BMI Frustration

This morning marked the beginning of my self imposed challenge. I have myself all sorted. But never mind that for now..... I'd like you all to pause for a minute and picture me doing my happy dance again. Ok, now stop...don't want you all to get too excited.

Weigh in was last night and after the not so stellar week I'd had with Easter and just sheer laziness, I was expecting a gain. Another one. Not so! I was very happy to see her right down a loss of

2.6 kgs (5.72 lbs)

That means not only did I lose the 1.2 kgs (2.64 lbs) from last week AND the 500 grams (1.1 lbs) from the week before .... but I lost another 900 grams (1.98 lbs) on top of it!! WOO!

This also puts me into a new set of numbers and means I have to readjust my points allowance. My new weight is 139.9 (307.78 lbs). I'm also not working much at the moment (ok, not at all), so I'm not running around as much. So I THINK my new points allowance per day is 26. Yikes! Considering I started this whole thing with an allowance of 30 points per day, it's going down pretty fast. Ah well.

Last night at our meeting, Tex was talking about BMI and it's effect on our health in general. Now personally, I think the whole BMI measurement thing is evil, but I'll talk more about that in a bit. For now, the World Health Organization deems BMI the best judge of how healthy someone is where their weight is concerned. They reckon that the lower your BMI, the less chance you have of getting all sorts of diseases. They're right, of course. If you're overweight, you're at risk. If you're obese, you're even more at risk. If you're morbidly obese....well, there's a reason that word "morbidly" is in there.

There's a fancy schmansy formula to work out your BMI:

BMI (kg/m2) = weight (kgs) divided by height (m)2

But personally I'm happy using one of the tools on the net. THIS ONE from the Healthy Food Guide NZ is quite good, if you ignore the fact that it's mean and called me all sorts of nasty names before running away in fear.

For example...back in November when I started this journey, my BMI was 50.6

Considering that a "normal" BMI range is between 20 and 25, that's pretty damn shocking don't you think?

Now, 5 months into this long and arduous journey? My BMI sits at 44.15

Still shocking, and still Morbidly Obese (oh how I hate those words), but at least it has dropped.

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Here's my issue with BMI though. It sucks. I'd like to invite you to check out a video put together by Kate Harding from Shapely Prose (awesome site by the way...truly awesome). It shows a whole range of women from underweight to morbidly obese. Some of those women you would see on the street and think she looked perfectly "normal". But on the BMI scale, she might be considered obese. Or even underweight.

Click HERE for the BMI Project video

It's a flawed system, plain and simple. Unfortunately, as Tex pointed out to us last night, it is what the WHO still uses to judge our health and our risks for disease.

As for me...I prefer to keep an eye on the scale and how my body looks. Obviously right now, it's not looking fantastic...but it's getting there. I'm working hard to make it that way. I'm keeping an eye on my measurements.

By the time I get to goal, my BMI will be JUST in the "normal" range. Just.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I get that it is still the standard system of measurement, but I don't have to like it. Weight Watchers or not.

A Plan!! A Challenge! A...potentially awesome 7 weeks?

Every week at our Weight Watchers meeting I sit and listen to our leader, Tex (name changed to protect her privacy, til I hear otherwise), talk about that week's topic. In the past, most of the topics that the WW powers that be deem worthy of talking about have bored me to tears. It seems to be different this time around though. I know that part of it is that my head is in the right place and I'm more willing to actually take in the information. The other part of it is that Tex - a petite little fireball from Texas (didn't see that one coming did you?) with the enthusiasm of 10 people - makes it FUN! She doesn't just stand at the front of the room and drone on at all the gals and hope that someone is listening. She engages us. She encourages us. She supports us. But more importantly, she reminds us that she hasn't always been the petite woman we see every week. She has also been heavy.

At the end of every meeting, Tex asks us what we're going to do that week to make sure we succeed at the scales.....in our journey. And every time, she gets the same old stock answers fired back at her:

Tracking our food

Exercise

Drink water

I can't help but feel like we're letting her down. Why don't we flesh those things out and actually come up with a plan? An honest to goodness PLAN!!

So, that's what I'm doing. Right here, right now. The inspiration for mine came from a challenge that I saw today on the blog the Prior Fat Girl. She discovered she'd gained 13 lbs (about 6 kgs) and wanted to do something about that. So she came up with the 10+3 Action Plan. They're already 3 weeks into that challenge so I'm putting my own twist on it and setting up my own, slightly shorter, timeline. I invite you all, whoever might be out there reading, to join me. Come up with your own plan.

The general goals of PFG's action plan were much like the stock answers we come up with at our meetings.

Workout regularly (she had 5 days a week)

Journal food

Drink water

And that's fine. But to make it a successful plan, you have to put yourself into it like she did. So here's mine

GOAL #1

Working out a minimum of 5 days a week - I don't want to corner myself and say that I will be working out for 90 minutes a day on each of those days but I will say that I will do a minimum of 30 to 60 minutes a day. These exercises will include such pleasures (*snort*) as:

swimming

walking (I do have that Half Marathon I'm meant to be training for!)

gym circuits (weights & cardio)

Wii Fit & Wii Biggest Loser (Bob's a jerk!)

I've already mentioned that when I exercise I feel better mentally, so maybe this will be beneficial for my husband and kids too? Happy Mommy = Less Yelling...right?

GOAL #2

Drinking MORE Water - I had this grand idea at one point, that lasted all of twelve seconds, that I would cut out ALL the Diet Coke I was drinking and only drink water. Cold turkey. Moron. I very quickly managed to develop a massive caffeine withdrawal headache which in turn made me guzzle a ton of Diet Coke to make it go away. I'm still drinking it. Actually I'm drinking Coke Zero because, y'know, it's soooo much better for you.

Then I came up with the idea that I would drink one bottle of water for every glass of Coke that I was drinking. Um. Yeah. Well, I peed a lot.

So what's the grand plan now? I don't really know. I do know that I need to cut out the Coke, but I can't do the cold turkey thing again. So how about this for now:

Week 1 - Maximum of 3 glasses of Coke Zero per day. Minimum of 5 glasses of water.

Week 2 - Maximum of 2 glasses of Coke Zero per day. Minimum of 6 glasses of water.

Week 3 - Maximum of 1 glass of Coke Zero per day. Minimum of 7 glasses of water.

Week 4 - No more Coke Zero. Minimum of 8 glasses of water.

This is to be tracked on fridge chart.

Totally doable right? Mmmm. We'll see.


GOAL #3

Keep a journal of ALL food (and drink) that goes into my mouth - I have been so incredibly slack in this department lately. I keep telling myself that I've been keeping track in my head, but then I remember that well there was that mint earlier and the latte...did I account for those? Probably not.

I have purchased a lovely spiral notebook where I will write down everything that I eat. It will fit in my purse and even coordinates well with my WW points calculator. A lot of the time I can plan ahead because I menu plan for evening meals, and I tend to eat the same thing for breakfast & lunch 99% of the time. MUST STAY WITHIN POINTS - My first mini goal (sub-goal?) for this challenge is to not exceed my daily points at all. DO NOT EAT EXERCISE POINTS - I've always been good about this but my second mini goal is to not use any of the points I earn doing exercise.

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TIME FRAME

Today is Monday, April 5th. My regular day for weighing in at Weight Watchers is Wednesday.

So this challenge will, for me, run from the morning of Thursday, April 8th til the evening of Wednesday, May 26th. That's 7 weeks. It also means I'm ending on my 31st birthday. Hopefully there'll be a good result!

UPDATES

I will continue to post on Wednesday evenings with updates on my weight but I will try to flesh them out with updates about how I'm meeting these goals too.

SCALE VS NON SCALE VICTORIES

It is always important to remember that even though the numbers on the scales aren't going the way you want them to, or going fast enough, that there are other victories. Because of this, I will take my measurements on Thursday morning when I start this. I will then take them half way through and again at the end. Let's see how much of a difference these 7 weeks can make!

WHAT ABOUT THE END?

So what do I get at the end of this? Is there a challenge reward?

Well, I'd like to think that there will be a really cool number on the scales that will make me jump for joy. That will be reward enough. Beyond that....I don't know. Maybe I'll buy myself some lowlights for my hair or something.

And then....I'll start a new challenge for myself!

Giving it a little umph!

The difference between try and triumph is just a little umph!
~ Marvin Phillips

You know those days when you just feel blah, when you don't care about anything, when you just don't feel like doing anything? Those are the days when going for a walk or to the gym are the last things on your mind. Unfortunately if you have too many of those days in row, they tend to snowball into this big thing called a week. I know! Shocker right?

This is exactly what I did the last couple of weeks. I had one whole week where, other than my normal bimbling around during the day, I pretty much sat on my backside. I wasn't working, I wasn't getting out for exercise. I sat and played on the computer or read my book or had a not at all deserved Nanna Nap. The next week, I only went swimming twice. And I didn't put as much effort into the swim as I normally do. I had been swimming 80 lengths every day and working hard at every single one of those lengths. But not last week! Oh no, I just kind of drifted along in the water.

The result? Two weeks of gains. I gained 500 grams the first week and just brushed it off with a shrug. That right there was my first mistake. Shrugging it off instead of taking it as the warning it should have been. This week, I had a gain of 1.2 kgs. I stood there at the scale and tried to laugh it off, tried to say it was because I was wearing my jeans instead of my normal light weight pants, when in actual fact all I wanted to do was scream.

I'd love to say that there was stuff getting in the way of my exercise time. I wish I could say that I'd been the model of restraint as far as eating is concerned, but it wouldn't be true. That's not to say I was eating everything in sight, I even stayed within my points every day. But there probably should have been more fruit & veg.

The big thing is the exercise though.

The higher your energy level, the more efficient your body. The more efficient your body, the better you feel and the more you will use your talent to produce outstanding results.
~ Anthony Robbins

Ok, so I'm not the biggest fan of Tony Robbins (I think he's a bit of a loud mouth schmuck) but in this case he has a point. We've all heard it before but for many of us, myself included, it goes in one ear and out the other. I even PROVED his point these past couple of weeks and I still went "Huh!" when I read that quote.

When I exercise regularly I am less inclined to scream at my children like I'm some depraved escapee from the local asylum. The endorphins that the workouts produce keep me going til bed time when I collapse in exhaustion.

When I get my butt out the door for a walk, I take my iPod and tune into my own little world. I will walk in just about any weather (though I'm not partial to the hot sun), and even the rain doesn't faze me. By the time I get home, I've had enough time immersed in my own thoughts to sort out any problems and to walk away any stress that I was carrying around.

More than anything, when I exercise regularly, I feel better! I don't GET those blahs that I was talking about earlier. My body feels better, my brain feels better.....my SOUL feels better. My kids notice that I am nicer to them, my husband realizes that he hasn't been yelled at that day. Sad, but true.

So what do you do if you had a few days or weeks where, like me, you had the blahs and didn't do anything.....and ended up gaining?

You get back on the proverbial horse and gallop off into the sunset!!

I know, easy for me to say from behind the keyboard right? Well let me tell you folks, I walked up a big ass hill AGAIN yesterday morning. The kids' school was doing it for the end of term and off I went. I rivaled the colour of a tomato by the time I got to the top, but I did it.

Today, I'm going for a swim. Tomorrow, I'll walk.

Giddy-up pony!

So what are YOU doing to add a little UMPH?