Rewards

Choo choooo. All aboard, I'm back on the diet train. Okay, first off, I still hate the word diet, and second off I never really fell off. I, uh, I just hung back on the caboose. No biggie. 

Although I am a grown adult, I'm going to talk about potty training. I assure you all that I am fully house broken, but have just started working on my toddler. This all ties together, I swear. He was practically potty trained before but we had a little mishap with the house. It's actually a very interesting story, if you believe in ghosts and all that is. Anyway, to make a long story short he decided he was terrified of the upstairs and therefore the bathroom. We had a potty downstairs as well but he wasn't having any of it. Anyway, he's just over three now, so I decided it was time again. Also, buying a box of diapers every single week has gotten incredibly old. 

Wow. Potty training is great exercise! We are fine and dandy, playing with fire trucks. I inquire "do you have to potty?" and get the answer no. Only minutes later though Wyatt runs to me frantically screaming "I have go potty I have go potty!" This is a very exciting thing (despite the fact that it's the 18th time today) so of course I drop whatever I'm doing, jump to my feet and scream "You have to go potty?" Originally he was climbing the stairs himself, but after two accidents yesterday I have somehow gotten into the habit of grabbing him and running up the stairs screaming "You have to go potty!" while he screams "I have go potty!" It's all very exciting. He's 26 pounds, and running up the stairs with him isn't a huge feat. Jumping over the gate (because climbing is just not exciting enough) and running up the stairs repeatedly is actually a decent work out though. And I mean, he's just a little kid, he's got a small bladder. We run up and down the stairs a lot. My favorite was when we ran upstairs and went pee, promptly came back down the stairs and he announced we had to poop. I'm getting to the part where this plays into my healthy living.

It's not like I can get frustrated about it either. I told him to tell me when he has to potty, I told him to pee and poop in the big boy potty. I can't get frustrated, show negativity, and have him not go on the potty anymore! Anyway, we only had one accident today and he's been dry all night the last two nights too. Pretty good since this is only day three. Yesterday was two accidents, Saturday there were a few. I went out and spent $38 on big boy underwear today. He's been wearing them since Saturday but I only had a few pairs. I don't have a dryer(well, a working one that is) so I usually do laundry at my moms house, which I only go to on Sunday. So he needs enough underwear for the whole week. I figured in factoring in accidents, the fact that he'll put on different underwear after bath time, I might as well just stock up. Besides, I'll save this much on diapers every month anyway. So I went today before work and picked up some underwear. Cars, spiderman, and mickey mouse. Of course he loves batman too but they were too big. Anyway, I gave them to my mom to give to Wyatt (we work together and I go in at three and she gets off at five and then goes to my house after) and they called me to talk about his underwear. He's recently gotten really into talking on the phone, it is seriously heart melting. Anyway, he made my mom get every single pair out so he could check them out (they came in packs of seven) and he wanted to let me know the mater pair was his favorite. So frigging cute! But I'm also wildly disappointed that I wasn't there to give him the underwear. How ridiculous is that? IT'S UNDERWEAR FOR GODSAKE!

Well, back to the diet thing. I swear this all ties together.

Rewards. 

There's no rule in the big bad book of adulthood that says grown ups can't have sticker charts. I don't personally have a sticker chart, but there's lots of way you can reward yourself too. I'd urge you not to choose rewards that are unhealthy. You don't want to celebrate your loss of three pounds by going out to eat and drinks after gaining two of them back. 

You could maybe decide after your first five pounds you're going to get your nails. When you lose ten pounds you'll buy yourself a new shirt or something, 20 and you get a hair cut. Maybe every five pounds you buy yourself a new shirt in the size of your goal. This is great because if you're losing a great deal of weight and you've always had weight issues you probably don't have a whole lot of smaller clothes meaning you'll have to buy all new things anyway! This way instead of going out one day and spending a fortune you get just a little at a time! And the second plus to this is motivation. If you go out, spend all this money on nice new clothes to wear someday, you have something to look forward to. You don't want to spend money on something you'll never use? Hand the clothes somewhere highly visible to motivate yourself every single day into fitting them. Just seriously, be reasonable. I wouldn't go out and buy a size zero skirt. I have wide hips so the smallest I would ever buy or have ever fit was a size 5. Small and medium shirts, don't go xxs. The goal is to motivate yourself, not blow money and set unrealistic standards for your body.

You could give yourself rewards that have nothing to do with pounds. If your goal isn't simply to lose weight, but to get fit, or be healthier, than the number on a scale may be simply that. A number. Maybe you have a horrible sweet tooth, if you make it two whole weeks without chocolate or cookies you take yourself out to the movies to celebrate, and don't get the gobstoppers as part of the reward! Maybe you set a work out goal, like say, you want to be able to jog three miles, obviously you have to work up to that. Whenever you finally work your way up to 3 miles you get your hair done or treat yourself to a little shopping spree. Maybe those cute boots you've been eyeing online? 

Have commitment issues? Never manage to keep your diet going more than a few weeks? Whenever you make it a month you reward yourself. I'm feeling maybe a night out with friends. If you're a mom like me you'll realize that's a huge reward! 

Those are just a few ideas. You know what you like best. For me, treating myself to a new book is a big reward for me, maybe for you you'd like to buy a few more songs off iTunes.  I'd save the bigger rewards obviously for bigger achievements. Hell if you want a damn sticker chart get a damn sticker chart. Every time you make a healthy decision give yourself a sticker. Sticker for working out, sticker for eating carrots instead of carrot cake, etc. Once you get so many get a prize! For an even more interesting reward go back to the surprise workout routine we discussed with popsicle sticks. Make a list of things you want but haven't been able to convince yourself to spend money on, or maybe something you spend money on all the time that you want to use as motivation, write each one on a piece of paper or a popsicle stick. Hell, put a piece of paper in a balloon and pop one to find the reward I don't care! Once you reach your goal, whatever it me be, pounds lost, healthy decisions made, weeks lasted, draw a surprise reward. 

Oh goodie, we're making this fun! Right? Right. 

The importance of sleep and weightloss

I promise I will eventually get to the part where I drone on and on incisively about myself and my weight loss journey, but for now I am still trying to set up the basics. I will remind you, yet again, this about a healthy lifestyle, it's more than a weight change. To lose the weight, and keep it off your whole life is going to have to change. So here, I cannot stress the importance of sleep!

If you're like me, you probably don't get a whole lot of sleep. Typically we wake around seven except for the two days a week I have to work early. One kid goes to sleep between 8:30-9 and the other goes to sleep between 9:30-10. After they go to sleep is when I get to clean up a bit and work out. I'm not normally done working out until 11 or later. Following my work out is the ritual of...what's it called, oh yeah, sitting on my ass. When I'm done doing that comes the changing clothes, washing my face (if you don't do this you WILL start to break out. Exercise is great for you, but all that sweat is not great for your pores. Wash your damn face!) brushing teeth, blah blah blah, and actually getting into bed we're creeping up on the midnight deadline. If you're anything like me you probably don't fall asleep right away either. I have some beautiful anxiety issues that escalate to the peak at night when I have nothing else to distract me. Though even they have gotten better in the past two weeks, I'm usually closer to the 12:30-1 mark than the midnight mark when I finally do fall asleep.

There are over two dozen studies stating that people who sleep less tend to weigh more. I'll admit, I'm no sleep expert or doctor of any kind. These are the results of 16 year study on the connection between sleep and weight. The study showed that people who were overweight slept 16 minutes less per day than people who were in a healthy weight range. Yep, 16 minutes apparently makes that big of a difference. Another study showed that women who sleep 5 hours or less a night were nearly a third likely to gain 30 or more pounds than someone who slept 7 or more hours. There was also a study in which one group was permitted to sleep as usual and the other was asked to sleep about 1/3 less than usual (about an hour and 20 minutes less a night). The group who was asked to sleep less consumed about 550 calories more a day than they did when getting their usual amount of sleep.

Think about it this way, you're tired, so what are you going to do? You're going to grab a cup of coffee! Maybe even a donut too! You have a harder time getting out of bed and as a result are running late to work, do you think you're still going to make yourself an egg or even a bowel of cereal? No, you'll likely run through the drive through and hit up some breakfast burritos and hash browns. Also, if you're extremely tired you're pretty much going to have to force yourself to work out, and without all the energy and motivation a good work out deserves you'll probably deliver a lackluster performance too.

I'm not quite familiar with the logistics of everything and I'm not dedicated enough to actually look it up. But what I do know is that sleeping is important in this journey, there is a saying in the weight loss world: "Sleep more, eat less." If at all possible, add 30 minutes to your typical sleep schedule. Not only will your weight thank you, but your mind probably will too. Sleep is good for you, and in more ways than just for weight loss. Studies have show a link between inadequate sleep and heart disease and diabetes, along with a lower pain threshold. Not getting enough sleep can even put a damper on your sex life and make you just downright grumpy.

It's something I'm actually still working on. But there you have it. Go take a nap.

Beginning

I have so many things to blog about, so many different exercises, so many helpful hints and recipes! But I don't want to blog overload, so I'll start pretty simply. What I'm doing, or rather, what I've done and what I've basically learned so far.

First off, you did not gain all of this weight over night, it will not come off that way either. The healthiest weight loss is typically between 1-2 pounds a week. That may not seem like very much but this is one pound of fat.

No seriously. Are you still made you only lost one pound this week? Every pound you lose is another pound stronger you are. And isn't that what this is all about? Becoming the best, and strongest, healthiest, and sexiest you you can be?

So I said that so far I've lost ten pounds? I should reword this, last month I lost six pounds. We went to the beach for a week and I didn't gain or lose any weight, and then the following two weeks I didn't lose anything. Last week I lost four pounds.

"Wait, I thought that you said you should only lost 1-2 pounds a week? You lost four? What's up with THAT!?"

1-2 pounds is a great accomplishment! But it's not a limit. If you are exercising, and eating properly and you happen to lose more, congratulations! Also remember the heavier you are the easier the first pounds come off. The further into this the harder you will have to work at your weight loss. Do not be discouraged. This is about more than just losing weight, to truly be fit, and healthy, it is a lifestyle change.

It is going to be a challenge, but if you push yourself too hard you're going to hurt yourself. For example, as stated I went to the beach and didn't work on my weight and remained the same, the following week I had a case of post-vacation-itis. Yes, in severe cases it may be fatal. Basically I ate and did what ever I felt like eating and doing for that week, and also by the grace of God did not gain any weight. The following week I was ready to get back in the grind!

I bought my jump rope and for that entire week I would work my ass off. I jumped rope twice a day and had a nice mild yoga session both before and after each jump rope session. This amounted to me sitting on the couch with a bag of frozen peas on one leg, and frozen tator tots on the other. Every night. For an entire week. I was literally so excited to weigh myself I could hardly stand to wait until Sunday!

When Sunday rolled around...my mom had lost eight pounds without even trying. And I had not lost a single pound! Needless to say, I was not, and am still not, happy for her. Before it was a nice reality call for me. I had practically killed myself. You don't just wake up one day and decide to run a marathon! Everyone has to start out somewhere, and I was starting way out of my league.

Which is why the following week I merely added jump rope into a decent exercise routine. I never do more than one song, so give or take roughly around three minutes. This is when I found dumbbells were my new best friends. And again, I over shot myself. "The five pound ones are too easy. I'm going to use the 8 pound ones and do as many different things as I can possibly think of and do as many as I can possibly handle!"

Uh, no.

I do most of my routines, which I will talk more about tomorrow, with the 5lb weights for now. I do either 10 or 15 reps, depending on how sore I am, if I feel energetic and do them in the morning and at night time I only do 10. I have a few core exercises I do along with jumping jacks, high knees, and lunges, and then I do another set with the dumbbells.

One day you're going to work out and realize the work out you just did today you struggled with two weeks ago. And you're going to feel awesome. The other thing I did last week, which was my first week was counting calories, that, I will also go into on another post. I don't want to make any huge large posts and scare anyone off.

So I'll just say that today I am on day 11 of my calorie counting and exercise regiment. The changes are actually pretty big considering it hasn't been very long so far. First off, my poop sinks. No, I mean literally, that isn't some sort of strange metaphor you don't get. My poop sinks, a diet higher in fat results in floating bowel movements. Crazy isn't it? Second off, my collar bones. I think collar bones are one of the sexiest parts on a persons body and I can actually see mine some. Which is a big deal to me. I originally noticed a picture and thought I had dirt on my chest, I was actually annoyed about this until later when I realized (looking in the mirror) it was actually my collar bone! I feel better all over. I have anxiety issues and have actually been less stressed lately, I even feel more confident. It's crazy because it's hardly a noticeable difference, actually, it's not a noticeable difference but I already feel better about myself. I even actually look forward to stepping on the scale, whereas before it was a dark looming cloud. Now I'm excited to see my progress of the week.