Better Late Than Never, I Suppose.

I think I just I had an epiphany.

In response to my last (whiny) post about not having enough time/energy to complete all the administrivia that seems associated with losing weight successfully, BikiniMe wrote “…the most important thing is the doing, not the logging.”

She’s right, of course, and that has been part of my ongoing frustration.

However, as someone who’s natural instinct it is to archive, document and analyze (I’m a librarian for goodness sake) another good chunk of my frustration lately has stemmed from just how little I seem to have learned from all this “busy work.” Honestly, I don’t mind archiving the details of this journey… in fact, I *want* to do it. Believe me, if I could figure out a way incorporate the dewey decimal system, I probably would. :) But what’s more, I just *really* want to learn something from the whole process otherwise, well.. it all seems more than a little pointless. Even if it does result in shed pounds, if I don’t LEARN something about myself and how I eat and what’s wrong with the way I eat then what’s to stop me from gaining all that weight back??

Then tonight, as I was posting my food diary, I noticed something.
A trend, if you will.

If you look at my daily food intake it’s easy to see that I eat the vast majority of my calories at dinner. I sometimes eat no breakfast at all, and when I do, it tends to be small — a piece of fruit, etc. Then a relatively small lunch and then nothing again until dinner, which is usually massive (compared to the day’s other meals anyway) and almost always accounts for over half of my day’s calories. Then I started thinking about the times (of day) that I eat.

Breakfast: between 6:00 – 7:00am (if at all)
Lunch: between 12:15 – 12:40
Dinner: between 6:00 – 7:00pm

And then it happened.

At first I thought the skies were parting above me and that beams of heavenly light were actually shining down as if from some divine spotlight… but then I realized it was just the light bulb going on over my head.

I need to eat more frequently.
I need to eat smaller meals.

*cue hallelujah chorus*

I need to eat smaller, more frequent meals.

Um… duh.

Here’s the thing… this ain’t rocket science, folks. I mean, eating smaller more frequent meals is a highly recommended approach to weight loss. In fact, even though I am loath to call this new way of living a “diet,” the truth is that most “diet” programs recommend a similar approach to eating… and a lot of people who have been successful and taking and keeping off large amounts of weight list smaller and more frequent meals as a key component in what finally worked for them… and yet, I just couldn’t see it. It took forcing myself to write it all down, day after day, for months and months and months (with admitted breaks here and there) before I finally *learned* something. I swear. Sometimes, I feel like I should be wearing the weight loss dunce cap, or something.

That’s not to say that eating smaller, more frequent meals is the right approach for everyone or even if it’s the right approach for me. However, given the data I’ve collected from months and months of logging my food choices, it does seem like it just *might* work. so… here’s what I’m going do:

Even though, officially, it’s too late for me to join Krissie’s 10 day challenge to “win” — I’m still going to participate. Starting tomorrow, and for 10 days, I’m going try to split up my eating into smaller, bite sized (har!) chunks. Instead of eating the traditional breakfast lunch and dinner, I’m going to aim for at least 5 mini meals per day. I’m still going to shoot for less than 1500 calories per day (and preferably more like 1200 – 1300), but I’m going to see if eating more frequently helps curb the afternoon/evening hunger that causes me to overeat at dinner time.

I figure, after 10 days I’ll have an idea about whether or not this is really a viable approach… plus, c’mon, I can commit to just about anything for 10 days, right?

And in the meantime I get to ride the wave of having actually discovered something about myself… in the hopes that, in the end, all this self-reflection will make me a stronger, better and *fingers crossed* thinner person. Besides, who knows what I might *learn* next! :)

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PS: I’ve mapped out my route for ScaleJunkie’s 5k In May challenge. Of course, I won’t add the badge to my sidebar until I’ve actually done it, but here’s a sneak peak at my route. If When I do finally walk this course it will be more than just a distance victory for me… but I’ll wait to talk about that when I finally do it. In the meantime, I’m excited because, c’mon… check out that badge! Plus, even though I’m so proud of my blogging buddies who’ve gotten up the gumption to actually run one (or more) 5k’s, (yes, Andrew and Marshmallow, I’m talking to you, among others) I’m always just a little bit jealous of those accomplishments. I look forward to the day when I’m no longer *just* cheering them on, but am also donning my own pair of running shoes, you know? But in the meantime, walking a 5k is a good start. And I’m excited about logging these steps and earning this cool new badge for my sidebar. Anyway, the walk is one I’ve done before minus the overlapping inset that pushes it over the 5k mark.

Anyway… Go me!

Wanna Win A Bike??

Gosh. I do!

When I was a kid, my brother and I had to share a bike. He was younger than me, but taller and stronger by an early age. So… he’d put me on the handlebars and we’d ride around our neighborhood park. I haven’t owned a bike since way back then, but thinking about having one again brought back a flood of beautiful memories. If I were to win this contest, (which I’m not counting on since I never win anything), I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t ride anyone around on the handlebars, but I think it would give me an excuse to take off the virtual “training wheels” and kick my fitness routine into high gear.

Go see Scale Junkie and get your link on.

They Don’t Call it a Confessional For Nothing

I have to tell you… I’ve really been struggling lately.

Struggling not to put food I don’t need to eat into my mouth.
Struggling to make time to add up my calories each day.
Struggling to get off my ass and do some kind of exercise (beyond just walking each day).
Struggling to stick to the stick-to-it-ness that’s kept me going so far.

One of the things I’ve tried really hard to do through out all of this is to not have unrealistic expectations of myself. I know I’m not perfect. I know that I never will be. I know too that expecting perfection from myself will only result in big FAT failure(s). Believe me, I’ve spent a lifetime setting myself up for failure, and I promised myself that this time would be different.

So far, I’ve done pretty well… but lately I’ve been feeling overwhelmed.

It’s tough to keep up with all the work that doing this involves. Between all the writing and tallying and posting and commenting and recording and analyzing and fretting and… well, you get the picture… it’s no wonder I can’t find time to exercise! Or at least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself.

Lately, I’ve been trying to find the *easy* way out of all of this. Ironically, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to lose weight without doing all the stuff that’s helped me lose weight in the first place.

Now, I realize that there are some people out there who don’t *need* to exercise to lose weight. People who don’t *need* to count calories or keep a food diary or to blather on endlessly about this freakishly hard journey. And while I *hate* those people, I also greatly envy them because I am NOT one of those people.

I *do* need those things.

And I *need* to make time for them or I won’t continue to lose weight.

So… to that end, I’ve decided to accept Paola’s gracious invitation to join the “food confessional” where I will attempt to post my daily food diary. I haven’t decided about how to best record my daily exercise, but I know that I have to start doing that too. Further, I know that I need to be better about setting weekly goals and then recording my progress towards them.

*sigh*

I wish I could do this without all the virtual “paper pushing,” as it were, but the hard truth is that I can’t.

It’s funny, but you’d think that this far into it, I’d know more. You’d think that having lost 75lbs, I’d have it all figured out… but I really don’t. In some ways, it still feels as though those 75lbs just sort of came off by accident. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked hard for them, but I can’t pin point one or two key things that made it possible.

Here’s what I *think* I know:

I *think* that when I write things down, I am more apt to eat less.
I *think* that if I don’t exercise before 8:00pm, it ain’t happening.
I *think* that my body processes fiber differently than other people.
I *think* that if I don’t get 8 hours of sleep, I suck at saying no to foods I shouldn’t be eating.
I *think* that I can’t just “have a starbucks” once in awhile… I’ve got to quit that stuff cold turkey or it will forever be a problem for me.

I haven’t, however, figured out the following:

How to make exercise a *habit* and not just something that I feel like I am forcing myself to do.
How to wean my husband off of junk food and onto healthier choices.
How to prioritize my time such that creating a healthy life for myself comes first.
How, when I don’t have enough time for everything, to figure out which things I absolutely must do in order to be successful.

If any of you have this all worked out, please… I’d welcome your insight.

In the meantime, I’m giving the confessional a go. I know I won’t be perfect… but right now I’m just shooting for more days when I do the right things than days when I don’t.