The start to my LiveFit training has been successful. Jamie has constructed the program to ease you in to completely changing the way you eat (and for some working out).
After my first week the biggest change for me is diet. Not with what I eat, but how frequently and how much. I can understand why this is only a 12 week program, I can't imagine eating with this frequency for the long term. I understand the concept of upping metabolism and confusing the body into using food as fuel in the most efficient way possible.
All I can say is LiveFit is not for the casual gym goer nor for someone who lacks discipline.
I'd go as far as saying I definitely wouldn't recommend even doing this program until you've trained yourself with just going to the gym on a regular basis and practiced eating a healthy 3 meals a day for at least a year. I can see the average person getting really flustered on this regimen, because I know it's already taxing for me.
I realized as I started this past week to even keep on top of my eating in conjunction with my work scheduled I'd have to cook as many meals in advance as possible. My life is mostly commuting and working so the kitchen doesn't factor in. I've dedicated my Saturdays to food planning and shopping and my Sundays to cooking.
This worked out really great last week and this week I should be solid until Thursday rolls around. I might have to get creative on Friday and hit the market again we'll see. I've taken a few of Jamie's recipes and modified them to fit my veggie diet and I'll say right now they've worked out fabulous.
Even this all this extra eating I have found that I'm getting the groove. I'm not always hungry and smaller amounts of food do satisfy me. Sometimes I do have to force myself to eat though. The first few days were the hardest as I'm not use to eating a full breakfast and then hitting the gym and then eating again.
Like I said the nutrition is going to be the hardest for me with this training, least right now. The workout routines are currently not as taxing as what I usually put myself through and I'm assuming that because the intensity will change as the weeks go on.
Today I tried to read ahead in the plan and I see I'm going to have to invest in a food scale and log. It's fine, but I can tell the reason this works will come down to a strict science in macronutrients and carb cycling. Something I've never done, but have read about. It's not a way of life, but I've committed myself to trying to follow this program as strict as possible.
I'm actually not trying to lose weight, I'm trying to gain. I know that sounds insane, but I wanted to see how much muscle I could gain and I know that I needed help with the nutrition part the most. Doing this program is really more about will power and discipline for me. I know that every now and again I need to force myself to uphold a certain code. There is something about resisting urge and training your mind in conjunction with training your body.
Will power is learned and if you never practice it you'll never be good at it. It's very much a skill and it's taken me quite a while to except that. Knowing you have control is very powerful, but you have to commit. I'm already feeling good about some things that happened this week that were intensely stressful and I did not falter. I did not comfort myself with bad food and drink.
Tomorrow will be day 10 of 84 and I'm feeling great. I'm confident I'll finish this week off just as strong and I'm looking forward to more intense workouts.
Showing posts with label stress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stress. Show all posts
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Stress Eating & The Beauty of Routine
My motto for dealing with stress usually is "focus on the things you can change."
There are weeks (months even) where my life is sort of thrown into chaos because of my day job. I'm really happy that my personal relationships are, for the most part, very stable or at least at a constant. My career has taken the dominate force of stress.
There was a time when I felt I had control over nothing. I wasn't happy about anything and my coping mechanisms were not healthy. But even now I really have to work not to fall back into horrible habits.
I am a stress eater.
I never thought I was and if you would of asked me a year ago I'd of told you I never had an eating disorder. When I think of an eating disorder I think of the extremes: people who never eat and people who never STOP eating.
There is this grey area though and I think a lot of, Americans especially, fall into the middle category. Eating when we are not hungry, bored, stressed, happy, to be social... believe it or not I consider that an unsafe relationship with food.
You should never be eating when you aren't hungry, when you stop and think about that for 2 seconds it sound completely rational. Yet I cannot tell you how many times I've wanted relief of stress through chocolate. It's my weakness.
At some point I trained my brain to want chocolate when I come under stress. I have spent almost a year trying to unlearn it and it's been a hell of a struggle for me. The past few months have been pretty good. I've had a system with myself and was able to overcoming cravings and not feel like I was going crazy.
Yesterday, however, was a different story. I know I'm almost completely done for when there is no constant in my daily routine. Some people think a daily routine means your awful boring human, but your body craves some sort of regularity. When you give this to yourself it means other stresses in your life are easier to overcome, Terri taught me this and it's been a huge part to my success.
I have to work very long hours sometimes and deal with time sensitive material. People (under stress) will bark orders at me or use condescending language. This is all overwhelming. But I can overcome my stress without resorting to bad food choices if I've done things like: worked out in the morning, ate my meals at the regular time, drank enough water, gone to bed at a normal time, spent time focusing on my goals at home. I don't have to do all of those things, just as long as I've done most of them I have enough will power to not go to the candy jar.
This week though everything was off for me. I wasn't sleeping enough or going to bed when I normally do. There were not enough groceries to last us through the week so Clint and I ate at odd times. I was resorting to working out in the evenings which threw me off and because everything seemed to be off I wasn't letting go of work crap once I got home.
So Friday I let myself cave. I was completely aware of what I was doing and WHY I was doing it and I kept it down to a non obscene level of chocolate consumption. Sometime letting yourself indulge in the little brain pleasures keeps you from going crazy when nothing seems right. It's the routine of caving every single time you can't cope that's the dangerous route.
With the week finally over I'm really looking forward to my Bootcamp circuit today with all my fitness mates. Saturdays are always the toughest workouts, with non-stop intense training. I always feel my pressures are squashed after doing that, which just goes to show the more stressed you are the harder you should exercise. It makes your brain and body so happy and you get endorphins from that accomplishment and not a bag of Hersey's kisses!
There are weeks (months even) where my life is sort of thrown into chaos because of my day job. I'm really happy that my personal relationships are, for the most part, very stable or at least at a constant. My career has taken the dominate force of stress.
There was a time when I felt I had control over nothing. I wasn't happy about anything and my coping mechanisms were not healthy. But even now I really have to work not to fall back into horrible habits.
I am a stress eater.
I never thought I was and if you would of asked me a year ago I'd of told you I never had an eating disorder. When I think of an eating disorder I think of the extremes: people who never eat and people who never STOP eating.
There is this grey area though and I think a lot of, Americans especially, fall into the middle category. Eating when we are not hungry, bored, stressed, happy, to be social... believe it or not I consider that an unsafe relationship with food.
You should never be eating when you aren't hungry, when you stop and think about that for 2 seconds it sound completely rational. Yet I cannot tell you how many times I've wanted relief of stress through chocolate. It's my weakness.
At some point I trained my brain to want chocolate when I come under stress. I have spent almost a year trying to unlearn it and it's been a hell of a struggle for me. The past few months have been pretty good. I've had a system with myself and was able to overcoming cravings and not feel like I was going crazy.
Yesterday, however, was a different story. I know I'm almost completely done for when there is no constant in my daily routine. Some people think a daily routine means your awful boring human, but your body craves some sort of regularity. When you give this to yourself it means other stresses in your life are easier to overcome, Terri taught me this and it's been a huge part to my success.
I have to work very long hours sometimes and deal with time sensitive material. People (under stress) will bark orders at me or use condescending language. This is all overwhelming. But I can overcome my stress without resorting to bad food choices if I've done things like: worked out in the morning, ate my meals at the regular time, drank enough water, gone to bed at a normal time, spent time focusing on my goals at home. I don't have to do all of those things, just as long as I've done most of them I have enough will power to not go to the candy jar.
This week though everything was off for me. I wasn't sleeping enough or going to bed when I normally do. There were not enough groceries to last us through the week so Clint and I ate at odd times. I was resorting to working out in the evenings which threw me off and because everything seemed to be off I wasn't letting go of work crap once I got home.
So Friday I let myself cave. I was completely aware of what I was doing and WHY I was doing it and I kept it down to a non obscene level of chocolate consumption. Sometime letting yourself indulge in the little brain pleasures keeps you from going crazy when nothing seems right. It's the routine of caving every single time you can't cope that's the dangerous route.
With the week finally over I'm really looking forward to my Bootcamp circuit today with all my fitness mates. Saturdays are always the toughest workouts, with non-stop intense training. I always feel my pressures are squashed after doing that, which just goes to show the more stressed you are the harder you should exercise. It makes your brain and body so happy and you get endorphins from that accomplishment and not a bag of Hersey's kisses!
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