the awesome running coaches at furman have spoken: I will indeed be eating near maintenance and fueling myself for PERFORMANCE. fat loss on hold unless it just happens as part of recomposition while at maintenance. feeling better already.
Lots of great stuff going on in here... loose pants is WONDERFUL, and your running and enthusiasm continue to inspire
I love the idea of eating for performance and all that goes with it (food as fuel, but that we can also enjoy it, etc etc)...
thanks bytsi. I ran SUPER DUPER well tonight. I think this maintenance thing is the deal.
1 mile easy and then 2 miles at 8:53 pace 1 mile easy and then 2 miles at 8:55 pace. 1 mile easy back to the car. feeling really great!!! 4 sub 9 minute miles!!!!!!
funny, my effort felt reasonably challenging, but I was not anywhere near my target heart rate values. this completes 8 weeks of 12. feeling very comfortable that I can continue to run well in this body, at this level of body fat.
ok, here is some missing documentation. took a scale break during this "refeed" of sorts. actually have been eating in a bit of a surplus. but scale seems to be totally cooperating. I think some of the uptick was just PMS bloat and water.
am back to weighing daily for the duration, regardless of how much PMS bloat. I will continue to track in the daily plate.
the risk for me right now is to eat too much in a surplus. I don't ever want to go back to the days when I refueled my long runs with sugar-laden processed garbage. I haven't been doing that lately, but I have been eating more cottage cheese, fruit, yogurt and some dark chocolate. if I continue this, my weight will slowly creep upward and THAT will not help my running any more than trying to run hard in a deficit will help my running.
time to reign it in. maintenance means MAINTAIN not GAIN!!
I have set my goal weight range from 148-153. a nice, happy 5 lb range that will account for the various ups and downs of life.
oh, just realized that the most I can weigh on the scale at arnold to be able to lift 90 is 154 (weighing includes running shoes). to be safe, I should be no more than 151 on my scale. I truly DO NOT want to be pressing 95 for reps. so surplus party over, it is MAINTENANCE FOR ME THIS MONTH!!
so glad I have the gadget and the daily plate to keep me honest.
There's a very simple rule if you want to maintain: pretend you're actually doing a cut, but have more free meals, so you end up maintaining.
The funky part is where you go up in calories and end up maintaining after all. Too bad that over time, maintenance seems to go back down just when you're getting used to higher maintenance. At least this is how things work out for me.. saw mtn go up from 1900ish to 2400ish but it's dropping back towards a more normal 2100ish kcal .
BTW, I didn't like the way you responded to Karla. It's her good right to be warning you against doing a full ROM for bench pressing , especially considering how many people mess up their shoulders. Sometimes a partial ROM can be a good thing.
Instead of doing bench presses and keep getting shoulder problems, I've dropped them entirely and only do db presses. Problem solved.
For comparison, a few more exercises where partial ROMs can work out better instead of worse: I'm NOT doing a full ROM for pullups either , so I don't come from a dead hang as this will just kill my shoulders. Nor will I addd too much momentum to them in a quest to get more reps out of them.
Soon I'll try my hands again on dips. I've been avoiding them like the plague due to shoulder problems, but I was told that I could try doing them as partial reps and not break parallel when going down. Hmmm, so am totally going to try this.
I really wished people would be OPEN-minded about various possible ways to perform exercises and not take 1 person's word for it as a gospel.
But I do see & understand that you are aiming to do a particular competition and have to do full-ROM BPs for that purpose. Just sayin'.
For the record, I'd been in a mini-comp with myself while others did the same for reaching as many BW pushups as possible but gave up on it when shoulders whined too much.. it's like you wrote regarding your knee problem: when we mature it's good to back off before getting into major trouble.
By definition top sport and especially extreme endurance sports are NOT healthy. If health is what we want, pick another passtime. It's at least why I've stopped thinking to go back to endurance cycling (doing 300+K events at least that require you to be on the bicycle for over 20 hrs)
[quote=Espi;677616]There's a very simple rule if you want to maintain: pretend you're actually doing a cut, but have more free meals, so you end up maintaining. thanks! I have the GWF, so I am using that as my guide as well as hunger/satiety cues and tracking in the daily plate
The funky part is where you go up in calories and end up maintaining after all. Too bad that over time, maintenance seems to go back down just when you're getting used to higher maintenance. At least this is how things work out for me.. saw mtn go up from 1900ish to 2400ish but it's dropping back towards a more normal 2100ish kcal . oh, I have absolutely no delusions that I will keep eating this way and maintain. the GWF somewhat underestimates my burn so far, according to what has actually happened bodycomp wise. I have another caliper friday and also getting back on that cool fancy bioimpedence scale friday that does extracellular and intracellular water. I will have a good idea where I am then. my metabolism is actually really pretty healthy, I am so lucky that way!!
BTW, I didn't like the way you responded to Karla. It's her good right to be warning you against doing a full ROM for bench pressing , especially considering how many people mess up their shoulders. Sometimes a partial ROM can be a good thing. well, I disagree. I wasn't posting that I needed help with my bench press, or help with shoulder complaints. I have no shoulder issues, and the weights that I am pressing are low and well within the level I am at right now ie BEGINNER. anyone who starts a post making a statement like "touching your chest is not proper form unless you are in a competition" needs to be called out on that. I understand that the intent was from a spirit of trying to be a mentor, but honestly, I have amazing mentors. my coach has coached olympic weightlifting in the ummmm OLYMPICS, so I'm thinking he knows what kind of benching I can do a bit more than someone from a forum who is at the same level of experience as me!!! read rippetoe's starting strength on the bench. read it on the squat. since I have learned impeccable form from one of the best in the business, I would be silly to do partial range of motion if my goal is to get strong.
Instead of doing bench presses and keep getting shoulder problems, I've dropped them entirely and only do db presses. Problem solved. so sorry that you had shoulder problems. I am lucky, I just don't. and I do a really good job of reeling things in when I feel it.
For comparison, a few more exercises where partial ROMs can work out better instead of worse: I'm NOT doing a full ROM for pullups either , so I don't come from a dead hang as this will just kill my shoulders. Nor will I addd too much momentum to them in a quest to get more reps out of them.
Soon I'll try my hands again on dips. I've been avoiding them like the plague due to shoulder problems, but I was told that I could try doing them as partial reps and not break parallel when going down. Hmmm, so am totally going to try this. great!!! I really believe in what my coach, rippetoe, and others believe. I don't have shoulder problems, and until I strenthen my supporting muscles enough to do pullups full range, I will just continue getting stronger until I can.
I really wished people would be OPEN-minded about various possible ways to perform exercises and not take 1 person's word for it as a gospel. this isn't just one person's belief (ie my coach, the expert), full range exercises are what most strength coaches believe in. certainly, there are times that partial reps makes sense. but for strength gains, FROM makes sense.
But I do see & understand that you are aiming to do a particular competition and have to do full-ROM BPs for that purpose. Just sayin'.
For the record, I'd been in a mini-comp with myself while others did the same for reaching as many BW pushups as possible but gave up on it when shoulders whined too much.. it's like you wrote regarding your knee problem: when we mature it's good to back off before getting into major trouble. yep, I am good at backing off. do that all the time in my running, and if I ever felt a shoulder twinge, I wouldn't hesitate to back off and rest it.
By definition top sport and especially extreme endurance sports are NOT healthy. again, totally disagreeing with this. many people really have the genetics that allow them to tolerate extremely high levels of endurance. google dean karnazes. I have met him. he has unreal geneticsIf health is what we want, pick another passtime. It's at least why I've stopped thinking to go back to endurance cycling (doing 300+K events at least that require you to be on the bicycle for over 20 hrs)for the record, what I do (marathons) doesn't even compare to cycling for 20 hours straight. I am not an ultra runner like dean. I do marathons, and the longest I ever run is around 5 hours once or twice in an entire SEASON. I do not ever aspire to be an ultrarunner, but I have four local friends who are (two couples) and they are fit, uninjured and healthy. it can be done. [/quote]
I have to totally agree with Wendy here. I am not an expert. I don't claim to be an expert. So, I like to get my advice from EXPERTS. For me, that would be my oly coach, and like Wendy, I like Rippetoe, too. There are many others I have gleaned information from. Sorry, Espi, but you aren't an expert in my book, so while you and Karla may be good-intentioned, I, like Wendy, prefer to rely on my 'network' of experts.
Wow things can get a little heated in here pretty quick! I don't fully agree with either side, but I do see where both sides are coming from. I just think the internet is a bad place for debates such as these sometimes, because while a statement may be written with a certain emphasis and inflection in mind, it can come across completely differently to someone reading it. I think that is what is happening here. I will not pretend to know enough about this to say which side I think is right or wrong regarding ROM. I figure... if one person has shoulder issues, then partial ROM may work for them, but if someone else does not have shoulder issues and is capable of going full ROM, then more power to ya! I think one certain thing is not gospel for everyone, that each has a place depending on the person. Does that make sense? Anyway, not to add fuel to the fire... just my 2 cents to say I think things may have been read in a tone differently than they were intended. Hopefully we can all just get along
Regarding the full ROM, I do own Rippetoe's manual too and agree on most counts.. especially now I've taken up Olympic lifting where form is most important of all.
But bodybuilding is a different sport altogether, where hypertrophy is the main target and training muscles in isolation is frequently the 'name of the game'. Not something I really enjoy doing, but sometimes you can learn a thing or 2 from it when nursing injuries or when you want to hypertrophy a certain body part, e.g. you have big triceps but lagging pec muscles.
Even if strength is your complete focus you can look at what powerlifters do who follow trusted routines like Westside, where there is a lot of emphasis on partial lifts like board presses or floor presses , speed squats etc. etc. to bring up lagging body parts.
It's very interesting to read up on everything & suck up knowledge... the only thing Karla has going against her is her enthusiasm .. BTDT
As for the endurance cycling: I don't think I could ever do a marathon, even if I had the fitness level for it.. just too hard on the joints. Cycling on the other hand is easy, since it is much easier on the joints. Back then I had the exact right state of mind as well as the right 'body chemistry' to be an long-distance cyclist = extreme cortisol levels that made it easy to stay up for extended periods.
Ultra-cycling is a different thing though, it falls into the realm of things like RAAM (Race Across AMerica) where you combine both speed and extreme duration. I've always been a slow cyclist, unless I was fueling myself properly. That's about the only thing that motivates me to go back to cycling: seeing how fast I would be now at a much lower BW. However, mindset is totally different.. I'm no longer prepared to be suffering as much, even just finding places to take a leak was just a total PITA, making it difficult to drink enough for starters.
In conclusion, I really think you'll enjoy yourself so much more while staying right where you are or only dropping wt/fat ever so slowly. It will allow you to eat more and enjoy life
kara, I am ok with not always having peace and harmony in my log. while I agree, the internet can be weird with respect to the absense of tone, voice, body language, etc. but it is pretty hard to misinterpret broad, sweeping statements, particularly when the person who makes them later posts in their log that when they did look into the issue further, most experts recommend touching the chest (full range)
we had this same issue with squats and range of motion involving the same cast of characters.
actually, the danger exists in jacking your weights up and doing partial reps--rippetoe goes into this in detail with the squat in particular in his book. partial squats with heavier loads puts worse strain on the knees then full range (in a non-injured person who can safely learn full range before adding weight).
I just like my mentors to be informed, that is all
But bodybuilding is a different sport altogether, where hypertrophy is the main target and training muscles in isolation is frequently the 'name of the game'. yeah, and I am not doing body building, and don't aspire toNot something I really enjoy doing, but sometimes you can learn a thing or 2 from it when nursing injuries or when you want to hypertrophy a certain body part, e.g. you have big triceps but lagging pec muscles. my coach would still have me doing full range of motion on uninjured muscles groups though.
Even if strength is your complete focus you can look at what powerlifters do who follow trusted routines like Westside, where there is a lot of emphasis on partial lifts like board presses or floor presses , speed squats etc. etc. to bring up lagging body parts. of course, but these recommendations are different than statements like "touching your chest is not proper form..."
In conclusion, I really think you'll enjoy yourself so much more while staying right where you are or only dropping wt/fat ever so slowly. It will allow you to eat more and enjoy life THANKS! and agreed. I feel better already, and I am interested in what lies ahead
Look... I'll say it ONE more time and hope that it is finally clear. My opening line of "Full ROM is not correct form unless doing a competition" is in direct response to YOUR statement of many times saying that "Full ROM is correct form". I was not trying to HELP you and don't think you need help. Only trying to point out that your being so adament about what is CORRECT form is perhaps not CORRECT for other people. (In other words, it sn't that touching chest is NOT CORRECT form, but that it isn't the ONLY CORRECT form as you imply.) That said IFF you are doing a competition THAN you can claim it to be CORRECT form because the rules state it must be that way. If this doesn't make sense still I don't know how else to say it. If you continue to go on and bring it up over and over again unprovoked and keep making it a big deal of it you will be on your own. I am finished with the subject.
Net is this. What I do works for my application and what others do work for thier application. I am not going to around claiming my way to be CORRECT over and over again. This sport has too many variables for any of us to be so dogmatic about ROM I believe. From my studies on this I have discovered the reasons to do full ROM versus not and I am good with what I have learned for now so I appreciate the technical aspects of this sort of talk. I really don't understand all the emotional aspects of it though...
__________________
The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
benching is way harder the proper way then the way I used to do it. you gotta touch that bar to your chest in competition!!!
hmmm, statement on benching with a clear qualifier regarding my application of such.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kfisherx
Touching the chest is not really proper form unless you are in a competition. For a bber type and most general pop people correct form is less ROM.
sweeping statements that are both very incorrect according to experts in the field.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fengshway
there are LOTS of different reasons why someone would perform an exercise through a full range of motion, competition is only one of them. I think you make some good points overall, but big pronouncements like this just don't make sense, particularly in someone's log who IS preparing for a competition, lol. and the other people who post here who aren't preparing for a competition can benefit from full range of motion too, as long as they learn good technique and as long as they do weights they can handle.
of course there isn't only one way to bench press. everyone has different anantomy, strengths, weaknesses. but when I write about harvey teaching me proper form, I am absolutely correct about that--there is a proper form to use in competition, and touching the weight to your chest is the right way to do this in competition.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kfisherx
What I meant when I said that it wasn't proper form is that it is not proper form for everyone and every situation. But that is NOT what you said. you said that touching the chest is NOT proper form UNLESS you are in acompetition. big difference. My worry is that someone who does not know how to avoid injury or someone who is genetically not able to do full ROM will think that this is the "proper" and therefor only way to do them. my statements on benching are in MY LOG where everyone knows I AM preparing for a competition. my statements about it are qualified by my reasons for doing it as such. to say, as you did above, that correct form for most of the general population is less ROM actually is part of the problem in the real world gyms. according to one local friend who is also a licensed physical therapist, injury is JUST as prevalent with the general population using weights that are too heavy for their ability and doing partial ROM. rippetoe goes over this too. so even though you say that you worry that people in my log will read how I bench and get injured, advising them to do partial ROM in some cases can also promote injury.
Quote:
Originally Posted by missjane
I, like Wendy, prefer to rely on my 'network' of experts
this post makes the most sense of them all. anything I post about my experiences are things I learn from my coach and my friend who is a physical therapist, among other people in my life who know way more about this stuff than I do. I don't make my own theories on this stuff, it isn't my area of expertise. even if I were to study for and take my trainer certification, I certainly wouldn't ever make sweeping statements that full range of motion is appropriate only in competition, and that for most of the general population less range of motion in an exercise is better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kfisherx
My opening line of "Full ROM is not correct form unless doing a competition" is in direct response to YOUR statement of many times saying that "Full ROM is correct form". my statements on the bench are listed above, and I always qualified my statements by MY particular application of it, which is in competition. . I am finished with the subject. this is the cool thing about this conversation being in MY LOG, because I can go on debating this issue as many times as I want, lol
I am not going to around claiming my way to be CORRECT over and over again. actually, your statements on the subject matter in this log are the ones that are made with conviction not mine. how much more absolute can you be than "touching the bar to the chest is NOT proper form UNLESS you are in competition. "This sport has too many variables for any of us to be so dogmatic about ROM I believe. right, so why in the world would you want people to hear something like "full range of motion isn't proper unless you are in competition". people in the know who are into building strength are all about moving a joint through the full range of motion, particularly in noninjured people! From my studies on this I have discovered the reasons to do full ROM versus not and I am good with what I have learned wow, so cool that you have figured out all of the pros and cons and nuances of full range of motion versus partial range of motion. I am just not that quick, so I have to rely on people who do this for a living full time to pass on this knowledge to me. I can barely keep up with the literature in my own field, so for this hobby thing I have going on, I rely on my experts to distill what is out there for me instead of coming up with my own theories. I totally enjoy reading about it, but in the end, like jane says, I think I am staying with what I am learning from the people who know the field best, and who also know my goals.
and now back to our regularly scheduled positive log talk, already in progress.
I had the most AMAZING walk on the beach today--60 min, the beaches were hard packed, low tide, wide, high 60's, total sunshine. and then met one of my 4th year students at starbucks for a green tea latte. does it get any better??
I delayed lifting until tomorrow, because hubby is fighting some gunk and didn't need to be in a gym spotting me and getting exposed to other germs in his compromised state!!
drinking a miller 64 now and contemplating dinner (sorry tom, but I really like them!!)
hmmmm. seeming like the refeed went really well. the past few days, I have felt ok in this deficit. I am going to continue diligent tracking in the daily plate, while at the same time using my own hunger/satiety cues to supplement this information.
I have also started being really diligent with my fish oil and multivitamin, which, honestly has been rather hit or miss lately. discovered a new fish oil called coromega-comes in chocolate orange flavor. yummm! one packet is 20 cal. I take two packets a day, plus another 2 grams from capsules.
am reading eric cressey's book right now and getting ready for the gym.
You know how that saying goes, “third time’s a charm?” I am hoping that saying applies to me regarding crashes. Crash number one, Wendy versus bench. Result-improved fitness. Crash number two, Wendy versus dirt road. Result-improved respect for my body and what it has allowed me to do so far. Crash number three? Well, let’s just say that all of you who cautioned me against trying to maintain a calorie deficit while training hard were correct.
Like I have said before, something profound happened to my relationship with food when I put up such a fast baseline 5k time on no fitness back in mid December. For the first time ever, I believed, truly believed that I had the potential to be a good runner. From that point forward, my willingness to ease up on portions of “recreational” food and drink seemed almost effortless. I actually lost a small amount of weight through the holiday season, which has never happened. For the first 6 weeks of 2009, I totally motored along, setting personal bests every workout, and steadily losing around a pound a week of scale weight. Enter crash number three. I wish I could blame it on PMS, because it happened during that week. But the data indicates that I had no issue navigating PMS the other two times that happened since mid December. Nope, this was a metabolic crash, pure and simple. This crash was my body’s way of telling me “enough is enough”.
It started innocently enough-mild crankiness, loss of focus at work and home, fatigue. I knew something was up when a friend decided to have an impulsive super bowl party. We had been scheming for months to set up two mutual friends on a blind “date”, but in a group setting. My friend ended up going, I didn’t have the energy to get myself off the couch.
My appetite was really strong during this time, and I was craving stuff I typically don’t care about, like the processed 100 calorie packs that are for sale down at the pink lady shop in my building. Me? The food snob? Wanting Hostess Twinkie 100 calorie packs? Ummm something is gravely wrong with this picture.
So I did what I always do when I have a question about my fueling or my training. I consult my experts! I posted a few threads here to get feedback from our very own Leigh Peele, the Fat Loss Troubleshooter. I emailed the expert running coaches at FurmanUniversity, who promptly emailed me back. They all said the same thing-don’t cut calories and run hard at the same time.
So now I was faced with a dilemma. I know that as a 5 foot 6 ½ inch woman who weighs 150 pounds at 26% body fat, I am not the ideal candidate to run a fast marathon and qualify for boston. Ideal running weight for someone my height is probably around 125, which is a joke, particularly with the muscle I have built over the past few years. Even the sports dietician told me that the women she knows who do what I want to do are in the high teens for body fat percentage. The local women I know who have qualified are in the high teens. I know I don’t want to be in the high teens, mostly because I don’t want to work that hard, but also because I like the way my body looks right now! But my goal for this 5k season was to get down to the low 140’s and around 23-24%, which I felt was a good compromise. I have no doubts that I would have an easier time running if I were leaner. I have proven this to myself so far in this 5k season.
But my body was sending me clear messages to stop trying to do it all. So I stopped. I started eating at maintenance or a little above. And felt amazing. And had amazing workouts, in running, swimming and lifting. Most importantly, my mojo was back. I was focused, motivated, energetic, happy.
Clearly, I had a choice. Choice 1: Put my running dreams on hold for yet another year, and focus on really leaning out, coming as close as I can to that ideal runner girl weight. Choice 2: maintain the body that I am in now, train hard, fuel correctly, and reach for my running dreams in the body I have today.
I don’t have to tell you all my choice! The lesson I have learned in crash number three, is perhaps the most critical lesson of them all: The time for achieving my dream of becoming the best runner I can be is NOW. I could spend a lifetime chasing an ideal runner’s body composition. It took me nearly 10 years to lose 78 pounds. At this snail pace, it could take me the rest of my life to get to 19 percent body fat! At some point, aging does accelerate, and even though the Boston qualifying times do slow with age, they don’t slow THAT much. The time for me to run well is now, today, right here, in THIS body.
I have decided to eat at or near maintenance. Some days more, some days less. My body composition on race day will be my body composition. My fitness on race day will be my fitness. I am going to give everything I have this year to train hard, fuel smartly, enjoy life, be productive, stay healthy. I will show up to that starting line in the best shape of my life. And if the finish line clock says 4:00:59 or less, dream accomplished.
But you wanna know the coolest thing? If the finish line clock says something slower than 4:00:59, dream accomplished! What! How can that be! You spend an entire year training with everything you have, recording your intake in the daily plate, measuring your output with the gowearfit, doing speedwork in the 88 degree florida sun with 90 percent humidity, waking up at 4 am on a Saturday to meet your running buddies for a 20 miler, plunging your legs in an ice bath to aid recovery, passing on that yummy shiraz because you have a 15 mile tempo run the next morning.-You have made all of the sacrifices and you miss your goal? You miss it by a minute or an hour. You miss it by an inch or a mile.
Here is the other big lesson learned from crash number three. It isn’t about the outcome, it is about the process. I crossed the finish line of the Disney Marathon in 2000, weighing 208 pounds in 7 hours, 13 minutes and 52 seconds. If I cross the finish line of the Spacecoast Marathon weighing 150 pounds in 4 hours and 1 minute, one second past the time I need to qualify for Boston, I am victorious. I may have lost my Boston dream, but I have won my battle against obesity. I have proven to myself that I am capable of maintaining a lean, fit healthy body. I have beaten the odds. The odds of losing 80 pounds and maintaining that loss for a lifetime are abysmal, like less than 5 percent. but I am doing just that. I have beaten the odds. Will I beat the odds again and be a woman with 26% body fat who qualifies for Boston? Who knows. One thing I know for sure-I will be celebrating at that finish line. I will be celebrating the woman that I will become during this year of hard training and sacrifice. A woman who is more than just a number on the scale, a percentage of body fat, or a time on the race clock.
At the end of the day, we really don’t know how many heartbeats we get to have in these bodies. I want to make sure that I spend my heartbeats doing activities that I love, with people I enjoy. These day to day, moment to moment, beat to beat activities are the basic building blocks of our lives. And if all you do is focus on the outcome, become attached to the outcome, and miss the glorious process, than you are wasting your precious heartbeats.
discovered a new fish oil called coromega-comes in chocolate orange flavor. yummm! one packet is 20 cal. I take two packets a day, plus another 2 grams from capsules.
I've tried two brands of fish oil capsules so far and while one (NatureMade) achieves non-horribleness the other (my local co-op brand) is orange flvored and actually tastes good.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fengshway
At the end of the day, we really don’t know how many heartbeats we get to have in these bodies. I want to make sure that I spend my heartbeats doing activities that I love, with people I enjoy. These day to day, moment to moment, beat to beat activities are the basic building blocks of our lives. And if all you do is focus on the outcome, become attached to the outcome, and miss the glorious process, than you are wasting your precious heartbeats.
Wow. Bet that finds its way into somebody's sig.
You are so right that we need to value the process. Finding that balance is tricky for me. Knowing when to buckle down and be uncomfortable in pursuit of a goal and when my spirit or body needs needs to live in the moment is something I'm still learning.
Sometimes I feel like the eating plan I'm following is kind of like the training wheels on a kid's bike: a good but artificial way to keep my balance while I learn the skill of balancing on the fly. Eventually I'll arrive at a place where I can trust myself and the process and no longer have to separate the goal and the joys of the moment into two separate ideas and can just ride.
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"Time and patience are the 2 elements that most people don't include in their plans."
-Alan Aragon
"The scale simply tells you how much the earth loves you on a particular day."
-Ogedei (Keith)
Thanks, I need to remember to not focus on the outcome so much. I need focus, but you are right. While waiting for something to happen you may miss something even better along the way.
Quote:
Eventually I'll arrive at a place where I can trust myself and the process and no longer have to separate the goal and the joys of the moment into two separate ideas and can just ride.
Very well said.
Where did you find that fish oil packet? I am constantly on the search to find a good one.
thanks jennifer! I nosed around in your log last week when you invited me to the open challenge. Wow. I am IMPRESSED! you had a fabulous 2008. keep up the great work!
thanks bree!
lol greg.
((((((ginger and jane))))))) thank so much for your support, it has meant a lot to me.
I will be much less active on this forum. my writing will continue, and when I feel up to it, I might write about the last few days, which have been life altering.
I will be changing my fitness goals considerably this year, as I reread them now they seem very trivial indeed. I may still pursue them at some point. 2009 is now all about my husband and I becoming well together as a couple. I have been on the wellness journey for sometime now, as many of you know. throughout my journey from obesity to wellness, my husband has selectively embraced aspects of being healthy.
but unfortunately, he didn't embrace all aspects of wellness. He is LIVING proof that being fit and fat is NOT an optimal state of wellness. my husband bench presses, full range of motion, 225 for 3 sets of 12 with ease. He plays lacrosse in our back yard several times a week. But despite having all of the knowledge regarding the food, he had not yet decided for himself that choosing to lose weight was critical to his wellness.
monday night, that choice was quite literally taken from him. we are both so blessed that he survived, and will likely make a full recovery.
regardless of what "fat acceptance" websites tell you, being obese puts you at risk of early death. it just does. you might be one of the lucky ones that doesn't have a family history of obesity related diseases. but guess what? his family doesn't have a history of them either, and he thought he would be one of the lucky ones who could get away with being obese.
so today, I celebrate the chance to share some more heartbeats with my amazing husband of 23 years. I will be spending NO further heartbeats in this log or elsewhere on pursuits or people who do not contribute in a meaningful way to the promotion of wellness.
If you are reading this log and you are trying to decide whether the pain of fat loss is worth the effort, my husband would tell you to lose fat as if your life depended on it, because it does.
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