Motivation
Weekend Warriors are Back!
I had a bad weekend.
Wait, let me clarify. I had a fine weekend, as far as just being alive goes. Still here, so win there!
Bad weekend as far as the diet goes.
And I’m finding it happens pretty much every weekened.
Basically, this is how my diet is progressing at the moment. I do well Monday thru Friday, and according to Physics Diet, my weight is more or less dropping. And then Saturday and Sunday show up, and I find myself just… not doing anything right.
I view the weekends as a vacation from healthy eating and living. This is especially stupid for me as NO foods are off limits and I can have whatever I want if I count my calories. As for exercise, I freaking LIKE to exercise. Why don’t I?!
Because I like playing around more.
But this stops.
About two-ish years ago, Brandon from I Run Alaska hosted a weekend challenge once a month called Weekend Warriors. Basically, he noticed that he was doing the same thing I described above, sabotaging himself, and he was tired of it. Hence, Weekend Warriors was born, and we were all invited to participate. It happened about once a month, and I think all of us who participated did well on those weekends.
I want to reclaim my weekends for health.
I emailed (actually, I direct messaged on Twitter) Brandon and asked for permission to resurrect his idea. He gave me permission, so here we are.
Weekend Warriors is back!
I am quite aware that my blog is one of the smaller fish in the healthy blog ocean (I think I may even be plankton), so this may be a tiny group. Heck, it may just be me.
But I encourage anyone who wants to do better on their weekends to take part.
There are no rules. You set your own rules. You decide what you want to do to make your weekend a success, and you do it. It’d be awesome if you’d write a post about it, but that’s obviously up to you. I will do a link party here on Stellar Path.
I’ll write the official Weekend Warriors Post on Thursday.
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366 Weigh-In: Keep On Keeping On
I am down to 366. My weight fluctuated a bit as a result of too much birthday celebration, but today, I dropped several pounds, which put my average squarely below 366. I am happy with this. Birthdays are for celebrating, but they are for celebrating for one day. Not for a month. At least with food.
I have nothing really profound to say, except to post this little graphic I just made. (I believe the image to be public domain, as I found it on a website of public domain photos, but if you are the owner and I am incorrect, please contact me immediately and I will rectify the situation.)
That’s all it is. Do it every day. Repeat forever.
I’m cool with that.
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Will You Do It Every Day?
Have you heard about the latest diet in the news?
I’m serious. You can’t make this crap up.
You can click the link above to read about it and watch a video, but the gist… a doctor (who should lose his medical license, in my opinion) is allowing people (brides-to-be are apparently the big population) to use a feeding tube, through the nose and down the throat, to deliver a slow drip of protein and fats over 10 days. There is no eating. The doctor even makes the claim that this causes ketosis (which yeah, it probably does) which doesn’t cause you to lose muscle (which is not entirely true – there is some muscle loss during ketosis). The people getting this procedure are only getting around 800 calories a day.
This may be the stupidest thing I have ever heard of.
I am not a fan of fad diets in any way, shape, or form.
Understand – I’m not a person who is opposed to the word diet, because frankly, sometimes it’s just easier to say “I’m on a diet” than go through the whole rigmarole of “Well, I’m eating less and moving more in a way that I plan to stay on for the rest of my life to reach and maintain a healthy weight.”
But that last part is the difference for me.
I had a trainer once who said something to me so incredibly profound, it has stuck with me for years. When I get clients as a personal trainer, this is something I will share with them at our first session.
“If you are not willing to do it forever, do not do it at all to lose weight.”
I’m not willing to give up grains forever. That means Paleo is out for me. (Although most people I know who are on Paleo seem to be willing to be on it forever, so more power to them. I’m only anti-Paleo for me, not anyone else.)
I’m not willing to give up fast food forever. That means Strict Eating Clean is out for me.
I’m not willing to give up meat or cheese forever. That means Vegan is out for me. (Although I wouldn’t call veganism a fad diet, as virtually every vegan I know does it for ethical reasons, which makes it a very different situation here.)
I’m not willing to inject myself with the hormones of a pregnant woman, or have my stomach surgically altered so that I can only eat a thumb-sized serving of food at a time, or run a feeding tube down my throat, or drink two fake milkshake/meal replacements a day, or eat tons of cabbage soup, or only eat grapefruit for a week, or anything else extreme.
I try to live by an 80% healthy/20% splurge-y mentality. Honestly, most of the time, it’s more 90%/10%.
I count my calories. I eat healthy as often as I can. But at the end of the day, if I truly want something and I can “afford” it in my calorie totals for the day, I’ll allow myself a little of it. It keeps me sane, and my weight is slowly decreasing. Sure, I could do something extreme and lose the weight faster, but I’m in this for the long haul.
These are things I am willing to do forever. I know I can’t eat McDonalds everyday, but if I want a McDouble once a month, I’m not going to sweat it. If I choose to have a Diet Dr. Pepper and pizza on one date night every so often, I’ll do it. And I’ll eat healthy at as many meals as I can.
You have to be able to live with it. Because if you lose weight using a method that you can’t live with, then it will be gained back.
Losing weight is not easy, but for that matter, neither is life. Just as there are no shortcuts in life, there are not real shortcuts in weight loss.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go eat 600 calories at dinner, planned out of my calorie allotment for the day, and exercise before going to bed. And this IS something I am willing to do forever.
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My Reason #2 – The Vanity Fantasy
Part of the reason that I blog is because I have words stuck in my head that I want to get out. It’s the same reason that I write. I’ve been a writer since I was probably 8 years old. For a lot of years, the protagonist in my short stories and novels were a lot like me.
They were the me that I wanted to be.
They were always roughly whatever age I was when I was writing, they were always fit, and they usually had a girlfriend. They weren’t the point of the story. It would just always be a healthier version of me who had been abducted by aliens or fighting ghosts or trying to save a magical world with newfound magical powers and fighting skills.
Now as I’ve gotten older, I’ve changed my protagonists. In fact, in the novel I am working on currently, my protagonist is a 15 year old girl. In a short story that I go back to from time to time, it’s an old black man. The protagonist is no longer me.
Well, at least physically. I believe every author puts some of themselves in their main characters, but that’s not the point.
The point is that I have always had a very certain look I wanted to achieve.
That look was muscular. Fit. Healthy. And happy.
I’ve accomplished the happy part. I just need to work on the others.
There are days when sheer vanity is what drives my workouts. I literally dream about the day that I can pay thousands of dollars for abdominoplasty. I know it will be necessary. It might even be necessary for health, because I am still almost 200 pounds overweight. That much excess skin could lead to infections and chafing and other problems that, while far less severe than weight related issues, still won’t be desirable.
So even though I’ll have a few scars on my midsection (I’ve heard good plastic surgeons can hide those scars in your pubic region where they’ll be hidden by underwear), I know what I ultimately want to look like.
I don’t know what the future holds. I know I might get to goal weight and a six pack of abs just isn’t in my genetics. And if that happens, I’ll redefine and still be happy.
But for now, almost 200 pounds away (188, to be exact), I can dream about what I will look like. I can fantasize about a rippled midsection (with muscles, not fat – I’ve already got that one), a chiseled back, and 19 inch arms that aren’t flabby but are solid muscle.
Is it realistic?
Dunno. I know most people don’t look like that.
Is it doable?
Yep. Some people do look like that, and I know they put a lot of work into it.
Will I do it?
Yes.
I will someday have the physique of a men’s fitness model. That is a big bold claim, especially from someone who spent over a year in the 370s. I realize that.
But the idea of being that fit, of being discovered and getting on the cover of Men’s Health (don’t laugh – this is my fantasy), of looking down at my abdomen and seeing only muscle… that’s what drives me at times.
Health, fitness, longevity… Those are all great things, and I want them to.
But some days, I just want to be hot.
This afternoon, as I get my workout in, if I feel tired in the midst, I’ll think of taking off my shirt on the set of a photoshoot and knowing that they’ll only need to photoshop out some scars… that’s what will lead me to finish. That’s why I packed a carrot to go with my lunch instead of a brownie.
Am I alone? Am I the only one driven by vanity? Even if I am, that’s okay with me, but I bet I’m not. What’s your vanity fantasy?
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Motivation in the Mail: Healthy Living Postcard Exchange
I’ve had an idea percolating for a while. I actually addressed it in a minimal format LONG ago (as in prior to this version of Stellar Path, although a few of you from back then may still remember it), but I’ve decided that 2012 is the year to implement this. However, I cannot do this alone, so I need your help. But here’s the thing – it should benefit you as much as it will me.
And no, it’s not a Ponzi scheme.
Right now, I’m calling it the Healthy Living Postcard Exchange.
Here is how it works.
You are matched up, randomly, with some person. It may be a blogger; it may be someone without a blog; it may be someone you know well; it may be someone you have never heard of.
You send them a postcard from your area of the world. On said postcard, you will write some note of encouragement. From the generic “You can do it!” to a more detailed I-clearly-stalked-you-on-the-internet “I know you are struggling, but just remember the success you had last year in March. I’m pulling for you and you can do it again!” And then, you have something to put on your fridge (or bathroom mirror, or wherever is motivational to you) and maybe, it’ll help you stay on track.
Obviously, this will require you to share your mailing address with someone. All you’ll need to let me know is that you want to participate. Since we are just talking about mailing postcards, I see no reason that this couldn’t be opened up worldwide. Obviously, if you live in the U.S., it will cost slightly more to mail a postcard to the other side of the world than to the other side of the U.S., but since it is JUST a postcard, the cost is still typically less than $2.00.
If you want to participate, please email me the following information by January 8th to jeremy@stellarpath.net.
1. Your email address
2. If you are a US reader, if you are willing to send a postcard internationally. (You can still participate if you only want to send domestic.)
I initially thought I was going to match up mailing addresses and so forth, but instead, I’ll email out a list saying who is matched up to whom, and you will send your person your mailing address.
If enough people participate, I’m planning to arrange it each month so that the person you send your postcard to will not be the person you receive your postcard from.
I know that a lot of us already “know” each other through the internet (and a few lucky folks out there know each other in person through Fitbloggin and other local meet-ups), but this seems to me it could be a great way to bring some of us closer together and motivate each other.
Right now, I’m thinking we’ll do this once a month, so if you want to bow out a month for whatever reason, no problem. But still… I think it would be pretty neat to think that at the end of 2012, you could have twelve postcards from (hopefully) twelve different people [if enough sign up, so please sign up!], all motivating you on your goals, weight loss, healthy living, healthy eating, working out, or WHATEVER.
So at this point, I just shamelessly beg. Obviously, I need people to participate. I’ll do the matching. All you need to do is email me the information above.
Anyone up for participating?
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