One of many Ways to Eat, but it Works for Me

Over the past year I have been struggling with a tear in the meniscus of my knee which has not only limited my activity in many ways when in flared up, but also has been my excuse to eat more than I should. Due to this fact I put on a fair amount of weight. Now to be fair most of that came on after I had surgery to fix the problem which was just before the Christmas season so with all the extra food I as very limited in activity through that time. By the beginning of the year I was able to return to my regular sort of workouts, and I did, starting the Turbulence Training Transformation Contest early in January.

Initially I did well with my approach of fasting one of two days a week and counting my calories near maintenance on the other days using Myfitnesspal. However, late in January and into early February we had 4 deaths in our church. The added stress, not to mention the luncheons following the funerals, resulted in a standstill on my weight loss and even a slight gain, although it was all water weight.

Looking at things following this, I realized that the stress was not going to go away for a while since I still had after care with the families of those who died, and the emotions of having people I have known and come to care for over the past 15 years no longer being around to visit. Part of the problem was I had too many options eating wise.

Now don't get me wrong, I love options. I love being able to eat what I want as long as I number 1, fit it in my calories, and number 2, fit it in my macro nutrient profile. However, when I was stressed and busy, those options became an excuse to either not log what I was eating, or make bad choices.

Enter the "One Day Diet." Not meaning a diet that does everything in one day, but one that is basically a framework for eating one day which one just continues with. http://www.getresponse.com/archive/17cheatfoods_rpt/The-ONE-Day-Diet-step-by-step-instructions-inside-9897175.html

I had received a e-mail, several actually, concerning this early in January; but had disregarded it since what I was doing was working with my life. I knew it would work. I just did not need the change. After all the deaths, I needed the change desperately. So I decided to try it. It cuts back the options, and makes it much easier to eat because I don't have to devote a lot of time to planning out my menus.

I have done it now for a little over a week, and it is working wonderfully. Took off the water weight, and I am back to losing consistently.

The lesson from this is that while pretty much any diet will work, you have to find the one that works for your life now. I will likely get back to my previous approach in the future when things get more normal, but for now, this One Day Diet works well for me. Find what works for you and do it, but don't be afraid to change it up if your situation changes.

Tomorrow Is the Day

Tomorrow I will be 46, and in celebration I plan to cycle 46 miles from my home in Exeter, Ontario to my mother's house in London, Ontario. No the direct ride there is not 46 miles, it is only 30, so I had to map out a longer less direct route. I have done the 30 mile rides 3-4 times in the last month or so, and several other 20-25 mile rides as well. Having started back in 2009 before getting sick at 255 or more pounds, and completely sedentary, for me this is a major goal to reach. If I do it, I plan to continue to celebrate every year adding a mile until I cannot do it any longer. If I have the energy when I finish, I might even bang out 46 bodyweight squats, 46 push-ups, and who knows maybe 46 of some other bodyweight exercise as well. At this point the weather looks to be cooperating with a forecast for clear and pretty much windless weather. Now to wait and see what tomorrow brings.

Bodyweight Workout July 3, 2012

I have been putting this together for a while now, but decided to try it this evening. It was pretty good. I only got through it 3 rounds, which is probably more of a reflection of my current fitness level since I have been laying off the workouts for a couple of weeks. Hopefully this will signal getting back into it.

Here is the workout:

Day #1 Workout A
Warm-up
Foam Rolling (only first time through)
BW Squats x12
Push-ups x8
Stick-ups x10
Jumping Jacks x20
Lying Hip Extensions x12
Plank 30 seconds
(Rest 30 seconds and Repeat)

Workout
Prisoner Squats x10
Mountain Climber x15
Chin-up x5
Elevated Push-up x6/side
Lunge x8/side
Spiderman Climb x10/side
Inverted Rows x8
SB Leg Curl x12
Jumping Jacks x15
Rocca Press x6

(Rest 1 minute and repeat up to 3 more times)


Finish with stretching of stiff muscle groups.

Tips to Help you Stay within your Calories

One of the things that most if not all people on calorie restricted diets will run into are times when they just seem hungry even though they have eaten. For some this is a constant struggle. For others it happens from time to time with a day or two where they just don't feel satisfied no matter how much they eat. When those times come what can you do to help you stay within your calorie allowance?

First if you do overeat, don't beat yourself up. Instead get back to eating well as quickly as possible. The only true failure is when you give up completely. A momentary failure will not destroy everything. In fact you can use this as a learning experience.

That leads to the first piece of advice. Examine what you have eaten to see if it might be the cause of this hunger. If there is something that was different from your normal eating that may have been the trigger. In general triggers can be sugary foods, foods low in protein and fiber, or for some food with artificial sweeteners. If you ate foods like this they may have triggered your hunger. If you see a food, even one not mentioned here, that may be linked to your hunger because it is different from what you normally eat., cut it out for a while and see if it helps.

Related to this look at what you are eating. Is it high in fiber and nutrients? Are you eating sufficient protein and fat. Often "diet food" is high in carbohydrates, but very low in fat and protein. The reason for low fat is both the misunderstanding the fat will make you fat, and the fact that fat has a lot more calories per gram than both carbohydrates and protein. The thing is protein and fat will both help you feel full longer. My personal preference for them is 40% of your Calories from carbohydrates, 30% of them from protein and 30% from fats combined with eating at least 30 grams of fiber (more is better).

The other possible trigger is emotional stress. Many people, myself included, have an unhealthy tendency to deal with stress by eating. When stress comes, they want to eat and eat and eat. If this is you I can suggest what often works for me. I exercise. I take that stress energy, and put it toward something positive for my health. Often this will be enough to get rid of that desire to eat. So do something physical.

All this is fine, you may say, but what about when I am hungry? Is there anything I can do to help? As stated exercise can help, especially more endurance types like jogging, cycling or even a long walk. Also try drinking several large glasses of straight water. Sometimes people mistake thirst for hunger, and water will deal with the thirst not to mention fill your stomach. Another thing that can help is brushing your teeth with a minty toothpaste. This will often remove the desire to eat, and will make food that you might eat after brushing taste much less appetizing.

Hopefully these hints help you. Do you have any to add?

It Is Working

Just a quick update. My knee is recovering well, and the approach of putting together an upper body only exercise program has helped me keep on track with my eating. Other than Saturday when I attended a 50th wedding anniversary of good friends of ours. Then I took the approach I usually do, eat and enjoy as it is only one day. Taking this approach has worked in the past, and it did this time as well. I actually lost a pound over the weekend.

Upper Body Exercise During Injury

Needing some sort of exercise program for while I am recovering from the flare up of my meniscus that won't aggravate my knee further I decided to put together an upper body only exercise program.

In designing this I took several things into consideration.

First, what upper body exercises do not require stabilisation from my legs. Things like standing exercises are out for sure, and kneeling exercises like stability ball roll-outs or one arm dumbell rows may be a problem. After some experimentation I found that stuff from knees like one arm rows and stability ball roll outs work fine.

Second, I want to make sure to work more than just one muscle group. This can't be all pressing exercises. It needs to work chest, back, shoulders, and ideally core muscles as well. Of all these the core might be the hardest to work well since core exercises often require at least a partial use of legs.

Third, I want to get my heart rate up. Interval training is out for now so I need to design the workout in a metabolically challenging manner. Thus some sort of cardio strength training would be good.

With this in mind I decided on three supersets with no rest between exercises, but rest between the supersets would do the trick. Exercise wise I settled on the following:

With each superset go through all exercises without resting between them. When the superset is completed rest for one minute, and repeat.

Warm-up going through Superset 1 twice at 50% of weight you plan to use. Rest one minute after each time through.

SUPERSET 1

DB bench press x10

Pull-ups x8

SB rollout x12

(Go through Superset 3 times with 1 minute rest after each time)

SUPERSET 2

Seated DB shoulder press x10

Supermans x10, (3 second hold)

One-arm rows x8/side

(Go through Superset 3 times with 1 minute rest after each time)

SUPERSET 3

Incline DB press x10

Hanging leg raise x10

Reverse DB raise x10

(Go through Superset 3 times with 1 minute rest after each time)

Finish with stretching.

Injuries

For the past year or so I have been dealing with a torn meniscus. For those who don't know what that is, it is part of the cartilage in the knee. It is not a constant problem, but flares up when the torn piece moves out of position thus causing a fair amount of pain, and locking up my knee.

Yesterday that torn piece did just that, and while the pain is not overwhelming, it is substantial. At this point any lower body work is out, so I am going to try to focus on upper body stuff. Carrying weight around is also out, so changing the plates on the barbell will be limited. I plan to focus mainly on bodyweight and dumbell exercises since I can have my powerblocks right where I am working out so I can change the weight easily without walking around with them.

All this is meant to lead up to my main comment. My past experience is that when I am injured and unable to work out, my eating gets really bad. I eat way to many calories, and can't seem to stop. This has been very unhelpful in maintaining my weight loss, and since I have had these flare ups fairly frequently has resulted in fairly substantial gains. With this pattern in mind, instead of repeating it yet again I thought I would make a plan.

The big issue for me is that working out and maintaining a good diet seem directly connected in me. When I workout I find it easy to eat well. When I don't, or in this case, can't workout, I eat badly. My plan then is to find a way to workout that works around my injury. Hopefully this will help me keep on track with food as well.

What all this does is give a reminder that we all need to watch for these patterns in our lives. When we find them, we need to come up with a plan to try to change them. Then we need to try that plan to see if it works. If it doesn't we need a different plan.

Hopefully this will work for me. I will post an update when I find out.