Whoa! Where'd all this energy come from?

TheRealParisLove

I'm a freakin' Engerizer Bunny these days. I used to have to sleep 9-10 hours a night and then I would have a heck of time getting moving in the morning. I wandered around the house in a fog for about 20 mins after waking up, until the coffee kicked in.

Then I would crash again in the middle of the day. One time literally, I backed my car into another car in the parking lot at work. I was on my way to lunch and I was just so tired I could hardly stand it. :frown:

Preparing meals was hard and time consuming. Exercise was hard, and I failed at getting a workout in more often than not. (darn dog parks with those nice covered shelters and benches makes it too easy to let the dog exercise herself)

My evenings were no better. I would watch too much tv and move too little because that was all I could do. Making dinner was a matter of opening a bag of frozen skillet dinner and waiting the 12 minutes until it was ready. Then I would sit behind my keyboard until it seemed to be a reasonably late enough hour to return to bed. I figured that 9 o'clock was about as early as I could get away with. But sometimes I wanted to go to bed at 6 or 7 in the evening.

This had been going on for about 6 months. My doctor blamed stress and perimenopause. She suggested more exercise and less coffee. As if! Less coffee!?! I'd become completely comatose without my coffee, so how the heck am I supposed to exercise if I cannot even lift my butt off the couch? Yeah, those weren't going to happen until something else changed.

I was tired of being tired. Something had to change because living like that was not really living at all. I had somehow convinced myself that it had to be something about the way I was eating that was the problem. Many quality hours with Google and WebMD and Livestrong.com and Huffpost Healthy Living and Yahoo! News had me convinced that I must have some kind of incurable disease or was clinically depressed (I didn't feel particularly unhappy or blue, just tired). I had convinced myself at one point that I must have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (WebMD is the devil! :devil: Even if you aren't sick, they sure as heck will make you feel like there is definitely something wrong and you need to see your doctor right away).

I have been logging with MFP since May, but I didn't get really consistent until mid July. That information was a real eye opener. I was eating mostly simple carbs, too much sugar and too much sodium. I was only eating about half the fiber recommended by MFP while consistently exceeding my daily calories. Time to roll up the sleeves and get to work on fixing my eating habits!

I got my diet under control and added in a lot of greens. I all but eliminated bread and cereal. I increased my protein intake 5 fold. I also increased my fiber intake to 25-35 grams a day. I've been pretty much on target for three weeks now and have not wanted a nap in at least 10 days.

I'm now naturally waking up at 6:30-7:00am and feeling fine about getting out of bed. Two weeks ago I was able to ride my bike 100 miles in a single week. Today, I practically sprung out of bed, and took the dog for a walk w/o stopping for a cup of coffee first! Then I hit the gym. Then I felt like having breakfast and coffee. WOW! I feel like a teen again! (well except for the 6:30am wake time. No teen likes to get up that early)

So maybe the weight hasn't come off as quickly or as much as I would like, but this new, healthy feeling is totally worth the effort, even if I have to spend the rest of my life this same size.

It is amazing to think about the fact that what we eat can make such a huge difference in such a short period of time. Thank you MFP for showing me the way to feeling this good again.

If you are new to MFP, give yourself a chance to make the changes necessary before feeling discouraged. Be brutally honest with yourself, because if you are not totally honest about what you eat and how much you exercise, you aren't going to reach your goals.

Measure everything! I thought I knew what 1/2 cup looked like. Yeah, my eyes are way bigger than my measuring cups. By, like, double! Who knew how tiny a tablespoon of mayo or peanut butter can look? When I stopped guesstimating and began measuring E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G, that is when I started to see some real results and progress.

And now I'm wide awake, bushy tailed, already worked out and am thinking about going shopping! Squeeeee!

Bailey543

Yep!! That's me!! Same thing. I feel so much better now...get ready for the hatin people to invade..... bahahahaha :laugh:

sunshinesquared

bumping for later reading....

leo02098

I hear ya!! I have also all but eliminated breads and cereals from my diet (the past 2 weeks, not so much...camping w/the fam and I didn't buy the groceries) and I just feel that much better with out them.
Cheers to feeling alive again!

WEB3

That is awesome!
Can I ask how many calories you eat in a day and how many you burn through excercise?

mkcmurphy

Great feeling! Thanks!

TheRealParisLove

That is awesome!
Can I ask how many calories you eat in a day and how many you burn through excercise?

My diary is open if you want to take a look. I'm all over the place depending on the day, but I try to have at least one day that is substantially over on calories, by as much as 30% if I can manage it.