Tag Archives: diet

2015 Resolutions

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A very ambitious list.

I’ve been slipping — and it’s got to stop. So I’ve decided to set up and stick to some New Year’s Resolutions.

1. Fight the Social Media Addiction

I spend entirely too much time on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Actually, if you spend more than 30 minutes a day on social media — and aren’t being paid to do it as part of your job — you probably spend too much time, too.

Think about it. Yes, you enjoy it. It’s a nice, convenient social experience. But it’s also a timesuck. And the time you spend online looking at cat photos and clicking like buttons is time you could be spending doing other more rewarding things like engaging in personal interactions with family and real (not virtual) friends, working on projects that enrich your life (or bank account), and getting some fresh air and/or exercise. These are all things I want to spend my time doing. I don’t want to sit in front of the computer after breakfast, tune into Facebook, and look up two hours later to discover that half my morning is gone and nothing constructive has been done.

So I’m placing a limit on social networking:

Less FacebookFacebook:

  • No checking in between 8 AM and 8 PM. “Checking in” refers to logging on for the purpose of reading new updates on my newsfeed and checking and responding to comments on my or other people’s updates.
  • Maximum of 3 updates per day, including updates of photos or links but excluding updates automatically generated when I post to my blog. These can be done at any time.
  • No likes. (I actually began doing this a few months ago and I find it very rewarding, mostly because it prompts me to share more meaningful commentary when I like something.)

Twitter:

  • No checking in between 8 AM and 8 PM. “Checking in” refers to logging on for the purpose of reading new tweets, checking and responding to notifications on my account, and adding or removing followers.
  • Maximum of 12 tweets per day, including photos, links, tweets automatically generated when I post to my blog, and retweets but excluding scheduled tweets. These can be done at any time.

LinkedIn:

Stop using it. Period. This should be pretty easy since I only check in once every month or so and always leave with a bad taste in my mouth.

Google+:

Really? People still use this?

I know this sounds silly or even kind of extreme — almost like a mom setting parental controls for her kid — but I have identified a problem and I have decided to tackle it by setting limitations. Let’s see how I do.

2. Watch Less TV.

I think I watch an awful lot of TV, especially when you consider that I (1) don’t have cable or satellite TV, (2) only get 4 live channels, and (3) rely mostly on Netflix, Hulu+, and other Roku-available content for options. Again, I think this has to do with the long winter nights — I certainly didn’t watch much TV when the sun was setting after 8 PM.

What’s reasonable? I think 5 hours a week is reasonable. That’s less than an hour a day. That might seem a bit low, but when you consider that I’m out with friends a few evenings a week, it should be pretty easy to maintain.

Read a BookAnd there is this added cheat: a movie — no matter what length it is — counts as just an hour. But, at the same time, an “hour-long” TV episode watched without commercials, which is really only about 44 minutes long, would also count as an hour. I’ll need a scorecard to keep track. It should be interesting to see how I do.

What will I do instead? That’s easy: read.

3. Lose 15 Pounds

MeasureYes, I need to lose weight again. Doesn’t everyone?

Back in 2012, I lost 45 pounds and went from a size 14/16 to a size 6/8. Since then, my weight has crept up a bit, although I’m still able to (barely) fit into all of my new clothes. Time to nip that in the bud and go back to my goal weight. Remember, I burned the bridge to fat town back in 2012.

I’m not very worried about achieving this. I’m going to use the same diet I used in 2012 to lose 45 pounds in 4 months. I expect to get back to my goal weight within 2 months but will likely stay on the diet for an additional month for the added benefits it offers — mostly appetite reduction. That’s what made it possible to keep the weight off as long as I did.

In my defense, since the last 10 pounds came on very quickly — over the past two months — I suspect it has a lot to do with my reduced activity level. Winter means short, cold days here in the Wenatchee area. Unless I’m out doing something that keeps me busy and warm — like skiing or snowshoeing — I’m not likely to be outside. And there isn’t much exercise indoors — although climbing scaffolding can be pretty exhausting after a while. This is my best argument for going south for the winter and I may do it next year. (Yeah, I’m a snowbird for health reasons. That’s the ticket!)

Oh, and if you’re one of those people who think “big is beautiful” and that being thin is something that society forces upon us to make us feel bad about our bodies, wake up and smell the deep fried Oreo you’re about to shove in your pie hole. I never said I wanted to be thin. I’ve said (elsewhere in this blog) that I wanted to remain a healthy weight for the rest of my life. The added benefit is the ability to look good in clothes, have lots of energy, and feel better about myself. Don’t be an idiot. If you’re more than 10% over what’s a healthy weight for your height, you owe it to yourself and your family to shed those extra pounds. Trust me: you will be glad you did.

4. Write More

Writing PadOne of the things social media time has stolen from me is writing time. Instead of sitting down to write a blog post or an article for a magazine or even a chapter of a book, I spend that time on Facebook or Twitter or even (sometimes) LinkedIn. Or surfing the web. This are mostly unrewarding, unfulfilling activities. I get so much more satisfaction out of completing a blog post or article — especially when there’s a paycheck for the article.

I want to blog more often — at least four times a week. Blogging is something that makes me feel good. I wish I could explain it. I think it’s because I’m documenting the things I’m doing, thinking, and feeling. Creating an archive of these things.

I’ve been blogging for 11 years now and am very proud of that fact. I’m also thrilled that I can go back and read about the things that interested me so long ago. Why wouldn’t I want to do this?

I also want to explore new markets for paid article work. I have opportunities and when I can focus I can write and submit work I can be paid for. Why aren’t I doing more of this?

And I definitely need to complete a few work-in-progress books that I’ve started. And turn some of my blog posts into ebooks I can earn a few dollars on.

And I sure wouldn’t mind reopening some of the fiction work I began 20 or 30 years ago — work that was once so much a part of my life that I’d think about it in bed to help me drift off to sleep. Time to bring all that back into my life.

5. Just Say No to Starbucks

Say No to StarbucksWhy do I go in there? The coffee isn’t even that good!

I live in Washington, for Peet’s sake (pun intended), a place where there are coffee shops on nearly every corner and more drive-through coffee stands than gas stations. Why am I going into Starbucks, a place where saying “medium” instead of “grande” can earn you a snicker from the order taker?

Chocolate Covered Graham CrackersAnd don’t say it’s the dark chocolate covered graham crackers. Although it could be.

I guess I just don’t like the idea of supporting a global corporation with mediocre products when I could be supporting small, local coffee shops with slightly less mediocre products.

What I really should do is stop drinking coffee in the middle of the day.

This will be easy to do once I set my mind to it. I just have to not crave coffee when I walk into the Fred Meyer or Safeway supermarkets.

Scorecard

Because I’m so anal, I’ll keep a scorecard to see how I do. I’ll try to report back with success — or failure — at year’s end.

Wish me luck!

And why not share a few of your resolutions for 2015? Use the comments link or form for this post.

On Weight Loss and Metabolism

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It may not be scientific, but it’s what I’m seeing here.

As regular blog readers know, last summer I went on a diet and lost 45 pounds. That translated into four pants sizes (14 down to 6) and more than 20 inches (total) off my bust, waist, and hips.

I did all this in about four months — I started on June 15 and was pretty much off the diet food by October 15.

45 pounds was about 23% of my body weight. A friend, on seeing me in January for the first time in more than two years, said I was 2/3 the person I was. Not exactly accurate; I was closer to 3/4 the person I was.

My point: I lost a ton of weight in a very short time.

The Real Benefit

The benefit — other than looking great — was feeling great. I had (and still have) a ton of energy. I can walk faster, hike longer, and even climb hills without getting winded. And I have a theory about that.

When I was fat — there, I said it! — I was carrying around a lot of extra weight. My body had to adapt to carry that weight — it had to get stronger just to lift that extra weight off the ground and walk with it. When the extra weight disappeared, I still had the strength to carry it, but had nothing to carry.

Imagine being forced, every day of your life, to walk around with a backpack that gets heavier over time. After nine years, it’s 45 pounds. Because the weight was added slowly over time, your body has become accustomed to it and, although it’s not easy to carry, you can carry it because you’re used to carrying it.

Now imagine someone taking weight out of that backpack at the rate of 10+ pounds a month for four months. Your body still has the strength it needs to carry all that extra weight, but now it’s gone! How do you think you’re body’s going to react? It’s going to have all kinds of extra energy that it doesn’t need.

I’ve been putting that energy to good use since this summer by going on long hikes, getting out and about with friends, maintaining an aggressive travel schedule, and keeping active around the house, packing and moving my belongings into storage.

How Metabolism Fits In

Here’s where my theory gets a bit sketchy — mostly because I have no scientific evidence to back it up.

As we age, our metabolism slows down. I think that’s pretty much accepted as fact. Because most of us don’t reduce the amount of food we eat or eat smarter or better as we age, we gain weight. I’m pretty sure that — and normal female hormonal changes — are what caused me to pork up over the years.

After losing all that weight, I worried a lot about gaining it all back when I got off the diet — which required me to eat special food. But I certainly didn’t want to stay on the diet forever. So I weaned myself off the food and tried to eat sensibly.

Then the holidays came and I ate whatever I wanted to. And then I did some more traveling and I ate out a lot. And I spent a lot of time with friends, eating and drinking and having a grand old time.

At this point, I eat almost exactly as I did before I went on the diet. I should be gaining weight, right?

But I’m not. The weight is keeping off me.

And that’s where I think the metabolism is coming into play. I suspect that my weight loss and increased activity levels — because I now have more energy to keep active — has raised my metabolism. My body needs those calories and it burns them off.

What do you think? Does this make sense to anyone who knows about this kind of stuff?

My New Wardrobe

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A new wardrobe for a new me.

One of the good (and bad) things about losing a bunch of weight is the need to buy new clothes. Good because it’s always nice to have an excuse to buy new things. Bad because buying a whole new wardrobe can be costly.

As reported — or, rather, bragged about — elsewhere in this blog, I lost about 45 pounds this past summer. Although my clothes closet was full of clothes I’d worn in my thin days and many of them fit me, most of them did not. And my dresser drawers had only clothes that fit me before I lost all that weight.

Taking Inventory

It took a long time to go through all those clothes and I’m just about done. The news was not good.

My much-loved Henley t-shirts — the ones with the super-soft cotton — which I wore almost all the time, were now large enough to wear as nightshirts. They were a men’s size large and a handful of them have been shifted to my pajama drawer. The 3X t-shirts I had been wearing as nightshirts were tent-like and went to the thrift store.

My long-sleeved t-shirts, which had been snug, seemed big enough to put two of me in. The shoulder sleeve seams hung at least two inches below my shoulders. They’ll go to the thrift store.

I tried on at least 20 pairs of denim jeans that had been hanging in my closet for up to 15 years. I gave at least 15 pairs of them to the thrift store. Of the remaining pairs, some of them were so worn or torn that they’d need repairs before being put back into circulation.

The three suits I’d kept from my corporate days were too large. They went to the thrift store. The same goes for most of the dress slacks, although a nice pair of fully lined wool slacks now fit me again.

And when I finally tried on my cold-weather clothes a few weeks ago, I discovered that all of them were too big for me — some of them ridiculously large. That’s long-sleeved t-shirts, turtlenecks, mock turtlenecks, sweaters, sweatshirts, and jackets. I was even heart-broken to discover that even the black denim logo jacket I’d gotten from Lynda.com — the one with “Author” embroidered on it — was now too large to wear. It had been painfully snug when I wore it just last year.

There was some good news in the closet. My formal wear, including a long satin skirt and several sequin tops and dresses, mostly still fit. I had no need for such clothing in the later years of my marriage — after moving to Arizona we never went anywhere that required that level of dress — so I never bought anything it that during my fat days. Fortunately, I kept the thin clothes and hope to wear it in the future — maybe as soon as this New Year’s Eve.

The New Wardrobe

In Color
This photo, shot during my Thanksgiving trip to California, shows off one of the brightly colored t-shirts I picked up on a shopping spree in Vegas earlier that month. (I’ve also been traveling quite a bit lately.)

Over the past few months, I’ve been buying new clothes to fill in the gaps in my wardrobe. I detailed one shopping spree in this blog; there have been other smaller ones since then. On those trips, I bought the things I needed for warm weather: t-shirts, shorts, tank tops, skirts, and casual shoes (to replace the canvas Keds I’ve been wearing for years). A lot of what I bought is colorful — something I avoided in the past.

I also bought a lot of understuff: panties and bras. None of what I had in my underwear drawer fit properly anymore. I discovered Victoria’s Secret, had a bra fitting, and bought a few lacy bras that not only fit perfectly, but also helped counteract the affects of gravity that all women experience after a certain age. Of course, with all those lacy bras, I needed lacy panties to replace the practical but not very exciting cotton undies I’d been wearing for years. My soon-to-be ex-husband didn’t seem to care much about my lingerie — or sex, for that matter — in the last year or so of our marriage but I’m sure his replacement will. And I love looking and feeling sexy again.

I spent the Christmas holidays in St. Augustine, Florida, with my mom and stepdad. It wasn’t until I packed for the trip that I realized I had problems with my cold-weather wardrobe. So two days after Christmas, at the height of post-Christmas sales but before all the good merchandise had been bought up, I hit the outlet mall there.

Sale!It was a real shop-till-you-drop experience. I bought 9 long-sleeved t-shirts, 2 short-sleeved t-shirts, 2 lace camisoles, 3 tank tops, 3 sweaters, 2 pairs of Levis blue jeans, and a belt. I also bought 2 pairs of shoes — one of which I put on in the store and threw away what I’d been wearing. The sales made all this possible. With sale prices and two coupons, I spent less than $350 and got quality merchandise from stores like Eddie Bauer, Bass Shoes, Levis, and Tommy Hilfiger.

By the time I staggered back to the car, I was carrying 8 shopping bags. I had to ship most of my purchases home; the new clothes simply would not fit in my luggage.

Wearing Clothes that Fit

My new clothes all have one thing in common: they fit.

I know that sounds like an obvious goal, but you need to understand the kinds of clothes I was wearing before I lost weight. Back then, I didn’t like tight clothes because they showed off every bulge, so everything was loose-fitting. That just made me look even bigger than I was. And because ladies sizes weren’t always big enough for me, I bought a lot of my clothes in the men’s department — especially shirts. As a result, I always looked kind of big and shapeless.

Not so with my new wardrobe. All of my shirts are skin-tight, showing off my flat belly and new figure. Most of the jeans are “skinny” jeans — straight-leg and form-fitting. Even my shoes are cute and stylish; heck, just yesterday I got a complement on one of my new pairs.

Looking Lean
This shot, from my October 2012 Glamour Shots photo shoot — which was done before I finished slimming down — is a good example of my personal style.

And not only am I fitting into some of the old clothes I wore in my 20s and 30s, but I’m also dressing the same way I did back then — wearing clothes that accentuate my height (5’8″) and slim build. (That’s not as scary as it sounds, mostly because I never did go into the slutty look so many 20-somethings seem to like today.) I’ve resurrected my own personal style from the 80s and 90s: simple clothes in timeless fashions and basic colors. I look good, which, in turn, helps me feel even better.

It feels great to turn a few heads when I’m out and about.

What’s Still on My List

My wardrobe is nearly complete. The only thing I can still really use is a good mid-weight jacket. The few jackets I have — including my often-worn Robinson Helicopter jacket — are way too big on me. I already gave three jackets away, including a denim baseball-style jacket I got long ago for test riding a Yamaha motorcycle at Americade in 1991. (Did I mention that I seldom threw anything away?)

The good news is, my leather bomber jacket — the one with the sheepskin collar — still fits well enough to wear; I’ll put it to use on my upcoming photo gig at Lake Powell and Monument Valley. It’s freaking cold in the helicopter up there this time of year with two doors off, especially at dawn.

And my costly outback style oilskin duster — which I wore exactly twice on horseback rides during foul weather — fits fine. Now all I need is a reason to wear it again.