Fitness Fellowship 2023: Week 36 Check-in

[sylvanwitch]

Friends, I hope there's a good week behind you and an even better one ahead!

As usual, please do share your fitness ups and downs with us here. We're here to commiserate, support, and not judge you. :-)



I'm down a bit from last week, maybe a pound? I've certainly been getting my exercise, particularly on work days, and I'm doing well with the intermittent fasting too. Hydration is okay--I have to get into a new bathroom routine, since my teaching schedule and classroom are both different this year. I have farther to go to a bathroom.

I've been good about getting to bed on time, though I can't always make myself go to sleep right away, and I've also practiced some mindfulness and breathing techniques.

My food choices have mostly been good. All around, it was a better week than I'd expected in terms of my own willpower and energy. Here's to another good week ahead for me!



Sending you all the good vibes I can spare!

Comments

meh

[oldtoadwoman]

My weight is up today. :-( I was staying about even and then last night my roommate did the thing I can never resist, "Hey, I ordered too much pizza. Come eat some pizza." I'm just feeling very stuck. (And it's so tempting to try and blame it on my roommate, but if I'd made better choices the rest of the week, one night of too much pizza wouldn't have really mattered.)

Re: meh

[sylvanwitch]

Is there anything I can do to help unstick you? Is there something that in the past has helped you regain momentum? Believe me, I know the feelings you're describing *so well*, and I'd like to help if I'm able.

Re: meh

[oldtoadwoman]

Oh, gosh, I wish I knew. I had some nice healthy homemade bean soup for dinner. And ... I'm sitting here going, "That was unsatisfying, I want something else." I'm not even "hungry" as such. I just didn't particularly like my dinner and this little voice in my head thinks I'm entitled to a second dinner because of that. I am going to resist the urge to go poking in the cupboards again, but I'm going to be sulky about it. (I was perfectly happy with the bean soup prior to this, but I tend to get bored of the same thing and this was the last bowl out of that batch so I have apparently already hit my "bored of this" stage.)

I think I need to check in more often. I'm far too skilled at making excuses and telling myself I can get things back under control before my I post my numbers. (I just realized that I never did an August weight post.)

Re: meh

[sylvanwitch]

I know and share that feeling of boredom as it relates to a meal I’ve had once too often.

If you’d like to check in here at the weekly posts more than once a week, please feel free. I am once again getting my notifications. I don’t post a lot except for these posts, so if you just come to my journal, you should find the most recent one easily enough. And I will comment back, as promptly as I can.

Re: meh

[oldtoadwoman]

That might be a good plan. I'm currently watching YouTube trying to find advice on counteracting learned helplessness and so far I'm mainly just finding videos defining it. (Weight loss videos just stress me out so that's not helpful, but sometimes it's helpful to find someone talking more generally about self-improvement.)

Re: meh

[sylvanwitch]

Weight loss advice columns, books, etc., stress me out, as well. (As do, incidentally, writing advice books--I'm always afraid I'm going to discover I've been doing it all wrong all along.)

As oschun said, the boredom factor is for sure a thing, and I like her suggestion about one kitchen night (or morning, afternoon, whatever works for you). I used to be pretty regular about Sunday afternoon food prep and then, somehow, it just stopped happening. I don't know if that would work for you, but it might be a way to break out of the doldrums?

Also, please DO check in here anytime you'd like, and I promise I will acknowledge and comment to keep the accountability a little higher for you, if that's going to help.

Re: meh

[oldtoadwoman]

So I'll claim a victory tonight. I was getting tired during work and just started fantasizing about how I really wanted to go get a sub sandwich after work. (There's a deli just down the street.) I resisted the urge!

But, yeah, I need to figure out what to make next since bean soup isn't hitting the spot anymore. Saturday probably fits my schedule best as a food prep day. I'm just ... feeling uninspired. And generally when I try to search for food prep ideas, the internet comes up with suggestions well beyond my budget and/or energy level.

Re: meh

[oschun]

I think everybody can relate to that "bored of this stage" and cooking can be so tiring when you've had a long day. I don't know about your situation or how you feel about cooking, but something that's really working for me is trying out one new recipe every week or couple of weeks. It's made such a difference to how I feel about food. I have a dedicated 'cooking night' and turn it into a bit of a ritual by listening to music and committing the time to being in the kitchen. I feel like I've become less resentful about having to cook. I'm also *obsessed* with recipes. My phone is full of bookmarked recipes especially vegan and vegetarian ones because that's the kind of cooking I'm trying to teach myself. I look for healthy recipes but I don't worry too much about it as long as it's whole foods and everything is freshly made because that's what really matters. I've also been branching out and trying more exotic things. Not all of which work out!

Anyway, I just wanted to encourage you.

Re: meh

[oldtoadwoman]

Yeah, the first time I made the bean soup, I was very pleased with myself for making something healthy that actually tasted good. But clearly, I can't repeat the same recipe too close together. I find myself running out of ideas for healthy food because I only really crave junk.

Re: meh

[oschun]

Yes, that's what junk food is designed to do, right. I use the BBC food website quite a bit. You can find pretty much anything you're looking for and there's a strong focus on healthy eating. Justine Pattison and Dr Rupy Aujila are two chefs who have a lot of simple, healthy and budget-friendly recipes. https://www.bbc.co.uk/food

Re: meh

[oldtoadwoman]

Yes, that's what junk food is designed to do, right.

Yup! Nothing is as satisfying (or as easy) as total junk. I did make a healthy salad tonight, but all I could think was, "This would have tasted better if I had cheese to add to it. Could have used more dressing too." i.e. my healthy salad would have been "better" if I made it less healthy.

Re: meh

[oschun]

Well done for making the healthy salad. And those thoughts sound like entirely reasonable thoughts.

I do think, though, that the salad really would have tasted better if you'd added cheese and used more dressing, and it wouldn't have necessarily made it less healthy. It would've upped the calories, sure, but cheese is full of vitamins and minerals, especially if you're not talking about really processed cheese. Some cheeses are healthier than others (mozzarella and feta). And sure, store-bought dressings are unhealthy, especially 'diet' dressings which just swap oils for loads of sugar (that terrible addictive). But a home-made dressing of olive oil and vinegar or lemon juice (and maybe yoghurt) with some herbs (or spices) makes things taste really good and those more natural ingredients are also genuinely good for the body. Kitchen-made over factory-made is always going to be better for you. And if the salad is full of good stuff like vegetables and maybe lean meat, then why sweat a little cheese and a little extra dressing that might add extra calories but also adds nutritional value and makes you feel happier and more satisfied, which ultimately makes it more likely that you will continue eating salad in the long term, rather than junk food.

My personal take on it is that if you try to swing too far in one direction (the excessively self-denying direction), you just end up boomeranging fast and hard back in the other direction (the excessively unhealthy, unhappy, self-critical direction). A couple of years ago I tried to give up bread. I don't even know why. Everybody was doing it, I guess. It made me feel *so* unhappy and I weirdly started craving cake. I don't even like cake particularly. I just kept thinking: cake, cake, cake. Cutting carbs doesn't work for me and affects me emotionally, makes me really unhappy. I now swap toast for oatmeal a couple of times a week for breakfast and make myself salads for lunch that have brown rice or potatoes or stuff like chickpeas in them, and I don't stress about sometimes eating white bread toast with loads of butter.

I hope I don't sound preachy. I have my own issues. I eat well and have a good relationship with food but I drink a lot of wine and struggle to exercise.

Re: meh

[oldtoadwoman]

I agree with all of this in theory. I'm just not a very good cook. There's a restaurant that my roommate often gets takeout from that has a steak salad (strips of steak on top of salad) that's super yummy (but too pricey to do often especially when you add in delivery fees and tip) and I thought, "This can't be hard to make." So I watched half a dozen videos on YouTube about cooking steak and double-checked the advice with a friend who cooks. And ... I made an utterly mediocre steak that was very dissappointing.