Hey Y'all!

Hey Y'all!  If you found your way here from Moms Done Dieting's amazing article on HuffPo, I want to welcome you!!  I don't use this blog any longer, and am in the process of building a new site.  Until then, you can keep up with me on my Facebook page, Healthy for 100.  I post there on the regular!

I Called Uncle

"There is a difference between giving up and knowing when you've had enough."

I've had blogger sitting open on my laptop most of the day knowing there was blog post inside of me that I wanted to write, but not knowing where to begin.  Then I saw the above quote on Pinterest tonight and suddenly the words began to flow.  

I started this blog a little over three years ago and the entire time my focus has been on weight loss.  I talked about health and exercise often, but let's be honest.  From day one my objective has been to be a smaller person, to take up less space.  

Throughout these three years I've watched my weight bounce up and down several times.  Each time it bounced back up I would vow to "get back on the wagon" and this time I'd make it stick.  The whole time convincing myself I wasn't dieting.  I was changing my lifestyle.  Funny, though how every time life threw curveballs at me, the lifestyle change didn't stick.  When things got tough, all bets were off.  Doesn't sound like much of a lifestyle change does it?  

At what point in time did our society decide that if you weren't on a diet you were clearly a glutton and must be bingeing all day long?  Why does there need to be a wagon upon which we need to climb?  Why do we have to label everything?  Why have we, as a society, become so afraid of being entrusted with making our own choices?  

I remember when my oldest son was a baby and we were entertaining guests for dinner.  This couple had a toddler and she was being picky about what I was serving.  The other mom looked at me said "worry about your child's nutrition over the course of the week, not on a daily basis.  Otherwise you'll drive yourself insane."  That made so much sense to me and I've clung to those words, as they pertain to my children, for over a decade.  Why, then, could I not apply them to myself?  Why could I see moderation as the best course for my kids, but needed black & white rules for myself?  

I called 'uncle'.  I didn't give up.  I'm declared enough.  I eat dairy.  I eat gluten.  I eat meat.  I eat fat.  I eat vegetables.  I eat fruit.  I eat ice cream.  I eat rice.  I move my body.  I lift weights.  I go for walks.  I run with my children.  I do it all.  I eat it all.  These are habits I can sustain for my entire life.  There are no rules.  There is joy.  There is happiness.  There is health.  

A Year (+ some) later.....

**Warning!  This post went in a completely different direction than I'd originally planned.  I just started writing and let the words come out.  My apologies if it seems a little disjoined**

July 2012 ~ 202.5#

I posted this pic a little over a year ago.  I wrote this blog post to along with it and decided it was time I updated what's been going on since.

After that blog post, I just kept going on about my business.  I had done reasonably well in the diet challenge at our box the previous Spring, but just couldn't seem to get "back on the Paleo/Zone wagon"  I started to feel like a failure and was continuously beating myself up mentally because the scale was no longer moving in the right direction.

October 2012 ~ 195#

What I hadn't realized at the time was that a lot of physical symptoms I was experiencing were a direct result of that diet I was trying so desperately to get back to.  My hair was coming out in clumps every time I showered.  My nails were brittle, I was skipping periods and I had to take a 2 hour nap almost every day.  These are all classic symptoms of starvation.  My "bingeing" was my body trying to preserve itself.  Around this same time, all of my lifts and performance progression stalled out.  I got very frustrated and was tempted to throw in the towel.

Instead, I swung in the other direction and decided to double up on my workouts while easing up a little on my diet standards.  I ended up sick and overwhelmed.

                                                                                                                                               

Feb 2013 ~ 198#

                                                                                                                                                 

After the holidays, and once I was healthy again, I threw myself back into the workouts and tried one more time to get back onto "The Zone" wagon.  I lasted less than a week and then couldn't stop bingeing.  I realized this wasn't healthy or normal behavior and decided that day to swear off all diets.  FOREVER.  It was also around that time that I joined the "Eating the Food" group on Facebook.  This group, I honestly believe, saved my sanity.  They assured me that there wasn't something wrong with ME, there was something wrong with the diet industry.  The binge/restrict/binge/restrict cycle is rampant throughout our society and all it manages to do is fuck up people's self image & metabolism.  Eating enough food to support your activity (the biggest issue I had with The Zone ~ 1300 - 1500 calories) while not unnecessarily restricting foods.  Now, by unnecessarily, that doesn't mean all foods are created equal.  We know that's not the case.  There are certainly some calories that contain more nutrients than others.  It simply means eat food that makes you feel good and supports your current goals.  Sometimes my goals are building strength.  Sometimes my goals are fueling an endurance workout, and sometimes my goals are simply to gain pleasure from what I'm eating at the moment.  Learning that I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want has been the most liberating lesson I've learned in my entire life.  I no longer fear food.  I no longer label food as "good" or "bad".  And I no longer binge on food.  Funny how that works, huh?

March 2013 ~ 205#

As I was finding food freedom, I continued to Crossfit about 3-4x per week and started to get myself mentally geared up for the The Open.  That was absolutely the most exhilarating six weeks of my Crossfit experience, to date.  I blew myself away with my performance.  Sure, I still had a ton of room for improvement, but considering less than a year prior I was still spinning my wheels trying to become a runner/step aerobic queen, I couldn't believe what I was able to accomplish.  That lit a fire under me and since I was no longer obsessing about food, I was able to throw my entire mind, body, and soul into performance gains.  I had a plan and I couldn't wait to implement it.

Turns out I bit off a little more than I could chew with that plan.  It looks great on paper, but I seemed to forget that I was a mom with other responsibilities.  Damn.  So, the frustration continued.  I struggled to get all the planned workouts in, and cherry picked the WODs at the box because I wanted to lift heavy and only lift heavy.  I didn't exactly understand hypertrophy at that point and I thought lifting heavy weights for 1-5 reps was the way to get HAYOOGE.  Turns out that's the way to get strong, but not huge.  Slightly lighter weight in the 8-12 rep range is what I should have been focusing on.

April 2013 ~ 205#

I kept doing the Crossfit thing and trying to come up with a plan to get the results I wanted, while noticing a slight twinge in my elbow from time to time while doing laundry, putting dishes away, etc. I just grabbed the lacrosse ball & kept rolling out my arm and ignoring the issue.

Once summer started and (I thought) my schedule opened up a bit, I decided to start really focusing on strength and committed to working on the Strong Lifts 5x5 routine while still going to the occasional met con.

That lasted two weeks and my elbow pain migrated up to intense shoulder pain & discomfort.  Add in a few unforseen life circumstances and unplanned trip out of town and my summer basically turned into one big "deload".  My workouts for the last three months have been sporadic, at best.

June 2013 ~ 210#

I'm still dealing with some shoulder issues, but it's getting better and my plan is to get back in the gym, doing the regular Crossfit programming on M/W/F and work on the Couch to 5K program with my son, who is working on his endurance to help with soccer, on T/Th and to take Sat & Sun as rest days.  We'll see how that goes.  One thing I've learned in the past year is that plans can look great on paper, but fitness and health is a journey, not an end point.  Being flexible and maintaining an active lifestyle is way more important to me than making sure I get xxx number of specific workouts in each week.

There were a few times over this last year that I considered giving up my Crossfit membership.  I love the workouts and I really really love the community, and if truth be told, THAT'S what's kept me coming back.  The main frustration I have is that relying on someone else's programming was sometimes in conflict with my personal, specific goals.  There were some days that I "needed" a heavy, low rep workout and a longer, lighter weight, high rep WOD was programmed.  I had to reconsider my priorities.  I'm still sorting through this, but I'm realizing that one of the things I love about Crossfit is that someone else does do the programming for me.  As I stated above, I'm a busy mom with a lot of responsibilities and right now I do not have the time to research and write my own programming.  There is no absolute perfect program out there, at least not one that I've found yet.  Kitsap Crossfit is the closest thing I've found to perfect, and I'm happy to be a part of it.

Aug 2013 ~ 217#

So, this is me today.  I'm almost 25 pounds heavier than the lowest I saw over the last 12 months (I saw 191 once, but stabilized at about 193 for several weeks last fall), but I'm still wearing the same clothes and am approximately the same size.  The scale doesn't matter and I've broken the habit of weighing myself daily.  In fact, I weighed myself this morning just so I could write this post.  It'd been over a month since I stepped on the scale and I don't have any plans to do so again anytime in the near future.

I'm just looking forward to seeing what the next 12 months bring.....

Stepping Up the Awesome ~ Week 2

I gotta say, I don't feel as awesome this week as I did last.  I'm not freaked by it, though.  It's just another step in my road to Awesome.  I'm getting back into the swing of things now that my husband's vacation is over and juggling the kids alone is getting more and more complicated as they get older.  What?!  You BOTH want to play soccer?  Geesh!

I didn't get all of my workouts in this week, but I did ok:
Monday: Deadlift 5x5 (got up to 213#) followed by met con
Tuesday: rest day (life happened)
Wednesday:  Bear Complex (63#) 5x7
Thursday: Rest Day
Friday: Shoulder Pres 3x1, Push Press 3x3, Push Jerk 3x5
Saturday: Fundraiser WOD
Sunday: Rest Day

I continued with approx 2500-3000 calories per day (I didn't count every single day) and my weight continued to stay about the same (a slight gain towards the end of the week, but it's also time for my monthly cycle, so I'm not sure).

Stepping Up the Awesome ~ Week One

Week one of "Stepping Up the Awesome" is officially in the books, and I'm excited about going full steam ahead for week two.

I ate between 2500-3000 calories per day (some days I just couldn't get them all in).  It was mostly whole foods:  meat, veggies, fruit, rice, oatmeal, cheese, milk, and Haagen Dazs.  My weight is essentially the same ~ a 3/10 of a pound difference, but let's be honest.  That's probably just poo!

Monday ~ Tabata + heavy squats
Tuesday ~ Olympic Lifting class
Wednesday ~ heavy overhead squats + muscle up skill work
Thursday ~ rest
Friday ~ Heavy Metcon (cleans, front squats, pistol squats & hand stand pushups)
Saturday ~ rest
Sunday ~ rest

I know it's early in the experiment, and it's quite possibly all psychosomatic, but I swear I'm noticing my muscles are a little more visible in my arms and shoulders.

My plans for this coming week are to do one or two short and fast met con (depending on the programming at my gym), continue with heavy lifts several times over the week and keep up with the calorie intake....and ice cream.  Of course there will be ice cream!

Cheers!

The End of the Open, the Beginning of the New Awesome

photo source

....and just like that, with 15 Thrusters and about 10 "you're sssoooo close" chest to bar pull ups (story of my life recently, BTW), my very first Crossfit Open has come to an end.  I have to say, it has been one wild ride.  I had no idea what to expect when I signed up.  I went in with an open mind and just wanted to see what I could do.  Well, I did way more than I ever imagined.  I exceeded my goals (blew them away, actually) for the first three WODs.  13.4 threatened to derail me, mentally, but I rallied back and pushed through 13.5 and I have to say, overall, I'm extremely pleased with my performance, and I learned a lot about myself in these 5 weeks.  I learned that the depths of my determination go further than I ever realized; I learned how to push past the pain and just keep going.  Just. Keep. Going.  Believe it or not, I've never done that.

If you follow me on Facebook, you may have read my recent status about how I've basically ridden my natural athletic talent my entire life.  I've never put much effort into it and I was still mostly successful.  I'm ready for that to be over.  I'm ready to not just "do Crossfit".  I'm ready to train.

While I accomplished more than I could have imagined during the Open, it also shined a glaring spotlight on where my weaknesses are.  I've come a long way, but I still have a long road ahead of me. It's GO TIME, baby!  Enter.....my new plan to "Step Up the Awesome"

Are you familiar with the Lift Big Eat Big crew?  No?  You should be.  I don't believe in comparing myself to other women, but boy hardy have I got a serious girl crush on Streaky.  She's amazing.  Ah-mazing.

 photo source

 photo source

(Photos used with permission)

I want to be Streaky when I grow up.  Which is funny, because I'm like a decade older than she is, but whatever.  What I love about Streaky is not her appearance (which, BTW, is smokin') but it's her story. It's a story we've all heard so many times before.  It's a story a lot of us have lived.  She was over weight, unhealthy, and spinning her wheels on the treadmill.  But instead of restricting her calories to a level that barely supports basic metabolic function, she went the opposite way ~ she started eating food.  A lot of food.  And lifting weights.  A lot of weights.  BOOM.

I'm finished with restricting calories.  According to this calculator,  1500 calories (I'm looking at you Zone Diet) isn't even enough to keep my body from cannibalizing itself if I were in a coma (BMR), much less enough to fuel life and my regular old workouts.  I'm done.  From here on out, Jess is EATING THE FOOD.  

Lift Big Eat Big, quite handily, recently wrote an article about how to get big while also doing Crossfit. Hello serendipity. 

And this brings us to "Stepping Up the Awesome".  

Running Drills & Sprints 1x/week

Lifting Big & Skill Work 2-3x/week

Regular Met Cons 3-4x/week 

Full Rest Days 2x/week

Lots and lots of food.  Real food.  Whole food.  Even some starch and grains (gasp).  

I'll maintain this schedule until the end of May, at which point my regular life schedule will change due to summer break.  I'll take a few days at that point to rest & deload and make any needed adjustments to my training or schedule.  

I plan to weigh and measure myself on Monday and then not again until the end of May, but I'll come back here every weekend and let you know how the week went and my plans for the following week.  

Stepping Up the Awesome in 3...2...1...GO!!!!

I can, and have, gained weight on a Paleo Diet

Image Source

I mentioned on Facebook today that pretty much everyone that's told me "you don't have to count calories, as long as you eat the 'right' foods" has never battled a weight problem.  I seem to have touched a nerve.  It was a simple observation.  

The trendy thing in fitness & health these days seems to be that as long as you are eating whole, unprocessed foods, you don't need to count calories.  May God have mercy on your soul if you pop up on a Paleo or Vegan or Clean Eating forum and mention the "c" (calories) word.  You'll be drug to the town center, hung up by your toenails, and left to be ridiculed for all eternity.  Trust me.  I know.  

"Not all calories are created equally."  I hate that saying.  A calorie is a unit of measurement, like a mile.  Saying not all calories are the same is like saying not all miles are the same.  Now, not all miles will lead us to our destination, just like not all calories will get us closer to our ultimate goal of health.  Certainly, some calories offer more nutrition than others, but a mile is still a mile.  And a calorie is still a calorie.  

Calories count.  It is physiologically impossible to gain weight while eating in a caloric deficit and it is physiologically impossible to lose weight while eating in a caloric surplus.  It's simple physics.  The idea behind this new theory of 'calories don't matter' is that by eating whole, unprocessed foods it's impossible to actually eat in a caloric surplus.  That sounds great, if we lived in a perfect world.  We don't.  We live in an unhealthy, obese, metabolically dysfunctional world.  Most people that need to lose a significant amount of weight are no longer in touch with their satiety and fullness cues.  It is absolutely possible for a lot of people to over eat, regardless of what types of foods they're eating.  

I can, and have, over eaten carrots.  I can, and have, over eaten almond butter.  I can, and have, over eaten grass fed steak.  I can, and have, gained weight on a Paleo Diet.

This is not to say that I think everyone will have my same experience.  That would be absolutely arrogant and short sighted of me.   It's simply to say that someone that hasn't dealt with my issues doesn't have the insight to tell me that I don't need to count calories.