A new dawn ahead: Weight Watchers, Running, and a Fresh start

A new year is ahead of us.  This year has been a very wild ride for me personally.  I have not been posting here at all for sometime for various reasons but have not stopped writing because writing is something that helps me learn about myself, my ways, and my weight loss journey.  I hope that I have not lost all my friends here.  I am going to start posting regularly again and I am pretty darn excited about it.  Please feel free to join in on my adventures for 2011. 

For starters, I have gained about 50 lbs.  Yeah that is a lot but what can I do about it now except move forward into a new and exciting dawn. 

This was during my run tonight.

Here I am just days ago during my family christmas

Running

Part of the weight gain came about because of a serious burn out on running that was largely due to personal life stuff that I described on the blog earlier this year.  I tried hard to hold on to all the running I was doing but I just couldn’t, not with the mental stress and life changes.  Plus, I was working really hard on balance. I think I went to far with it though………….LOL!  So I never stopped running but I cut way back and am currently on my way back to running more and getting fit.  Come along with me as I progress again in my fitness, endurance, and running.  I feel like I am practically starting all over with running but I am far from that I think.  Still, way out of shape in my opinion and the extra wait is not fun to run around with.

Weight Watchers

I am, as you may have guessed, doing weight watchers for the “healthy eating” portion of my journey.  I get lots of points on this new POINTS PLUS plan.  Seems pretty well.  At the current time I am not going to meetings but doing it online.  I am having good success with it so far and plan to continue that for sure.  With the exception of xmas day I am eating pretty good and counting EVERYTHING. I know what to do, I am not making excuses, and I will succeed. Soon enough I will look like this again. LOL

Stay tuned to the blog to follow my journey-a-fresh.  I am excited and I hope that my posts can help you on your own journey with real life inspiration.  IT’S GOOD TO BE BACK.  I AM COMING BACK TO MOVE FORWARD!!!

Running through it

Over the last several months I have not done a whole lot of being consistant.  I have had a very hard time getting my life back together enough so that I can once again stick to a “normal” schedule of daily operations.  At least this is what I have thought……………………….but I have had a stroke of insight today.  I have not been doing ALL BAD!  So I will look on the bright side of things.  I have developed and implemented a new system at my work place that will change it forever and for the better.  I have followed my dreams of training for, and finally attempting to run 100 miles.  I have continued to eat ok enough not to gain ALL my weight back.  I have held it together in many ways but it still does not take away the fact that it has been really really hard.  And the hard stuff is not over yet either.  Sometimes I feel it is only getting harder.  But one thing I know for sure is that I have been running through it all.  It is the constant (other than God) that stands firmly in place.  Well, not always firmly but I have not let go of it.  I have cut back, gone hard, eased off, etc. etc.  But I have not turned my back on running.  I have pretty much stayed with at least two days a week of running.  My come back races were 32 and 41 miles. 

This tiny piece of consistancy, with which coach dean has helped tremendously, has helped me piece things together.  It has helped me have a foundation to build off of again.  I am back to exercising with cross-training.  I am excited once again about my running goals.  I am looking forward to doing more running in the very near future and Coach Dean will help me attain physically what I want to attain emotionally as a way for me to set a foundation for all that is to come.  I have to start somewhere.  Heck, I have already started long ago, but I have finally realized I cannot do this all at once.  I cannot go at this with an all or nothing approach like I normally can.  i just don’t have the mental nor emotional energy to do so.  So it will go step by step but I will keep on keeping on.  I will run, I will eat, I will workout, I will talk things out with people I trust, I will remember my blessings and……………………………………..things will become what I desire them to be.  I have learned a lot about being patient with myself and that has been hard.  But I am glad I have learned it.  VERY GLAD.

Do you remember???????????????

This is my journal which contains every step of my journey over the last 6 months. It's got pictures, song lyrics, in-depth reviews of my own emotions, and lots and lots of processing. The small book on top is my newest WW book without any stickers.

Today I am choosing to REMEMBER!  On my way to work I stopped to get my morning coffee (which I am going to hopefully stop soon) and the powerful urge to get a donut or a pepperoni hit me.  I have developed some bad habits in hermitville.  But today I remembered why I started this health journey.  I remembered how it makes me feel to eat donuts on the way to work in my car all by myself so nobody sees.  I remembered how proud I was of myself when I was eating better, not perfect, but better.  So today’s motto is REMEMBER WHY!

Here is why I first started and continue on my journey.

• I was starting to breathe hard just getting out of bed.
• I had a very hard time to get my shoes on.
• I felt like shit about myself because I was not living according to the way I really wanted to.
• Being overweight was like being in an emotional tumble drying, my mind constant knocked me around about it.
• I lived more secretively because I was afraid to be honest about my eating.
• I was more afraid of rejection and that caused a lot of the secretiveness which in turned only caused weight gain.
• I wanted to feel good about the way I was living.
• I wanted to run a marathon someday.
• I wanted to be fit and healthy so that normal activities would be WAY easier.

So those are the things I am rememering today.  What is it that brought you to the starting line of your own journey?  Are they all physical things like skinny jeans, small shirts, flat stomach, etc?  Or were some of them emotional and mental things that brought you to toe the line for the first time or possibly again?

There is no shame at trying again.  There is honor in it though.  EVERYBODY who succeeds has had to try again.  Mess ups happen, it might be a little easier to get back on track if you remember why you wanted to start this journey in the first place.

What happened yesterday

As most of you know I was a little down in my mood yesterday.  I was worried that it would throw me off of my good string of WW days and kill the positive momentum that I was having.  Well, I did not do perfect but I think I still have a good chance of losing at the next WW weigh-in.  Here is everything I put into my mouth yesterday from morning until night.

 

 

 

 

 

Coffee

Cottage cheese

2 WW frozen dinners

Banana

Nectarine

Alternative bagel

WW cream cheese

Turkey

Popcorn

Fruit cup

Oatmeal Carrots

Hot dog

3 Tootsie pops (bad choice)

12 ounces of LEAN tenderloin (should have had less)

Veggies

2 hot dog buns

1 herbalife shake

All of this food added up to 51 points for the entire day.  I am not too entirely happy about the amount of points but it could have been FAR worse.  I dipped into my 35 weeklies and that is just fine.  So far since my weigh-in I have eaten

All my daily points

16 of my weekly flex points

I have earned 16 activity points

I plan to eat all of my weekly flex points and leave most of my activity points alone.  I will get a lot of AP’s this weekend as I will be running 46 miles.  This should give me around 50 AP’s.  I will eat some but certainly not most of them.  I would like to have around 30 AP’s left by next Wednesday’s weigh-in so that I can have at least one pounds worth of calorie deficit.

I am having serious doubts that I can lose the 15 pounds that I want to.  I don’t know why the switch in my mind got tripped and now I think it is hard to lose.  I have always thought it was hard to maintain but have also felt that losing was easy.  I hope all goes as planned.  I may not weigh-in on Wednesday since it will be after a marathon but I will definitely go to the meeting.

Running alone doesn’t keep the weight off!!

I know this might sound impossible but it is sooooo accurate.  Running/exercise will not keep you from gaining weight.  It can help you out a lot in the good fight for healthy but standing by itself it will not do it.  EATING! is the determining factor.  I mean you can gain, lose, or stay the same without exercise.  You might not be as healthy overall but your weight can be stablized or moved in the direction you desire.  Of course the best combination is using both exercise and proper eating to lose or maintain weight.  This is a hard lesson for me as a runner.  I dreamed of the possibility that running could offer me a carefree life regarding food and treats.  How far from reality my thinking was.

It is very easy to eat more than you burn while exercising.  Even after running 50 miles you can eat more calories than you burned even before you go to bed that night.  Here are some examples from real life calorie expenditures that I have experienced and what I could (and have) eat to still be able to gain.

• 6 miles @ 7:28 pace= 857 calories.  My normal is to eat 3 maple bars.  This adds up to 1,380 calories.  I actually do this too!!!
• Marathon @ 10:19 pace= 3,617 calories.  After this last marathon I ate: 32 oz of Mt. Dew @ 440 calories.  I then ate two sausages with buns: 1,100 calories.  I also had a two scoop ice cream cone at B&B: 565 calories.  So that is 2105 calories within about 2 hours of the marathon.  This does not include the 1,400 calories I ate during the marathon nor does it include my dinner and snacks later in the day.  So adding what I wrote up I have already consumed as many calories as I have burned just 2 hours after the race.

This are real life examples and it is here to prove to myself that eating is far more important in weight issues than is exercise for me.  I can do the exercise but I need to focus on proper eating again.  It is a myth that endurance  and vigorous exercise makes you hungry.  Good exercise actually supresses hunger.  It does not however supress the thoughts of entitlement to food though.  Hopefully you enjoyed a small journey into the depths of my life. HAHAHAHAHAHA

Ultra-marathon and southern food!!

Well here I am a little more than 20 miles into the Strolling Jim 40 miler.  Relaxed, happy, and full of energy. HAHAHA  My wife took this picture as she drove away from giving me some of my Hammer Nutrition Perpetuem.  At this point in the race I was of course actually feeling a bit tired.  Five miles more though and I hit a serious second wind and took right off.  This is a good example of the scenery that I ran in too.

 

After the race I ate the traditional barbecued chicken lunch with coke, but a couple hours after that we went to the historic bell buckle cafe.  Bell Buckle is the birth place of the Moon Pie and RC Cola.  It is also home to a fantastic cafe with real southern cooking.  Southern is short hand for deep fried and tasty fatty yumminess. HAHAHA  I had pulled pork, fried corn bread, blue berry salad that was actually a cobbler thing, fries,  and something else that I can’t remember.  The picture is of my wife’s food.  It was great.

Gotta love cheeks! My lunch treat for the day

I was extra hungry today since I woke up late and did not have a good lunch to bring.  I has pretty much eaten all of my days worth of food by 9:30 am.  What was I to do.  Well, I walk outside to a truck with a hand written sign that says:

Cachetes, Pollo, Azada, Chuleta, y Tripas.

Well, I got the cachetes.  That is, I got the beef cheek tacos, two of them in fact.  I love beef cheeks and it is not a normal food for most of us but I have always liked them.  They are very similar to a slow cooked pot roast that just falls apart with tenderness.  These tacos were very yummy.  I counted them as 4 points each.  Probably not accurate but I had to make a guess.  Here is the picture of the Cachete Taco

Jason’s food: My lunch for today

It has been a while since I posted what I was eating so I thought it was time again.  I have some different things than just my plain old normal lunch.  Many things are the same though if you remember any of my other lunch posts.  Lots of food, decent points, and all healthy choices.

• Two carrots
• 10 pickles
• Orange
• Apple
• 1/2 cup of F/F refried beans
• 2oz chicken breast with salsa and a tiny bit of black beans
• Two burritos (1/4 cup 97% lean ground beef, refried beans, salsa, and avocado)
• 1 large bag of Jiffy Pop Kettle Korn 94% f/f
• 1 banana
• 2 bags of lower sugar oat meal
• 1 Thick and Creamy yogurt
• 1 light string cheese
• There is also an un-pictured alternative bagel with WW cream cheese and turkey that I had eaten already. MMMMM yum yum!!

Fiesta chicken: Yummy low fat eats with salsa and black beans

I am starting to see a pattern here!

RUNNING = EATING. 

That is the pattern.  Since my 35 miler, I have not been doing well on weight watchers.  That would be two weeks of not doing good on weight watchers.  This is a dang pattern.  The more I run the worse I eat.  I truly don’t believe that my body “NEEDS” a lot of extra food and especially bad food, but I think it is me telling myself, “Oh I can have this because I bet the running will make up for it”.  I hate this pattern.  I am scared of this pattern.  It is true, the last two weeks have been very big running weeks for me but that does not mean it is time to just eat whatever.  I still think that I might be ok at my Tuesday night weigh-in but I am not sure nor am I confident about it.

Nights and weekends

I have really had to make a conscious effort to count my points at night and on weekends lately.  Sometimes I do ok and other times I don’t count at all and just end up “estimating”.  I don’t like this at all.  I don’t like feeling a little out of control with the food.

Groceries and Organization

One of the biggest reasons for the struggle lately is that fact that I have not taken care of myself in the area of preparation with groceries.  As you know I have been busy working in the yard and running so I have not been to the grocery store for a long time now.  I went yesterday and stocked up on lots of good healthy foods.  I also came home right away and prepared a good portion of my daily lunches for the week.  This should help me get back on track with my points and monitoring.

Do you make the excuse to eat more or badly because you had a big exercise day?

Do you have a hard time with counting points/calories at night and on weekends?

Does grocery shopping and planning help you succeed?

Mid-afternoon snack. Mmm good!

Chicken Tenderloins and Yams

I get hungry a lot around 12:30 p.m.  This is mid to late day for me.  I start at the very latest at 5 am so hunger strikes.  I eat this snack all the time and what you see in the picture is 5 WW points.  It is chicken tenderloins and yams.  Some call them sweet potatoes but these are actually yams.  They are very yummy.  I am such a caveman that I actually just through it on some printer paper after I microwave it.  I eat it from there.  It fills me up and I don’t seem to ever get tired of it. 

give it a try.  If you have any ideas of your own, share it with all of us so we can be cool like you.

Real research to help you lose weight: Eating with others is good for you

Here is a little gem of information that is founded in real research on people and the way they eat.  We all know that we live in a fast and crazy paced life.  It seems that we don’t have time to do anything.  We scrape by and try and get done what we can each day.  At least for me, I feel like I don’t have enough time as I go through most of my days.  I found another good reason that we should take the time to eat with our loved ones.  Doing this actually helps eat healthier foods according to an ADA Scientific Journal publication called: Making time for meals: Meal structure and associations with dietary intakes of young adults.

I like scientific research because much of my education dealt with performing research regarding family and relationships.  Anyway, this journal article found that people actually tend to eat healthier when the eat with others.  The also found that when we eat on the run and are alone we tend to eat higher fat, more “POP”, more fast food, as well as leaving out other healthy options.  The research shows us that when we get together with others we are more likely to eat more fruits and vegetables.  This was surprising news to me.

I guess it could depend on who you like to eat with, but it really does make sense that when you eat with other people you do tend to eat a full meal that includes a variety of foods.  When I eat alone and on the run I most certainly do go for the fast food with lots of fat.  Here are some of the benifits that the research says you can get by eating with others more:

Benefits of eating with others

• More intake of fruit
• Higher intake of vegetables in general
• Higer intake of dark green and orange vegetables
• More social interaction and quality of life (my opinion)
• When you talk you eat less (my opinion)
• More enjoyment of food (my opinion)

What do you guys think about this research finding?  Does it match up with how your life is?  Do you eat worse on the run and by yourself?  Do you eat better when you are with others?

Grilled home-made pizza link. Check it out.

Here is a link to help you get started on home-made pizza.  It is a great post so don’t miss it.

http://tastenotwaist.com/2009/01/01/a-slice-of-heaven-on-earth/.

Pizza is my friend. How to get your pizza in.

Ok, you want to lose weight but you want your dang pizza too.   Can you have your pizza or not?  Yes you can! I thought that I might have to give up pizza forever when I started on my weight loss journey in Dec. 2006, but I was dead wrong thank God.  I have eaten pizza at least monthly since I started.  Sometimes more.  I could eat it weekly if I wanted to if I just planned for it with my points budget.

There are many ways to fake pizza at home.  Many of these ways are great substitutes but they are just not real enough for me to “feel” like I have eaten pizza.  They may be good alternatives but they are not the same.  Here are a couple of them.

• English muffin pizzas with low cal ingredients
• Flatout bread pizzas with veggies and cheese
• Home made pizzas with whatever ingredients you want that fit your program
• Lavash bread pizza supreme

Now these are all good options for MOST people.  Not good options for me.  If the pizza comes from stuff that is not normal in a pizza I don’t feel right.  Here is what I do for my pizza fix and it works like a charm every single time.

I was all alone this weekend but I did good.

My wife was gone this weekend.  Boy does the house get lonely without my Love around.  Usually when she is gone I get into some mindless eating because I am bored and don’t have her around to talk to.  I did good on my points from Friday onward.  I am happy about that and if I don’t have water retention from sore legs I hope to lose weight on my Tuesday night WI. 

This weekend I had what many call a “block”.  It is a back-to-back long run.  So on Saturday I ran a speedy 10 miles at race pace.  That happened at about 6 p.m.  Then on Sunday morning I ran 20 miles.  So in a time span of about 15 hours I ran 30 miles.  This is one way people build endurance up without having to run an overly long run of 30+ miles on their long run day.  I personally prefer just doing the one long run but the coach has me doing a back-to-back every other weekend because I get most of every other Saturday off.  This week I did not have it off so I had to run the 10 miles after work.  That always makes it harder.  I did great in both runs though and I am a bit sore today but nothing big.  It will be gone by tomorrow for sure.  That gave me 43 miles for the week.  I have a marathon this Sunday and I am going to try and break the 4 hour mark.  I won’t be rested or have done a proper taper for the marathon but that is a good thing because it will prepare me better for the 40 miler where I will be forced to keep running with tired legs and body.  I generally recover pretty fast now from 20+ mile efforts.

Yesterday I felt dizzy after my long run because I stopped eatin/drinking at mile 15 for some reason.  I guess I just forgot.  I went out for sushi with my mom and sister, then spent much of the day going here and there to buy my food for the week.  Once I got home I made lunch for my wife for her work week so that she could just come home and have a nice smooth transition back into work.  I also made some of my lunches.  I made 6 two point burritos and 6 three points sandwiches.  I will have both of them each day this week as part of my work food.

See you all later.  Don’t forget to subsribe to my feed if you haven’t already.  This way you will be updated each time I post about my journey.  Click HERE.

Will power and weight loss.

Is will power all it takes to loss weight?  Can you lose weight without being a strong willed person?  Mommymeepa thought a post about will power would be cool, so today I am posting on will power and weight loss.

Is will power all I need to lose weight and keep it off?  I don’t think so. I suppose that I could label those little choices I make right off the bat in the face of temptation as will power though.  Will power is some un-seen force that people believe that they either have or don’t have.  I just don’t believe this.  I feel that everyone has the same chance at losing weight and getting healthy.  I also feel like it has more to do with changing the way we think and the way we organize our environment.  Here are some thoughts on why I think that the battle is not won or lost on will power alone.

Totally Rad (funny word eh?) Food Find: Tortillas

I love burritos. Before I lost my weight I always made stuff into burritos.  I made mac and cheese burritos, rice burritos, bean, cheese, ham, etc.  Everything can go into a burrito.  I stopped this because for the most part burrito shells are to high in points and even the ones that are lower in points are really not that filling.  That is until now.  I have found a God send for my love affair with burritos.

La Tortilla Factory Low Carb/Lowfat Large tortillas are the best find yet as far as my burrito savvy is concerned.  They have mucho fiber so they fill you up (some people can’t take this much fiber on their stomachs, it is not a problem for me though), they are low in fat and they pack the punch of ONLY ONE WW POINT EACH.  Now that is what I’m talking about. 

I have been using them all week to make burritos for my lunch.  The night I bought them I basically made the whole package into burritos that I could just grab from the fridge in the morning as part of my lunch.  Below is a picture of my burrito and it’s mammoth size.  I put my cell phone next to it for perspective.  It weighed about 3/4+ pounds.

Here is what I put into this burrito to make a filling snack that was ONLY 3 POINTS.

1. 3oz chicken breast (2 points)
2. One large tortilla (1 point)
3. Four slices of red and green bell peppers
4. Pico de gallo salsa

I am so happy to be in burrito land again.  Do you guys like burritos/wraps?  Have you had these tortillas?  What do you think about them?

Healthy fast food

I have asked this question of myself ahead of time so that I can be prepared, but I am not always able to go according to my plans 😦  For me, it is a must to have food in the house that I can just grab, throw into an old grocery bag, and call it lunch.

Here are the foods that I call the “healthy fast foods”.  These foods work if you use them.  They will bring the victory where you usually might get beat up by other fast food choices.

See the great food choices by reading on.

Salsa recipe that will hold you ’till dinner.

 One of the wonderful readers here at run4change is Mike.  He loves to hear about the different stuff I and others eat on the weight loss journey.  I told him that I loved to snack on salsa right when I get home to kind of hold me over until dinner time.  He told me that his wife makes the best salsa ever so I asked him for the recipe.  Kathy is the master mind behind this salsa. She tells me there that it is more than a recipe, it is a process that you make to your taste.

Step-by-step temptation pictorial

I thought of this idea the other day when I was going to the break room to get a “POP”. I think you guys will find some fun and joy in this post. Most likely you will identify with it really well too. I will have a picture and then a little blurb narrating my thoughts at that point.

“Boy am I thirsty for a good ‘ol Diet Coke.  Ya, I’m gonna go get a Diet Coke”

“OH MY!!  What are those things on top of that person’s lunchbox.  I know they are not mine, but maybe I should take a closer look.  It looks like maybe they are cookies.”

“Ewh yeah!!  They are cookies.  Is anybody watching I wonder.  Should I just have one.  They will probably think it was just someone else who stold their cookie.  I wonder what kind they are????”

“Should I or shouldn’t I.  They look like maybe they are vanilla or maybe possibly lemon.  I like those kind good enough.  Nobody’s around either.”

“The fatty goodness is just glaring out at me.  I think I can smell the sugar.  I wonder what kind they are.  Only taste will tell.  I think I will go for it!!  But they aren’t mine.” 

Laughing nervously. 

“Maybe I should just move on to the “POP” machine.”

I watch the cookies carefully as I pass by them saying, “I guess I should leave them alone.  They aren’t mine anyway.  Maybe I’ll grab one on the way out of the breakroom.”

Almost at the “POP” machine I finally say, “OK, I am not going to do it.  I’m gonna leave them alone.  That is that!”

I made it to the “POP” machine and get my Diet Coke.  I proceeded to my office without stealing some persons lonely cookies.  HAHAHAHA  I thought you guys might find this funny.

Do you ever have those moments where you pass by the yummies in slow motion and talk to yourself?   HAHAHAHA

I watched biggest loser last night

Since I was at my sister’s house for dinner last night, we watched Biggest Loser.  I am really enjoying this season of the show as there appears to be a bit more heart involved in it.  You can never be absolutely sure if people are being genuine since it is a game and being loving and nice could just be a tactical move.  As I watched the show I pondered on a couple of things that are relevant to my own journey.

I wanted to share those thoughts quickly with you because I feel they were a big part of my success.

 

 

 

• It is very difficult to do great on your own, but you are on your own.  Last night’s show displayed a lot of care between opponents.  They helped each other up the mountain and cheered each other on.  This is all good.  Jillian said to one of the girls who was having a hard time that she WAS on her own.  This was interesting.  Despite people helping us and cheering us on, we are very much on our own journey.  Nobody can make the decision to eat right or go work out for us.  They can urge us in the right direction but the can’t make us.  Our success is up to us in each choice we make.
• It is important to learn that you can do more than you thought you could. I thought of this during the rowing machine challenge.  It is obvious that several of the people just don’t believe they can do it.  This takes time to develop.  After running my first ultra marathon I learned that I and others can do  a lot more than we think.
• Despite being injured, you can still lose weight.  I got this from the dad who has the hurt knee.  He cannot exercise at the level that everyone else can but he lost 7 pounds for the week.  So even if we are busy, injured, or for some other reason can’t exercise for the optimal amount of time; we can still lose weight with proper eating and doing what we can.

Those are the neat things I was pondering on.  It is so nice to have all of you to support me and I love to support you.  Thanks for reading and remember that in each situation we all have to make the best choice for our health.