Chat and accountability 4/7/14

howie6267

Hope you all are doing well. I did great calorie wise over the weekend with the exception of course of my treat day but that is planed too. However I didn't eat healthy even though I stayed within my calories.

Stacy, I know what you mean about the fears you wrote about on last weeks post. I don't know about you but it's really hard to think about what I will do because all my life it's either been a diet or eat whatever I want. I never learned that normal eating pattern where you just eat what you need and stop. I don't think that I have that in me. I imagine I will treat maintenance just like my diet. I will count calories and just find the number that allows me to stay the same.

angelaneale

Hi All! I had a great weekend! I didn't go overboard on alcohol or any crappy subpar food this time. Success! I weighed myself this morning and although my weight stayed the same, my body fat has gone down since last Wednesday, which is better than weight any way (in my book). I hope you all have a great week!

montana_girl

My weekend was pretty good. Did okay with my eating, ate a bit more than planned yesterday but will eat a tad less the next couple of days to even it out for the week.

I didn't get to run yesterday due to a headache, so I'm going to give a try tonight. I say "try" because I've had some knee pain since last Sunday so I have been resting it in hopes the pain would go away. With just 12 days until my next half marathon, I don't have time to be messing around with an injury! So right now my goal is be able to jog at a slow pace so I can at least finish the race. Tonight is the test to see how it goes.

Angela - Good job on the eating this weekend! And the fat loss! Both good things.

Howie - For me, maintenance has been harder than losing weight. Probably because I have lots of experience losing (and gaining) weight, but none at maintaining it. Still learning. Maybe one of these days I will figure out the right mentality and the right quality/quantity of food to stay at maintenance.

montana_girl

Okay, I haven't been sticking to my healthy eating for about 2 days. I'm having myself a little pity-party because of my knee. The run on Monday went okay. Only did 3.1 miles, and had a little pain here and there, but as of yesterday morning its still painful to walk down a flight of stairs... and worse... pain while jogging/running. The half marathon is in 10 days and I'm not sure if I will be able to run any of it.

But after last night's binge (emotional comfort eating), I realized I needed to get back on track. And back here for a well needed kick in the *kitten*!

Did much better today and feeling like I'm in control once again.

But tomorrow is weigh in day and it won't be pretty... but I will face the scale, accept that I'm still learning... and move on.

angelaneale

Hi Stacy - Glad you are getting back to it after having a binge last night. At least you didn't do a full binge day or a whole week. I think you will do great at your weigh in. And who knows, maybe you will weigh less? Especially if you use the principles that you just had a "carb night." Let us know what happened.

I'm not a trainer by any means, but listen to your body. The pain is your knee screaming at you!! Take it easy and don't push it. If you think about it, is completing the 1/2 in a certain amount of time or getting a PR really important enough to cause serious damage to your knee that you will have to deal with for the rest of your life? Maybe do some walking or some running/walking, or even cycling to keep maintain your HR training up to the day of your 1/2 marathon and by then your knee may be feeling much better.

I had my ACL surgery last September and couldn't do ANYTHING at all except for physical therapy for several months. That lack of movement was way worse on my body, my mind, and for my physical fitness than just walking would've been. Long story short, hurting yourself will suck more in the long run than just having a slower finish time than you wanted and/or planned.

howie6267

I hope your weigh in went well today Stacy. I know how depressing the scale can be. I don't think mine tomorrow will be good either. I weigh in daily but only record it once a week. I was up 2 lbs this morning from last Friday, so unless I have a really good water loss day it's not going to be a good week, it may melt off of me today I have had that happen. I had way to much on my treat night and then all though I was within calories for the the rest of the weekend it was not real healthy. So we will see tomorrow.

Keep up with the good work Stacy we can beat this emotional eating crap!

montana_girl

Angela - You may have been on to something... apparently my body did think of my little eating binge as a "carb nite" because I was down 1.2 pounds at weigh in this morning! So excited about that. Just 5.6 more pounds and I will be back to my happy weight! :happy:

And a bit more good news… I noticed as I was going down a flight of stairs this morning, it didn’t cause the pain like it did yesterday. Just little twinges now and then. So my plan between now and the race, is to forgo running until next week (maybe do a short run of a mile or two after work on Tuesday or Wednesday), will stick with the walking, do my stretching DVD once a day, and maybe do the spin bike (low resistance) on Sunday when I normally do my long run. Rest my knee, but keep my legs fresh.

Thanks for all the advice Angela! I figure if my knee feels better after my short run next week than I will just take it easy at the race (not push for a personal record) but if it does hurt, I will consider either walking the whole race (I do the run/walk method for my long races), or just not do it. We do this race every year, so I always have next year to work on a PR. Plus, I need to be in tip-top shape to run the Tough Mudder in June! :laugh:

Howie - Hope your weigh in is as good as mine was! I think the emotional eating is the last big hurdle I need to overcome to finally get my weigh under control, once and for all! But it's going to be an ongoing project since I have more experience with emotional eating than I do at maintaining a healthy weight. :ohwell:

angelaneale

That's great news, Stacy! I'm glad that your knee isn't hurting, plus you lost weight! Woo hoo! What is your usual plan for your walk/run in terms of how many minutes do you run and then how many do you walk? I've done a couple of short runs with a coworker where we've done 3/1 (run/walk). Just wondering how that would be for a half?

Howie - I saw that you lost weight this morning. Freaking awesome!!!

howie6267

Thanks Stacy and Angela, yes I did lose a 1 lb this week. I am happy with that. I tried taking treat night to the limits and can see that will no longer work for me. So I really need to try keeping it to just an extra 1800 calories. I was more like 3000 over last week. I really did not need that much food but I went out for lunch and dinner and it just added up quickly with some high calorie choices. Kimberley maintained because she did the same. I was really hoping she would have lost something too as she really tried hard the rest the week. I feel worse for her than when I gain or don't lose.

montana_girl

Good job, Howie! But I agree, that you may need to eat a bit less on treat nights. I noticed the more weight I lost and the closer I got to goal, I had be more and more exact with my calories. But luckily it was a slow process so it wasn't like I was cutting out a whole lot, all at once. It's always nice when we can splurge occasionally and not see a gain!

Angela - For my half marathons, I do 4:30 run/1 walk (start that once it's not as crowded so I'm not in anyone's way when I do it). That combination seems to work best for those long races. Though when I do my training runs I will do a 3/1 or a 3:45/1, depending on how I'm feeling. I am thinking if my knee is doing okay and I decide to do the race, I will do more of a 2 min run/3 min walk. That should keep me around a 13 min/mile pace (I hope!). So it will take me longer than normal to finish, but I can finish and still feel okay when I'm done.

I think the just walking and stretching once day is helping a lot. But it's going to be hard to not push myself and attempt running sooner than I planned! I was very jealous when my husband went out running this morning... without me...

I've had a green smoothie for breakfast a couple of days this week and I'm amazed how full and satisfied I feel throughout the morning. Not something I want to do every day (let's face it, they taste okay, but not great!), but it's something I'm willing to do two or three times during the week.

angelaneale

I agree on the smooties. Ha ha! I've had two this week and I found that if I use coconut milk they taste much better. Still not great though. If we used all fruit they would be freaking fabulous but I'm afraid it would set me off and make me want sugar for the next few days. I did have a small strawberry smoothie after my 5k last Saturday (through a vendor) and it was delicious! I did one bulletproof coffee this week and two smoothies and just went with black coffee the other days. I was good until about 11 each day even with the black coffees.

montana_girl

I love fruit smoothies, but I think if I had it in the morning it would set me off for sweets during the day. Generally do a small fruit smoothie in the evenings... keeps me from craving ice cream!

85g Plain Greek Yogurt
1/2 c Almond milk
1 cup frozen triple berry mix
1/2 to 1 scoop of Vanilla Whey Protein Powder
1 tsp chia seeds

Very yummy! I keep telling my husband that one serving of that is never enough. LOL But all those ingredients fit in with the SANE eating from the Calorie Myth, so I don't feel bad about having it.

I've been doing pretty good about cutting back on my consumption of grains. I used to have PB & Jelly toast every night (and usually two slices), but now I have a slice, two or three times a week. And my husband is doing better about not adding pasta/rice/etc to our dinners, which helps (he does all the cooking... yes, I'm spoiled!). But he did warn me, he has some recipes that will be including some of that but it's more to get it out of the house than anything else. LOL He's trying to work it in so we only have it 2 or 3 nights a week. So we're slowing changing our eating habits to a more SANE diet. And making these small changes hasn't been as traumatic as I thought it would be