Valley

Today is a hard day. I know that I am making progress - the tape measure tells me that. Plus, my upper body (which is always the first to respond) is looking slimmer.

And yet.

I feel fat. I feel like I will always be fat. I took progress pictures today and feel angry and defeated at how much back fat I have. Especially compared to how incredibly lean I had become at the worst of my binging and purging.

I start a 53 day summer challenge tomorrow. There's a chance at prizes and fame and glory, haha. The point of this is to keep going beyond the challenge though.

To see this as my new normal.

It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle.

Food today:
1 cup egg whites and 1 cup cut up mango
11 oz vanilla creme muscle milk lite and 1 oz lightly salted, roasted almonds
4 oz grilled potatoes, 4 oz chicken breast and 1 cup of mixed vegetables
4 oz salmon and 1 cup of mixed vegetables
4 oz cod and 1 cup of mixed vegetables
Lots of sugar free gum
Working on my never ending gallon of water

Workout today
Weights (chest/shoulders/triceps):
4x15 dumbbell flys superset 4x12 tricep push downs
4x15/12/10/8 incline press
4x15/12/10/8 flat press
4x10 dumbbell shoulder press superset 4x10 lateral raises
4x12 reverse shoulder flys superset 4x12 upright rows
4x8 overhead double tricep extensions

Cardio (treadmill)
1 min and 30 seconds at 1% incline and 5 mph
30 seconds to transition off the treadmill
1 min and 30 seconds of either moving high knees or squat shuffles
30 seconds to transition back on the treadmill
Repeat for 30 minutes

Good news

In an effort to avoid seeing this change as a temporary fix, I have decided to stop weighing myself weekly and instead focus on inches. I will now weigh myself every other week and measure inches weekly instead.

I am due to measure Friday, but I decided to take a sneak peak and measured my hips. Will you believe? I have lost an inch already. Awesome.

I cannot wait until I have my  summer forever body.

An update

I have always known that weight loss is more about diet/nutrition than working out. There is no way to out exercise or out lift a bad diet.

And yet - I've never actually been able to put it into practice. I can lift weights and do treadmill sprints and attend Orange Theory classes all day, every day, but control what I put in my mouth? So amazingly hard for me.

When I was in Miami for my fellowship, I stumbled across Luke Duncan and signed up for his eight week program. It was heavy lifting, moderate cardio and the cleanest, strictest diet I have ever had in my life. Needless to say, I lost ~40 lbs and was in the best shape of my life (I actually had a four pack abs and was so close to a six pack).

There's a catch though (isn't there always?). I did it by reverting to my eating disorder. The diet was strict, boring, inflexible....in order to stay on track, I gave in to my cravings and binged entire pizzas, whole pans of brownies, quarts of ice-cream and then purged. It quickly spiraled out of control. What started as a "once a week treat" to myself, became a daily occurrence and I could NOT control my impulses.

I stopped the diet. I regained the weight. And I started therapy. The last time I binged and purged was July 31st, 2019. At the end of this month, I will have been 10 months "clean".

With that under my belt, I have decided to get back on that clean diet again. The difference, this time, is that I:

1. Understand my unhealthy relationship with food
2. Know what my "triggers" are
3. Am working on "forgiving" myself when I eat something I had not planned
4. Am getting over my all or nothing mentality
5. Will use nutrition (not exercise) as my primary tool in losing fat
6. Use exercise as a means to be healthy and reshape my body
7. Will. Not. Stop. When. The. Weight. Is. Lost.

This is not a diet. This is a lifestyle. This is not temporary. It is permanent.

Day 2

So far, today has been a good day. The worst time for me tends to be late at night, but...I am planning to take each hour as it comes. I need to work on forgiving myself when I do mess up.

I woke up at 10:30am, took 1000 mg of Vitamin C and two capsules of 1 Up Nutrition Make Her Lean. I drank about 40 ounces of water while I played Animal Crossing: New Horizons (ACNH). I had a slice of banana bread and tea at noon. At 2pm, I had a work Skype meeting. This continued until 4pm during which I had some honey flavored regular Greek yogurt. At 4:30pm I did the following workout:

Warm Up
3x10 20 lb DB squats
3x10 Reverse lunges
3x10 35 lb DB deadlifts

Routine
3x10 reverse lunge pulse with squats (left leg lunge...squat...right leg lunge...squat = 1 rep)
3x15 donkey kick backs with resistance band
3x10 jumping lunges (left jump lunge...right jump lunge = 1 rep)
3x10 stationary squat with pulse
3x10 walking lunge with squat (left lunge...right lunge...squat = 1 rep)
3x10 20 lb front squats
3x10 35 lb DB deadlifts
3x12 30 lb SB step up squats (left step ups...followed by right step ups)
3x10 burpees (done without push up and with jump)

It took me 62 minutes and I burned 562 calories. During the workout, I drank 50 ounces of water mixed with 1 Up Nutrition dragon fruit flavored branched chain amino acids.

I am about to take a shower. I plan to make a salad for dinner:

Salad mix (has kale, brussels sprouts, cabbage)
Cherry tomatoes
Cucumber
Avocado
Cranberries (Ocean spray reduced sugar)
Garlic Expressions Vinaigrette

Not sure what I will eat for protein. Maybe a tin of sardines. Maybe some of the Mega Fit Meal portions I bought and are stashed in the freezer (Teriyaki chicken, Tilapia filets, ground Bison).

Starting over (again)

I don't know what to say.

I am tired of being fat.

Tired of hating the way I look.

Being on endless diets.

Worrying about food. About working out. About clothes. About everything body related.

I just want to lose the weight and keep it off.


So, I (re)started this blog. Although I deleted my previous posts, it is pretty ironic that I am attempting intermittent fasting again. I have come full circle...perhaps there is meaning to that.

I eat between 2pm and 8pm. I fast between 8pm and 2pm. And I workout every day. I eat wholesome, nutritious food. I drink water. I take vitamins. And I don't obsess over the scale.

Maybe being in the middle of a pandemic will help.