Perfect, Whole & Complete

I reviewed the Landmark Forum this past weekend. It was a pretty awesome experience, and I let go of a lot of little petty things that were bothering me in my day to day life. One of the things I went in to “work on” is my relationship to health and fitness. I’ve struggled for years with this feeling of not being fit enough, not doing enough, not eating well enough, and the impact smoking has had on me on and off.

Something I saw this weekend was that for me, it’s never enough. No matter how much I work out, no matter how good my diet is, it’s never enough. I have the “perfect” week where my diet is good, and I get to the gym 4 or 5 times, and for a second I feel good about myself. Then the next week I have some ice cream, or go to the gym two times, and I feel like a failure. At some point in my life I decided that I was a failure, and then what happens is I’m just waiting to fail. What I saw is actually how good I’ve been doing with my diet and fitness the last 2 years. I have gone to the gym pretty consistently, at a minimum of twice a week for quite some time now, and it shows. Sure, I’d still like to lose those 10lbs. But I haven’t failed if I don’t. I take whatever actions I can take today. My weight is good. My muscle tone is good. My diet is pretty healthy. I went from smoking 10 cigarettes a day to 2 or 3. I’m willing to give up that I really “need” those 2 or 3 cigarettes. I may crave them, but I certainly don’t need them. And I’m willing to accept that I’m perfect, whole and complete exactly as I am today. I love my body the way it is, and the way it isn’t.

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Eat to Live Weight Loss: Week 1 Day 2

7:00 8 oz coffee

8:30 Blueberry Green Smoothie

1 cup blueberries, 1 cup strawberries, 2 cups mixed greens, 1 tbsp ground flax, 1 scoop greens powder;

9:30 Peppermint Tea, yerba mate tea

12:00: Plate of mixed greens with 1 whole beefsteak tomato

Can of trader joe’s organic black bean soup with 1/3 cup barley mixed in (couldn’t finish)

5 large strawberries

Salad: Mixed greens and tomato
Broccoli, Mango, Black Bean Stir-Fry

Bag of M&M’s

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Eat to Live Diet Week 1: Day 3

Total Weight Lost: .8 lbs

My leftovers from last night smelled awful when I took them out of the fridge this morning. (To be fair, they really just smelled like broccoli). I don’t like broccoli to begin with, and couldn’t stomach the thought of eating this dish for a second day. I decided to throw it in the Vitamix, dress it up a little, and if it was still unappetizing I would just toss it.

The end result was AMAZING. I will make this again, broccoli and all. In the end, I couldn’t taste the broccoli – just the chile, mango, cilantro, and garlic.

Hot & Sweet Soup

(Broccoli base without the broccoli taste!)

The original stir-fry Recipe:
1 bag frozen broccoli
1/3 cup black bean & salsa puree*
1 cup frozen mango
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 cup stock
salt to taste

*1 can of black beans and some salsa in a food processor.
Directions:

Throw it all in a pan or pot and cook til it’s hot.

Next day soup:
Leftover stir-fry (there was about 3 cups of food leftover)
Garlic, 1 clove, raw
1/2 lemon, peeled
Cilantro, about 1/4 cup loosely packed
Additional 1/3 cup black bean puree
About 1/2 cup water to loosen it up, maybe more.

Some notes on the original stir-fry dish:
I ate a full plate of it, but had a hard time getting it down. I was super full, felt completely bloated, and had gas pains immediately following.  If you like broccoli, or add the additional ingredients I threw in the soup it probably wouldn’t be terrible.

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Eat to Live: Week 1 Day 1

12 oz coffee

Blueberry Green Smoothie

1 cup blueberries, 3 strawberries, 2 cups mixed greens, 1 tbsp ground flax, 1 scoop greens powder;
1 cantaloupe

Lunch
Salad, heirloom tomatoes
Okra / Tomato / Kidney Bean / Barley stew
strawberry fruit salad

Dinner
Baby Bella mushrooms (1 package) cooked in chicken stock with 1/3 cup barley

Dessert:
2 cups frozen strawberries with 1 scoop Barlean’s chocolate greens (hell ya!)

1 tbsp Barlean’s Berry flavored Flax Oil

Workout: New Rules of Lifting for Women, Stage 1 workout 8b

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Starting the Eat to Live 6 week weight loss diet

Tomorrow I’m starting Joel Fuhrman’s 6 week weight loss program outlined in his book “Eat to Live”.

I’ve been doing eDiets with varying rigor and little success. This program sounds promising, and I like that it’s mostly plant based. The quantity of meat and dairy I’m currently consuming is uncomfortable for me, mostly because I know it’s not healthy.

I made a trial Eat to Live meal tonight, and the quantity of food is almost overwhelming. You definitely get a nutritional bang for the buck.

A huge skillet of okra, tomatoes and kidney beans would give me my daily serving of beans and cooked vegetables. This is definitely enough food (by volume) for 2 meals, but calorically, it could really be one. I can see how eating enough becomes a challenge on this diet.

The statistics for this meal are startling and impressive.

About 5 cups of food comes in at 445 calories

23.5 grams protein

31 grams fiber

I find that nothing short of amazing!

My current weight is 133lbs. My BMI is 22 (what does that even mean?). I’ve been trying to get down to 124, which I know is a good weight for me. According to Fuhrman’s height / weight calculations¹, I could go down to 115. He uses a different formula than the one you’ll see everywhere else. According to him, a woman starts at 95lbs for 5 ft, then 4 pounds for every inch over 5 feet. It’s certainly much lighter then the current U.S. height / weight charts, and would be very thin for me, but not out of the realm of possibility.

1. Eat to Live; Joel Fuhrman M.D.; 2003, Little, Brown and Company; page 22

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30 Day Challenge: Day 20!

Wow, this challenge is really starting to fly by. Less than a week to go until the end of this challenge and the beginning of a new one. Today I did some weights in the morning, and yoga in the afternoon. Yesterday was yoga in the morning, and pushups in the evening. Tomorrow is yoga in the morning, followed by weight training. Looking forward to it!

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30 Day Challenge: Week #2 Roundup

I’m well into week #3, but still want to get this posted.

It was a real challenge for me to get through this week. I missed our calls almost every day, and my energy levels were way down as I adjusted to the workouts and early mornings.

Day 7 (7/28): Short weight workout – 90 reps
Day 8: 1 hour yoga
Day 9: 25 pushups
day 10: 35 pushups
Day 11: 1 hour yoga
Day 12: 15 minutes yoga
Day 13: 25 pushups
Day 14: 1 hour yoga, weights – 174 reps, ran 3.77 miles

Total:
3:15 hours of yoga
Ran: 3.77 miles
349 reps

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Being Unstoppable. What’s stopping you?

I squeezed in a quick weight workout yesterday at the gym at work while waiting for the last build of the day to go through.

What an incredible week. That 20 minute weight workout was a real departure from the past for a couple reasons -

1.) I didn’t have the “right” attire. I left my sneakers at home, so I just worked out in my flip-flops. Guess what? I still got a good workout!

2.) It was completely spontaneous. The yoga instructor yesterday was a no-show. It didn’t bug me that I got up for the 7:00am class and they didn’t show up. I would be there anyway. It just threw off my workout. I had a nice breakfast date instead with my SO. By late afternoon it was nagging at me that I hadn’t worked out, and had no plans to. QA needed another build and I had to hang out to verify it, so I decided the time would be best spent at the gym.

Here’s the 20 minute workout:

Dumbbell Squats: 15 x 20lb (2 sets)
Lunges: 12 x 12lb (2 sets)

Glute Machine: 15 x 50lb
Leg Extension: 15 x 50lb

Upright Row on cable machine: 15 at setting 6
Tricep Pressdown: 15 at setting 5

I ended the night having dinner at Zorba’s with 2 dear friends, followed by a phone call catching up with my brother and his wife.

This weekend 2 members of my family are reuniting after not speaking or seeing each for 5 or 6 years. I can’t believe it! I’m so happy to be a part of it.

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Day #15: 2 workouts today, and catching up on Days 9 – 14

After a really inspiring Refresh Philly last night, I recommitted to this challenge. Recommitted to “really” doing this. I haven’t missed a daily workout, but the last few days were kind of weak.

Today: Got to the gym at 6:40am and did a quick focused weight workout, followed by an hour of yoga

Day 9: Wasn’t feeling too good, and only completed half my weight workout

Days 10 & 11: Traveled up and back to NY for training, which meant getting up at 5:30am, and getting home at 8:00pm. I did pushups each day as my workout. It wasn’t crazy or intense, but was enough that I still felt engaged in the 30 day challenge.

Day 12: Morning yoga at the Sporting Club. Ahhhh. It felt really good and helped recuperate from sitting on my butt for 15 straight hours the past 2 days.

Day 13: Soooo sleepy. Really just unmotivated Sunday. I did 15 minutes of yoga at home in front of the TV. No, it wasn’t a yoga show I was watching. I just did a few sun salutations while Jim slept on the sofa next to me, watching a movie.

Day 14: More pushups. I got to work early to catch up on what I missed last week, and to prepare for sprint review – which meant no morning workout. I ended up doing pushups again at home! Oh no, where has my commitment to the challenge gone? Luckily, last night was Refresh Philly, and I had an opportunity to plug the eCity Running Club, along with my wellness challenge companion, Phil Thomas.

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Day #8: Gentle Vinyasa Yoga A.M, Run Club P.M.

I did “Gentle Vinyasa Yoga” at 7:00am today with Kate. What a great way to start the day. I actually got my clothes ready last night, and was at the gym by 6:15 this morning. I got to spend 45 minutes relaxing, drinking coffee, and reading Ken Schwaber’s Agile Software Development with Scrum. After yoga I spent 10 quality minutes in the steam room focusing on my breath. By the time I showered and got to work, I was ready to curl up for a nap.

The one issue I’m finding with all this daily exercise is that my appetite seems to be outpacing my workouts. I find I need to eat before I workout, and by the time I’m done I’m completely ravenous. I’ve gained 2lbs in the last week. It’s not horrible, and can come off just as fast as it went on, but I’m concerned that this will be a trend. I would love to know how other people manage their appetites when they are beginning a new workout routine.

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