8.26.2009

Emotional Roller Coaster

Why is it that changing my food habits and exercising is such an emotional roller coaster for me.  My husband doesn't understand that part at all.  Food and emotions do not belong anywhere near the same sentence as far as he's concerned. 

But for me, it totally is.  I started out so pumped and motivated.  The majority of the time I have continued to feel that way.  The last two weeks have been very challenging for me.  I've hurt my leg, which has slowed me down with the exercising.  But yet my appetite has increased majorly. Along with my desire to eat foods that have not even been that much of a temptation for me up until this point. Every single day- several times a day- I have had to remind myself of my goal and pray for perseverance.  I have stood at the pantry door praying that I will choose wise things to eat so I can finish up the goals that I have set for myself.  Last night Jonathan walks in the kitchen to find me standing in front of the pantry with my eyes closed.  He laughed and said, "What are you doing?"  I said praying.  I actually do that a lot lately, right here. 

It's not that I think that choosing to have a "cheat" would be horrible or the end of the world.  It's just the talk that's going on in my head of - this is too hard, I can't do this forever, I may as well just quit.   All lies I know.  I just have had to talk back and forth to myself. The whole reason I'm doing this is to choose a healthier lifestyle and take care of my body.  Weight loss is not the ultimate goal.  I guess my flesh has just gotten caught up in that. 

Needless to say the last few weeks have left me to feel emotional, and a little nutty.  My prayer is that I will continue to try and bring glory to God through the way I take care of my body.  I had to break a lot of bad habits.  I guess now that my body has gotten in the groove my mind is having to catch up. 

8.17.2009

Bum Leg

Well a week later, and there's no improvement.  If anything it's gotten worse.  I took a couple of days off.  I also went swimming in my parents pool a couple of times.  The swimming felt great. Getting back in the water for laps made me realize how much I used to enjoy it.  If it weren't for the 15 minute drive, I would do that every morning.  Although it didn't seem to help my leg heal extremely quickly, which is what I was hoping for.   So this morning I started back out in our neighborhood.  I just walked for 45 min. and did 5 - 1 min. runs throughout to keep my heart rate up a little.  I ended with some crunches and push ups. It's really hard not to get discouraged when I'm not able to run as much as I was.  But, I'm really trying to keep my perspective.  The whole reason I started this was to take care of my body in a way that is pleasing to the Lord.  

So, here's my pep talk to myself:  I have lost 27 lbs in 2 months. I am down three sizes and in pants I haven't been in since High School.  I feel great (other than an occasional limp due to a bum hamstring).   I am in the habit of eating healthy and feeding my family healthier foods. And all of these changes have helped me grow so much in my relationship with the Lord.  It has helped me to rely on him when it's not easy.  It has also helped me to turn to him with the cravings.  I can truly say that a lot of really bad habits have changed.  So even if I'm not exercising the way I want to be, or the way I thought I would be, I am still accomplishing my goal.  God has been faithful to pull me through these new changes. 

In anticipation of the winter, to hopefully find an exercise that doesn't hurt, and also to change things up a bit, we are thinking about getting a gym membership.  There's one just a minute away and I would be able to do a lot more strength training.  We're praying about it.  So who knows, maybe there will be a little bit more variety coming my way. 

8.11.2009

Exercise

So I've talked before about how I've been walking and building up to running.  I have been trying really hard to go slowly and gradually build up.  I walk for a good 5-10 min.  Then I stop and stretch.  Then I had gotten to where I was running 17 min then back and forth running/ walking until my 45 min. was up.  Well this past week my right hamstring has started hurting.  It's gradually gotten worse to where now it hurts even just walking regularly.  This is exactly what I was trying to avoid.  I want to be able to exercise for the rest of my life.  I wasn't just doing it to lose weight.  So I have decided to slow things way back down and add in some muscle strength training.  I'm going to walk in the mornings for 45 min. - no running- (at least for a few days).  And I am going to do some leg lifts, weights, crunches and various things at night.  Several people have told me how important it is to alternate cardio and muscle training, so I'm going to give it a try.  Hopefully my leg will heal and I can get back in to some running.  I was finally starting to enjoy it. =( 

8.04.2009

Too Much Salt


Have you ever noticed nights after you eat mexican, chinese, or anything else high in sodium the way it makes you feel?  Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night feeling hot, like my skin is tight, and I'm really thirsty.  Well since I've been changing the way I eat, I haven't felt like this at all.  I have completely taken added salt out of my diet.  I also watch the content of sodium in the things that I use that are already prepared for me.  

Well... yesterday was a half-cheat day.  My in-laws were here for the day and I knew we would be eating lunch and dinner out.  I have only had a few cheat days since I started and it had been several weeks.  So I decided yesterday I would have a few exceptions.  We ate lunch at Baja Burrito and dinner at Olive Garden.  These are two of my favorite restaurants.  At Baja for lunch I got a wheat burrito with chicken, beans, rice, lettuce, pico, salsa, cucumbers.  I didn't get the cheese or sour cream, but I knew that it would have a lot of salt and butter in the rice, chicken, and beans.  Hoping to counterbalance the sodium, I had several glasses of water with my meal.  At Olive Garden for dinner I got the Venetian Apricot Chicken.  I had looked it up online beforehand and new it was a sensible choice.  It had grilled chicken (I asked for the apricot sauce on the side) broccoli, and asparagus.  But once again I knew the food was all prepared with salt and butter (the customary way of food preparation in our culture). So once again I had several glasses of water to drink with the meal.  Well all this to say I woke up in the middle of the night feeling awful.  I was burning up.  My hands and feet were swollen.  I felt so thirty.  It took me a while to go back to sleep.  This morning wasn't much better.  It also made the morning run much harder.  I'm thinking goodness is salt really that bad.  It makes me feel miserable.  It definitely was not worth it.  I don't say all this to make people feel guilty about eating out or even eating salt.  More just to be conscious of what salt does to your body and the amount of it you take in.  It's very obvious that with my body it makes me retain large amounts of water which makes me very uncomfortable.  That also makes me wonder what it's doing to my body that is harmful.