Lose fat, gain muscle

...according to the scale, anyhow. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m losing fat, given that I haven’t been doing ANY strength training for the past few weeks. However…I HAVE been walking quite a bit more, and eating a bit less (since I’ve been so busy), and that might be a big part of it. Kind of weird. I need to get back into doing push-ups and other stuff again, soon.

ETA: Forgot to mention that my primal living plan flew way out the window once I found out that I needed to move and also needed to reform my budget. I felt good doing it, so I plan to try something similar again someday, but right now it’s hard enough to feed myself relatively healthily and well for little $$ without cutting out grains and beans. I acknowledge that they are probably not optimal fuel, but I could do a lot worse.

ETA again: Woo-hoo! I HAVE lost some flab! The pants that I have been using as a ‘marker’ fit better than they have in awhile!

Today was an odd day. I woke up at 4:30 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. So I did what I normally do in these situations: I got up, rather than laying in bed fretting about not sleeping.

I had planned to take a nap later on in the day, but got into the middle of cleaning and never actually did it. Consequently I was pretty darn tired, a state which usually sets off the sweets cravings something fierce. There was a little bit of that, but not much, really. Again, yay!

Since my arms and shoulders were very tired from the pull-ups I did yesterday, I gave myself a pass on push-ups today. And since I spent a large part of the day climbing up and down from a tall stool, and squatting and standing (all in the process of cleaning my kitchen top to bottom), I also gave myself a pass on cardio.

I am going to go to bed early tonight and try to catch up on some sleep.

What?! It’s been almost a week?

Wow. It doesn’t seem like it. I think that’s a pretty darn good sign that this way of eating/being is working well for me so far. I had absolutely no cravings for sweets today. I even left the sugar out of my morning tea (although I had it with milk) – I didn’t really want it. This is unheard-of for me.

I also walked a ton today. I have been trying to walk to the grocery store instead of driving or biking when weather permits. There and back is between 3 and 3.5 miles round-trip. I also walked to and from the Co-op (total distance a bit over 1 mile), and took a stroll through the “other park” near my house (the bigger one that I never go to, even though it’s closer). So I walked almost 5 miles!

It wasn’t hard, although I will certainly sleep well tonight! I really need to try to walk all the time if at all possible, even when the weather gets bad. Maybe I need a raincoat/pants and rain boots.

Oh! Almost forgot. On a whim this morning, I did three ‘negative pull-ups’ on a bar at the park. This means jumping up to the top position and lowering myself to start. Three was plenty challenging; I’m not a bad-ass yet. Still, it was damn cool to realize that I don’t need access to the assisted pull-up machine to work on pull-ups in the future! I am a little bit stronger than I thought.

Things went smoothly throughout the day, until evening (the usual time that I struggle with impulsive eating). I was by myself, watching TV and bored, and I really thought I wanted something sweet.

I was getting ready to leave for the grocery store, and then realized the Olympic opening ceremony was starting. It looked awesome, so I told myself I’d have some water instead and watch for about an hour. If I still wanted sweets afterward, I’d go and find one that precisely filled my craving.

After that hour, I did still want sweets (though less intensely than before). So I packed up and went to the grocery store – I had other things I needed to pick up anyway.

Here’s the really ODD thing. I made another deal with myself, that I would shop for the stuff I needed first before finding a treat. So I did that. And then I looked at all of the available sweets at the store, trying to figure out what I really wanted: the bakery items, the packaged cookies, the candy, the ice cream, even the baking ingredients.

Guess what? I didn’t really want ANY of them. I left with NO TREAT, just plans for more healthy food.

Completely wackadoodle. I mean…I am the person who can ALWAYS stand to eat some ice cream. But as I stood there in front of the cooler, none of it really called out to me. I imagined tasting the flavors, and none of them truly appealed to me. In my ‘mind’s tongue’, I could imagine some high ideal of an ice cream flavor that I did crave, but I knew none of the grocery store offerings in front of me could measure up.

This has seriously never happened before. It was very clear that it was my brain/psyche craving sweets, and not my body. Strangest thing, but very, very cool.

So yesterday I fell off the wagon briefly, although it could have been much worse. As a poor student (for another month or so at least), and as a frugal person in general, I have a hard time passing on free food.

At the final wrap-up party for the summer reading program yesterday, there was a snack: plain and cinnamon raisin bagels with cream cheese, donated by Brueggers. I helped to slice and spread ‘em. They smelled good. Not only that, they were being offered at a MAJOR CARB TEMPTATION TIME, i.e. mid-afternoon.

I slipped up and had half a cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese. I don’t actually feel bad about that slip-up, as I stayed well under my 100 carbs for the day limit. And in retrospect, it could have been much worse. At least it wasn’t cake!

However…the interesting thing was that yesterday evening, I was FAR more ‘munchy’ than I have been for the past few days. Now, this could be due to the fact that I’m getting well into my eating plan…but I kind of suspect it was due to the bagel I had at the library, because what I was really craving was SWEETS.

Hmmm. Verrrry interesting. I have lurked in many low carb forums before, and frankly a lot of them strike me as pretty nutso (though you could say the same thing about almost every forum community out there…kind of the nature of the beast). But I think there may be something to the idea of high levels of carbohydrates as a vicious unhealthy craving cycle.

I did end up munching quite a bit, more than I would have liked; however, I managed to stay away from sweets, grains, etc., which I feel really good about. I have to keep reminding myself that this is NOT about calorie counting; it’s about sticking to foods that are going to nourish me and keep my blood sugar levels on an even keel. Except for the bagel (which will not happen again for the duration of this experiment), I did good.

One other interesting thing: I found myself repulsed by the numerous fast food commercials I saw last night while watching TV, and completely indifferent to the soda which was offered along with the bagel snack. Not sure if this is a visceral response or a mental one. Either way, it’s a good thing.

(ok, it was like 6 sets of 2 push-ups but STILL…)

Along with the push-ups today, I did 2×20 unweighted squats. It’s been awhile!

Squat sets are amazingly challenging to do if done correctly, but I’m beginning to love squats for this goal. Why? Well, the goal is to build muscle/lose fat. And squats work the biggest muscles in the whole body!

Efficiency. Love it.

ETA something about primal eating, day 3. Not bad, although I did give into temptation somewhat and ate a fair amount of cheese that was not in my plan for the day. However…the cheese was high quality raw-milk stuff, and it fits into my goals for the 30 days, so I’m not too worried.

I am tempted by the idea of sweet/starchy stuff at times, especially late in the day. Thankfully I have some high quality chocolate protein powder available when I need that sort of ‘fix’. It’s not ideal, but it’s a huge improvement over, say, a whole pint of Ben and Jerry’s.

It’s odd. I ate significantly fewer calories yesterday than usual, and yet did not really feel at all deprived. It’s interesting to see the breakdown of where my calories come from when I eat this way; most of it is from fat. This is a bit antithetical to most diet plans, but hey, if it works, it works.

The one thing I will have to struggle with is my snacking habit, especially at night. I wasn’t hungry, but my mouth was bored. Usually this is a good sign that I am bored, though…and there are things I can do about that.

The bad news about eating primal is two-fold: 1. if you’re a vegetarian, it’s tough to nearly impossible. “Primal” is pretty much pre-agricultural, so vegetarian staples like beans and grains are to be used sparingly if at all. Thankfully, I am not a vegetarian. 2. It can be expensive if you don’t plan well, given the emphasis on high quality protein.

The good news is that: 1. it seems to take less food to satisfy me when I eat this way and 2. it actually seems to be affordable PROVIDED I stick to the program and only buy stuff that fits with the primal nutrition blueprint. It also helps that produce-wise, this is a very good time of year.

I am aiming to keep my carbs under 100 grams per day, and using FitDay to keep track of this. So far so good!

I’m not a big fan of diet fads. I’m anti South Beach, anti Adkins, pretty much anti anything that suggests eating fake food, artificial sweeteners, etc.

All of that said, I’ve been following a blog about food, exercise and lifestyle recently that really appeals to me. Mark Sisson is not the only advocate of ‘primal living’ out there, but I’ve appreciated his approach for several reasons. 1. He makes it seem like a relatively easy thing to do. 2. He’s not ridiculously religious about it. 3. While he definitely has products to sell, he’s not constantly pushing them down the reader’s throat. 4. He actually responds to his readers!!

Anyhoo. All this is to say that I’m planning to try to do a month trial of being as ‘primal’ as possible, as a gift to myself for finishing my library degree. What this means is that I’m going to try to cut out grains completely for that time (even whole ones), limit my fruit and sugar as much as possible, cut out the processed foods completely, dig deep into vegetables and proteins, and exercise sanely!

The reason for this is that I’m finding that eating large amounts of carbs, even complex carbs, can trigger major sugar cravings for me. And even though oatmeal sticks with me pretty well, it doesn’t stick nearly as well as, say, a couple of hardboiled eggs do. It’s a lot easier for me to eat sensibly on those days where I’m mostly eating vegetables, with some protein thrown in. Complex carbs just make me want more complex carbs.

I’d encourage you to check out Mark’s blog if this way of eating/being sounds intriguing at all. I’m not sure I buy it 100%, but it makes enough sense to me that I think it’s worth a 30 day trial.

My downfall is sweets, definitely. I have major cravings for them, and I’m also not very good at stopping with one small treat. I don’t think that total denial is the way to go either, because that just makes me RABID for a cookie. The total denial approach backfires 100% of the time. I end up raiding the pantry at night and eating crazy-gross sweets I don’t even like just for the sugar rush (I don’t quite stoop as low as eating spoonfuls of brown sugar straight…but I’m close…). It’s gotta stop.

What I would really like to do is to be able to bake a batch of small homemade treats (I love to bake, which makes this doubly difficult), put them in the freezer, and have ONE per day, after dinner probably. I want to allow myself treats without eating the whole batch in one day.

The majority of the problem is illicit-ness, I’m positive. I’ve always associated cookies with sneakiness (which makes them way more attractive than they would otherwise be). Sneaking cookies from my grandma’s freezer, or from my mom’s kitchen, has been my M.O. for awhile. Even though I don’t have to sneak them anymore, I still feel like I’m doing so…and I’m secretive about how many I eat. ‘Cause I’m ashamed.

So, my goal for this week is to have ONE COOKIE (one really good cookie) every day. I am ALLOWED to have a cookie, with a glass of milk or cup of tea on the side if I want it. There is nothing bad about the cookie itself.

My second goal for this week is to give up eating in front of the computer. This goes hand in hand with my TV Turnoff goal (since a lot of the TV I watch these days is streaming, on my computer).