Off to the Land of Carbs

In the airport, waiting for my flight. I'm off on a ridiculously quick trip to London. I packed for the trip by charging all my devices. While sitting here and surfing, I found an article ( that I can't figure out how to link to) called Wheat Belly. Apparently a NY Times best seller, it narrows the anti-carb focus to modern wheat. It recommends trying a four week wheat free period, just to see what it does for you.

I just read the article, not the book, but it seems like a refinement of what I've read in the low carb literature. I'm certainly not going wheat free with Thanksgiving (stuffing) and Christmas (cookie) season coming up, but it might be worth a try in January.

We'll see how I do on my travels. This is why I have such modest goals for where I'd like to be in January.


Sherbert update

It's The Exercise, Dummy

I'm very stalled, and even beginning to trend upwards a bit.  It's lack of attention, because other things need my attention.  But taking a few minutes just to look at what I've actually been doing opened my eyes.

I haven't been tracking my eating very often, and that is of course because I'm allowing myself to eat as if it didn't matter.  So no data there, except the lack of data, and the hazy memories of apple crisps and fancy ice creams.  But I wear my magic device that tracks my steps, my periods of extra exercise and activity, and it estimates the daily calorie burn.  So that is what it is, collected even when I'm not paying attention. I don't have time to build charts, graphs and tables like I would love to do. But a quick paging through summary statistics shows a dramatic decrease in my calories burned over the last month.  Steps, minutes of exercise, and summary totals all are down significantly. This isn't a surprise, though actually I was surprised by how much activity I managed to get in this summer.  But the onset of fall has slowed me way down.

This is partly, truly, driven by the change of seasons. As I noted last year, my reptile brain wants me to slow down and bulk up to make it through the hard times that are coming.  But, the less I do, the less I do, and I've got to keep moving.  Inspired by this insight, I did get 20 minutes on the basement NordicTrack this morning, before even having a cup of coffee.  This is the easiest exercise to add to my schedule, and perhaps I will be able to keep it up.  That's a short-term goal: two more NT sessions this week.

We are entering the Eating Season, from now through New Year's.  What is realistic to achieve for the next couple of months?  I would be happy to end the year with the scale showing the lowest number I've already seen so far this year.  That would be five pounds lower than today's reading, though only three pounds less than I saw a couple of days ago.  That low weight was in August, after a little blitz to move off my six months long plateau.  It would be a nice symmetry to end the year on the lowest number, after having hit a huge spike up so that I started the year at the highest by a lot.

The challenges I will face are considerable:  a short international vacation, two birthdays, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, folks wanting more social events at work.  The only way I can manage the eating side of the equation is to make RULES.  I am going to need to devote some energy to making rules in advance and then following them in the moment. If I stop paying attention, all is lost.

But every time I've been successful at losing weight, there was a large amount of exercise happening at the same time. Let's at least get some more movement in there.  So easy to be motivated on a weekend, when I've got the time to spend an hour at my computer. Now, errands and chores will soak up the time for the rest of the day. But - I have 20 minutes of pushing myself into exercise already behind me - it's in the bank!  Reason enough to consider this approach as a habit to cultivate.

How Much is Too Much?

Well, I got one of the items on my long list taken care of. I've gone through all of the clothes in my room, and significantly reduced the size of the collection.

I live in a small house, built in the 1950s when people apparently had a lot less stuff than now.  I get the master bedroom to myself, but its still not a lot of storage space. I've decided, however, that it should be enough space. I am not going to let my clothes take over the rest of the house.  I simply have too much stuff.

I have lived in this house for coming up on 15 years now, and so I haven't been forced to touch everything for a while. And during that while, I lost 50 pounds, gained 40 of it back, and had some ups and downs in between. Add to this having to dress like I'm testifying before Congress most week days, wanting to work in the garden and be active in a variety of outdoor activities that each come with specialized needs on weekends, and then top it all off with what I would consider normal clothes - what I wear to be a soccer mom - and it can add up quickly to large piles of clothes.  And lately, that is what my bedroom has become: piles of clothes  everywhere because there is no place to put them away.

I have an old antique four drawer chest, two small Ikea dressers, six feet of closet rod, and an inaccessible top shelf deep storage over the closet rod.  I know the closet space can be made more efficient, but I also know I have lot of stuff I don't wear ever, and even more I wear rarely. Or - I did, this morning. It's much less now.

There has been a fad in the past couple of years about cutting back on stuff. "Six Pieces" was one trend - you should be able to make every outfit you need with only six well-chosen pieces. I read a blog for a woman who was living with just a few black, white and grey pieces every day. When you read beyond the headlines, though, it appears they actually have quite a lot. I was awed by the way the Six Pieces people must be dedicated to their laundry every couple of days - until I read they considered multiples of the same thing to be ok. If a black t-shirt is one of your six pieces, its ok to have six of them (and even in slightly different styles). So what's the point of that? Why not have a rainbow, if you are going to have a bunch of stuff.  But who needs six black tshirts?  Laundry every couple of days is excessive, but presumably things eventually get washed and put away. So how many is enough?

I started at one corner of my room and went through everything in every drawer, getting rid of as much stuff as I could in order to make room for the stuff piled on top. I buy Tshirts as souvenirs; but how many do I need? How many souvenir Ts, how many stylish trim girl cut Ts for work, how many stylish Ts not quite good enough for work but perfect for the soccer sidelines, how many athletic Ts, how many thermal Ts as base layers?  How about the Christmas, Fourth of July and Halloween clothes?  It was easy to get rid of things that are old, stained, otherwise not quite perfect. But I have lots of pieces that are perfectly fine. They are not worn out, I like them well enough, they fit fine, I wear them occasionally, but there are just plain too many of them. So I went with the technique I learned from watching de-clutter TV shows:  I could keep X number in a given category, and out goes the rest.

This was really hard.  Each item of clothing has a story. I know when I got it. I know when I wore it. And what if I need it again some day? What if the occasion arises for which they are the absolutely perfect solution to the fashion needs of the moment? And, the stuff I'm keeping will wear out some day. I could use this other good stuff then, right?

But my house is just plain too small to keep all this stuff just in case.  I'm donating to Purple Heart, which will pick up and take everything, sell most of it to resale shops, and bundle the rest to become recycled rags.  Let's just get this stuff out of here, and maybe someone who needs it will get to use it.

I ended in the top inaccessible reaches of the shelf at the top of the closet, where plastic storage boxes from the Container Store have housed items since probably 2002.  I had found the box with my long underwear this summer before my trip to the Arctic, but today I found a box filled with khaki pants, skirts and shirts from the last time I went to Africa, in 2002.  I also found a box with the dresses made from bright wax-dyed african cloth during my first visit to Africa, in 1989, when I stayed in the mud hut with my Peace Corps Volunteer sister.  I kept both boxes. I'm ten pounds away from being able to wear the khaki, and there aren't a lot of places I would wear the african dresses, but they are too precious to let go just yet.  On the other hand, the box full of tshirts from my air show days as a new pilot all got tossed out.

I did find a fair amount of stuff I had forgotten I have, including a number of pairs of tailored wool slacks in the very back of closet from when I last weighed about what I wear now.  If they fit, I kept them for now. If they were too big, out they went. If they were slightly too tight, I kept them as well.  I really want to get down to goal weight and they could be a good motivator.

I feel virtuous, and it will be easier to keep things organized for a while. But hanging on to stuff that is slightly too small.... Not if I eat the way I have the past few days.  I've been eating as if it didn't matter, as if there were no rules, as if there were no consequences.  I'll feel the consequences soon enough and regret the very closet purge that right now has me feeling good.  It does matter what I eat, there are rules I should follow, and tracking is rule number one. Why I'm eating the way I am is a topic for another day. For now, I'll just be glad at the ability to easity access all the clothes I care about.  What should I wear tomorrow?

At Least I Was Efficient

Very sluggish start to this new week.  I've been to the gym, but every move was like I was moving through jello. I took a minute to plug in the magic device and upload my activity and sleep. I've spent the last week scarcely moving at all - very low levels of calories burned. And sleep - not so much.

I blame both the lack of sleep and the lack of movement on reading. I just finished the Swedish trilogy that begins with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  It sucked me in and every available moment was spent with it. I finished last night - too late to get a long night's sleep.  But to my surprise, I appear to have had the longest uninterrupted sleep I've had in weeks. I got less than six and a half hours total, but that is with only lying down for a few minutes more than the sleep.  By the scoring of my activity software, I was 96% efficient in my sleeping.  No waking up and tossing and turning.

So more "duh, it's so obvious". I'm starting the week with a sleep deficit. But it appears all I have to do to get more sleep is turn out the light earlier.  Huh. But sometimes it's worth slapping yourself in the face with a big dose of the obvious.

It's Just Life

What's up with me? Why am I not writing here?

It's such a prosaic answer:  it's just life. No big thing, but many little things.

I think about this all the time. I yen to set fingers to keyboard. But I fall short of my aspirations to write, just as I fall short of my aspirations to do better in the diet and exercise world.

I want to:

• go through my closet and throw away all the clothes too big right now.
• get all of the discarded clothes out of the house and to a donation center.
• add early morning aerobic exercise on days I don't have a personal training appointment.
• get my bike fixed so I can ride it.
• walk more in the course of the day and evening.
• buy and cook better food.
• always pack a lunch.
• always have a good breakfast close at hand.
• have fruit for an afternoon snack each day.
• lose those last 15 pounds to get down to goal weight.
• pull out my cognitive behavior therapy diet workbook and start working through all the steps again.
• track every single bite through weight watchers.
• export my daily calorie and activity data from my magic device and spend time poring through the data looking for insights on how to be more effective.
• export my sleep data and look for patterns that will help me improve my effectiveness.
• write more here.
• build a plan to stop my evening overindulgences:  Change Anything
• hire a personal makeover consultant to revitalize my closet and take me shopping.
• hire a closet designer to redo my small closet space into a closet / dressing room.
• do lots more yoga.
• try zumba.
• spend more time outside.
• go through cookbooks to get some new more interesting recipes.
• empty and defrost the big basement freezer; start over with good stuff.

And that's just the diet and exercise-related items.

What I am sure I actually will do:

• keep going to the gym appointments till the money runs out.
• eat reasonably well during the day.
• cook some vegetables sometimes for dinner.
• start out most weeks tracking through weight watchers.
• get out for a walk at lunch at least once a week.

I might do some of the other stuff. I might not. Life just keeps on happening no matter how hard I try to slow things down so I can catch up.

Can't Relax for a Minute

Yeah, I lost focus. Almost deliberately started eating badly. For no single reason, just overall stress, I have fallen off the wagon. Last night at dinner I thought of blogging how my big victory was turning down the second portion of tortillini for an apple. Except I didn't. Then I decided to blame it all on ego depletion leading to decision fatigue. Sounds so much better than saying I was tired from a hard day and took the easy way out.

So right now, I'm focused on tracking exactly what I am eating. I'm going to try to remorselessly and brutally honestly write it all down and count it up with weight watchers points. Starting with yesterday. Awareness is the first step towards modification.

54 points for the day. Should be 29. Starting the week behind.

Now, I've got to climb my way back out of this. I can buy back some weekly points by extra activity. I can start eating right this morning. This can happen. Every day is a reset and every week is a reset. Every meal is an opportunity to do things right.

If the sun shines today I will be more inclined to get this resolution past arriving at work.


Sherbert update