Monday, July 19, 2010

Willpower

At the start of this year, my New Year’s Resolution was to run 300 miles in 2010. I didn’t really document any mileage up until early April (anything before that would be pretty negligible anyway), and since then, I have ran 91.55 miles! My goal for the next 4 weeks is to run 10 miles per week. At this rate, I think it’s totally possible to meet my 300 goal by the end of the year! That feels pretty good!


Saturday I attended a baby shower for one of my college friends. It was very nice and low-key. The food was very tempting, but I used some willpower and had one plate of snacks and NO cake. I was sad about the cake for about 5 whole minutes, and then everyone else was done with theirs, and I let it go.

Speaking of willpower, my husband told me about this experiment (Baumeister, R. F.; Bratslavsky, E.; Muraven, M.; Tice, D. M. (1998)) that he read about in Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard (Heath, Chip; Heath, Dan. (2010). So, they have two groups of people who believe they are doing a taste test experiment. The researchers ask them not to eat the night before the experiment. Group A comes into the experiment room. There are two plates on the table, one is a plate of warm, freshly baked cookies and one is a plate of radishes. They are told to eat only the radishes, and not even touch the cookies. After a few minutes, the researchers come in and give the subjects a maze that is impossible to solve. If the subject makes a mistake on the maze, they have to start over from the beginning. So, the subjects work on the maze and the researchers time how long it takes them until they give up in frustration. Then, Group B repeats the experiment, except they are allowed to eat the cookies. The researchers discover that Group A gave up on the maze much sooner than the subjects in Group B. What does this mean? Well, the researchers theorize that we all have a finite amount of willpower. Group B didn’t have to use willpower to resist the cookies in the first part of the experiment, so they were able to use it to endure solving the frustrating puzzle longer than Group A.

Pretty interesting, no? I believe they go on to discuss how using willpower in one area of your life (your diet, for example), can deplete the willpower you have left to use in other parts (work, for example). Which might explain why when I’m successful in my weight loss efforts, I have little self-discipline to get my work done.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Did you get a hair cut?

A co-worker who I don’t see very often said to me the other day, “Did you get your hair cut?” “No, I’m growing it out, actually.” Then she said, “Huh.” Which I think means that she was trying to figure out what might be different about me. She’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Anyway, I weighed in for SP today and was down another pound. Yipee! I’m really close to 20 pounds gone!


Another co-worker and I went for a walk today and she asked me how much more I want to lose. I told her I still had 35 pounds to go before I am back to my “wedding weight”. She seemed surprised at this and said, “So, are you going to stop then?” I didn’t really want to tell her I had no intention at all of stopping there, so I just told her I would re-evaluate when I get there. I can definitely see her becoming a saboteur of my weight loss efforts in the future. But, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I had planned to go to spin class today over lunch, but I didn’t go. I’m just feeling really tired these last couple of days. Also, I want to run tonight, and don’t want to wear out all the energy in my legs. I will spin on Friday though.

Tonight I’m meeting a friend for dinner. I’ve already planned to have a fruit cup and some soup, so I should stay within my calories pretty easily.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

The Secret Formula

I was reading some new blogs and I realized I haven’t really been very specific about what I’ve been doing. So, here are some specifics since I started the SparkPeople challenge (note, on SP we weigh-in on Wednesdays):

Starting stats 6/23/10-

Weight – 199.0
R Bicep – 15
L Bicep – 14.5
Chest – 46.5
Waist – 45
Hips – 47
R Thigh – 27
L Thigh – 27

As of last Wednesday 7/7/10, I have lost 8 pounds and 4.25 total inches. I weigh-in again tomorrow.

Since 6/23, I have gotten a minimum of 40 minutes of activity in every single day, most days at least 60 minutes. 90% of the activity I have been doing is walking. The other 10% is a mixture of jogging, yoga, elliptical machine, spin class, and strength exercises.

Since 6/23, I have drunk a minimum of 64 oz of water every day. I keep a water bottle on my desk at work and I motivate myself to drink it by playing mind games. (ex. “Drink 16 oz before this song is over on the radio”, “Before you can go to the bathroom/eat lunch/take a break, finish whatever is in the water bottle.”)

SparkPeople suggests a calorie range based on information you enter. I have tracked all my food and stayed within my calorie range every day except one (my anniversary dinner). Even when eating out. I don’t deprive myself of any food or any food group, but I am more careful about making decisions about what I really want to spend my calories on.

So, there you have it. I don’t mean for this all to sound smug, but I just wanted to really clarify what I’ve been doing. Unfortunately, there really is no secret formula...

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

4 years ago...

Ok, Ok, that last post was a little cheesy, I’ll admit it. But hey, we all have the right to be proud once in a while.

I came across some old pictures today. Specifically, pictures from my wedding 4 years ago. This Friday is our 4th wedding anniversary. We got married in Mexico. It was beautiful. And I was in the best shape of my life. I remember I weighed in at WW at 155 a couple days before leaving for the wedding. I look at those pictures and my face looks so thin – and I look much younger. I’m really looking forward to being back to that weight again. Here's a picture for your viewing pleasure…you might notice, I actually have a waist!



I took a spinning class for the first time last Friday. It was so much fun – and a great workout. I’m anxious to incorporate it into my regular routine, but the classes are offered at awkward times at the Y. I’ve been hesitating to go to class over my lunch hour because I get so dang sweaty, I’ll definitely need a shower afterward. But, if I don’t go over lunch, then I have to wait until 5:45 in the evening. So, I think I’ll just have to suck it up and plan to shower before coming back to work those days.

Today is the first day of week 3 in the SP challenge. I’m still in it and going strong!

Monday, July 5, 2010

Independence

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a great 4th of July. Mine was pretty nice. Husband and I drove out to Darwin, MN and saw the world's largest ball of twine. It wasn't very exciting. But, we did stop at a couple of wineries on the way, so that part was fun.

I've been totally kicking ass on the SparkPeople challenge. We're almost 2 weeks into it and I'm just so proud of my progress. I'm working out every single day, which is a huge challenge for me, but I'm getting it done. I've also tracked ALL of my food since the start of the challenge, which has been very hard, especially when eating out. It just takes some extra planning. I feel like I'm planning at least an hour a day, but hopefully that will get easier as time goes on.

Losing weight can be done! and I'm doing it!