Trick The Mind Before It Tricks You: Day 138

Evolution Two – week eight

Friday, July 17, 2009

Hello Folks,

Today explained why my appetite went up the last the couple of days. Whenever I get my period I find myself craving more food. I am not a craver of chocolate like some, but more of a craver of bagels and cereal and stuff like that for some reason.
I also wasn’t feeling particularly well today; probably due to a combination of things. I decided to take it easy today, even though I had planned to run lots of errands. I have been thinking about incorporating more visualization techniques into my training. I know that when I focus my progress during a workout I see better results.

As usual this all is an experiment that continues to unfold as I go. There are a few surprises along the way!

Exercise: Interval (bike 30 min.)

Menu: veggies and protein

Until next time…

Think, Believe, Act, Achieve

Dakota

Today’s Mantra: Visualize yourself as though you were already there and trick the mind into believing in yourself.

Awareness And Hard Lessons: Day 137

Evolution Two – week eight

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Hello Folks,

Today was not supposed to be my free food day. I was going to have it be on Sunday, but the forces that be were at play. Usually, on my free day I eat various samples of all of my favorite treats, including ice cream, and I am more flexible with my meals. Since I didn’t plan well enough today and I had a few “opportunities” to eat less than optimal nutritionally valuable food, I ended up changing my Sunday free food day to today.

Frankly, I am frustrated about this, because I ate a piece of cake I would never have bought or chosen to eat on my own. I don’t want to fall into the category of putting too much energy into the food issue, because I know it can be unhealthy; But let’s face it, when you are working in an environment that doesn’t support healthy food choices and you are surrounded by a lot of less than optimal options for nutrition, there lies some challenges to a healthy lifestyle. As a result, I am dealing with some of my feelings around this day. I decided to eat the piece of cake (probably packed with 600 calories and no nutritional value), because I thought it was the balanced thing to do, and now I am feeling unbalanced in body and mind.

What I realized though, is I ate it because I didn’t want to be the only one who didn’t eat it and feel left out. I also ate it because I thought it would mean that I wasn’t being freaky about food. However, what I should have done was what I wanted to do in the first place, and not it eat it (I didn't crave or desire it in the first place). Usually, under those circumstances I save it for my free day or figure out how to get rid of it.

The funny thing- is that- if it had been ice cream (my favorite free day dessert) I wouldn’t have these feelings. I am feeling mad at myself for eating something I didn’t want to eat for the wrong reasons. Since, I can’t change what I did I am going to share with you what I learned.

Don’t eat something you don’t want to eat to please others or to prove to yourself how balanced you are...

Use the moment as a learning process to teach you something about yourself.

The final thing I want to add about this is that I feel a little sick now. My body did not react well to the food. My body is reminding me of the consequences. Also, when you look at the amount of calories versus nutritional value, you realize what a waste of calories it is to eat food like that regulary(everyonce in a while is good (the middle way)….and for me especially so, because I didn’t want to eat it in the first place.

One thing I like about my free day is that I go out and get all of the foods I love. I especially love bagels, ice cream, hot tomales, dried mangos, and sometimes pizza. My body doesn’t react too well to most of these foods, so that is why I reserve them for the free day. I have a funny free day palate.

Now that I have splashed my feelings all over this blog, I am going to let it go and use it as my lesson for the week...and know that I am choosing to have these feelings because of my own beleifs. Someone once said before you make a decision, ask your wise self what you would do and see how "correct" that feels. Fortunately for all of us, there will always be more opportunities to test our learning curve.

Exercise: Interval ( bike 36 min.)

Menu: Free

Until next time…

Think, Believe, Act, Achieve

Dakota

Today’s Mantra: Listen to the small, still voice within.

Counting Down The Days To Quadathlon: Day 136

Evolution Two – week eight

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Hello Folks,

Since I don’t if I will have time to write this afternoon, I am going to blog this morning. I am getting closer to my Quadathlon event and feeling a little nervous about it. This is the first goal that I set for myself before I turn 40. My main reason for doing it is to support my fitness goals, but also because I have always wanted to do a multiple sport event. I used to run in races, but I never did triathlons or anything like this 4 event race.

I am mainly wanting to finish the race, but since I have been training pretty hard I am thinking I want to push myself to see how well I can do. One of the reasons that I haven’t done many events like this besides laziness is that I had knee surgery in the past and my knee is achy a lot when I run on hard surfaces. I have been really aware of taking good care of it so that I can continue to exercise. I mostly run on soft surfaces, because hard surfaces really pound on the knee.

I better get ready for work. Talk to you later.



Exercise: Interval (bike 45 min.), Metasurge training

Menu:veggies and protein

Until next time…

Think, Believe, Act, Achieve

Dakota

Today’s Mantra: Everything in the past died yesterday; everything in the future was born today.

Willpower Vs. Habit: Day 135

Evolution Two – week eight

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Hello Folks,

Today I am thinking about habit versus willpower. The unconscious mind is connected to habits and apparently it controls a very large percentage of what we do each day. The conscious mind is connected to our will or desires (what we want). But what we want and what we think we want may be two different things. So how do we put the two together? Form new habits....consciously through our willpower and intense “emotional” desires - tell our unconscious mind over and over again what we want to do. How do we do this?

1. Set goals: short term and long term
2. Set achievable goals ( who can believe in a goal that sounds impossible to achieve), make it a real goal, but don’t short change yourself either, make it a step up from where you are.
3. Imagine yourself achieving those goals (in the early morning or evening is best) studies have shown that the mind does not know the difference between real or imagined – Brain plasticity will aid in this process.
4. Do it for 30 days (it takes that long to form a new habit)
5. Remind yourself why you are doing it over and over again
6. Focus on what you can achieve not what you think you can’t achieve – remember your mind believes what you tell it –
7. Use every failure as a way to point you to success.
8. Positive thinking may be annoying, but it works - use it.

If you take a brief look at your life and ask yourself about times when you got what you wanted and really studied how you got it, you will find that you got it because you had an emotional reason for wanting it; your mind was focused intensely on getting it and you took the steps to get it.

For example: I remember a time when I really wanted a job that was better paying than my previous jobs, a job that gave me more responsibility. I had been reading and listening to stuff by Tony Robbins, a well-known motivational speaker, and I was pretty certain that I had to overcome my fear of responsibility in order to get that job. I had turned down many jobs that offered me more pay and more responsibility in the past.

Four years before I read and listened to his works, I had imagined myself working for a certain company when I returned to New York. And when I did return I went right to that company and put in my resume. They said they weren’t hiring at that time. I told them to keep my resume if something came up. A week later I got offered a position as a manager and was also offered what I was hoping to make in wages. I knew it meant more responsibility, but I wasn’t afraid of that any more. I also learned from that job how much I really enjoyed having more creative “control” over my role as an employee, it was very liberating. And, truth be told, Initially I saw responsibility as loss of freedom.

I think it is interesting to look at your past to see how it can be a teacher.

Exercise: Interval (run 30 min., bike 25 min.), Continuous training

Menu: Raw food experiment

Until next time…

Think, Believe, Act, Achieve

Dakota

Today’s Mantra: Fake it until you make it!

Two Rules for Successful Long Term Weight Loss: Day 134

Evolution Two – week eight

Monday, July 13, 2009

Hello Folks,

I had quite a busy day today. I really had to plan out my food schedule in order to make sure I ate my 5 meals. I even carried some food around with me where ever I went. I find that I am less hungry throughout the day when I stay on track with my food....and I am less cranky.

I just read an article my Tom Venuto who wrote one of my favorite e-books Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle. He was talking about why people yo-yo with their weight. He concluded after years of training people that the number one reason is accountability. Many people know how to eat and exercise, have done everything right and succeeded before, like Oprah Winfrey, but still go back to the old weight and more.

I think I am going to have to agree with him. There is so much information about diet and exercise, so many options, but the people who succeed at it make themselves somehow accountable. I think Richard Simmons must have felt the pressure to continue to keep to his program since he had promised to help others.

I also think there is another reason that motivates people. When I gained weight in the past it would be such a blow to my self esteem that I would basically give up. When I was younger I would sometimes lose weight without thinking about it and then become motivated to lose more. I always focused on exercise as the answer, not nutritional choices, but dieting.

When I started a new programs, I usually tried them for 3 months and if I had little to no success I would give up and go back to the old patterns. I think, after a while, of trying different programs over and over again and failing; there is this point where I think I will never be able to change my weight. It feels like this wall that is so tall that it would take a miracle to climb it. And when I still decide to take action and try again, if I hit a plateau it becomes very discouraging, even though I have made so much progress and the mind starts to think “why do I bother?”

One other reason people do succeed at long term weight loss it what I call the “failure” factor. Not believing you can succeed at it. That is where accountability comes in to play.

I have had some days where I feel really frustrated with my progress. I have had some days where I ate not quite the way I had planned and there is a this little voice in my head that used to be a big voice, that says “if you don’t exercise or you eat that, you are going to be “fat” again. That voice used to be really unbalanced and scary for me. It used to make me quit or make me feel really “restricted” Because of that feeling of being restricted, I would give up, and tell myself - do I want to feel “restricted” for the rest of my life or do I want to train at this level of intensity for the rest of my life? It felt daunting to think into the future like that...and then I would quit.

Success message number one, make sure you are making yourself accountable for your health and fitness; whether it means blogging and taking pictures or weighing yourself or telling your friends.

Success message number two, be OK with the set-backs and find a balance with food and exercise (stay away from extremes like I won’t ever eat that or I have to exercise 6 hours to burn that off)

One of the reasons I chose to do this blog of my weight loss, was because I knew that it would pressure me into staying on course. Since I have a history of yo-yo myself...I have played that game many times, I know how it goes. I also decided to allow myself to be ok if I don’t get the workout in every once in a while or I eat something not scheduled for my meals that day. I have been able to maintain a healthy weight and still feel really good about myself despite my weight loss plateau. And since I have stuck with my exercise and nutrition program my body fat percentage has gone down despite my weight plateau, so there is still success, besides my fitness is still increasing. Those thoughts and my blog are what keep me motivated to continue on, as well as doing the Quadathlon in three weeks to test my progress.
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Exercise: Interval (run 30 min., bike 25 min.), Resistance training

Menu: protein and veggies

Until next time…

Think, Believe, Act, Achieve

Dakota

Today’s Mantra: Better to fail than not try at all (I may have used this one before, but I like it)

Plyometrics hmmm...: Day 133

Evolution Two – week seven

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Hello Folks,

Plyometric training has been a part of my workout routine almost since I started this Body Evolution. It is the kind of training that enables our muscles to reach maximal force in the shortest time possible. That means you get more out of your workout. The purpose of Plyometric training is to increase the power of muscles and tendons and the stretch reflex.

It is basically doing functional movements; doing things that we might do during the day only applying more intensity to it. Some examples of Plyometric workouts included jumping in place (jumprope) or standing jumps (jump squats), push ups and sit ups. Through doing these types of exercises more muscles, tendons, and ligaments are engaged for a more balanced training experience.

I have personally noticed an increase in my aerobic capacity while doing other activities that I normally do; like carrying groceries or walking up steep hills. Something about performing those kinds of activities really strengthens the whole body in a balanced way.

Many coaches use plyometric training to get the most out of their athletes; it is used for almost every sport. Bruce Lee, during his career, was very interested in incorporating plyometric training in his exercise routines. He was always searching for functional ways to improve his martial arts.

Plyometric originated from a combination of Greek words plio = more and metric = to measure.

Anyway. I am going to sleep on this and see if I can get a workout dreaming about jumping instead of actually doing it. There have been studies proving that athletes benefit from imagining that they are doing the exercise. I will let you know how that turns out.

Exercise: Interval (run 45 min.), Continuous ( 36 min.)

Menu: Veggies and protein

Until next time…

Think, Believe, Act, Achieve

Dakota

Today’s Mantra: One step back, two steps forward, and one giant leap (plyometric-like)

Quick One: Day 132

Evolution Two – week seven

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Hello Folks,

Well, I don’t have much time to write tonight, so I am going to leave you with my pics for the day. Hope you all are having a great weekend!



Exercise: Interval (bike 45 min.)

Menu: Veggies and protein

Until next time…

Think, Believe, Act, Achieve

Dakota

Today’s Mantra: It is only the very wisest and the very stupidest who cannot change. ~confucius