:Obesity Information for all

My Obesity Free Challenge

Wow - Days 7-15.  After a week of struggling with my computer and my access of passwords, I am back.  Computer is functioning for now and I have a hard copy of my passwords so that I am not dependent on back-up servers or a portable hard drive.

In the meantime, eating and moving has continued…and I have started to fit into the pants and shorts that are my motivation for this challenge.  Despite travel to NYC on a long, slow, crowded bus, social engagements and family, my eating and moving have continued to progress, and my size and shape is benefiting.

Being Social without being Obese

All my life I have measured places and events by the food…a social after a game was measured by the beer or the pizza; dinner with traveling relatives by the amount of food I could eat without calling attention to myself; traveling itself was license to eat whatever and as much as I wanted.  In the past, if I was on a diet, and doing one of those things, I gave myself permission to be off my diet.  All good in theory, until I began to reason that I made ALL situations about food and there was never NOT a time to be off my diet.

One of my concerns with eating a packaged food plan, while convenient, is socializing.  What happens when you travel?  Or have a party to go to?  As I began to see that food was a true problem for me (as evidenced by my obesity), I started to think about how I wanted to live my life.  I still wanted to be with my friends and family in social situations - I just didn’t want to be obsessed with food.

How could I change that?  What did “normal” people do?

I began to apply the same learning theory that teaches children to throw a ball to my eating.  As a teacher I would give them small, attainable goals in learning how to move their legs, hips, torso, arm, hand and fingers to throw the ball.  I would show them how to break it down to the simplest parts then add to it.  I would TEACH them, in a slow, systematic way, how to throw.

Why couldn’t I do that with eating?

Why couldn’t I learn how to eat in a way that created the body I wanted to have?

I could - and I did.  Since part of my problem was eating WAY too much food, I had to change that first.  I had to start eating smaller amounts without feeling threatened.  Instead of telling myself that I couldn’t eat chocolate or chips, I aimed for eating LESS of those things.  It took me months to get used to eating regular portions, and feeling full, but that is how I did it.  One less bite a day, and a meal slowly added up.

Teach yourself to be active

I applied the same systematic approach to exercise.  First, just walking a few more steps each day.  Then, a few more steps each time I walked, each day.  Next, adding an extra 10 minutes after work, became 30 minutes in a few months.

Each progression was built upon slowly, and I LEARNED to eat and move in way that would overcome obesity forever.  I knew I needed to learn the habits of non-obese individuals to lose weight, and lose it permanently.

It really is that simple.  So when I traveled this past week…when my computer seized and I couldn’t access my information, when life happens, I still had the same skills in place.  I knew how to eat and how to move, without be dependent the food that was being delivered to my house, or a kitchen staff having to move heaven and earth to get me food the exact way I wanted it.

In less than 2 weeks I am on a plane to California - I will be wearing the clothes that I bought 3 months ago…the same ones that are 10 sizes smaller than I wore 2 years ago.

If I can learn these behaviors, you can too.  It can be that simple.

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What makes some decisions “stick”?

I have been celebrating my birthday with two dear friends, and the kids.  Both nights…great conversations, great company…and food.  Both nights, we were out at chain restaurants, and I had choices to make about what to eat.

And, with daily totals for both days right at 2700 calories, while high, they aren’t out of whack at all with the idea of special days.  There was desert and alcohol both evenings, contributing to the calorie counts, but still…I am very…amazed.  And in conversations with my friends we kept coming back to what makes some decisions stick and some not?  How come people constantly have resolutions but don’t stick with them?

Some of our answers:

Accountability. Everyone seems to respond better to other KNOWING about our goals…no one, in our group, actually wants someone taking us to task for our progress or failure.  But we all want someone to know what we are trying to accomplish.

Help - Assistance: We want someone to help us reach our goals…eat new foods, take walks, save money, take a new class…we want companionship.  Someone to talk about our feelings and experiences with.

Finally - Support: We want someone to cheer us on…to be a cheerleader for us.  I haven’t found a single obese person who wanted to be yelled by a hard-ass.  Instead…we want to know someone understands what it is like to be heavy…to battle food every day…and who has lived through the humiliation and pain of being very fat.  We want compassion and empathy.

Interestingly, research shows that people who get those things are also more successful with long term massive weight loss.  Accountability, Help and support are all wonderful keys to help us on our journey.  And now, thanks to the internet, you can find dozens of free and low cost means of getting all three of them.

Look for them…find them and use them.  They can mean the difference between long-term success or short-term frustration.

Obesity Free Challenge update:

Despite the later nights, additional calories and alcohol, my calorie counts for yesterday and today are both at 2700, and I ran yesterday morning and walked today.  No weights, but that was due to scheduling.  Pants are still fitting well…a testament to the relatively small bump in daily calories, and the additional movement.

The OLD me

I can easily see how in the past, appetizers, salad, entree, desert, and alcohol could add up to over 4000 calories an evening, in ADDITION to the calories I would have eaten during the day.  Multiply that by 4 nights a week…52 weeks a year…and yes, 120 pounds gets added to my body pretty darn quickly.

I went through my life never telling anyone what I was doing…not asking for any help and never hoping for any compassion.  Lesson learned.

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The Magic of Thin, part 2

On my last post I described some of the feelings that many obese people feel about being thin…that it is the magic solution to all of life’s problems.  If only I was a normal size; if only I wasn’t 200 pounds overweight; if only there was a way for me to stop eating so much food; if only there was a pill so I could just lose this weight…  Furthermore, I will be happy when my desire is met.

Choosing happiness over food

What if we approached it differently?

What if we decided to be happy because we were alive?

What if we chose to be happy because we had an opportunity today to live more in line with how we want to be?  Would you make different decisions if you were happy?  Would the need for food to comfort you be so powerful?

If you were happy, just with living, with the family who loves you, with the friends you enjoy, with the job that pays you money, with the home that provides you shelter, with the animals that turn to you for support…if you were just happy…would massive amounts of food be that necessary?

Let me know your thoughts…

As for my challenge; Sunday was an oppressively hot day in Central New York, so I just walked with friends at the beach.  Calories were @ 2300 (included beer and ice cream - not bad actually.)

Monday, heat is still bad, but I got out for an early morning walk with the dog, and more spinning in the evening.  Calories were @ 1850.  Just 6 days into the challenge, clothes are looser at my waist and hips.  I am resolving not to weigh myself until the 9th of September, just to have a purely objective experiment.

Based on the success so far, I predict about 10-12 pounds of weight lost, with 1.5 inches lost around my waist and hips, each.  That is the goal for the pants for the trip.

How is your challenge going?  Have you been tracking your calories?

Final question for the evening;

What are you concerned would happen if you just were happy in your life now?

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In the past week, I saw a statistic (but I don’t know it’s source) that America is now the fattest nation in the world with 100 million either overweight or obese individuals…fully 60% of our population.  Clearly, Obesity is an issue; even if some of the numbers are off by a bit…

THE WHY of Obesity

Why do you think that is?  After spending the afternoon at the Medical Library, researching articles on obesity and metabolism, I can tell you there is a tremendous amount of research going on in many different disciplines.  That, is a VERY good thing.  Science, and the rest of us, will be well served to fully and completely understand the mechanism of obesity; and WHY we are getting fatter despite an abundance of information on how to avoid obesity and being overweight.

Vs. the WHAT of Obesity

But here’s something to consider, and I suspect when it will always come back to this simple concept, we know HOW obesity is created: surplus energy consumed.   Researchers in the biochemical, biomolecular, and neurobiological fields can continue to question what is happening in different parts of our brains to keep us eating long after the need for calories is satisfied - but according to one scientist I read today, Obesity is actually a neurobehavioral disorder.  (Dagher, A; Int. J of Obesity (2009) 33, S30-S33).  We CHOSE to take an action, despite knowing that it will create a negative outcome (we eat extra food, even though we don’t want to be morbidly fat).  It isn’t much different from spending more money than we actually have…we lose our homes, our cars, our lifestyles.  When we eat more food than we need, we gain weight.

I write this to make a point.  The WHY of obesity, while important, and good to know, isn’t as important as the WHAT of being obesity free.  We can wait, as a society, for science to answer the Why…then maybe they can develop a drug that will help us…but what that drug is helping us from, is ONLY ourselves.   To this day, and I believe for the rest of my life,  the bitter irony is that they very thing I hated about my life was the very thing I created in my life.

Warning - Blaming ahead

Every once in a while, I get a painful, angry email or comment from someone, telling me that they are terminally obese and and as soon as there is a way to padlock the refrigerator, then they will stay fat and obese.  I ALWAYS respond, as kindly, but as firmly as possible;

1. It is quite simple way to padlock the refrigerator
2. go throw every piece of processed food out, RIGHT NOW and buy ONLY fruits, vegetables, rice, beans and low-fat meats
3. eat those foods for 1 WEEK…as much as you want…until you are full.
4. count the pounds (or the amount of size) you lost

An individual who believes that the problem (being fat, eating too much) is outside him/her self will NOT lost weight, even with surgery.  Sorry, let me be more clear.  Of course, they will immediately lose weight after a surgical intervention, but it will be very short lived.  While I never had surgery, I definitely spent 30 years of my life believing that the right diet, the right job, the right location, the right workout program, the right book, the right coach, the right SOMETHING, would help me to be lean (not fat.)  Notice…it was never about ME doing right by ME.

Hitting Bottom

Overcoming obesity is hard…it was, and remains for me, the most challenging set of decisions and actions of my life.  It is a daily choice to eat in a way that my intake is less than my output.  Once I get to my ideal size (a pure 10), I will need to learn maintenance…balancing intake with output.  I am certain there will be challenges along the way…but the INITIAL decision and set of actions, to accept that I had created my obese body, and only I could change it - it nearly broke me.  It was probably the alcoholic’s equivalent to hitting bottom.  (Caveat - I read a lot today about the “Obesity as addition” arguments; I don’t agree, and maybe only for personal reasons, but I recognize that the psychology, and the physiology is very similar.)

It was painful…and changing directions was brutal.  I was eating in excess of 4500 calories a day and not moving at all if I could avoid it.  I had to start with baby steps - there was NO way I was going to take on another diet.  Cutting ONE bite out of my candy bar, along with walking one lap around the office building was the best I could do at first.  Then, I cut out a second bite, and I walked further.  Progress was slow…but momentum built, and 2.5 years later, I am @ 120 pounds leaner.  (Jeez - That is a LOT OF FAT!)  Today I eat around 2000 calories a day and I jogged 3 miles today.

The Magic of Thin

One of the first things I learned as the weight came off, was that life wasn’t suddenly better - and that almost derailed me.  Yes, I felt better and I liked losing weight…but I still had the same life (job, home, animals, partner).  I believed in the magic of thin - a belief that thin (NOT fat) people had great lives and no problems.  Not that I didn’t see the daily struggles of thin celebrities in the media…I was simply fantasizing that all my problems would be solved, WHEN I lost weight.  Life doesn’t work that way.

Day 4 - Obesity Free Challenge

I’ll return to my story in tomorrow’s post, but I wanted to give you the day’s progress on the 28 day challenge.  Good eating and a jog complimented a day on campus researching.  Calories just under 2000, with a better distribution of fat/carbs/protein.  For this challenge I am simply aiming for 2000 calories per day, plus movement.  After the wedding I want to do some personal experiments on different calorie distributions (with controlled workouts) to see if there is an effect on weight loss - anyone who wants to participate let me know.  It would be interesting to see the results from as many of you as possible.

Take comfort in knowing that the body you have created today can be a different body in your tomorrows.  You are not destined or doomed to anything.  You have unbelievable power within you to make even the smallest changes to your life…cutting out just part of the donut.  Having 1/2 a slice less of pizza, putting your ice cream in a cup instead of a bowl, walking to the mailbox and back an extra time…ALL of it adds up.  And while it seems unsurmountable now, to lose 100-200, even 300 pounds without surgery…it is happening EVERY day in the country and around the world, with the same concepts in place; EAT less than you NEED.

Join me in the challenge…see how much you can change your body in just 28 days…what do you have to lose? 

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Cheers everyone…

Friday night…up early to walk the dog for an hour - today was an active rest day.  Calories were a bit high @ 2475, but certainly acceptable.

Along the lines of caloric cycling, I am not a proponent of rigid calorie counting…and I am not reporting my daily calories for that purpose.  Instead, I am doing it to demonstrate how much calories can be consumed (especially if they are quality - high in fiber, low in fat vs one large fast food meal) and I will still lose a size within the 28 day time frame.

Just as importantly…LIFE. One of my clients wrote that when she gets stressed and tired it is more difficult to stay focused on making good eating choices.  I can’t agree with her more.  Fatigue from a late night and poor sleeping, then early to the park to walk the dog…I am exhausted.  That is where the majority of our (poor) food choices are triggered…and depending on the moods, we look for food to soothe our fatigue, stress, boredom, fear, etc.   Obesity is an insidious reminder of how many times we look to food to make us feel better…and how rarely it does.  I consider it a great success that I chose a Small frosty from Wendy’s this evening instead of the whole value menu (something I used to do - after all, I was saving money!)  320 calories vs. 3500…Progress not Perfection.

Keep at it…and keep the emails coming!  It is great to read some of your challenges and successes!

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Greetings all!

Just a short post as I am heading to bed shortly.

There is a great deal of power in having a plan…or a goal.  28 days to getting on a plane is just that kind of goal.  Lot of incentive…clothes already bought, and I don’t want to spend more money before I travel; want to look good for family and friends (and I just found out today, a 25th high school reunion!), and…most importantly, I WANT TO BE A SIZE 10-12.  I want to feel comfortable (not stuffed like a bell pepper) in the clothes I have picked out.

So…long story short.  Eating was right on target, and my movement for the day was practice with the Rochester Rugby team I just connected with. While I am certainly the oldest woman playing…and truthfully, some of these young women could be my children…it is great to be playing again and I just couldn’t be doing that if I had lost weight and got in shape. More importantly, I wouldn’t have even thought of it.  Being obese and running around just don’t go together well.

Nonetheless…good workout for 2 hours, calories under 2050, and just one beer after practice.

Size 10 here I come!

Over the weekend, I have some studies to review and also some specifics about the clothes I will be wearing on my trip.  Frankly it stuns me how one store’s size 12 can be the dimensions of a size 8 in another store…so in an effort to make the experiment as structured as possible, I am going to QUANTIFY exactly what size I intend to be on 9-10-09 (TRAVEL DAY)!

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So…the gauntlet has been thrown…one of my readers asked me if I still have goals…now that I have lost all the weight.  I explained to him that a) I am still getting smaller and b) of COURSE I still have goals!  After 2.5 years of reducing my size, slowly and steadily, I am still finding my body adapting to my different movements and eating patterns.  As it is summer here in Central New York, I have begun to run/jog quite regularly, especially with my dog.  While I am no speed demon, the idea of running, was far away as the MOON when I started at 297 pounds.  I couldn’t walk a mile then.  Now, I run, a couple of times a week and my time per mile is a between 9.5 -10.5 minutes, over 5 miles.  Not, bad for a woman in her mid-forties!  But I digress…

I was explaining to JM how I was trying to get down one more size for a family wedding that I am attending in 5.5 weeks.  And he Challenged me!!!  Specifically, he wanted to know what I would do each day to make changes in my size…and I decided that I will keep a daily log of my eating and moving (or rest) to give everyone some insight.  As you know, I tend to be pretty private, but I am also passionate in my belief that EVERYONE of us can overcome our obesity…especially if we do it in small, manageable steps.

So, I will be putting daily posts on my blog and also sending emails out to the group to give everyone some information to put to good use.   I am calling this my Obesity Free Challenge…because even though I am no longer obese, being obesity free is still a mantra for my life…and it is what I am dedicating the rest of my education and career to.

Since I leave for California on September 10th, 2009.  I have exactly 4 weeks (including today) to have a “controlled” experiment.  Granted…life happens…and within those weeks, I have two weekend trips planned, which will be great examples of how one can still make healthy, sound eating and movement choices, even when traveling.  This is also a chance for those of you to see that I am no paragon of perfection.  I am just like you…I didn’t like being obese.  In fact, I HATED being overweight, obese, fat – whatever word you want to us…and I DECIDED to find a way, that would work for me, for the rest of my life to change it.  You will see, I am certain, over the next 28 days, that the decision to eat and move to be obesity free is made over and over again.  It is NOT a choice I made once and then everything just fell into place.

I extend this challenge to you.  Yes, YOU.  Each and every one of you reading these words.  It will require 4 steps:  1) determine where you are today – whether your pant size, or your skirt size, a tape measure around your waist, or the scale (always my LAST choice).  2) keep a food journal, every day, of EVERY thing you eat.  TRUST ME – it makes all the difference in the world.  3) Keep a record of all your movement, EVERY DAY…same thing…it adds up.  And 4) share it with another HUMAN…either email it to me, comment on the blog, tell your spouse or best friend.  The BEST way to successfully lose weight and maintain the weight loss is by having support systems.   (BTW, I am doing these four things too…and YOU are my support system!)

Now…to make my experiment as controlled as possible, I got measurements at my local gym (they offer them free) on 30th of July.   These will be the starting points.  I use two different online calorie journals… Prevention.com and the one from my gym.  Prevention.com is free and I have used it for months…very good.  My basic gym membership includes the online nutrition coach…so I am going to give it a go for the next 28 days.  Additionally, I am using  Jeffrey Clymer’s Website to calculate my body fat percentage (the only measurement I care about) to make sure I am not getting lighter but NOT fatter.  (One of the major reasons I am against pure weight as a determinant of success.)

Measurements as of 7-30-09:  Weight 202.8, body fat percentage 27.6, waist is 36.0 inches and hips measure 42.5 inches.  Comfortably wearing size 14’s and some 12’s.  (I started off, in April 2007:  Weight 297, waist over 55 inches…wearing 3x-4x. I have lost over 120 pounds of fat!  WOW).

My goal…I really want to be a size 10-12 (the clothes I have already BOUGHT for my sister’s wedding.  I have 28 days before I get on the plane to California.

Food for the day – good.  Calories @ 2150, and very good workout, cardio, lunges, abs, weights.  A+ for the day.

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FYI - I am learning how to blog…I am sure you will see that by my ugly inclusion of code at the beginning of the next post…

Have faith…I am learning…and each day I apply just a little bit more knowledge.  It is the same way I lost over 100 pounds (and counting!) and it is the same way I prepared to go back to school, etc.

Obesity can be stopped and reversed TODAY, if you just take a few extra steps and eat a few less bites.

Enjoy your day!

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The concept behind the Power of Ones is very straight forward. Do little things repeatedly…and they add up to big things…in our case, pounds lost, hundreds of them. While I would love to take credit for such a brainstorm, the only thing I can accept acknowledgement is the catchy Power of Ones phrase. In fact, this concept of doing little things has been around since the dawn of human kind.

In the May/June addition of ACSM’s journal (American College of Sports Medicine) ,

Nutritionist and Exercise Physiologist, Dr. Stella Lucia Volpe, writes about ways to help individuals adhere to exercise programs and changes in diet. She stresses that big changes are hard to implement and even harder to maintain…and instead, finding evidence in the research, that smaller bouts of intense exercise are easier to accomplish and have possibly better health benefits. Additionally, making a small change in diet…cutting back instead of cutting out, can be maintained…an example she uses is eating ice cream out of a coffee cup instead of a bowl. Sure, maybe you go back a couple of times in the beginning, but research shows that over time, you will eat less.

What does this mean for us? For those of you that have been practicing the Power of Ones in your life, you are seeing the results. No, not the huge lottery winning results that we all love to read about…instead, the losing 100 pounds of weight results. One of my readers, OM (to protect his privacy) has lost over 50 pounds since April…a steady, and safe 1-2 pounds per week. And this while living dorm style with 6 other overeaters and non-movers! It can be done and he is proof. SR has gone down 3 sizes and in her words “hasn’t been this small in years.” These two people are examples of applying the basics, over and over. It is easier to do, and more successful in the end.

Another interesting article in the ACSM journal is on the social undermining phenomenon for eating and exercising. In short, it demonstrates that those closest to us are often the ones that give us the most resistance to changes in our eating and moving. Statements like, “you would rather work out than be with me” or “just one bite, I made it just for you” can put a lot of pressure on us to stray from our focus of eating and moving better. AND – to be clear, our loved ones are usually not trying to hurt us or derail us in any way…but the results can be the same…a missed movement session or 1,3,10 extra bites that effect our goals. Finally…in this same article, the authors stress that those individuals that have support systems in place…friends that they move with, or talk about eating strategies, or trainers or coaches to discuss their challenges with are 60% more successful!

So find friends/coaches/trainers to help you…and chose small changes to make big and PERMANENT differences in your life.

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When we are moving along our weight loss journey…going from obese, possibly morbidly obese, to normal sized…we have a lot of decisions to make.

Some days…it is just about putting the right things in our mouths and moving in a way to get our metabolism going.  ON other days, we have bigger decisions to make.

What size do I want to be?

What size CAN I be?

Who am I when I am not this fat woman?

We all are heavy for our own special reasons…and to change that…permanently, we all have to answer some of these questions - and we all have to make the decision: that we are NOT fat.

That might sound like psychobabble…but hear me out.  We all have beliefs that we carry about ourselves and the world around us.  For those of us that are obese, (or were) we carry a belief that we are big.  Many of us, fail to see HOW big we are…often times for years at a time.  Some of us carry a belief that we are fat - though again, we may fail to see how obese we have gotten over time.  NONE of us carry a belief that we are a normal size…and that truly inhibits us as we move towards being a normal (average) size.

Don’t get me wrong…normal is not a standard of acceptance…in this case, it is a perspective.

What size clothes do you wear?  Currently the average American woman is a size 14 with a 34-37 inch waist, and the average American man has a 35-38 inch waist.

At size 28, I was…well, not a size 14, and frankly, I had never been a size 14 in my entire adult life.

So what business did I have deciding that was normal sized?  It was an essential part of my journey.

You see - if I continued to be a fat woman, losing weight…I would always be a fat woman.  Sounds redundant…but think of the consequences.  If I saw myself as ONLY a fat woman…no matter how much weight I lost, I would still be fat.  Not until I saw myself (my belief system) to be a normal (averaged) sized woman…that I could actually become that woman.

THAT is the decision we have to make…each of us.  Not to lose weight…that goes without mention.  But to decide to be something completely different.

My friend, Mandy Evans, helps people to breakout of their limiting beliefs.  I enthusiastically recommend you check out her site.

Essentially, think of something want that you feel only a miracle could bring to you…and then ask yourself why you can’t have it.  THOSE are your limiting beliefs.

I couldn’t be normal sized, because I am a big girl.  Why can’t I be normal sized?  Because I am a big girl.  There wasn’t even room in my thought process to be lean and strong…just to be a less-fat big girl.  Now…at 5′8″ and 190 pounds, and currently wearing a size 12-14…I am averaged size…but still bigger than a hollywood starlet.  But, I am AVERAGED sized…NO LONGER a big girl.

What if, you could be something different?  What would you be?  Think on it a bit…

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