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| The heart with a mind of its own.(Be present.) | The mind with a heart of its own.(It's past.) | The dream that is your waking life.(Go there now.) | |||
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Demons On The Lo(o)se
As Max has recently moved and hasn't yet had time to reassemble his life (and, more importantly, his computer), I have very limited internet access. I suppose I could cross the street to the university, where computer pods abound (and I'm here in the gym's pod while I wait for the free weight free time to begin), but I'm just not that motivated. You've Got Questions? I'm going to write about diet and exercise for a bit, which is likely a yawn to all my homies out there, yeah? But there it is. So, I've been focused on food recently, after realizing that I dropped only two pounds in three weeks (not a plateau exactly, but close enough to get my scared ass in gear). I'm eating much less and journaling each bite (which is something I hadn't done in a while, preferring to let The Brain handle the running tally--and you should know that that was not a terribly good idea given that brains run on glucose and that's all they think about--well, that and sex--if you give them any choice at all.) After refocusing (about three weeks ago), I've dropped seven pounds. And that might not sound like a lot in our quick-fix world, but let me tell you, it's a bit of weight to the bod. (It's a little less than 5% of my total body weight, which is a significant change as far as I'm concerned.) And I'm down to the last ten percent I need to lose. That is, if I drop ten percent of my current body weight, I'll be at my goal. This will take about three more months if I do it safely and sanely (which is the only way to do it to keep it off). I'm still in a size 10 with a 32 in. waist, so I'm okay with that. I don't think I'll get into an 8, but I do want a 30 in. waist. But having said that, I have to start to do some serious questioning about what is a sustainable weight to me. For example, I'm eating between 1,000 and 1,400 calories a day right now and exercising five to six times a week (five to six days of cardio and five days of lifting in a split routine). And I'm the lowest weight I've been since I was ten. So it's all new. Right now, I have to wonder if I'm eating enough (and, yes, it's important to eat enough when you're trying to lose, because nothing shuts down your metabolism and sends you into a plateau if it isn't getting enough food--or enough fat) and I have to wonder if my exercise program will be sustainable when I have a full-time job. Okay, so I'm committed to being active and to staying at this weight, but I've watched all my friends who go to grad school balloon up like threatened puffer fish because they started stress eating and drinking. Mayflower, for example, has gained probably sixty or more pounds (and that's a conservative estimate--I'd go as high as eighty) in the last year and a half of graduate school. Sophistica has gained--though she's tall and it doesn't ride her the same way it does Mayflower. I don't want to get into a situation where that happens to me. (Which means that I'm a bit wary of another lab job, which is just grad school with better pay as far as I'm concerned.) So what am I eating? I've been eating five or six or more small meals a day (and when I say small, I mean 150-300 cals per meal). For example, this morning, I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (low-fat peanut butter, sugar-free jelly, low-fat/high fiber wheat bread) and coffee (with skim milk). I went for a two+ mile walk with Judi. I came home and had a banana and a veggie burger on a small low-fat/high fiber wheat tortilla with salsa and mustard and spinach. I'll do another workout now (lifting, and then if I have any energy left, I'll do another thirty minutes on the elliptical trainer, burning about 350 calories). So is that enough? The Brain says, of course it is. The Brain says, let's keep going. Let's lose it. Let's lose it all. It's a challenge to The Brain, in other words. It's a challenge to my will, which The Brain controls. But The Body? The Body says--what? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But the body has evolved to just deal with feasts and to deal with famines. Am I putting myself into the deal-with-famine state by eating 1,000 calories a day? How different is it if I add a hundred calories, or four hundred? How different will it be if I drop down to three days of cardio and lifting a week instead or five or six? I wrote a bit about the challenge to The Brain. Well, the bigger challenge is whether I can figure out how to sustain the weight I finally settle at. But I am committed to figuring out how to do this, so I will figure it out. Anyway Has the time change gotten you down? God, I'm so ugh about the whole thing.
More lies:
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