Haven't updated in a while because I've been on vacation. I'm proud to report that despite a few poor food choices while on my trip I've managed to continue losing weight (yeay.) I haven't done a lick of exercise beyond walking around amusement parks but that counts.
This morning my weight was 164.6 pounds. Woohoo. While that's still wayyyyy too much, I'm on track to my goal of 150lbs by Nov 20 (when I'll be a bridesmaid and ~a quarter of the way to my own TBD wedding date.) By Sept 1 I should be at 160 to confirm I'm on track.
I also just got Invisalign braces which will help in my journey of weight loss. Invisalign are basically clear plastic trays that live on your teeth for over a year. You can take them out to eat but you have to go through a very through brushing process each time you do - so basically it is a pain in the ass to eat anything, especially snacks in between major meals. That's a good thing (and one of the reasons I decided to splurge on Invisalign in addition to fixing my crooked teeth.)
I can't wait to get back down to 150. That's when I really need to start kicking my own ass. By Jan 1, 2016 I should be 143lbs and by next summer 130. Next summer I hire a personal trainer to get me to a toned 120.
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Friday, July 18, 2014
Weight Loss Update Week Two
The progress overall has been good, as the first lbs are always the easiest to shed. I haven't been doing a ton of exercise but that's ok because I like to start more dramatic exercise changes once the easy weight comes off, it's a good way to shake up that plateau.
Overall, my progress will not be exciting to me until I break past the plateau I was at last year at 155lbs. If I stick with this diet I know I'll get back there and need to push myself to get down to my first major goal weight of 140lbs. I'm not even thinking about 120 or 110 right now because that goal is too far away to be realistic at the moment. I'll make that a goal when the time is right. In the meantime, I've got 140 on my mind. Well, 150 for the first major cardio regime, then at 140 it's time for a personal trainer until I've reached 110-120.
In the last 30 days I've gone from ~172 to ~168, give or take. So that's the 1lb per week I've wanted to lose. Slow and steady wins the race! However this chart which shows where I had got to the last "get healthy" go round is a bit disheartening, as I still have a long way to go to get back to that weight:
The good thing about my Withings Wifi Scale is that I can easily see the progress now that I weigh myself daily. It's definitely interesting to see how much my weight fluctuates. Also if I get down to goal weight I want to continue daily weigh ins so I don't let this happen again... like when I was at 120lbs and thought I could just start eating taco bell for lunch every day with a small coke. I'm so pissed at myself for botching my weight loss in my early 20s but I get another chance in my early 30s. This is going to happen no matter what.
For the next two weeks I'm on vacation which is a major challenge for remaining healthy. Luckily my boyfriend is also focused on getting healthy and helping me be healthy, so it shouldn't be too bad. We just need to refrain from ordering dessert when we're out (a challenge for both of us!)
... I went to the mall today to try on dresses for a wedding I'm attending next week. I felt so awful looking at myself in the mirror in these size 12 dresses. I didn't end up buying anything (which is probably for the better, I own enough dresses that quasi fit, I don't need another) but ultimately after trying on a good 30 dresses I just felt so down about myself. I wondered if I'd even look decent once I lost the weight... even though I still look rather young I don't really like my face. I guess it was ok back when I was 120lbs and it thinned out a bit, so I'm trying to remain optimistic. Right now I can't stand looking at myself. I know I'm being immature to be so obsessed with my looks but I grew up in a family where looks mattered a lot so I'm just embarrassed by how I look. Not one dress fit right.
Oh well, I have to reward myself for making progress and forget where I was previously because I had to start from scratch (180lbs) so being down to 168 is an accomplishment, even though there is a ways to go. I'll get to 155 if I can stick to this for 13 more weeks. So by October 17 I should be at 155... where I started last year (GAH.) Then I have one year until I get married to really kick my ass. Maybe I'll take up crossfit or something. I want to look and feel my best at my wedding so whatever it takes, no matter how much I hate it, it is going to happen. Otherwise wedding dress shopping is just going to suck the soul out of anyone who tries to help me. :)
Overall, my progress will not be exciting to me until I break past the plateau I was at last year at 155lbs. If I stick with this diet I know I'll get back there and need to push myself to get down to my first major goal weight of 140lbs. I'm not even thinking about 120 or 110 right now because that goal is too far away to be realistic at the moment. I'll make that a goal when the time is right. In the meantime, I've got 140 on my mind. Well, 150 for the first major cardio regime, then at 140 it's time for a personal trainer until I've reached 110-120.
In the last 30 days I've gone from ~172 to ~168, give or take. So that's the 1lb per week I've wanted to lose. Slow and steady wins the race! However this chart which shows where I had got to the last "get healthy" go round is a bit disheartening, as I still have a long way to go to get back to that weight:
The good thing about my Withings Wifi Scale is that I can easily see the progress now that I weigh myself daily. It's definitely interesting to see how much my weight fluctuates. Also if I get down to goal weight I want to continue daily weigh ins so I don't let this happen again... like when I was at 120lbs and thought I could just start eating taco bell for lunch every day with a small coke. I'm so pissed at myself for botching my weight loss in my early 20s but I get another chance in my early 30s. This is going to happen no matter what.
For the next two weeks I'm on vacation which is a major challenge for remaining healthy. Luckily my boyfriend is also focused on getting healthy and helping me be healthy, so it shouldn't be too bad. We just need to refrain from ordering dessert when we're out (a challenge for both of us!)
... I went to the mall today to try on dresses for a wedding I'm attending next week. I felt so awful looking at myself in the mirror in these size 12 dresses. I didn't end up buying anything (which is probably for the better, I own enough dresses that quasi fit, I don't need another) but ultimately after trying on a good 30 dresses I just felt so down about myself. I wondered if I'd even look decent once I lost the weight... even though I still look rather young I don't really like my face. I guess it was ok back when I was 120lbs and it thinned out a bit, so I'm trying to remain optimistic. Right now I can't stand looking at myself. I know I'm being immature to be so obsessed with my looks but I grew up in a family where looks mattered a lot so I'm just embarrassed by how I look. Not one dress fit right.
Oh well, I have to reward myself for making progress and forget where I was previously because I had to start from scratch (180lbs) so being down to 168 is an accomplishment, even though there is a ways to go. I'll get to 155 if I can stick to this for 13 more weeks. So by October 17 I should be at 155... where I started last year (GAH.) Then I have one year until I get married to really kick my ass. Maybe I'll take up crossfit or something. I want to look and feel my best at my wedding so whatever it takes, no matter how much I hate it, it is going to happen. Otherwise wedding dress shopping is just going to suck the soul out of anyone who tries to help me. :)
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Cupcakes & Bakasanas
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Anyone who is overweight and tells you they don't have a problem with binge eating is probably lying or in denial. Yes, there are medical issues that can cause weight gain and a tendency to eat poorly or not process food correctly, but most anyone who is over normal weight is dealing with psychological issues as well. Or maybe they're just "too busy" to eat healthy and exercise. Regardless, just as being too thin is generally a sign of malnutrition in most too-thin people, obesity is a sign of eating too much.
Today was a bad day for me. I'm admitting it because I promised myself I'm going to document this process for better or worse. The funny thing is that while today was "bad" I would have been a lot worse had I not thought to myself how I'm going to have to embarrassingly admit to what I ate later. It could have been a lot, lot worse.
Skipping Breakfast and Lunch is a Bad Idea
Duh.
Sometimes when I wake up I'm just not hungry. The longer I wait to eat, the less hungry I get. Then I don't want to drink water either. I didn't eat or drink a single thing until 2:30pm today. That was major mistake #1.
Then at the office to celebrate a coworker there were cupcakes and champagne at 2:30pm. While I had planned on a late lunch (there were sandwiches and small salads available at the office) this was a surprise. I wasn't planning on eating anything sugary today or having any alcohol, but here I was, presented with temptation. In short, I have no will power. I'm trying to fix that.
Two full boxes of beautiful, tantalizing Sprinkles cupcakes sat before a rather small group of employees not on vacation this week. Not only were there cupcakes, but there were cupcakes in all sorts of exciting flavors -- sea salt and chocolate, s'mores, red velvet cake, carmel coconut chocolate, vanilla with a mile-high pile of sweet chocolate frosting, vanilla with sprinkles, vanilla without sprinkles, carrot cake, java chocolate, and more. I wasn't craving cupcakes or sugar at the time. But I hadn't eaten anything all day. And regardless there they were. Sitting there. I had to just - try - one.
The flavors weren't all that exciting, actually. But I rationalized that I had 0 calories so far and the glass of champagne was tiny (prob 2oz) AND I was probably going to yoga in the evening. What harm could a half cupcake do?
As I eyed the cupcakes attempting to convince myself not to eat them, another coworker went for the vanilla cake chocolate icing one -- not particularly unique but my favorite traditional combo. She stated clearly she wanted half of it, and I took the other half.
It took less than 10 seconds to eat the half of the cupcake, even though I did it in about four bites. As I haven't been eating much sugar at all and I hadn't eaten anything for the day, the sugar rush hit me immediately, and made me feel sick in my stomach. I then looked up the calories online and found out this tiny half cupcake was 240 calories and 31 grams of carbs.
Ok, so a half cupcake isn't the worst thing in the world. But this set off a series of unfortunate food events throughout the day. No longer did I want healthy food. All I wanted was carbs. Carbs. Carbs. And more carbs.
Shortly after the half cupcake, I decided I should eat some real food. One of the sandwiches brought in from lunch was chicken salad - which turned out to be mostly chunks of chicken on a large, white sourdough buns. I don't even LIKE white bread but I was so carb crazy that my plan of eating only the chicken was foiled. I ate the ~6oz of chicklen first and started to pick at the rolls. Carrrrrrrrrrrrrbs. Refined sugarrrrrrrrs. A few minutes later I gave in and ate half of the roll (it was a big sandwich so it's pretty much one full roll.) So much for will power. So much for half a cupcake.
It gets worse. I'm still hungry. Or thirsty as I only had one glass of water for the day. But I don't feel like drinking. I'm being productive and getting a lot of work done. The end of the day nears and about 12 cupcakes are still sitting out on the table. Most everyone has gone home for the day. There have been cases like this in the past where I would have eaten three or four cupcakes quickly (ahem this is why I'm fat.) I wasn't going to do that today. Or was I?
I had one more glass of water and tried to stop myself. I apparently didn't try hard enough.
Eying the cupcakes and craving carbs, I stood over them for a good two minutes deciding what to do. I should have walked away. But what does the carrot cake taste like? That can't be THAT unhealthy... it has carrots in it, right? I don't like the frosting. I'll take off the frosting and just eat the cake. I'll eat half of the cake. I'll throw the rest away.
So I ate half the carrot cake cupcake and the frosting that I didn't actually like. I felt sick again.
The Redemption
Maybe knowing I was going to an hour-and-a-half hot yoga class nudged my brain into thinking it was ok to be a little bad today, even though I knew it wasn't. But when I drove to my 7 o'clock yoga class, I was angry at myself, and knew I'd have to push myself to make up for all the crap I ate. I started fantasizing about going for a half-hour run after yoga to burn off more calories. Maybe I'll run and then bike. And then swim. I'll burn off ALL the sugar. I won't eat any more sugar forever again.
Just don't put cupcakes in front of me without a taser to keep me away.
Yoga was challenging as always. Since yoga relies a lot on supporting your own weight when you're heavier and have not that much muscle it's extra hard. But there's also something about it that feels good. The teacher at the studio on Tuesday evenings is really good about balancing out our muscle use, so if we do something one way we'll do it the other. It brings me back into my body so I can approach the next 24 hours in a healthy way again.
Tonight, Dan and I are making low-carb, low-cal bison burgers without the bun (4oz).
At the end of the day I will have eaten about 1200 calories, most of them refined carbs (not deducting any for yoga class.) So I didn't completely mess up my diet, but it just wasn't good. I know I need to eat breakfast... to get up early and start the day right. That all starts with going to sleep early. Sleep is the only thing I can really focus on to help make myself healthier, so I'll start with that.
Monday, July 14, 2014
Daily Food Rating: A-
Today, I'm giving myself an A- in terms of my diet. Here's why:
Breakfast: D
1 ate one tic tac for breakfast. I consider that only incrementally better than eating a box of oreos for breakfast.
Lunch: A+
Ate one piece of chicken with a light sauce on it, about a quarter cup of rice pilaf and a cup of fresh salad with a small amount of balsamic dressing. A+ for not eating a roll even though they sat next to me all day and every time I walked by them I had to stop myself from eating ALL THE BREAD.
Snacks: B
The snacks were ok throughout the day. When I got hungry I ate a few almonds and pistachios and some light swiss. Then I grabbed a handful of trail mix with m&ms and raisins at 6pm because I was very hungry and was craving carbs. That handful of trail mix was about 240 calories give or take, but at least it had 8 grams of protein. Not terrible, but not great. I need to plan better for that 6pm snack spot.
Dinner: A+
Cooked my specialty paleo turkey burgers with quac and salsa on cauliflower buns for my boyfriend and his parents. Added some stovetop zucchini for a delicious healthy side. Dinner was about 547 calories which - given my daily intake is supposed to be 1200-1300 - isn't great, but it was quite filling and didn't leave me wanting desert afterwards. If I wanted to cut more calories out I could have not had the zucchini with a tbsp of olive oil (119 calories in one tbsp of olive oil!)
Liquids: B-
Drank 3 glasses of water and 2 glasses of tea during the day then 1 with dinner. I'm supposed to drink 10-12 glasses so... I got about half of the way there. Better than my typical 0 but still not good!
TOTAL CALORIES: ~1402 (over by 82)
Liquids: B-
Drank 3 glasses of water and 2 glasses of tea during the day then 1 with dinner. I'm supposed to drink 10-12 glasses so... I got about half of the way there. Better than my typical 0 but still not good!
TOTAL CALORIES: ~1402 (over by 82)
Over Critical or Fairly Judgmental of My Obesity?
I've spent my entire life critical about my figure, so it's not surprising that when I am actually overweight I tend to obsess over it. That's good in a sense because it kicks me into action. However, I'm embarrassed by what I look like today. Luckily my boyfriend still loves me, but I'd like to one day feel really good about how I look. My 30s seems like the right time to accomplish this. These are my problem areas that I want to work on as I lose weight:
Me @ ~170lbs July 2014
Clearly I'm a lot thinner here - but you can see that I still have lots of fat. Wearing a size 8 jeans also isn't what I would consider "skinny" so I was still far from what my likely health weight is. I was exercising by riding a bike to and from work 5 times a week and I wasn't eating that much at the time, so that's why I lost a lot of weight in three months without paying attention. It's the only time in my life this happened. I had a good 15 minutes of intense cardio everyday for a month pushing my heavy bike up a giant hill in Berkeley. The outside of my thighs were rocks. But still, I wasn't thin. That's not my natural body type. I'm going to have to fight really hard to get there. If I lose weight in a healthy, stable way, I'm hoping I can make it.
Why? To be healthy. And to be able to rock a bikini on my honeymoon. To have flat abs before I one day have children. Mostly superficial reasons. But it's good to have goals. I want to do this in a healthy way. That's why I'm here. To hold myself accountable for not slipping. To fit those jeans again! To feel more energetic and stay young as I age. That's why I am here.
Me @ ~170lbs July 2014
The problem is that even when I weigh less I still have a lot of fat. I won't be happy until I am on the lower end of my healthy weight range - with muscle. What's weird is when I tell others that I need to lose 40lbs-50lbs to be healthy and they look at me with horror in their eyes, like I have some sort of disorder. I have to explain to them that I'm 5'3 and being 115 - 120 pounds is actually healthy for me. I mean, I was shopping this weekend in the L/XL section of a sale rack and a woman literally said to me "you must be shopping for a friend, you are a medium aren't you?" While that's nice, the reality is that I'm on the large side, size 12/14 at the moment. The dress above is an XL. Compare that to 8 years ago when I had lost a ton of weight...
Me @ ~120lbs circa 2006
Why? To be healthy. And to be able to rock a bikini on my honeymoon. To have flat abs before I one day have children. Mostly superficial reasons. But it's good to have goals. I want to do this in a healthy way. That's why I'm here. To hold myself accountable for not slipping. To fit those jeans again! To feel more energetic and stay young as I age. That's why I am here.
This is what Weight Loss Looks Like
It's hard not to be discouraged when seeing charts like this of the last 30 days. But then I remind myself that my goal is to lose an average of 1lb per week and I see I am still meeting my goals. The weight fluctuations is interesting to watch as well, which enables me to not give up when I step on the scale and I'm up 4lbs over the previous day.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
My 10 Keys to Healthiness
Getting healthy doesn't have to be rocket science -- at least not until you're ready to fine tune your results. That's why I'm focused on a 1lb per week weight loss plan until I lose 40lbs and am ready to lose my last 20. When I hit 140 I will reward myself with a personal trainer! For now, I'm focused on long-term, healthy, sustainable weight loss vs yo-yo dieting. I'm not a nutritionist so take my advice with a grain of sodium. Actually, this isn't advice at all - it's just what I'm doing and what I want to remind myself of everyday!
Also - there are SO MANY fad diets out there and while I'm no expert, it's pretty clear that fad diets are often unhealthy over the long term. I mean, our bodies haven't changed much in thousands of years, so why are we constantly inventing new diets? (So healthy living "experts" can sell you more stuff while you keep getting fatter and fatter (see Wikipedia's list of diets here and cringe a bit.) Many of these diets do offer something to learn about healthy living but following them verbatim is a recipe for disaster, with the exception of the rules below.
(I Should Call My Diet the ANTI FAD DIET... or the ANTI JUICE CLEANSE)
Adena's 10 Guiding Principles to a Healthy Life
Feel Strong. Feel Satisfied. Feel Fueled. Feel Hydrated. Feel Awake. Feel Alive. Feel Connected. Feel Level. Feel Love. Feel Balanced.
1. Build Strength (Feel Strong)
For $99/month (at my introductory rate now of $30/mo) I have membership to unlimited hot yoga classes. If I go as much as I should that comes down to $8 per class, which isn't bad if I consistently attend classes (and as I'm attending with a friend this makes it much more likely I'll do that.) Yoga is a great practice for building strength over time. My plan for the first six months of this journey is to attend yoga 3x per week minimum for 60-90 minutes per class. (*this week I did not go and I'm ashamed of this but next week I'm back on the yogawagon.) After six months and gaining strength I will introduce additional weight lifting to my routine.
And while it sucks to fall on my face frequently in class when everyone else is floating majestically through their sweaty asanas, at the end of the class I feel amazing. The best part is feeling each individual muscle that you worked out and remembering - yup - that's the move that did it. Don't push yourself too hard though. You'll find me rockin' child's pose during a good 15% of the class.
Did you know? Muscle tissue burns seven to 10 calories daily per pound. Fat burns just two to three calories daily per pound. So replacing a pound of fat with a pound of muscle helps you burn an additional four to six more calories each day (source).
2. No Added Sugar (Feel Satisfied)
Sugar isn't poison, added, refined sugar is. You know, not the sugars in your fruits and veggies, but processed, added sugar that has made us Americans fat. I was walking around the mall yesterday and saw a young child who was obese, and it made me so sad. It seems ridiculous to me that excess sugar is legal to be fed to children yet it is really child abuse (when I grew up I was fed a high-sugar diet, but this is before it seems the medical community knew better with their promotion of low-fat BS.) While it's possible this child has a medical condition causing her to gain weight, looking at her mother it was more likely that she was just being fed a diet of too much food and too much sugar.
Even so, for a long time I thought that "everything in moderation" was the right way to diet. But you know what happens when you eat sugar? Basically, fructose impedes the body's ability to use leptin which is "the satiation hormone" that tells us we're full. So we keep eating. And eating. And eating. For people who don't eat a lot of sugar and are not insulin resistant (pre-diabetic) - which many of us are (esp those of us with PCOS) - they don't understand this addiction. What is most amazing though is how easy it is to break out of this cycle of addition. But it requires you to go cold turkey. Today. Right now. No more candy bar for lunch because you forgot to bring food to the office. No more fast food dinners. No more ordering desserts when out to eat. It's an addiction. You eat sugar and your body throws out insulin that takes glucose out of your bloodstream, causing you to crave MORE SUGAR (here is an awesome write-up on what happens after you eat sugar, yikes.) And high sugar consumption causes (or at least contributed to getting) Diabetes over the long run (source).
When you eat a lot of sugar (even if you don't eat snickers bars for meal replacements chances are you're eating wayyy too much sugar in everything from ketchup to beer to bread (even whole wheat breads) to low-fat dressing) it's REALLY HARD to quit because of the cravings. To stop you must not only quit cold turkey but also have a plan in place for what to eat at all times and how to get a reasonable amount of healthy carbs so your body stays energized (see #3.)
ps: limit alcohol consumption to wine and make sure to count it towards your carbs. Try to exercise before a night out to balance for a glass or two of wine if needed.
Did you know? Sugar is EIGHT TIMES more addictive than cocaine, and Americans are consuming 152 pounds of sugar a year, most in processed foods and sweetened drinks (source).
3. Carb Your Exercise (Feel Fueled)
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While you shouldn't eat added sugar, carbs are not the enemy. They serve an important purpose - to provide energy. There are different types of carbs and they are not all created equal. High protein low carbohydrate diets (everything from Atkins to moderate fat, low carb ketogenic diets) tell you reduce your carb intake to almost 0. This indeed is a recipe for weight loss, but it's NOT SUSTAINABLE. I definitely recommend trying a ketogenic diet out with the help of a medically supervised clinic (like JumpstartMD if you're in The Bay Area) as it's very interesting to learn how your body feels without sugar on such a strict diet, and you will lose weight which will be motivating on its own. However, it's not a long-term solution. It's more an experiment to learn how your body reacts when you remove most carbs from your diet.
However, for the long term, we need carbs. We don't need as many as dietary guidelines tell you and we don't need as little as crazy ketogenic diets tell you. Ultimately you need as many carbs as it takes for your body to feel fueled. If you do under 30 grams a day (12-15 grams on crazytown Atkins) after a few days your body will go into ketosis and your body will burn fat instead of carbs (woohoo). BUT it's very difficult to maintain this over the long term and it's not healthy if you're working out at all. I strive for a moderate 50-100 grams per day, with 50 on the days I don't exercise and 100 on the days I do for at least 30 minutes.
Make sure along with your carbs you're getting FIBER. That means no fruit juices but instead whole fruit (ideally with skin on.) If you're doing serious body building i.e. CrossFit then you're going to need a lot more carbs and things like oats, bran muffins and sweet potatoes are ok, however for the rest of us I'd steer clear of any starchy veggies with the exception of a small side dish once or twice a week.
One trick I've learned is to eat half servings of carbs. I.e. Quinoa is a great carb but one serving of it is 20 grams of carbs (over 33% of my daily intake.) If I have 50% of that then that's just 10 grams of carbs and I still get the "feel full" effect from the balanced grain. You should (and I plan to) play around with cutting different foods from your diet to figure out how your body reacts to them. Hardcore Paleo folks would say that Quinoa is not paleo and it also can cause "leaky gut" (ew) so it's worth experimenting with and without it in your diet.
[[Leaky Gut is a very fascinating topic regarding health that I plan to cover in another article soon, but here's a good place to start if you're interested in the arguments why grains and dairy can contribute to long-term health problems to make a decision for yourself. Apparently dairy is designed to create leaky gut but it's not actually good for us as adults. More on leaky gut at another time, kids.)
Did you know? Having one banana a day won't kill you but it definitely packs on the carbs, so try to pick small bananas (a small banana has 23 grams of carbs while a large banana has 31. That's a difference of 8 carbs which is a lot if you're trying to eat under 50-70 a day, and you will still get your 'nana fix regardless of size.)
4. Drink ENOUGH Glasses of Water a Day (Feel Hydrated)
Hey, I agree with the experts. Drinking water is a must and something I AM TERRIBLE AT DOING. If I exercise I can chug back a gallon of ice cold water no problem. However, not all water is created equal (oh shit.) But before we get into that, let's just be clear that drinking water is sooooo important to getting healthy. I've lived a life of chronic dehydration which has severely impeded my focus, mood, and life. (Yes, not drinking enough water can mimic depression symptoms.)
Yes, let's all agree that we need to drink lots of water to be healthy (here's why.)
How much water do you need per day? I figured the whole 8 glasses a day thing was totes wrong given we're all different sizes and stuff, so I did a little investigation. This useful chart and formula tells you exactly how much water you really need. Basically multiply your weight by 2/3. This is how much you should drink if you sit on your ass all day. For every 30 minutes of working out you should add 12 oz of water. So assuming I'm being lazy at 170lbs I need 113 ounces per day of water. That's 14 glasses of water a day without exercise! This chart says instead of 2/3 you should drink 1/2 your body weight in water per day. That's still 85 oz per day. So for a woman who weighs 170lbs, I should be drinking 10 to 14 glasses of water per day (when I'm normally drinking 0-2, so here's a big area of improvement I'll be working towards!) It turns out the daunting 8 glasses a day isn't even enough water.
The biggest problem with drinking a healthy amount of water is how much -- uh -- disruption is causes your normal daily life (oh but this TMI is helpful for those of us chronically dehydrated.) But it's SO IMPORTANT to be healthy. Even though the whole 'drink eight glasses of water per day' research was funded by (you guessed it) water bottle companies (oy gavult) water is still a man's best friend.
Is there anything else we need to know about water? There's a bunch of research out there on types of water (tap, filtered, bottled, et al) and even whether it's healthy to drink water ice cold or at room temperature (the jury's still out on that one, though my acupuncturist is adamantly against cold liquids at all because they're supposedly bad for digestion. But other research has disproven that.)
Did you know? The 8 glasses rule likely originated from a misinterpretation of an outdated recommendation from 1945 when the Food and Nutrition Board suggested that a person consume one millimeter of water per each calorie of food consumed (with an average diet of 1900 calories per day then you'd need 1900 ml, approx 64 hours, based on this model. But it didn't take into consideration the water content in other liquids and food we consume (source).
5. Get Eight Hours of Sleep (Feel Awake)
So I'm a bit of an insomniac. While some people can thrive on as little as five hours of sleep, I definitely need my full eight, to the minute. It's really remarkable how if I fall asleep at 11pm (on a good day) my eyes will fling open at 7 on the dot. The problem is most days I don't get eight hours of sleep. My mind is racing when I try to hit the hay of all the things I didn't get done for the day. I'm trying in my exhaustion to finish a project for work or to get something done on my mile-long list of personal to-dos or admittedly watching a never-ended series of YouTube videos (what? primates are fascinating.)
There are so many reasons why it's important to get our sleep (here are six of them.) The more you exercise during the day the more likely you are to be properly exhausted at night. Do all the things that you need to do in order to fall asleep on time each night and create a routine (I'm so bad at this.) Here are seven useful tips on how to get to bed earlier each night.
Did you know? When you're resting, your body doesn't need to work as hard or pump as much blood, so these systems slow down. Blood pressure needs to dip at night so your cardiac muscle and circulatory system have time to relax and repair (source).
6. Get the Heart Pumping (Feel Alive)
When I discussed exercising with my mother, who frequently complains about her inability to lose weight, she noted how she didn't mind exercising, she just didn't like the feeling of her heart beating fast or being exhausted. Yes, this is the same mother who raised me to think that I was incapable of any sort of athletic activity (I never trained long enough to build up stamina, that was the real problem, and I thought that the whole heart racing thing was bad and due to genetics.) My father was not any better, for he was obese my entire life and criticized my weight without sharing the science behind living a healthy life.
For "cardio," do whatever you love that gets your heart racing. This can be dancing (go to a club, avoid the bar, and shake your ass off) or biking or jumping up and down on a trampoline. Just do whatever it takes to get moving for at least 30 minutes a day (or walk for an hour a day.) I'm going to try my best to hit 30 minutes of cardio a day starting tomorrow with 30 minutes of cycling on my bike after work every single day this week.
Did you know? Any level of physical activity is probably a return to normal values. The statistical average of physical activity in Western societies isis so much below the levels normal for our genetic background that sedentary lifestyle in combination with excess food intake has surpassed smoking as the number one cause of death in the United States! (source)
7. Find What Drives You (Feel Connected)
Being healthy is so much more than eating right and working out. It's your mental state as well. Take time to understand what centers you. Spend time in nature (go for a walk outside if the weather is nice.) Spend time with friends who make you laugh. Nurture what the hippies call your inner spirit. The more connected you feel, the easier it will be to keep up with the rest of the 10 steps.
Did you know? Laughter is great medicine. It relaxes your muscles for up to 45 minutes. It boosts the immune system by decreasing stress hormones and increases immune and infection-fighting antibodies, improving your resistance to disease. It triggers endorphins which make you feel good and temporarily relieve pain. It also protects the heart by improving the function of blood vessels and increasing blood flow (source).
8. Eat Frequent, Smaller Meals (Feel Level)
Just like you should be constantly drinking water throughout the day, you should also be constantly grazing on food that is high protein, moderate fat and lower carb. Grazing diets are also fad diets, but in a lot of ways they're healthy if you can maintain them and break them out into mini meals with at least 90 minute gaps in between food intake (see did you know below for why.) I find portioning out a certain number of almonds per day to have at my desk and putting them into little piles of 5 lets me eat them when I start to feel remotely hungry (after I force myself to down a cup of water to see if I was just dehydrated.)
Being a grazer also helps you feel less guilty for not eating full meals (I don't know about you but I suffer from major guilt of "why aren't you cleaning your plate? There are children starving in AFRICA") and learning to eat when I wasn't even hungry anymore. Instead you should eat when you're hungry, but not a typical American full meal. Even if you go out to eat you can get an appetizer or small salad for your meal - or order a meat dish and split it or take a good portion of it home for more meals. The good news here is that eating actually gets cheaper! Score!
Did you know? The intestines need to be fasted for at least 90 minutes at a time in order for routine cleansing waves to occur. (source)
9. Love Deeply and Enthusiastically (Feel Love)
Love is also a secret ingredient to a healthy life. Love doesn't have to be limited to a partner. You can love a family member or even a close friend. Love is about that feeling when you're willing to give anything for another person's happiness. This I believe is the best feeling of being human.
When I'm unhealthy and eating poorly, the last thing I am thinking of is making someone else happy. I'm often caught up in selfish, self-defeating behaviors.
Did you know? Love is proven to lower blood pressure and decrease stress levels. And, should you be in love with a significant other, you can also benefit from research that having sex at least once a week increases your levels of IgA, the antibody that fights illness and keeps us healthy (source).
10. Time is Not Your Enemy (Feel Patient)
The final guiding principal to living a health life is patience. After all -- losing .5 to 1lb a week is not going to result in an overnight success. But people who are patient are generally less stressed and more able to maintain any habit changes they make. I have to remind myself this every single morning.
In a world of instant gratification it's so challenging to be truly patient. Take time to slow down and focus on super short-term goals (i.e. this week I will lose at least .05 lbs and hit 167lbs.) The more you focus on tiny achievable short-term goals that together make up a much longer term goal, the more likely you are to stick with it! So join me in this pact for patience and here's to a healthy rest of our lives!
Also - there are SO MANY fad diets out there and while I'm no expert, it's pretty clear that fad diets are often unhealthy over the long term. I mean, our bodies haven't changed much in thousands of years, so why are we constantly inventing new diets? (So healthy living "experts" can sell you more stuff while you keep getting fatter and fatter (see Wikipedia's list of diets here and cringe a bit.) Many of these diets do offer something to learn about healthy living but following them verbatim is a recipe for disaster, with the exception of the rules below.
(I Should Call My Diet the ANTI FAD DIET... or the ANTI JUICE CLEANSE)
Adena's 10 Guiding Principles to a Healthy Life
Feel Strong. Feel Satisfied. Feel Fueled. Feel Hydrated. Feel Awake. Feel Alive. Feel Connected. Feel Level. Feel Love. Feel Balanced.
1. Build Strength (Feel Strong)
For $99/month (at my introductory rate now of $30/mo) I have membership to unlimited hot yoga classes. If I go as much as I should that comes down to $8 per class, which isn't bad if I consistently attend classes (and as I'm attending with a friend this makes it much more likely I'll do that.) Yoga is a great practice for building strength over time. My plan for the first six months of this journey is to attend yoga 3x per week minimum for 60-90 minutes per class. (*this week I did not go and I'm ashamed of this but next week I'm back on the yogawagon.) After six months and gaining strength I will introduce additional weight lifting to my routine.
And while it sucks to fall on my face frequently in class when everyone else is floating majestically through their sweaty asanas, at the end of the class I feel amazing. The best part is feeling each individual muscle that you worked out and remembering - yup - that's the move that did it. Don't push yourself too hard though. You'll find me rockin' child's pose during a good 15% of the class.
Did you know? Muscle tissue burns seven to 10 calories daily per pound. Fat burns just two to three calories daily per pound. So replacing a pound of fat with a pound of muscle helps you burn an additional four to six more calories each day (source).
2. No Added Sugar (Feel Satisfied)
Sugar isn't poison, added, refined sugar is. You know, not the sugars in your fruits and veggies, but processed, added sugar that has made us Americans fat. I was walking around the mall yesterday and saw a young child who was obese, and it made me so sad. It seems ridiculous to me that excess sugar is legal to be fed to children yet it is really child abuse (when I grew up I was fed a high-sugar diet, but this is before it seems the medical community knew better with their promotion of low-fat BS.) While it's possible this child has a medical condition causing her to gain weight, looking at her mother it was more likely that she was just being fed a diet of too much food and too much sugar.
Even so, for a long time I thought that "everything in moderation" was the right way to diet. But you know what happens when you eat sugar? Basically, fructose impedes the body's ability to use leptin which is "the satiation hormone" that tells us we're full. So we keep eating. And eating. And eating. For people who don't eat a lot of sugar and are not insulin resistant (pre-diabetic) - which many of us are (esp those of us with PCOS) - they don't understand this addiction. What is most amazing though is how easy it is to break out of this cycle of addition. But it requires you to go cold turkey. Today. Right now. No more candy bar for lunch because you forgot to bring food to the office. No more fast food dinners. No more ordering desserts when out to eat. It's an addiction. You eat sugar and your body throws out insulin that takes glucose out of your bloodstream, causing you to crave MORE SUGAR (here is an awesome write-up on what happens after you eat sugar, yikes.) And high sugar consumption causes (or at least contributed to getting) Diabetes over the long run (source).
When you eat a lot of sugar (even if you don't eat snickers bars for meal replacements chances are you're eating wayyy too much sugar in everything from ketchup to beer to bread (even whole wheat breads) to low-fat dressing) it's REALLY HARD to quit because of the cravings. To stop you must not only quit cold turkey but also have a plan in place for what to eat at all times and how to get a reasonable amount of healthy carbs so your body stays energized (see #3.)
ps: limit alcohol consumption to wine and make sure to count it towards your carbs. Try to exercise before a night out to balance for a glass or two of wine if needed.
Did you know? Sugar is EIGHT TIMES more addictive than cocaine, and Americans are consuming 152 pounds of sugar a year, most in processed foods and sweetened drinks (source).
3. Carb Your Exercise (Feel Fueled)
While you shouldn't eat added sugar, carbs are not the enemy. They serve an important purpose - to provide energy. There are different types of carbs and they are not all created equal. High protein low carbohydrate diets (everything from Atkins to moderate fat, low carb ketogenic diets) tell you reduce your carb intake to almost 0. This indeed is a recipe for weight loss, but it's NOT SUSTAINABLE. I definitely recommend trying a ketogenic diet out with the help of a medically supervised clinic (like JumpstartMD if you're in The Bay Area) as it's very interesting to learn how your body feels without sugar on such a strict diet, and you will lose weight which will be motivating on its own. However, it's not a long-term solution. It's more an experiment to learn how your body reacts when you remove most carbs from your diet.
However, for the long term, we need carbs. We don't need as many as dietary guidelines tell you and we don't need as little as crazy ketogenic diets tell you. Ultimately you need as many carbs as it takes for your body to feel fueled. If you do under 30 grams a day (12-15 grams on crazytown Atkins) after a few days your body will go into ketosis and your body will burn fat instead of carbs (woohoo). BUT it's very difficult to maintain this over the long term and it's not healthy if you're working out at all. I strive for a moderate 50-100 grams per day, with 50 on the days I don't exercise and 100 on the days I do for at least 30 minutes.
Make sure along with your carbs you're getting FIBER. That means no fruit juices but instead whole fruit (ideally with skin on.) If you're doing serious body building i.e. CrossFit then you're going to need a lot more carbs and things like oats, bran muffins and sweet potatoes are ok, however for the rest of us I'd steer clear of any starchy veggies with the exception of a small side dish once or twice a week.
One trick I've learned is to eat half servings of carbs. I.e. Quinoa is a great carb but one serving of it is 20 grams of carbs (over 33% of my daily intake.) If I have 50% of that then that's just 10 grams of carbs and I still get the "feel full" effect from the balanced grain. You should (and I plan to) play around with cutting different foods from your diet to figure out how your body reacts to them. Hardcore Paleo folks would say that Quinoa is not paleo and it also can cause "leaky gut" (ew) so it's worth experimenting with and without it in your diet.
[[Leaky Gut is a very fascinating topic regarding health that I plan to cover in another article soon, but here's a good place to start if you're interested in the arguments why grains and dairy can contribute to long-term health problems to make a decision for yourself. Apparently dairy is designed to create leaky gut but it's not actually good for us as adults. More on leaky gut at another time, kids.)
Did you know? Having one banana a day won't kill you but it definitely packs on the carbs, so try to pick small bananas (a small banana has 23 grams of carbs while a large banana has 31. That's a difference of 8 carbs which is a lot if you're trying to eat under 50-70 a day, and you will still get your 'nana fix regardless of size.)
4. Drink ENOUGH Glasses of Water a Day (Feel Hydrated)
Hey, I agree with the experts. Drinking water is a must and something I AM TERRIBLE AT DOING. If I exercise I can chug back a gallon of ice cold water no problem. However, not all water is created equal (oh shit.) But before we get into that, let's just be clear that drinking water is sooooo important to getting healthy. I've lived a life of chronic dehydration which has severely impeded my focus, mood, and life. (Yes, not drinking enough water can mimic depression symptoms.)
Yes, let's all agree that we need to drink lots of water to be healthy (here's why.)
How much water do you need per day? I figured the whole 8 glasses a day thing was totes wrong given we're all different sizes and stuff, so I did a little investigation. This useful chart and formula tells you exactly how much water you really need. Basically multiply your weight by 2/3. This is how much you should drink if you sit on your ass all day. For every 30 minutes of working out you should add 12 oz of water. So assuming I'm being lazy at 170lbs I need 113 ounces per day of water. That's 14 glasses of water a day without exercise! This chart says instead of 2/3 you should drink 1/2 your body weight in water per day. That's still 85 oz per day. So for a woman who weighs 170lbs, I should be drinking 10 to 14 glasses of water per day (when I'm normally drinking 0-2, so here's a big area of improvement I'll be working towards!) It turns out the daunting 8 glasses a day isn't even enough water.
The biggest problem with drinking a healthy amount of water is how much -- uh -- disruption is causes your normal daily life (oh but this TMI is helpful for those of us chronically dehydrated.) But it's SO IMPORTANT to be healthy. Even though the whole 'drink eight glasses of water per day' research was funded by (you guessed it) water bottle companies (oy gavult) water is still a man's best friend.
Is there anything else we need to know about water? There's a bunch of research out there on types of water (tap, filtered, bottled, et al) and even whether it's healthy to drink water ice cold or at room temperature (the jury's still out on that one, though my acupuncturist is adamantly against cold liquids at all because they're supposedly bad for digestion. But other research has disproven that.)
Did you know? The 8 glasses rule likely originated from a misinterpretation of an outdated recommendation from 1945 when the Food and Nutrition Board suggested that a person consume one millimeter of water per each calorie of food consumed (with an average diet of 1900 calories per day then you'd need 1900 ml, approx 64 hours, based on this model. But it didn't take into consideration the water content in other liquids and food we consume (source).
5. Get Eight Hours of Sleep (Feel Awake)
So I'm a bit of an insomniac. While some people can thrive on as little as five hours of sleep, I definitely need my full eight, to the minute. It's really remarkable how if I fall asleep at 11pm (on a good day) my eyes will fling open at 7 on the dot. The problem is most days I don't get eight hours of sleep. My mind is racing when I try to hit the hay of all the things I didn't get done for the day. I'm trying in my exhaustion to finish a project for work or to get something done on my mile-long list of personal to-dos or admittedly watching a never-ended series of YouTube videos (what? primates are fascinating.)
There are so many reasons why it's important to get our sleep (here are six of them.) The more you exercise during the day the more likely you are to be properly exhausted at night. Do all the things that you need to do in order to fall asleep on time each night and create a routine (I'm so bad at this.) Here are seven useful tips on how to get to bed earlier each night.
Did you know? When you're resting, your body doesn't need to work as hard or pump as much blood, so these systems slow down. Blood pressure needs to dip at night so your cardiac muscle and circulatory system have time to relax and repair (source).
6. Get the Heart Pumping (Feel Alive)
When I discussed exercising with my mother, who frequently complains about her inability to lose weight, she noted how she didn't mind exercising, she just didn't like the feeling of her heart beating fast or being exhausted. Yes, this is the same mother who raised me to think that I was incapable of any sort of athletic activity (I never trained long enough to build up stamina, that was the real problem, and I thought that the whole heart racing thing was bad and due to genetics.) My father was not any better, for he was obese my entire life and criticized my weight without sharing the science behind living a healthy life.
For "cardio," do whatever you love that gets your heart racing. This can be dancing (go to a club, avoid the bar, and shake your ass off) or biking or jumping up and down on a trampoline. Just do whatever it takes to get moving for at least 30 minutes a day (or walk for an hour a day.) I'm going to try my best to hit 30 minutes of cardio a day starting tomorrow with 30 minutes of cycling on my bike after work every single day this week.
Did you know? Any level of physical activity is probably a return to normal values. The statistical average of physical activity in Western societies isis so much below the levels normal for our genetic background that sedentary lifestyle in combination with excess food intake has surpassed smoking as the number one cause of death in the United States! (source)
7. Find What Drives You (Feel Connected)
Being healthy is so much more than eating right and working out. It's your mental state as well. Take time to understand what centers you. Spend time in nature (go for a walk outside if the weather is nice.) Spend time with friends who make you laugh. Nurture what the hippies call your inner spirit. The more connected you feel, the easier it will be to keep up with the rest of the 10 steps.
Did you know? Laughter is great medicine. It relaxes your muscles for up to 45 minutes. It boosts the immune system by decreasing stress hormones and increases immune and infection-fighting antibodies, improving your resistance to disease. It triggers endorphins which make you feel good and temporarily relieve pain. It also protects the heart by improving the function of blood vessels and increasing blood flow (source).
8. Eat Frequent, Smaller Meals (Feel Level)
Just like you should be constantly drinking water throughout the day, you should also be constantly grazing on food that is high protein, moderate fat and lower carb. Grazing diets are also fad diets, but in a lot of ways they're healthy if you can maintain them and break them out into mini meals with at least 90 minute gaps in between food intake (see did you know below for why.) I find portioning out a certain number of almonds per day to have at my desk and putting them into little piles of 5 lets me eat them when I start to feel remotely hungry (after I force myself to down a cup of water to see if I was just dehydrated.)
Being a grazer also helps you feel less guilty for not eating full meals (I don't know about you but I suffer from major guilt of "why aren't you cleaning your plate? There are children starving in AFRICA") and learning to eat when I wasn't even hungry anymore. Instead you should eat when you're hungry, but not a typical American full meal. Even if you go out to eat you can get an appetizer or small salad for your meal - or order a meat dish and split it or take a good portion of it home for more meals. The good news here is that eating actually gets cheaper! Score!
Did you know? The intestines need to be fasted for at least 90 minutes at a time in order for routine cleansing waves to occur. (source)
9. Love Deeply and Enthusiastically (Feel Love)
Love is also a secret ingredient to a healthy life. Love doesn't have to be limited to a partner. You can love a family member or even a close friend. Love is about that feeling when you're willing to give anything for another person's happiness. This I believe is the best feeling of being human.
When I'm unhealthy and eating poorly, the last thing I am thinking of is making someone else happy. I'm often caught up in selfish, self-defeating behaviors.
Did you know? Love is proven to lower blood pressure and decrease stress levels. And, should you be in love with a significant other, you can also benefit from research that having sex at least once a week increases your levels of IgA, the antibody that fights illness and keeps us healthy (source).
10. Time is Not Your Enemy (Feel Patient)
The final guiding principal to living a health life is patience. After all -- losing .5 to 1lb a week is not going to result in an overnight success. But people who are patient are generally less stressed and more able to maintain any habit changes they make. I have to remind myself this every single morning.
In a world of instant gratification it's so challenging to be truly patient. Take time to slow down and focus on super short-term goals (i.e. this week I will lose at least .05 lbs and hit 167lbs.) The more you focus on tiny achievable short-term goals that together make up a much longer term goal, the more likely you are to stick with it! So join me in this pact for patience and here's to a healthy rest of our lives!
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