Endless Journey

Life is just grand, thanks for asking!

I must finally be honest with myself and admit to the world that I am a fad person. Yes, believe it or not, I am. It has been these many fads in my life that has caused me to neglect my blog - this endless blog... I mean Endless Journey. Not that I have neglected my health and fitness regime, on the contrary, this aspect of my life is looking great and I can thank SparkPeople for getting me on track.

I have lost 25 lbs since starting with Spark People 8 months ago. Yes, it may sound like a long time, but losing weight in this way really does help to keep it off. Really, believe me. I have done the fad diets - starving, bingeing, purging - and although weight loss in inevitable, it is usually not permanent and then begins the yo-yo dieting. I now see that I don't want to revolve my life around food and weightloss but want to enjoy everything else that life has to offer, while still losing weight.

So yes, I have been enjoying life and losing weight and life couldn't be sweeter...

Tis the season...again.

Yes, it sure is that time of the year and as much as I look forward to all the festivities, I really don't look forward to the tempting treats that often accompany these same events. Not that I am tempted too much by such things as chocolate or pastries, but I am tempted by pasta AND alcohol. Yes, bring on the drinks, baby!

Unlike previous years, I am feeling like I am in a really good place with my diet and want to continue losing weight, not gaining it as so many people do this time of the year. I must say that I am happy to report that I have lost 20 lbs since joining SparkPeople, and hope to lose a lot more before I will be happy in my own skin. So that alone should keep me motivated and help me resist the temptation to over-indulge.

Of course, I have found in previous years that over-indulging in food is as much the key to weight gain, as is the lack of exercise. It is all too easy to come up with good excuses not to work out, especially when there is so little free time after rushing around from party to party, and maybe even getting some time to purchase some christmas presents along the way.  Maybe.

Well, this year will be much easier as we decided to adopt another dog, which means that I have no excuse but to exercise both dogs everyday, with or without alcohol in my system. Yes, last week after attending a Christmas party at Daniel's Broiler, I then had to go home and jog with both dogs for an hour. Yes, I certainly learned my lesson about mixing cocktails and exercise as it really doesn't help with the motivation, or the jogging on a straight line. haha.

So here is wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas...and many happy exercise routines.

The importance of goal setting.

Goals are important. Who doesn't know this simple fact. We set long term goals, short term goals, goals stating what we want to achieve in our daily lives. On a daily basis I will make a note (set of goals) that I need to achieve at the office. Hey, I even write out a list of goals for the things I want to achieve in the house (vacuum, mop, re-organise my study, paint the bathroom, etc, etc). These may look like simple to do lists on post it notes, but they are really short and long term goals that I am setting, and little by little, achieving.

All too often we stop short of making a list of goals that center on what we want to achieve in the realm of fitness & weightloss. It is not enough to think 'I want to get fit', or 'I want to lose so many pounds by christmas', or 'I would even love to run a half marathon'. It is all good and well to have dreams, but unless you have a plan that allows you to make the baby steps required to achieve these goals, then they are nothing more than exactly that dreams. There really is something special about making a list of short term goals that seems to make them seem much more achievable than having mental list of goals.

With the help of SparkPeople.com I have been in the habit (for the past three months) of logging my food/beverage intake, my cardio and strength training routines and have even made a list of goals that I wish to achieve; one focuses on weightloss and the other focuses on increasing my jogging miles. I also set a mini goal of jogging 1mile per day, with my short term goal of jogging 5 miles per day, and my long term goal is to be able to jog 10 miles per day. This may not sound like much, but it has been enough to get me out of bed in the morning and to run a minimum of 1 mile. Of course, when you break it down, I can run 1 mile in 15 minutes, so it really doesn't seem all that amazing. But what is amazing is that doing my cardio in the morning is fast becoming a habit and one that is easy to maintain if all I have to do is wake up 15-20 minutes earlier than normal. Of course, now that I am loving my treadmill and the challenge of jogging more miles I am finding it much easier to get up in the morning...well, most mornings.

SparkPeople.com - You rock my world.

I have now been a devoted member of SparkPeople since July 23. Sound like another fad, maybe it is? But does a loss of 12 lbs sound like a fad to you?? Not on your life, baby. Yep, you heard me right. I have lost 12lbs since joining SparkPeople just a short time ago.

I don't really know what happened to get me on the path that I now walk. Maybe it was an accumulation of many things including the depressed emotions regarding my weight gain since living in the USA, combined with the knowledge that only I can do something about it, and the guidance and support that I am receiving from my network of friends at SparkPeople, ok, acquaintances. Whatever. The fact of the matter remains that I am losing weight and doing it properly this time.

At the moment I am consuming between 1200-1500 calories per day, and on some occasions more like 1000, but I try not to let this happen too often. It is important to consume an ample amount of calories throughout the day, and I do so at 3-4hr intervals to ensure that I am allowing my body to function at full capacity, while speeding up my metabolism.

Maybe the motivation to succeed came from something as little as wanting to collect as many spark points as possible, so I could win bigger and better trophies (all of a graphic nature, mind you - as in they are trophy pics, NOT real trophies). This does seem silly, but if it gets me motivated, then it is amazing - and this it has surely achieved!

Things are changing. Hey, I am changing and it is all positive. I guess this is what progress really feels like. Yeh, I am making progress. Now thats a change. This seems like one big happy, changing, cycle...yeh, change IS good.

I have always been an emotional eater. I would eat when I was sad and I would eat when I was stressed. Hey, I would even eat when I was happy. (So that explains my weight gain?) But I have realized that this also has changed. Take this day, for instance.  In the past I would normally be found drowning my sorrows in a huge bowl of ice cream after dealing with the loss of my pet ferret (you can go here to read all about it, if you wish?), but I have found that I am not. Actually, there is no ice cream to be found in my refrigerator after committing to SparkPeople AND more importantly to myself. I guess I have grown as a person (and not in the physical sense, thank goodness!) and maybe even realized - finally - that food won't take the pain away. That life is full of choices and each day I can either choose to make ones that will benefit me, or harm me, and I know what I am going to choose - do you?

I did it!

You know at times the road to reaching our goals may appear endless...yes, like an Endless Journey. But that journey can be one filled with adventure and triumphs, rather than one that often finds you sitting by the curb waiting for that well meaning driver to come along and assist with that flat tire or two.

Well, this morning I chose to leave the curb (aka my bed) and step on the treadmill. I wasn't running at an amazing pace; most of the time I wasn't even jogging, but merely doing a brisk walk or a slow jog. But I did it, and in doing so I managed to cover 1.5 miles and get 30 mins. of exercise in when I would have been sleeping.
While I was on the treadmill I realised that I have a tendency to set myself up for failure, as I often feel that I have to hit the pavement (or treadmill) hard and fast AND workout for hours on end to get results. Well, I don't, and I have realised - yet again - that as long as I am doing something everyday then I am getting closer to reaching my goals. It is only by conquering the little goals that we set, that we are able to conquer the much larger, and seemingly overwhelming ones. It is all about baby steps and baby steps can come in many different forms. It could be walking another 15 minutes, or leaving that 'one more bite' on your plate, or even waking up 30 minutes earlier than usual, as I did this morning, but just do something.

You can do it!

The Endless Journey continues...

Well, I don't need to tell you how much I am loving the new love of my life, SparkPeople - you already know all that. But I must tell you that I recently started a SparkPage at this same fabulous site. Yeh, I know I am crazy trying to commit to too many things, but I am loving it at the moment and when I get too busy I will just figure something out.

In only 3 weeks it seems like my relationship with food has changed. The focus used to be on the comfort I received from eating calorie filled foods with little else, but now I am so focused on consuming foods that are good for me - foods that my body needs to be healthy and thin - that I just don't have the time to commit to thinking about anything else.

Of course, in the beginning of my relationship with SparkPeople, I must admit that it was all about the spark points I would receive by logging calories, water consumption, activities, reading articles, etc. But now it is about so much more. It is about me finally making the appropriate steps to get my weight down AND to start feeling good about myself again. Being overweight is both physically and emotionally draining and I have had enough of being sapped of energy. It's time to change!

Thank you Spark People

I joined up with SparkPeople.com on July 23 and for some bizarre reason this site has helped to change my whole life with regard to my own health and fitness goals. Since beginning with this fitness site I have given up coke cola, cut out all chocolate treats, increased my consumption of fruit and vegetables and managed to incorporate regular exercise into my routine. And you know what? I feel great!!

After the two weeks of eating healthy foods, my skin broke out and I suffered with headaches for about 4 days but I believe this was all associated with the toxins leaving my body from all the junk (mainly coke) that I had been consuming before I made the change. I guess the increase in vegetables and fruits in my diet has also helped to rid my body of junk. Well, in spite of the headaches I feel awesome and totally in control of my life, for a change. I feel like I am finally ready to quit making excuses for my weight gain and finally DOING something about it.

It has also helped that I have been logging everything that goes into my mouth, everything, down to the teaspoon of butter I used on my toast. This has been enlightening as I often believed that I consumed less calories and fat than I actually did. Now I have learned that with proper management I can consume the required daily calorie intake (at this stage between 1200-1550 calories per day) and being healthy and losing weight does not have to mean sacrificing good food. To prove this, Joel and I recently celebrated our 12yr wedding anniversary at a lovely restaurant, Marjorie in Belltown and I have to admit to not holding back on enjoying a scrumptious night out. I highly recommend this restaurant if you want a wonderful eclectic meal, with wonderful service and even the owner, Donna, pops by to say hello. My dinner consisted of eating a small meal of Chicken Tikka Masala with a side of rice, a cocktail, a few glasses of wine, a glass of port, and a small serve of pecan butterscotch ice-cream AND I still managed to remain within my calorie limit for the day AND not go over my allocated amount of fats for the day. Now I definitely wouldn't recommend consuming this amount of alcohol every day if you really want to reach your goals, or function normally the next day, but on a special occasion it is fine.

So get fit, be healthy and love life!

Small steps that lead us to achievement

"There are natural consequences that accompany every choice we make in life. Some opportunities inevitably pass us by, but we can take advantage of others. Many people feel powerless but this is rarely the case--some opportunities just require a little thinking outside the box. Today, reflect on the doors you are opening in your world and which ones are closing. You have the power to create the life you want if you are willing to set goals and take steps toward them. Rarely does fulfilling our hopes and dreams happen overnight, but daily you can take one tiny move towards them".  (SparkPeople)

Is obesity contagious?

"...the ubiquity of social networks, and the natural inclination of people to be influenced by the appearance and behaviors of those around them, suggest that weight gain in one person might encourage weight gain in others. Having social contacts of a certain bodily size may also cause you to adopt certain behaviors, or other people's behaviors may even stimulate certain parts of the brain, such as those related to eating food......Social networks were more important than geographic location, the study found. In other words, who you tend to hang out with is more influential, weight-wise, than who your next door neighbor is." read the full article here

I just read this interesting, though seemingly obvious, bit of information while perusing the articles on SparkPeople.com. So it really is true that by mingling with larger than life people a person can get larger and the reverse being, that by socializing with thinner -more healthy conscious - people, a person can adopt a thinner physique. Actually, I should re-phrase that last sentence as I really shouldn't make the assumption that thinner people are necessarily more healthy than fatter people as many factors come into play here. Of course, if I am making a comparison between a thin anorexic and a chubby person then one could assume, upon learning of the facts, that the anorexia is not healthier than the chubby person. But hey, I am getting way of track here.

This article is basically stating that there is scientific evidence that proves who you socialize with greatly impacts your physical presence, so to speak, and by presence I mean how much or how little space you inhabit. In looking back over my life, according to my weight fluctuations, I have to agree that  I was more motivated to look hot when I lived in Sydney, Australia and worked in the Advertising Industry, as compared to working in an older Architect firm here in Seattle, WA that relished the good life AND the good food that comes along with it. Of course, Joel (my man) also lives here in Seattle and has never looked better AND just to prove the theory in this article, he mingles with personal trainers and other gym junkies and I guess they really do inspire each other to look as good as humanly possible.

Now I am sure this article isn't expecting us to avoid certain people, but I guess it is good to be aware of the influences our friends and surroundings have on our dietary success. Be fit and get healthy!