Phit-N-Phat...Making Fitness and Weightloss a Lifestyle

Re-defining the Perfect Body

My private PNP members are lucky enough to follow my private journal where I get deep into my personal journey through weight loss and maintenance. Currently, I'm in therapy to learn more about myself and resolve some stinking-thinking that I have found most women have and don't talk ENOUGH about. In my journal, people thank me for telling my story because it sounds just like them!

This week I discussed how I am redefining two areas of my life: the love of racing and sports and the fear of eating and living outside a "diet" life. 

I have such a high  unrealistic body image standard for myself even though I know my body is just not made that way. My remaining loose skin and shorter legs are not going to change.

And, before someone jumps in here telling me to give my legs a chance you need to go BACK and read my whole blog! I have been maintaining and building muscle for SIX YEARS, had a lower body lift two years ago, and worked harder since to change it. 

I can CONFIDENTLY say it's time to deal with things with a new perspective! Besides, regardless if I'm not looking like my perfect image, I want more out of life than to keep "dieting" and start "fueling" to be the sports enthusiast I am. I want to eat my food because it's good for me and not expect it to change how I look. If it changes me, let it make me faster and do a pull-up!

With that said, a wonderful member of my team posted some words in my journal. I thought we could all benefit from Emily Y's wisdom. She "rambled" the following as a re-defining of the perfect body...

The perfect body...can pull itself up a cliff if it falls while out hiking.

The perfect body...can grab her child and run (easily) if someone is chasing them.

The perfect body...feeds the mind by reading and educating herself.

The perfect body...gets out of bed and doesn't feel stiff and in pain because the perfect body is flexible and taken care of.

The perfect body...functions well because it is fed well.

I AM all of these things. I am also...

Loved by the man of my dreams.

Surrounded by women of faith and strength with the same healthy attitude toward life.

Starting to see the perfect body is more a feeling than a reflection. When you value the right things with your body...what it can do...a lot of things fall into place.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to improve how you look. There's nothing wrong for me to want to look better, make improvements, and such. It's just that until I'm happy now I won't be happy any different. I've been thinner and bigger and the weight never changed my feelings.

When I did things that made me happy, read books about being better, and focused on surrounding myself with positivity I was excited with life and saw myself beautiful. Guess what? I'm on the path to doing those things again and it's working. And once I'm happy I'm sure my body will look and feel just fine.

 

Hate Journaling Food?

We kicked off the Holdiay Hustle Challenge on PNP today and TWICE I've read a comment that I KNOW many people suffer from and lose their dieting way with it...

"I have a problem with perfectionism, if I don't track/exercise just perfetly I tend to give up over one bad day."

"I get so frustrated when I can't find the calories for something so I just give up on journaling because it's hard."

This is the advice I gave...

"I GUESS all the time if it means I'm writing it down and getting CLOSE. It's a lot closer to guess and have a record than to just turn a blind eye because you are mad at software. You can either get mad at software  or be mad at the scale when it reflects no guessing.

The big thing is over time when you see results slow you might be motivated to research a few things you can't find because you don't want the GOOD results to STOP!"

I love using Loseit.com as my tracker. It's easy and as you enter things each day, it keeps a personal library of your foods. You'll see soon that you don't eat too creatively. Within a week you have most of your foods stored and it's just FAST to enter. You can also scan barcodes now which is a nice feature. It's free and what most of my clients use.

With that said, I wish all my challengers much success over the next eight weeks. I'm leading TEAM SHAKEOLOGY SUCCESSORIES and we plan to bring it hard for the title.

 

Why is Journaling Your Food Important?

We have a fascinating conversation in our forums discussing journaling. Everyone knows journaling is important but how many of you truly own up to the BAD days? I hate to call it that but it is what it is. We all have them. Trucking along the weight loss highway then we just go off a cliff into a valley of candy, pizza, mac and cheese and washed away in a river of booze.

I have spent the last few months FAITHFULLY tracking in Loseit and learned a lot about myself that I would never have learned had I not started journaling every day. It's the days I eat out, drink, party, have extra, etc. that are teaching me valuable lessons.

I used to like having a day I didn't track. I was wrong because my "why" was wrong. It isn't that I'm too anal all the time. Sure, I might worry too much about what goes in my mouth but not journaling the free day didn't cure me of that either. That avoidance day was me saying, "I'm just going to eat and eat, not track, give myself a break, because I really don't want to see what it is like when I'm eating until satisfied."

It wasn't I needed a break from tracking; I didn't want to see what a day of free eating looks like because I was usually out of control and out of my comfort zone.

I can eat a lot! A 4000 calorie day is easy to reach for me. Heck, I can do even more than that and still not feel too full. I'm not kidding. I eat fast, always been a gobbler, and feeling full doesn't bother me. I have to be REALLY FULL to feel uncomfortable. Y'all who say I just felt so miserable are my heros because my full belly actually feels good.

The moment I journaled the days that I ate non-clean/non-healthy things, drank, or whatever , I saw I didn't eat as much of the stuff. When I started putting a number to the food it all became real! It had worth and value and I started coming up with tricks to savour food rather than devouring it. I had tastes rather than cleaning my plate. And although my calories are still high they are about HALF what they were in the past when I just ate without having a measurement. For me it's been a game changer in keeping my body weight down.

I don't NOT eat but I don't hide from it. I see it, exeperience it, accept the value of it, and own it. When my results aren't where I want them I can easily look back and see what needs to change rather than feeling like I've worked hard. I do WORK HARD most of the time. I also see I PLAY HARD just enough for the 80% to allow me to tread water!

And, honey, if you are trying to lose weight you can't afford to be in the work hard/play hard category. To be blunt, I earned my time here...you gotta do the same!

Jane, a long time member of PNP wrote that she used to keep a calendar with big X's on it for the days she "blew it" or "didn't track." This was a comment I made to her in that thread.

I love what you said, Jane, about the big X. What does that teach you? Maybe a pattern of a day you off track each week, but you don't see what you eat, how much damage do you TRULY do, what foods do you reach for, etc. I can promise that most people who just blank out the bad days are the same exact people who get frustrated when the results aren't happening. They cry I am trying so hard...I don't know what to change because 80% of the time I'm doing so good.

It doesn't matter if you eat well 80% of the time to create a 1500 calorie deficit for the week if 20% of the time you eat an extra 2000 calories in a day going out to eat, having a burger, fries, and a beer. Seriously. That's all it takes to erase 80% of the hard work and then some.

TRACK.IT.ALL or quit moaning you aren't losing like you should.