Fit & Fabulous: The Plan

So I’ve been struggling with how to write this post. I tried doing the whole background spiel but it seems that I have just too much history with food to put it all in one entry. I’ve decided to just dole out my past in little bits whenever it comes up and just try to nutshell it in the first post. So here it is;

I am overweight. I used to be underweight but it was all due to an intense metabolism. Since I could eat whatever I wanted without consequences I developed some really bad food habits and probably binge eating disorder. When I reached mid-twenties the bottom dropped out of my metabolism and my habit of no exercise + binge eating = 70lb weight gain. I got stretch marks.

I’m 5’5’’ and I reached my highest weight of 182lbs last December. Since then, I’ve lost 14.8 of those pounds. Hoorah!! If you think that doesn’t sound impressive go do something awkward with a duck because it’s a huge accomplishment for me. I went from gaining a pound a week to losing something most months. AND I found a form of exercise I actually want to do – swimming. 

So here’s what’s happened so far; I bought a book called ‘The Cognitive Behavioral Workbook for Weight Management: A Step-by-Step Program’ and started with its maintenance plan. I did that for about a year, adding in more and more exercise, and then recently switched to the book’s weight-loss plan. I started with maintenance because I had so many food issues and I knew that I’d never lose weight without addressing them first. So I had to learn to maintain before I lost. 

Now when I say, ‘I did the maintenance plan for a year,’ please understand that doesn’t mean I stuck to it every day. In fact, I didn’t even stick to it most days. My first goal was to do the plan for 56 days (not even consecutively!) and after starting the plan in late July of last year I reached that goal on June 12 this year! 

Since I love numbers, you know I’ve got all the stats! Here they are;

Month	days I followed the diet plan	weight loss	Days exercised
Dec 12	3	1.8lbs	?
Jan 13	6	Maintained	7
Feb 13	4	1.6lbs	14
Mar 13	7	1.6lbs	20
Apr 13	7	0.8lbs	16
May 13	14	0.8lbs	20
June 13	10	4.8lbs	8
July 13	10	3.4lbs	17

As you can see, I suck at following my plans but I’ve still had some success probably because of exercise (and starting a new anti-depressant in June), and starting the weight-loss diet plan in July.

I’ll go over the main ideas of these two diet plans; you can get the details of both of these diets from the book I mentioned. Maintenance diet first;  I went through the calculations in the book for how many calories you need to eat in a day based on height, weight and amount of exercise. I picked a sedentary amount of exercise at first because the criterion for ‘active’ is exercise about 3-4 times a week and I definitely wasn’t doing that in the beginning. I’m barely doing that now. Then the book gives you a certain amount of servings from each food group that you should eat based on how many calories you need in a day. For me, it was; 

Servings	Food Group	Calorie Equivalent per serving	Or
7	Grains	100	1 slice bread
7	Fruits and Vegetables	25	1 whole fruit or veggie
2	Dairy	100	1 cup milk, 1 slice cheese
2.5	Meats	150	Meat the size of a deck of cards
6	Extra Fats	45	1/3 chocolate bar

I kept track of my food and how many servings I ate in a day in a little notebook that I kept with me. I liked this better than keeping track with some app because I’m not sure any of the good ones count by serving size and I don’t have a smart phone so that would just be inconvenient. Counting by serving size is good for me because it’s easier to look at your food and record what you’re eating without having to know exactly how many calories is in it or having to look everything up in some crazy chart. It’s also just an estimate, so I don’t have to stress over exactly how many calories a food has. Counting calories is super stressful for me and just makes me more obsessed with food. Then I eat more just because I’m thinking about food more.

 Counting by serving size is so much simpler. I do have to be careful to estimate as accurately as possible, though. So I can’t just count French fries as 1 veggie. Let’s be honest here, once they’re French fries they’re hardly vegetables at all anymore. Medium French fries at McDonalds are 380 calories so that’s the equivalent of 8 ½ fats. A small is 5 fats. This is where it’s nice to know the calorie equivalent of each serving size. When I first started out I needed to look this up for basically everything so I knew that I was estimating accurately. I still look things up but you get a feel for it after a while and I can always write down in my notebook how many servings are in the foods I eat on a regular basis.

So, that’s the maintenance plan. My weight-loss diet looks like this;

Servings	Food Group	Calorie Equivalent per serving	Or
6	Grains	100	1 slice bread
6	Fruits and Vegetables	25	1 whole fruit or veggie
3	Dairy	100	1 cup milk, 1 slice cheese
2	Meats	150	Meat the size of a deck of cards
5	Extra Fats	45	1/3 chocolate bar

Not a big difference but a little harder to keep up with.

Now let’s talk exercise. My ultimate goal is to exercise an hour six days a week. It’s a pretty lofty goal. I’ve broken it down into smaller goals and I have to achieve each one to move on to the next one.

Goal 1: walk for 15 minutes daily plus an hour of yoga once a week. Do this goal 1 week.

Goal 2: An hour of yoga, 30 minutes jogging, and 5 15 minute walks per week. Do this goal 2 weeks.

Goal 3: 1 hour yoga, 2 30 minute jogs and 4 15 minute walks per week. Do this goal for 3 weeks.

Goal 4: 1 hour yoga, 2 30 minute jogs, 2 15 minute sessions of physical therapy stretches, and 2 15 minute walks per week. Do this goal for 4 weeks.

Goal 5: 1 hour yoga, 3 33 minute cardio sessions, and 2 26 minute PT sessions. Do this 5 weeks.

Goal 6: 1 hour yoga, 3 33 minute cardio sessions, and 2 30 minute PT sessions. Do this 6 weeks.

I also decided to get some more exercise in during the day while I’m at work. I have an adjustable desk so I stand for at least an hour in the morning; I’m trying to take the stairs more often and go for a 15 minute walk in the mid-afternoon.

I’m on goal 5 right now. I have 11 goals all working up to the BIG goal of 6 hours/week, but I didn’t want to bore you with all that. You’ll notice at one point I change ‘jogs’ to ‘cardio sessions.’ That’s mostly because I learned jogging is not nearly as fun as swimming and while the outdoor pool at my YMCA is open, I’ll be swimming instead of running. Maybe even after the outdoor pool closes, but I’m not sure about that since the indoor pool hours suck during the colder months (either  5am or 8pm). I’m hoping to replace physical therapy sessions with endurance and then strength training once I’m ready for all that but right now I’m just taking it slow. I’m sure I’m going to talk about my injury in a series of posts later but that’s another one that I’ve been struggling to write. So for now I’ll just leave you with all these hopeful, ambitious plans.

Jane





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