It's all about me

cym, I was just in another diary and I happened to click on your photos link - you absolutely ROCK!!

You're stunningly beautiful AND fit!
Good work :)
 
Lord love you M2M!!!! Guys, I promise I am not as vain/shallow/superficial as I'm sure it appears....but every now and then something will happen (like putting on a pair of shorts) and I can't help but flash back to how I looked and felt before I got myself in check...and it's not so much that I walk around thinking "damn, I look good today"...it's more like a childish delight in having a new toy....only the toy happens to be my body.
 
I need to do the same thing in my closet when I lose some weight! I need to throw out all those things that I cannot wear..hell I should already put out for yard sale all the things that I havne't worn in the last 2-3 years.. hmmm..maybe a weekend plan!

You are such an inspiration and very very helpful! Thank you!
 
You have every right to enjoy that newly worked for toy! You look hot girl and should be in short shorts!!

Go You!!
 
1911

Cals at 1911 - was going for 1800-1900. Amazingly enough I'm actually satisfied for a change with the entire day's choices...sat fat under 20g, happy with balance between type of fats, 9 servings fruits/veggies with good mix between raw/cooked, fiber at 30g and protein at 120g.:D

I think it's safe to say that I've finally got a handle on which daily choices will (and will not) consistently meet my calorie/fat/carb/protein targets. So, being the uber anal kinda chick that I am, I'm now looking closer at at my vitamin intake. Per Fitday I seem to be lagging a bit on K, D, folate, iron and calcium. The folate and iron are pretty easy fixes, need to bump up the dark green leafies a bit, not sure about the K and going to do way more reading on the calcium and D cause not too sure I agree I need those particular RDA's.

liquids
coffee, 16 oz
water, 80 oz

fruits
cantaloupe, 2 1/8 wedges
raisin/cranberry, .05 oz
banana, 1 medium
applesauce, natural, 1/3 cup
pineapple, canned, unsweetened, 1/4 cup

veggies
cabbage, napa, cooked, 1 cup
carrots, shredded, 1/2 cup
butternut squash, mashed, 1 cup
tomato, 1 med wedge

dairy
yogurt, plain, ff, 1/2 cup
cottage cheese, ff, 1/4 cup
cream cheese, 1 oz

meat
pork shoulder cutlet, lean only, 5.5 oz
anchovy, 1 fillet
chicken: 1/2 small breast, 1 small drumstick, 1 small thigh, skinless
egg white, 1 whole

grain/nuts/seeds/legumes
whole grain flour, 1/4 cup
almonds/walnuts, 1 oz combined
flax seeds, 1 tablespoon
whole wheat egg roll wrappers, 3
rye flatbread, 5 crackers

otherolive oil, 1 tablespoon
pudding, sf/ff, 1 1/2 serving

Total: 1911
Fat: 69 617 34%
Sat: 19 175 9%
Poly: 14 130 7%
Mono: 28 256 14%
Carbs: 215 742 40%
Fiber: 30 0 0%
Protein: 120 480 26%
Alcohol: 0 0 0%
 
Wow, has the picture link always been down there? Thanks for bringing it to my attention Deb.

Cym, you look fantastic. Really fantastic!
 
Ty Steve! At some point in the next few weeks I'm going to pick your brain on "resetting" hormone levels - at the moment I'm still reading and reasearching and (trying to) processing, so I'm not even at the point where I can formulate an articluate question though:)
 
cym said:
Ty Steve! At some point in the next few weeks I'm going to pick your brain on "resetting" hormone levels - at the moment I'm still reading and reasearching and (trying to) processing, so I'm not even at the point where I can formulate an articluate question though:)
Click to expand...

You know where to find me. Are you hitting a plateau?
 
No, I'm actually slowly working my way back up to maint. cals cause I don't want to reduce any further in bodyfat% until I figure a few things out.

In a nutshell what happened was life was rolling along pretty good, I was maintaining (purposely) at 127 and 2100 cals a day for about 3 months. Then I decided that (I don't know why) I want the female version of "ripped abs" and that little layer of fat that prevented this must go...(about the same time I took the gym pic)...so long story short I came off maint. cals, made changes in work-out, yada yada and lost a pound, a couple of inches and a little bodyfat....BUT....within a week of dropping my calories I started getting crazy hungry (and I mean my belly could be physically full but my brain was going "FOOD...MORE FOOD"...and by the end of the six weeks, even on my days of eating at maint. cals, I was in full "food seeking behavior" mode...by coincidence around the same time I read some stuff on fat related hormones, made me go "hmm" and I've been working my way back up to maint. cals since. The thing is, once I increased my cals back up 1700 avg. a day my body went back to just being hungry around the same times I always eat and hunger shutting off between times. As you can see by the rambling nature of this (LOL) I haven't figured out exactly what my question is...but I know there's something going on related to my current bodyfat%, the amount of bodyfat I've lost, my body's reaction to losing any more at this point in time, and...
 
When you are sitting at an already lean state, relatively speaking, the adaptive responses to dieting can be very fast and strong. Once the hormonal shifts take place, pretty much all fo them are signalling for hunger to kick in.

For this reason, straight deficits when already lean (again, relatively speaking) are not always the best option.
 
Steve said:
Once the hormonal shifts take place, pretty much all fo them are signalling for hunger to kick in..
Click to expand...

yea, I figured that out one night when I sat down to dinner, a FULL plate in front of me and my first thought was "hmmm, what am I going to eat next?":eek:
 
cym said:
yea, I figured that out one night when I sat down to dinner, a FULL plate in front of me and my first thought was "hmmm, what am I going to eat next?":eek:
Click to expand...

So you are working your way back toward maintenance now. You are doing the right thing.
 
1873

Cals in line at 1873, my "big three" all on target with sat fat under 20g, poly and mono at 17g and 32g; fiber on bottom of lower limit at 25g and protein on mark for calories at 128g. Checked my vitty levels for the day, week, 2 weeks and month. I was wrong yesterday. On a consistent, overall level hitting everything except D, folate, and calcium. Folate is only slightly off but calcium & D are pretty much always at around 50% of what I supposedly need. I don't have time today, or tomorrow, but on Sunday I do need to look closer at this.

Tonight is friend's b'day party...she's from the Phillipines which means lots and lots of yummy food that I can't pronounce and therefore probably shouldn't eat:D ....followed by going to a club where there will be drinks which I can pronounce -Cosmos! - and probably shouldn't drink. But, my alcohol consumption for the last month has been a whopping 0 - and food wise I've been a very, very good girl. Sooooo, game plan is to go to full maint. cals today, spreading 1000 cals out over the day getting in my fiber and protein, then having 1100 cals left to enjoy without remorse on party food and alcohol.

This morning I was doing my laps, figuring out how I was going to fit tonight's activities (food and drink baby!) into my eating plan and I had this thought. In my entire life I have never known a single person who has lost more than 15 or 20 (and that's pushing it) pounds and kept it off. Not even one. And, all other factors aside (hormonal, emotional, yada, yada) I'm just starting to see why. This is not only a pain in the ass - there's no finish line.

I'm probably not as OCD about food as I appear, it doesn't rule my life, but I do admit to spending the first part of every morning thinking about what my day is going to entail and roughly planning out my food accordingly. And I'm going to have to do that for the rest of my life. Despite the fact that every single person I know keeps insisting that because I've lost weight and exercise daily I can now just eat what/when/how much I want to. Every single day I have to ignore those voices (including my own inner one) and give myself a reality check. I am NOT a "naturally thin" person, I am a person who gains weight easily, loses it with difficulty and now have millions of empty fat cells that want nothing more than to be refilled.

I guess I'm having a Zen kinda day though, cause I'm sitting here, munching my apple, recording my food intake and thinking "that's okay, I can live with it":cool:

liquids
green tea, 11 oz
coffee, 16 oz
water, 60 oz

fruits
strawberries, 6 med/large
apple, 1 medium
raisins/cranberries, .05 oz combined

veggies
onion purple, 1/4 cup
tomato, 1 large wedge
sweet potato, 1 medium
broccoli/snow peas/sprouts, 1 cup combined

dairy
mozz. cheese, 1.2 oz
cottage cheese, ff, 1/4 cup

meat
beefsteak, lean, 5oz
scallops, sea, 1 /14 cup
gumbo, 4 oz
chicken, 1 small thigh, skinless

nuts/gains/seeeds/legumes
walnuts/almonds, 1 oz combined
rye flatbread, 4 crackers
saltines, 2 crackers
whole wheat egg roll wrappers, 3
cornbread muffin, 1/2 muffin

other
olive oil, 1 tablespoon


Total: 1873
Fat: 75 673 38%
Sat: 19 167 9%
Poly: 17 152 9%
Mono: 32 288 16%
Carbs: 176 603 34%
Fiber: 25 0 0%
Protein: 128 510 29%
Alcohol: 0 0 0%
 
If it means anything, I AM a naturally thin person and everyday I am locked into eating how I eat if I want to maintain the physique I have. I dropped the idea a long time ago that I HAVE to do this.

I love feeling the way I do. I love looking the way I do. I love the idea that I am only improving the quality and longevity of my life. I feel so accomplished.

All of this, makes my eating habits more than worth it. Therefore, I don't feel trapped. I feel privileged that I can step up to the plate and actually perform. Most choose not to. And they pay the price.

This is a lifestyle that I, personally, have learned to love.

Best to you Cym!
 
Cym, I totally get where you're coming from. The closer I get to my goals the more I realize that there is no "finish line"---it's always going to take hard work to keep myself at a healthy weight. Best of luck to you.
 
PS---If you're looking for more calcium, vanilla soymilk provides 30% of the RDA in 1 cup and it has only 60 cals. Not sure how you feel about soy products but I just thought I'd throw that out there.
 
Steve: I hope (and expect) that the day will come when, in the next decade or two :) ) I can honestly say I feel the same way every single day. Not quite there yet though.

There's a kinda trap that I think a lot of us fall into post major weight loss (at least I know I have in the past). Part of it is simple lack of knowledge about how our bodies operate on a basic level....i.e. people thinking they've "turned fat into muscle". Part of it is hearing a dozen times a day that eating/not eating in a certain way is magically ok now "because you're not fat anymore". Part of it is that old habits die hard and new ones take a really long time to firmly establish (I mean we're talking about literally establishing new neural pathways). And there's a dozen other parts that I'm still learning as I go along. The idea I have to keep in mind is (to paraphrase Lyle McD) "the biology of a 'dieted down' individual is different than that of a naturally lean individual"...not better, not worse, just different. Not acknowledging that difference to myself has just kept me yo-yo'ing rather than maintaining.

Some days it's easy...and I'm all about being healthy and feeling as disgustingly positive as Mary Sunshine. Some days it's a pain in the ass. I freely admit to having at least one day a month when I really just want to veg out, remote in one hand, 2lb bag of ranch flavored doritos in the other. I've had years and years of doing it and my brain and body still remember why that lifestyle had it's own particular appeal.

I just have to "keep it real" with myself to avoid falling back into the trap. My reality check for the day (and I guess it does sound somewhat negative even though I'm really in a great mood) is simply that all health/appearance benefits aside, my chosen lifestyle can sometimes be a great big fat annoying pain in the ass.:D

Casey: I'm still on the fence about soy...been sitting there for nearly a year...just too much conflicting info from sources I trust...I figured once I got everything else in line I'd revisit it...gettin' there, slowly. I'm just really not sure at all about the calcium/vit. D though. I think there's something I'm missing, vauge memories of reading stuff (when I wasn't interested enough at the time to attend to) that contradicted the RDA.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top