worth it's weight in gold during the busy summer and I can't even imagine doing that.. or finding the energy or motivation to do that. I feel like I'm super bored of all my staple dishes and anything interesting I want to make I don't have all the ingredients for, and I`m probably not going to make it to the store before I`m ravenous for dinner, so gimme the cheese and crackers! I'm hoping that the return to regular life that accompanies the onset of fall will with it spur a desire to cook. Part of the truth is I have always liked baking more than cooking.. but that only yields sugary, floury, fatty results.. delicious ones but not as nutritionally sound as basically anything that I might cook for dinner. At this point I would like to give a shout out to parents who have to work, take care of kids and cook due to needing to put vegetables into your childrens mouths. You're my heroes - don't know how you do it (necessity? don't think I'll be trying that experiment though! ;)) - and would I be able to borrow you for a few weeks to come cook me some wholesome dishes and get me excited about cooking again?
Exercise. To add to my ridiculous list of injuries that forced me to give up running, always a staple part of my cardio program, I injured my Achilles tendon this spring. So put the already buggered left knee, left hip, the upper and lower back in there, and basically all I'm left with is arms and neck, both of which are attached to my upper back which hurts pretty much all the time. Plus, working towards ropy forearms and a toned neck isn't my idea of motivating. ;) I think the answer here is to power through the pain, starting gently and slowly, to build up all the muscles I've been neglecting over the years due to fear of injury and of course put all the emphasis on activities I can do.. which mostly just includes walking and that's only if I stretch out my calves really well so my Achilles don't hurt. On that note, would anyone like to trade bodies with me? No takers!? That's outrageous! I guess I should just be grateful that I can walk, skip, jump and play with my puppy even if I've got creaks and crinks at the ripe old age of 31.
So those seem like three good pillars to work around. Get exercise back in my life (when I'm done being sick.. this weekend I could barely walk up the stairs without keeling over!). Cook a couple of interesting/healthy meals a week when I'm home. Learn that I'm in control of what I put in my mouth, not anyone else, and when I've had enough treats in one week (and I know where that breaking point is) say to myself "let's be nice to our body and not eat that". My stomach, inside and out, will probably thank me!
It was a lovely idea, this "don't care and it will all work out". I definitely like some of the principles behind it, like keeping my scale tucked away in the closet and using my pants as my measuring device. But I think I was a little too naive, and broken, to figure I could throw all the rules out the window and still achieve the level of fitness and health I want. Those things take work, and it's work I've put in before and will be more than happy to put in again.
Now, downstairs to eat caprese salad #178 of the season, followed by some delicious mango I just thawed (Costco frozen precut mango people, that stuff is the sh*t!) and 2 squares of dark chocolate to keep me sane. Tonight if I'm feeling any better (sick days mostly just make you feel frustrated you can`t do all the things you want to do with all your free time!) I may cook us up something using the ever-growing pile of untouched meat in the freezer and surprise Jeff. I'll have to report back to keep me honest about what I served us, and hoping that result will not be "two bowls of raisin bran". Though once again - there is no try is there? I WILL make some dinner tonight and be grateful that I'm able to access healthy ingredients and have a nice kitchen to cook in, and 2 healthy legs to stand on. Hoorah!
Stay tuned...
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