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.