Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Points to ponder

Alright, so I've been doing crossfit for almost 2 months now and I LOVE it!!!  I love that it pushes me outside my comfort zone and gets me to do things I'd never do on my own.  I love that the athletes I work out with are so encouraging and really work to inspire each other.  It really is a family atmosphere and I'm probably addicted.  I talked my husband into too.  And while he's not as gung ho about it as I am (not yet anyway!) he still really likes it.  Just seems like the past couple weeks have been one thing after another keeping him from going, from building a fence to a broken toe.  But he was there yesterday when we did the Murph WOD together.  It was awesome to be able to do that together and cheer each other on.  There are few hobbies that we have in common and I'm excited that this will become one.  I'm happy that we're working on our fitness and health together.
Now the part I'm frustrated about.  I haven't lost any weight since starting.  I'm not sure what's going on, but it can be discouraging at times.  I'm working on revamping how I think of things.  Like I said before, I'm not really concerned so much with the number on the scale as I am about the number on the pants tags.  Well, that and I'm starting to really want to life the heavier weights.  I know I need to work on my diet.  I've spent so much time worrying about the calories that I haven't paid much attention to the quality of those calories.  I'm try to keep my carbs and fat down while increasing my protein.  My doctor suggested that in order for me to lose weight that I'd need to decrease my calories to 800 to 1000 daily.  That to me just seems to drastic and likely to put my body into starvation mode which will cause it to hold on to everything.  And since I'm doing crossfit 6 days a week, that number seems really too low.  I'm sure once I really start to build the muscle the fat will decrease and clothes will start to fit better.  So now I remind myself that while I may not be seeing big changes right away, I'm making myself better and making my health better by working on my fitness.  I need to stop focusing on losing weight and start focusing on getting fitter.  I'm going to stop focusing on what's not going right and start focusing on what is.  And what is going right is that I'm out that door almost every morning to work out instead of sitting my ass chugging coffee.  I'm watching the athletes at the box and instead of thinking "damn, I can't do that" I'm thinking "I'm GOING to be able to do that someday".
The first step is I'm not stepping on the scale any more.  All that number does is just fuck up my thinking for the rest of the day.  I'm going to start enjoying my food.  I'm going to buckle down and really try to get rid of the processed food.  I've done a good job on starting that.  Just need to stick with it.  I'm going to pay attention to why I'm eating, am I really hungry or just bored.  And if I'm really hungry than an apple will be just as appealing as a bag of potato chips (at least I'm hoping because I REALLY love potato chips...and cookies.  I could eat cookies all day long).  I also need to increase my water intake.  Other than 2 cups of coffee daily, water is the only thing I drink, but I think I need to drink just a little bit more of it.  Especially when I'm hungry because sometimes thirst feels like hunger.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I love this post.

Losing weight seems like a simple matter of numbers: you eat 800 calories and you lose weight. But the reality is that it is much more complex than that. Forgetting anything about diet, if you lose 10 pounds of fat, but gain 9 pounds of muscle, then you have only "lost" one pound. Now, anyone who exercises knows that it takes a tremendous amount of effort to build muscle, so, on the surface, it would appear you've worked your buns off and only lost one pound. If the scale is your only measurement, then it would quickly become very disheartening.

That's why CrossFit measures performance. It is easy to see your strength go up, your skills improve, your run times to get faster, and to be able to do things that you once could not do. Focusing on those things can keep motivation high and help maintain enthusiasm. Plus, life everywhere else becomes better!

Aside from just looking at clothes sizes, I recommend you take pictures of yourself at least once per month. For some reason we can look at ourselves in a mirror every day and not see any changes, but looking at two side by side pictures can really open your eyes. Because, if you lose 10 pounds of fat and gain 9 pounds of muscle, the scale will say one pound, but your physique will be dramatically different.

Keep up the hard work. Your journey is only just beginning.

RaynaErin said...

Thanks Harlee!!