Day 95, Nathaly: Then & Now

So, it's been 5 days and I still don't exactly know what to say... I've kind of be avoiding this post because -- what can I share that is of any use of any of you out there??  This whole journey has been so personal and in-my-head that I struggle with crafting a "final" post.  I'm honestly still processing and feel I've probably learned just as much in this last week post-PCP or so as I did the first 5 days of the program. Sooooooo.....

Before and after pictures is what you're after, right? lol That's a simple measure of progress. This first set you'll likely be familiar with from our PCP Flickr stream:

Day 1 ...................................................................................................... & Day 90

In the 90 days of the Peak Condition Project, I:

• Lost 10 kilos (22 lbs)!!
• Lost 9 cms off my waistline, 8 cms off my thigh, and 2.5 cms off my bicep (I started measuring on Day 22, actually -- so these numbers only reflect 68 days of fat loss)
• Returned to a bra-line width of 34 inches
• Went down 2 full pant sizes (from a 12 to an 8 -- and maybe 3 if you consider that I really should've been rocking 14s but refused to accept it)

But these numbers are meaningless, really..  So much of the benefits I've derived from these last 90 days has been in terms of increased self-confidence, self-appreciation, and a slowly increasing sense of the value of self-care (still working on that last one!). In the 90 days of the Peak Condition project, I:

• Began to feel sexy again (enough to recently return a small collection of thongs Ramiro has probably completely forgotten about back to my undies dresser from a box at the bottom of the closet)
• Realized how little of me I dedicated to me in the past
• Learned I actually enjoy jumping rope -- I think I've been getting lots of those happy-chemicals to the brain b/c of it!
• Collected a small toolkit of easy-to-make, delicious, balanced and good-for-you meals (if you've got more, send them my way!)

And this next set of pictures, offers a slightly longer historical timeline. "Then" was October of 2009, when I decided I'd had enough of my chubbiness and decided to once again attempt to take control of my weight & body image issues..  I did this by eating smaller portions (of whatever I wanted), taking the dog on longer walks, and going to university fitness classes 1 or 2 times a week.  A couple months later, I realized this approach wasn't terribly productive and I decided to up the ante -- I started counting calories and publishing my weight on Facebook once a week as a status update. I learned that the community accountability piece was something I really benefited from and started to lose about .5 lbs per week on average, but did some definite yo-yo'ing and lots of stress eating (2nd year of grad school...) and was still feeling frustrated. 

By the time Ramiro mentioned this cool thing one of his co-worker's was doing (have you all met Mr. Will Awesome?), I was again ready to take another small step forward, but the hubster seemed to think I was better off taking a leap instead and urged me to consider doing the PCP. And, frankly, he was RIGHT.  (So nice to have that sort of vote of confidence from my better half). Doing it as a couple was by far my the biggest source of strength for getting through this all, and well -- here're the pics to prove it was a good move!

Then............................................... & Now
(I tried to re-create the shot as best I could, but I can't find that sweater anywhere.. )

There's so much more to say (about setting good priorities and truly living healthily), but I think I'll try to capture that in another post.. Maybe the words to express my heartfelt appreciation for Patrick and Team Fantastic-Carrots-who-eat-LAGs-for-breakfast will come to me sometime soon.  Keep posted, if you wish.  And thank you, thank you, thank you for believing in us!

Heart hugs,

Nathaly

Well, and just for fun -- a Halloween family shot!

A bumble bee, Marge Simpson & Bat-dog

Day 72, Nathaly: Here we go again!

Hey all!

Hope you haven't missed me too much.  I've been doing the crazy climate organizing thing and have had so much fun and such a re-invigoration of energy and momentum to fight this crisis.  Thanks for your understanding my absences lately.

All the great organizing unfortunately meant that I took a bit of a step back on the PCP.  I kept generally PCP-compliant as far as the food rules are concerned (except for yesterday, 10/10/10, when I was stationed in Burlington's Battery park from 6:30am to 7:30pm and had to eat what was around), but definitely not in terms of gramage/allotments.  It meant that I vastly under-ate, usually getting in two quick meals a day (grossly lacking in vegetable content) and I wasn't exercising at all.

So I got back into the jumping this morning and thought I would fall apart after just a couple minutes.  I was glad to find that the worst of it was the boredom.  The workout was also fairly do-able, but definitely resulted in some painful moments, especially the breakage of a friggin' resistance band, slapping my thigh on the way to the kitchen floor.  That's gonna be a pretty welt..

What else to share?  I guess I just hope I can keep it up.  I have a dangerous love of convenience and a penchant for loading too much on my (rhetorical) plate, which can very easily lead me back down the path of easy cheese and greasy carbs. So, have I thrown all that effort from day 1 to day 60 away?  I really don't think so, but I also acknowledge that the likelihood of me reaching a "peak condition" -- even if I kept up with the regime beyond Day 90-- is pretty low.

In all honesty, what's the real danger in feeling like I've done pretty good thus far?  I've lost 20 lbs and I like how I look.  I wouldn't mind having more definition in my arms and mid-section, but I also like that I feel like I can sustain where I'm at, versus reaching some chiseled look and then losing it...  Am I again letting a fear of failure get in the way of me giving this my all?  Am I being realistic here or just plain lazy?  These questions are more for me than for you all, but I appreciate you being an audience out there to read my words.

I'm tired.  It's late.  I'm going to bed.

Day 56, Nathaly: On 34s, brunch & 4-min sets

Hey all,

Not much new today.  Have been able to get through that mid-week slump by leaning on Ramiro quite a bit -- I know I would secretly be skipping workouts & eating out a lot if it weren't for his encouragement and his steadfast determination and pure joy at this whole getting fit thing.  It doesn't hurt that he's constantly complimenting me on the weight loss.  :)

WARNING: Potential TMI alert! (especially if you're a guy..)

Speaking of which -- I'm back down to a 34 bra size!  I realized early this week that I was feeling pretty loose-y goose-y in my 36 & decided to go into the local ladies undergarments store for a fitting. The assistant seemed pretty sure I was in the 34 range, which gave me a quick jolt of gratitude for all this effort, but it dissipated a bit when I started doing some fittings and found that even though the tightest setting of the 36 has come to feel too roomy, the loosest I can go on a 34 is still a little snug.  I've still got work to do, but man do I love this new bra!

It's a Saturday so we slept in like usual and after the dog walk (which resulted in a quick visit to a friend's house) and the jumps, I was pretty much starving for breakfast.  AND it was once again late enough in the day that I had to do a bit of PCP-finagling and get in both my bfast & lunch portions.  That's a LOT of eating for one sitting, let me tell you!  Especially when it's of some weird combination of whatever can be prepared most quickly.  I hate those thrown-together meals.  It turned out alright though: I wrapped some chicken and a scrambled egg in a wheat tortilla and had some zucchini & corn on the side. It would've been sooo much nicer to just walk to a local diner and order my usual homefries with cheese & onions and over-easy eggs, but I fought back the urge (again, mostly a factor of having Ramiro as a PCP partner and watchdog).

Regarding jumping rope in 4-minute sets:  for the first time this morning, I felt comfortable setting the alarm clock on my phone instead of using the stopwatch function.  I had to sorta sit there waiting for the minute to change, but it was such a better solution than constantly fighting that urge to glance over every 20 secs to see if I can stop yet.  After the 1st set of jumps, I sat and figured I'd just break for a minute to start the next set of 4, but that was over in a heartbeat!  I rushed to get into my next set, figuring I must've been very distracted my the mommy slurping up maple creemee excess from a toddlers cone (mmmm creemees!) and jumped my way through an almost perfect second set.  The next experiment with breaking for only one minute confirmed that sneaking suspicion: time is a fickle beast.  4 minutes jumping can feel never-ending, but 1 minute sitting on the porch is over before you can even catch your breath.  I decided to just break until I felt ready to go again between the 3rd & 4th set and learned that my preferred break time is a whopping 3 minutes long.  Talk about inefficient!!  Jumping for 4 & breaking for 3 -- no wonder work outs take forever!  I'm gonna try to get better about breaking for only the allotted times from now on...  I almost wish I was working out in the morning solely so that I could have more of an urge to get it all over with already -- when working out at night, the only thing before me is that measly egg white, apple & milk; a shower & the bed. One solution I've found is my Shakira Pandora station.  Do what it takes, right?

Day 48, Nathaly: Slacking with the updates DOESN'T mean we're slacking!!

Hey all,

SOOOO sorry to be slackers this week.  I actually have had several personal ah-HAH moments and I'm a loser for not sharing it with you all, but I wanna send a shout out to Kim, especially for reaching out to check in on us via email.  (Funny to think we don't really use email in Team Mango -- when did we choose that name? lol -- given how much I rely on it for my day to day communication).

OK -- so how to sum up the last 5 days?  There's been frustration and there's been moments of real, deeply-entrenched strength.  I'll try to go day by day.  The veggie post was done on Sunday night, so this is gonna be a long one.  APOLOGIES FOLKS -- we both PROMISE to be better!

MONDAY
The new form of jumps has meant re-acceptance of my abilities with the rope (I took to it naturally from the beginning).  I love love love getting thumbs up from cars driving by smiling at me jumping my little heart out in front of my house every morning.  I think my fave moment so far though, as certainly been from a little girl who was obviously impressed by also really shy and still managed to give me a double thumbs-up.  SO cute.

So, what had happened was that I was chugging along from Day 1 (50 jumps in a row) to somewhere around the end of month 1 (up to 200 in a row) and I realized that b/c it was so difficult to maintain, my breaks in btwn sets were going for too long (and therefore, I was taking too long getting jumps done).  So I went back down to sets of 100, but when the 2-min sets started, I worried I would tank. Turns out that because I also re-committed to doing jumps in the morning (based on Patrick's email about how that's when they've got the greatest fat-burning effect), they've been totally manageable.

TUESDAY
Definitely fell off the bandwagon this evening.  It was a SUPER long day starting with a morning 350 organizers mtg (I'm helping to plan a huge local day of action around climate solutions on 10/10/10 as part of the 350.org campaign's climate movement building -- if you've never heard of 350, def check it out and sign up!) and followed by a full day of work and then running up to campus for a grad school gathering and some work on my grad thesis and culminating with a two hours rehearsal with the Burlington Choral Society for our upcoming concert of the Duruflé Requeim and Britten Te Deum Festival.  LONG LONG day.  Anyways, I was perfectly PCP-compliant all day with the diet, but by the time I got home at 9:30pm, I just needed to sit (the wrong choice, I knew even as I made it..) We popped in our latest Dexter netflix arrival which was interrupted by a friend stopping by and before I knew it, it was 11pm.  I was absolutely exhausted and knew that I was just not going to make it.  Ramiro got a little pissed that night (as he had waited for me to do them with him, like I promised) but was a total champ and proceeded to do his workout even at that super late hour.

WEDNESDAY
I knew that Tuesday had been bad and made sure to get up early enough to do my jumps before work.  I had my 2nd choir day of the week (I also sing with the choir at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington), but I planned my day around it and did just fine.  It helped to have gotten a really good night of sleep in, of course. Victory for the day: a guy stopped by the office with a tray of assorted Lake Champlain Chocolates.  he offered each of us one and I grabbed my favorite flavor (dark chocolate mint) as i didn't wanna go into the i'm-on-a-diet spiel.  I set it on my things and gave it to one of the interns the following morning without too much mental struggle (felt very much like bilbo baggins asking himself in the 1st LOTR why he shouldn't keep the ring, "it's such a little thing, what harm could it do?" lol.  YAY NATHALY.

THURSDAY
A friend came in from California late Wednesday night and I was really worried about waking him up in the morning, so after getting ramiro his breakfast and a cup o' joe (those guys stayed up pretty late catching up and playing video games), I stayed in  bed til 9am (NICE) and then took Tiggs out for a nice long walk and did my jumps outside.  It was a slow morning and I realized that in order to get everything done (walk, jumps, shower, bfast) and feel comfortable getting to work without feeling rushed, I need a full two hours.  DANG.  I honestly can't imagine how you all who ALSO do the workout in the mornings handle it.  More power to ya!
That evening we decided to call the day our "saturday" (the 7th day of our PCP week which would normally be only jumps) in order to enjoy some time with the folks from out of town and some other friends. The host made a spaghetti dinner and I had some salad and a bite of carby-loveliness and did a great job of resisting the homemade chocolate cake, but the red wine and Long Trail Ales had my mouth watering..  In a small dip in my rock solid sweets resistance record, as I was helping to clean up, I decided to let Tigger have a nibble at a spoonful of cake someone left on their plate and gave my finger a lick.  WOW was that yummy.  Made seeing that half-eaten tray soo much harder to resist.  lol.  And, knowing our indulgence was around the corner, gave my mind plenty of fodder for going back and forth with questions and such..

FRIDAY (today)
I've been exhausted lately.  We were up late last night and ramiro got crazy allergies from the bunnies at our friends house, so we all slept in.  A morning without the alarm makes for a very difficult time waging the hour, however, and I was in bed until 11:34am.  Wow.  So, I made Tito some coffee and took Tigger out and was only done with jumps at 12:35pm.  Which meant breakfast and lunch kinda collided a bit.  We went to a local Jewish diner to spend a last couple hours with our friend from out of town and had to be really creative to stay within PCP.  To be honest, neither of us ate enough probably, but at least everything was within bounds, except for a couple bites I had of latke (fried potato pancakes) before giving it away. We went to the market to pick up more milk and eggs and when I got home, I did a little reading and felt that exhaustion coming in again DESPITE the frigging 10.5 hrs of sleep!  I was also a little cold, so I used that as an excuse to curl up in bed ("I'm not napping -- really!") and proceeded to sleep the afternoon away, only to get woken up by a VERY exciting message from Ramiro -- our PCP indulgence is of 500-700 calories!  WOOHOOOOOOOO  I was so excited (and thankfully ready to be up again), I flung my arms all around the air and hit the hubster in the face.  LOL.  So, obviously, not a good day, but INDULGENCE, here we come!!

OK -- last two things, i've been saving to share:
1. At some point last weekend, I think (or maybe Tuesday.. possible why i was so wiped out that night), I made the mistake of skipping BOTH my breakfast carbs and lunch carbs.  Never before would I have known how incredibly important they are to functionality.  How do those atkins ppl function?!?  I mean, honestly, I ended up having to add a slice of toast to my dinner meal that day.

2.  How could it have taken this long to learn to do push-ups effectively??  I guess, my arms have been too high this whole time.  It was only Wednesday of this week that I actually did push ups correctly and i've been feeling it ever since.  I really hope my boobs don't shrink too much!!

OOH -- last thing, i promise (SORRY for the long post!!):  YUMMERS BFAST SANDWICH IDEA:  Smear half and avocado all over your breakfast bread carb portion and layer an egg onto THAT.  LOVELY!!

OK -- DONE

Day 39, Nathaly: Finally getting used to the diet

So, I realized today that I've got this diet under my belt. It's kinda boring sometimes and I still miss cheese & butter, but most of the strong cravings are gone and it's really not all that hard to say no to the non-PCP-compliant stuff.

On the other hand, when lunch gets inconvenient (which has happened 3 or 4 times since the start of the program), I don't bat an eye at the thought of grabbing a veggie sandwich or a shrimp salad.  It doesn't feel like breaking the rules since it's all the right stuff (no fats, sugar or salt), but it's obviously not perfectly weighed, so it's kinda lame and Ramiro (who's really into playing the perfect gram-age game) is not really a fan. In essence, there's little of that guilty feeling that we all know equals cheating, but it means it's not a perfect PCP day.

The last couple days have been super busy (and super awesome!) and house chores have sort of fallen to the side lines so, as a result, creativity in the kitchen has reduced considerably (especially given the weird assemblage of uncooked veggies mocking me in the fridge).  The newest rendition of the diet makes it kinda difficult to make anything that will produce leftovers unless you wanna eat the same lunch everyday, so it's a constant battle to make something I know I will enjoy.  Ramiro doesn't mind mixing together weird combinations of carb/veggie/protein, but I like meals that feel like a meal. Please share ideas, folks!

Anyways, enough rambling for now and off to make some late-night meatballs!

PS:  went back to jumping rope in the morning and realized it's not that much earlier out of bed and it makes it so much easier to split up the work out.  Yay for morning jumping!

Day 26, Nathaly: Exercising after a small break..

hey folks,

Thesis writing has been a drag, but I haven't wandered too much off-course from the PCP. I skipped jumps on Monday and then was SO utterly exhausted from the workout (and i'm guessing the stress of sending off my project report that afternoon) that I knocked out hard that night.  The following day I didn't get as far as I wanted on finishing my literature review, so I decided to take the day off all exercises in a last-ditch attempt to finish the literature review before we took the day off for our anniversary.  I also didn't measure anything that day -- I just ate as was simplest, keeping to the rest of the diet rules.  I'm pretty sure I under-ate quite a bit Tuesday, but since then, I've gotten back on track.

Getting back on the workouts was tough.  Jumps yesterday were exhausting and then the new exercises certainly provided fodder for some serious self-reflection ("why am I doing this again?" "do i really care that much?" and other such musings..).  I think I was only able to make it through the planks b/c Ramiro was there urging me on.  I hated him and loved him for it, but with his advice, I made it to 23 seconds before collapsing on the 3rd set (don't worry about it -- I always made sure to put in the total of 30 per rep).

Anyways, the week is chugging along and the big day is getting closer.. I'm still struggling to get my literature review just right (stupid perfectionism) and diet food is tasting better.  So, I'm just gonna keep chugging along and taking it one day at a time.  It's day 26.  Kim, Stu -- can you believe it?

Oh! Quick Q:  is anyone else experiencing some join pains?  I was struggling with that through most of the workout today -- achy knees during the creeps, pain in the left elbow during the shoulder press and, weirdest of all, stiff fingers during the pull-ups..  What's up with that?  Maybe it's all the sitting in front of the computer. (Hence the lack of blog posts -- we'll get back on track!)

Cheers all!

Day 25, Ramiro: Success!!!

First and foremost, today is our three year wedding anniversary! I took a day off work, Naty took a day off her Master's project and we vegged. Usually we'd celebrate by going out and treating ourselves to a fancy dinner, but seeing as we can't eat most of the things out there we stayed in. We cooked up some pasta and steamed some mussels with garlic. It was really good. Naty and I have been concerned we'd stray from "the way" this week, but i'm happy to report we've made it through today unerringly. Of course, we did get to enjoy a couple treats..

Our indulgences experience was odd. I expected to be disappointed by my 400 calories of chocolate fudge brownie (my favorite Ben & Jerry's flavor). I still enjoyed it, but the taste was definitely different -- it was really really bitter, very strange. Naty had some triple creme brie and a bottle of Woodchuck hard cider. She experienced the same level of extra sensitive tasting and also thought it was odd. All and all it was a good day.

P.S. I'm back on track with the jumprope, I discovered that I needed to keep my A.D.D. mind on something else entirely so that I wouldn't "over think" my skipping. I now jumprope to the sound of the Rat Pack. Whatever works, right?

Ramiro

Day 18, Together: Veggie Stains & Muscle Pains

A rainbow of swiss chard leaves stained our tilapia kinda purple yesterday.  Meanwhile, Ramiro says that every time he burps it smells like carrots.  (What a nicely packaged veggie -- portable, small, light & orange! Our favorite color). We're experimenting with different veggies, and each have a couple of favorites:  Ramiro loves broccoli & carrots because of their ease of consumption (he just eats them raw) and i'm into a zucchini & eggplant kick.

Muscle pain.  Lunges are deathly.  Not taking a beak in between sets it literally impossible for us.  The pain!! Will showed Ramiro a pistol lunge & it kinda scared me -- this program gets harder?!  It was enough to scare me into delaying jumps for 3 hours this morning, but I got them done.

Confession:  we both skipped our jumps yesterday (we might have influenced each other in that regard..).  I tried to make up with it by biking up the hill to campus today.  Ramiro managed to hurt his left leg from jumping rope, which is actually an improvement considering that before he only felt  it on his right leg, so maybe it's evening out.  He's doing the walking replacement for another day until that heals up enough for him to go back to the rope.

Nothing really else to report.  We've both just barely managed to get back into our routine, so here we come, week three!

Day 2, Ramiro: The Sequel ....

Thirteen successful skips of the old rope in a row!! Can I hear a round of applause!! Progress is being slowly beaten out of those two sinister handles... Today was tough, but I expected that. Half meals are going to be a pain tomorrow. There is a noticeable spike in hunger pains now that im switching my body off of snooze mode. Not much else to report except that there's no need for water in torture techniques........Lunges......thats all I'm sayin.

Day 1

Hi fellow PCPers!

Ramiro & I have decided the simplest way to do this shared blog is to write as individuals and then shove it together. It's probably not the most entertaining form to read, but it's a start. It makes sense for now since we'll each be going through our own personal struggle as Ramiro's looking to bulk up and I'm looking to slim down.

Ever since we made the decision to do this program, I keep thinking of myself as one of those little terrifying garden creatures in The Little Mermaid who sold their souls to Ursula.. Towards the end of the film (after Ursula is killed and the souls are released) you catch a glimpse of mer-couple made up of a chubby mermaid and a skinny merman (a little like Ramiro & I) who presumably were unhappy enough with their self-image to sell their souls. My low self-image has brought me to this step, akin to selling my soul -- DIETING. DUM, Dum, duuummmm! The horror.. (j/k - lol)

Surprisingly (considering the set-up) the eat-only-half diet didn't go so badly today. I think the months of calorie-counting in my last failed weight-loss attempt helped me through today. I was curious enough to go to my old favorite website for calorie-counting and learned that eating 1/2 of what is normal for me is actually me eating on-track for weight loss. (Way to call it, Patrick!)

The hardest part was that I enjoyed a picnic dinner at an outdoor concert, so measuring 1/2 wasn't quite as simple as splitting a breakfast sandwich and a quesadilla lunch with Ramiro. But, I was lucky to be eating with a dietitian-in-training who was kind enough to put the baguette and butter away after I had enjoyed my share.

Day 1 exercise wasn't so bad, actually. I impressed Ramiro with my jump-rope abilities, but struggled through the press-ups. I've never in my life been able to do a single one (or pull-up, for that matter), so Ramiro suggested I start against the wall and work my way to a full push-up, but then the wall version was a little too easy! The next step up (or down?) was to use a table, but that was too hard, so I could only do a kind of half-assed version of the "box press-up". Anyways, I'm working along and hopefully Patrick will have some additional guidance and words of encouragement. (If anyone's interested, here's a link I found on working your way up to a full military-style press-up.)

Alright -- I've probably bored you by now. Thanks for being a good audience. Up next, the hubby:

Ramiro:
Day 1.....WoW, I knew I was out of shape but this is scary. Firstly, jumping rope is surprising tricky. Took me forever to skip ten times in a row. Afterward it felt like my heart was pumping maple syrup(awesome). Push ups were easier although disappointing, I remember being able to do like 60 in high school, today I barely finished the recommended number. Squats were actually easy going. My ass muscles definitely let me know that they didn't like being bothered unnecessarily. Over all today was a wake up call. I'm in a lot worse shape than I thought. This realization just makes me want to work harder and im looking forward to the rest of the week. I'm so proud of naty by the way, she rocked on her first day.