November 14th, 2008 by Cynthia
What did you say? I'm a copy cat?
Guilty. I stole Leigh Peele's One Big Meal theme today, only I did it with leaves. Maple leaves. From our next door neighbor's gorgeous, but highly annoying maple tree. It's just uphill and it rains leaves upon our backyard every fall. Seeds too! (Every spring I pull up a bazillion hopeful seedlings.)
I could have made oodles of smaller piles but I just wanted to get the chore done and get back inside where my nose wouldn't be dripping steadily from the cold! So I banged the job out.
Training: Cardio: Vigorous leaf raking
It took me 30 minutes of fast raking to make the pile.
Training: Resistance: Bag and Drag
The remaining 45 minutes was devoted to putting a trash bag in the garbage can and then filling it full with heavy, somewhat sodden leaves. Once full... I dragged the can down the hill to the driveway and dumped the leaf bag out of the can. And so on and so forth until the pile was gone.
One hour and fifteen minutes.
Average HR = 55%. Max HR = 66%. 468 calories burned.
This couldn't be fat loss related, could it?
I've been listening to some of Leigh's podcasts lately and one thing she emphasizes is that one shouldn't stay in fat loss mode forever. One should focus and get it done. I've been shilly-shallying around all this past year, losing 10 or so pounds only to regain it and lose it again. Not exactly the progress I envisioned last January!
Yet I can lose fat when I focus! This challenge has proved that.
Still, sometimes it takes TIME to get all the marbles in place. Mine are coming together! My eating is healthier, I have fewer cravings for junk or fast food. I'm managing to exercise in spite of foot and other problems. So I'm going to keep my focus on progress.
Enough yo-yo!
I need to bang THIS job out!
November 14th, 2008 by Cynthia
Thursday after my deficit botch.
I did my meal plan first thing and proceeded as normal.
Nutrition
Day 27 Meal Plan
Training: Cardio: Yard work
OK, it's movement, I'm not so sure about it actually being "cardio".
One hour and fifteen minutes of cutting down partially frozen succulents, pulling up dead asian lily stalks, cutting back the irises and rose pruning. And a bit of just plain picking up leaves and other crud.
For fun, I wore my HRM. Average heart rate was 48%. Calories burned: 255
Training: Resistance: Yard Trash Heaving
I'm just feeling silly now! It did take one almighty heave to get my bag o' yard trash up and over into the tall garbage can!
Water
18 cups
November 14th, 2008 by Cynthia
Wednesday... got myself to the gym, enjoyed my exercise, but I was lax on having my meal plan completely in place. Honestly, even if I *HAD* had the plan in place, I suspect the results wouldn't have been any different.
I had to run some errands after the gym and even though I had planned to have a serving of whey protein powder after my workout to tide me over while I went grocery shopping, it just wasn't enough. A better plan might've been to have brought some further low-carb food to the gym with me. Usually, the whey protein works. But that's on my normal calorie deficit of 2000 calories. After a month of mostly 1700 calorie days, it didn't cut it.
I craved anything and EVERYTHING at the grocery store! I salivated at fruit in the produce department. I wanted smoked salmon in the meat department and I eyeballed the yogurt in the dairy department. And naturally, I thought about candy, chips and cookies! Not to mention muffins and donuts in the bakery department! Somehow, I got out of there with only my planned purchases of veggies, green tea, and meats. That was a victory, because I was feeling starved. My head hurt and I could scarcely focus on anything the checker said to me.
So, I got home with my healthy food, but felt like I needed SOMETHING while I fixed an emergency meal (changed for low carb, i.e. no blueberries and another 14g of protein powder). The *something* in question was a small handful of cashews. I fixed my meal, but my head continued to pound and somehow, four more handfuls of cashews found their way to my mouth over the next hour. I could feel that I was about to fall asleep, so I decided to balance all those nut fats with a little protein (milk and protein powder). Then I crashed into bed at 7PM and slept for the next 14 hours!
I must admit, I felt better and more like myself on Thursday. And though I had not measured the cashews, I still did a rough estimate of how many calories I consumed on Wednesday. Approximately 2500.
You can't go back and get a "do-over" when you slip up. You have to work with what you did or didn't do, stay focused on your goals and stay accountable, if only to yourself. So I made Thursday better. I got my meal plan in place first thing. By evening, I realized that I wasn't so bad off as usual and felt I could skip my last planned meal of 300 calories (a smoothie) so I deleted that from my meal plan. That didn't quite even things up, but I do feel like my body needs the calories pretty badly right now. So, I end with a small surplus from my botch instead of large one.
