My BodyBlog

I’m a control freak.  Always have been.  Looking back on my 42.5 years, I can see how it has affected my behavior and life choices in many ways.  The one thing that I was not in control of, ironically, was my own body.  I had a poor relationship with food, and exercise was never a priority for me.

My love of weightlifting has grown steadily since I started going to the gym regularly 4 years ago.  I love how it makes me feel and yes, how it is making me look better as well.  I love feeling good in my clothes and seeing my muscles grow and get some real definition.  There is no doubt that lifting weights allows you to have a considerable influence on how your body looks.

However, as I’ve come to realize over the past 4 months, nutrition plays a much greater role.  Before last October, my diet included a lot of crap.  I was fortunate to be gaining muscle and losing body fat in spite of my bad diet.  When I cleaned things up my body tranformation accelerated greatly!  I’m losing excess body fat much faster than ever before, and I’m still growing muscle! 

What an exhilerating feeling knowing that I can change the way I look through exercise and what I put into my body for fuel!  It’s the ultimate power trip for a control freak!  You can’t control what other people say or do, but you CAN have almost complete control over how you exercise and what you put into your body!

I’ve read that seasoned bodybuilders are so in tune with their body they can feel and see the impact of even a slight change in their exercise routine or diet.  The thought that one day I could be so in tune with my own body is a great motivator for me!

I’m sitting at my desk in my home office as the snow flies and the wind blows.  I’ve been stuck in the house all day, waiting out the storm.  They call it a blizzard, but I’ve seen much worse.  It’s supposed to be over tomorrow morning, then the clean up begins.  On the bright side, that’s means some fresh air and cardio.

It’s Friday night, the one night of my week when nothing stands in the way of me getting to the gym.  Nothing except the weather.  I went last night in anticipation of the storm, and I’ve had a great week.  All the same, its Friday night and it just doesn’t feel right to be sitting around at home.  My mind is at the gym even though my body can’t be.

About half an hour ago I had a bright idea.  No reason why I can’t do some abs exercises right here, right now.  I layed on the floor, put my feet up on a chair, and did two sets of 50 crunches.  That was followed by two sets of 25 side bends holding a 3 lb. dumbbell, and then two sets of fify standing twists, holding a broomstick behind my head.  Felt great to do something positive for my body!

I’ll get back to the gym for a good workout over the weekend, but for the moment I’m satisfied.  It seems like the more I exercise, the more I want to exercise!  I take that to be a sign that my body is responding well to my clean diet and consistent workouts!  Time now to snuggle under the covers to wait out the storm, get a good 8 hours of muscle-growing sleep, and hopefully dream of workouts to come! 

I suffered a mild sprain in my right wrist three weeks ago today after taking a fall while skating.  I was worried about how this would impact on my workouts, since I’d been making so much progress and didn’t want it to stop.

I would estimate I’m now back to 95% of full wrist health!  I focused my workouts on muscle groups and exercises that minimized the need to use my hand, and I did more cardio.  I’ve been using my wrist more during the last week, and have had no pain, merely a little stiffness and a tired feeling.  I also had some stiffness and soreness in my right arm which I attribute to the same incident, and that is also much better.

I am hoping that after another week I will be close to 100% and can resume my training using heavier weights on compound exercises such as deadlift and bench press.  I was making solid gains on these exercises before my injury and am anxious to get back at it and see how far I can take it!

Given the pain, swelling, soreness and limited range of motion I experienced the first 3 days after the injury, I am very grateful that the healing process has gone so well.  The hardest part was being smart at the gym not to do anything to make the situation worse, and also having patience!

Yesterday I was able to arrange my schedule in such a way that I could do a lot of physical activities.  I went ice skating, went for a long walk, and spent two hours at the gym in the evening, where I did cardio for twenty minutes and lifted for the remainder.

I feel so good after a day like that, I wish I could do it every day!  I am self-employed, which is good because I have some flexibility in my schedule, but bad during times when I have deadlines or it gets extremely busy and I am working long hours for many days at a time to get the work done.

I have been able to get to the gym four of the last five days, which is something I’ve only done a couple of times before.  I got lucky this week, all of the stars aligned to make it possible.  I was supposed to be working out of town, but the job was pushed back one week.  I would normally skip Thursdays because I always go to the gym Friday evening, but there was a blizzard forecasted for Friday (as I look out my home office window, it’s snowing heavily and the wind is starting to pick up.  We won’t be able to get out of our driveway until sometime Saturday when out snow clearing guy comes with his tractor and plough) so I decided to go Thursday.  Usually lifting weights four days out of five wouldn’t be feasible for me since there’s not enough recovery time, but I’m just coming off a two week ‘rest’ period, where I eased up greatly on arms, chest and back due to a sprained wrist.  So I felt strong and fresh every time I went to the gym this week.

Days like yesterday and weeks like this one are a rarity for me, especially during my busy season during the winter and spring months.  I envy those whose circumstances allow them to workout any day they want, and to do other activities every day.  The ’high’ I get from a workout lasts for two days.  By the time the third day comes, I am itching to get back to the gym.  My body feels tense and my stress level rises.  If I know I can go later in the day, I make it through.  If I can’t go because of work or travel, my frustration rises and my mood darkens.  I’m like two different people, a happy person when I workout, and a stressed dark moody person when I’m denied.  Thankfully, the times when I’m denied my workouts are far fewer than they used to be, and I am always planning ahead to ensure I can get my workouts in whenever possible, no matter what is going on in my life.  I guess one solution is to learn how to workout better at home, using body exercises only.  This may help relieve some stress, but I can’t see it ever replacing my gym workouts that I love.  It’s now Friday morning, my next gym visit will be Sunday, and I’m already looking forward to it!   

Occasionally when I look in the mirror the first thought that crosses my mind is how fat I am.  I see my small gut and wonder if I’ll ever reach my goal of losing enough body fat to bring out my abs.  These negative thoughts flash across my mind in a couple of seconds before my ‘real’ brain cuts in and looks at the situation from a rational persepective.  The reality is, I have already lost a lot of body fat.  My ‘gut’ is smaller than ever.  My diet is better than its ever been and I’m doing more cardio.  I have seen significant progress over the last 6 weeks, and I’ve received comments about my changing body from family and friends.  I have every reason to be optomistic that I will continue to progress and I will achieve my goals.  I just need to keep working and have patience.  So why are negative thoughts sometimes the first ones to cross my mind?

For one, I have had a negative self body-image for most of my life, and I guess old habits die hard.  Another reason I think is the instinct to compare myself to others.  I see photos in the gallery of men my age and older with lean, muscular physiques and I want so much to achieve that for myself that when I look in the mirror my gut reaction is one of disappointment.  On a logical level I know that comparing myself to these photos is rediculous in so many ways!  Some of these men have been athletic all of their lives, and have been bodybuilding for years!  They may be personal trainers and can make staying fit the primary focus of their lives every day!  I’ve only worked out for 4 years, and have only been on a very clean diet for 15 weeks.  Of course I don’t look like those men!  Given the limitations of genetics, I can’t expect to be as muscular as the next guy.  I just want to be in the best shape that I can be.

On the other hand, I know that some of the men in those photos started out with more body fat than me, and they have gone on to achieve a very high level of fitness.  This gives me encouragement to keep working hard, knowing that I will progress slowly and there is no reason why I can’t have the body I want one day.

Comparing yourself to others can be a dangerous thing.  We are all unique individuals with our own life circumstances and limitations.  We have to do the best we can for our bodies each and every day, knowing that all the things we accomplish, for both exercise and nutrition, contribute in positive way to our body transformation.  To look at another person or a picture and feel badly because you don’t look that way is extremely counter-productive and when it happens you have to shake off the feeling and realize how fortunate you are to have reached a place in your life where you want to be fit.  Many people never get to that point and don’t realize how much they are missing.

I can’t stop negative thoughts from crossing my mind, but I can dismiss them just as quickly, thankful that I’m living a healthy lifestyle and enjoying every minute of it.     

I’ve been reading that many people plan a cheat meal or even a cheat day into their weekly diet as a way of rewarding themselves for having followed their diet all week.  They say it is something to look forward to, and makes a big difference to their motivation.  Many recommend that everyone would benefit by doing this.

I agree that it is probably a positive thing for many, but I think it would be a disaster for me and all those like me who have had a struggle to control emotional eating and binge eating.  At this point in my life, to plan a cheat meal would be like planning to fail.

I lived most of my adult life on the diet merry-go-round: diet strictly, lose a little, cheat, feel like a failure, give up, eat for comfort, and gain back all the weight I lost and a little more.  Then the vicious cycle would start again.

I’ve come a long way since those frustrating times, and I’m afraid to risk all of the progress I’ve made by cheating.  Would one cheat meal a week turn into two?  Would one day a week turn into a little cheating everyday?  Would the old saying "one is one too many, and a thousand is not enough", apply to me and eating?  Food had a powerful hold on me for most of my life, and I just can’t risk letting it get any kind of foothold again.  So, I’ll continue to make clean and healthy food choices, and NO CHEATING FOR ME! 

A few evenings ago I cooked a pot of turkey soup while watching a hockey game on TV.  It was easy.  I had the turkey meat ready in the freezer, taken from the leftovers of our Christmas turkey.  I just threw it in the pot, added water, some chicken bouillion cubes, carrot, turnip, celery, onion, rice, peas, savory, and simmered it for about two hours.  Easy right?  It is now, but it took a lot of trial and error for me to be able to consistently cook a good pot of soup.  Thanks to that effort we had two meals ready-made and another put in the freezer for later.

That’s a good example of how I prepare food at home.  I’ve talked about it a lot in earlier blogs.  Food Management is the cornerstone of my success.  But how do I keep it up when I’m not eating at home and don’t always have the foods available to me that I would like?  I have strategies that work fairly well, but for me there’s no replacing what I do at home when I’m in control.  In essence, when I’m not preparing my own food I’m in ‘damage control’ mode.  This is how I have to think so I don’t lose my mental focus and make poor choices.  In this blog I’ll describe the most common situations when I eat away from home and what I try to do to minimize the nurtitional damage!

The most frequent situation is when my wife and I travel to the city for the day, which is about an hour from our home.  We go there on business or pleasure, and sometimes both in the same day.  It’s usually a long day, and we eat two meals there.  One thing we do is to pack a cooler with healthy snacks, which might include apples, bananas, fruit cup, yogurt, or any number of items.  I make sure I have something every couple of hours, so that when we do stop to eat I don’t feel too hungry and won’t overeat.  Lunch is usually something light, a sandwich, soup, salad, baked potatoe, or chili.  Although the ingredients used may not always be perfect, I believe those choices are a lot better than burgers, fries, pizza, fried chicken, deep-fried fish, or sub sandwiches with processed meats.  If we are in the city for our second meal, I’ll usually want to have a proper sit down meal instead of something on the fly.  My preferred option is a chinese food buffet, since I can choose from a wide variety of items and I try to pick primarily the vegetable and rice dishes.  Again, the way these items are prepared, using sauces and sodium, are not the greatest, but I think its the lesser of many evils that I could chose from the buffet, or from a menu at most restaurants as well.  My other favorite is a hot turkey sandwich.  I get some strange looks when I ask for one slice of whole wheat bread, extra turkey, baked potatoe instead of french fries, and hold the gravy.

Another situation that happens from time to time is when I eat at a luncheon or dinner on business or at a function involving the volunteer organization I am with.  Often there is no menu choice, and its usually soup and sandwich for a luncheon, and roast beef, roast chicken or turkey dinner for an evening fuction.  For lunch, I usually have no problem with the soup.  Sandwiches can be a problem depending on the ingredients.  I avoid white bread any anything that looks like it was mixed with mayonnaise.  I go for roast beef and tomatoe when I can get it.  In the evening, the dinner is almost always served with everything, the meat, potatoe, and vegetable, all covered in gravy.  I don’t know if its like that everywhere, or if its just a cultural thing here in Newfoundland, but people don’t think a cooked meal like that is complete unless its smothered in gravy!  I refuse to eat gravy, so when I’m faced with that reality I will ask the server to get me a plate from the kitchen with no gravy.  They are always happy to oblige.  Another danger is that chicken is always served with the skin on.  I’m careful to cut my meat away from the skin with my fork and knife.  I believe that not having gravy or chicken skin in these circumstances has reduced substantially reduced the fat and calories I consume when I eat at one of these functions, and over time that has added up to much body fat being avoided!  Also, there is almost always a sweet dessert served at a luncheon or dinner.  Cookies, cake, pie, puddings, and trifle being the most common.  If I’m served fruit cocktail I’ll eat it, otherwise I’ll pass.  Instead, I always put an apple in my coat pocket ready to eat when I leave the table.  Do people I’m dining with think I’m weird for being so picky about what I’m eating?  Probably some do.  Do I care?  No.  The people I’m with at these events are usually in the 30 to 60 age group.  Many of them have at least one roll of fat falling over their belts (for the men, I won’t describe the ladies) and a few of them are dangerously obese.  Most are somewhere in between.  Do I thank God that I found a way out of my unhealthy lifestyle and feel good about how I look and feel?  You bet I do!

Another situation is when I am eating at a friend or relative’s house.  This can be a difficult situation since not only do you not always have control over what you’re being served, if you refuse it you run the risk of offending your host or worse!  Of course, what you can say and request of your hosts depends on what kind of relationship you have with them.  For example, if my sister in law offers me something (such as hot dogs for a quick lunch when we were visiting one day during Christmas), I’ve got no problem saying ‘no thanks, I don’t eat that anymore, it’s not the type of food I want to eat.’  She won’t be offended.  Now, my elderly Step-Mother is a lot more problematic.  She lives in a town 4 hours drive from me and I visit about 3 times a year.  She has always cooked for me when I visit, for the last 25 years.  She always baked things too for me to take home.  I love her for being so thoughtful and appreciate the effort, but I can’t seem to make her understand that I don’t eat the way I used to and it’s really important to me to eat how I want to eat now.  When I call to plan a visit she tells me what meals she is going to prepare and suggests what goodies I might liked baked.  If I tell her I don’t want something she says something like: "What? I’ve always made that for you!  Don’t be so foolish, having it once and awhile won’t hurt you!"  So, she’s cooking things and baking things I don’t want to eat because it makes her feel good and its a way for her to show how much she cares.  Any suggestions on how I make her change her behavior without causing severe hurt feelings?  I certainly don’t know how to do it.  I’ll just have to put up with it.  During my visits, which are only for one night (they would be longer but she’s a smoker - that’s a whole other blog) I will eat that one meal she insisted on preparing (then take a long walk).  Breakfast is not a problem, I’ll just have toast.  For the other meal or two I will just have a sandwich or I will take her out to a restaurant where I can order something half-decent.  As for the baked goods, I will take them home and sometimes my wife will eat some of them or we’ll just give the stuff away.  Those short visits aren’t too damaging to my overall food management.  But just imagine if I was expected to eat there once a week, or if I had more than one relative like that who cooked for me regularly.  I’m sure there are lots of people out there who find its easier just to eat what they’re given rather than cause a lot of family strife and hurt feelings.  I can’t tell you what to do, but you have to do something to minimize the damage to your body if you’re serious about eating clean and transforming your body.  It all comes back to making the choice to be in control of what goes into your body.  Sometimes the choices affect other people, and it can be a challenge to deal with it.

The final situation where I am challenged in my food management is when I travel away from home for work.  Most of the business trips are 4 to 5 days, and I have about 5 of them each year.  Many are to small communities where there may be only a small motel or a bed and breakfast to stay at.  I have to admit that over the years I have made many poor choices while on these business trips.  It’s easy to make poor choices when the good options for eating are rare.  I haven’t been on one of these trips in about 6 months, but I have several coming up over the next 4 months.  I haven’t had to face this challenge since I got 100% serious about my food management in October.  What will I do?  I’m thinking I’ll do a lot of little things right in hopes of avoiding making any significant poor choices.  Like I said, it’s all about damage control.  For example, I will bring a bag of apples and some bananas with me for snacks.  I will bring a case of bottled water so I can keep hydrated and feeling full.  I will try to eat a really good breakfast (instead of just toast) so I won’t be too hungry at mid-day.  I will try to have soup and green salads for lunch.  The evenings will be the hardest part.  Most places to eat in small communities have the same standard fare…deep fried everything, salty everything, fatty everything.  No chicken breasts to be found.  Instead of just accepting what’s on the menu I’ll have to ask for alternatives….I’m not looking forward to the hastle but I’m determined not to let this situation undermine all of the progress I’ve made.  I’d rather bring a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of whole wheat bread and have that in my room than eat garbage!

When I travel I also don’t get to workout.  I work evenings so as to get the job done and get home as soon as possible.  If I’m lucky I’ll get a quick walk or two during my trip.  These trips are an unfortunate but necessary part of my business, so at this point in my life I have no choice but to deal with them.  When those travel days are over and I’m on my way home, I have so much pent-up energy and my body is craving a workout so much that I feel like I could scream!  Don’t stand in front of me when I’m on my way to the gym or you might get bowled over!

Damage Control.  It’s what you have to learn when you eat away from home and can’t always bring your food with you.  You’ll develop your own strategies and ways to cope that work best for your own situation.  You’ll do it if you’re truly serious about managing your food.

I’ve written 5 blogs posts about ‘Food Management Practices and Strategies’, talking about my attitude towards food, the actual foods I eat, and statategies for dealing with different situations.  My knowledge of nutrition is still a work in progress and I am sure that over the months and years to come I will improve my choices and eating behaviors even more.  My most important message on this broad topic is this: Everyone has to start somewhere.  If you have the desire to change your behavior, start right now.  One small positive step will lead to others, and over time it will accumulate to a big change in your life and health, if you want to make it happen.  You are not alone.  Seek help where ever you can, from the web, from a personal trainer or dietician, from friends.  Measure your success in small ways, don’t strive for perfection because there is no such thing.  Strive for good health and a change in lifestyle that will stay with you forever.  Keep a positive attitude towards what you are doing and enjoy your journey.  

I sprained my right wrist two weeks and two days ago.  It was a mild sprain, thankfully.  Turns out I hurt my arm a little too, it ached when I was jogging.  The wrist and arm are both much better, I would say about 90% recovered.  At the gym last week I used the arm and hand for several exercises, but made sure to use a much lower weight than I usually would.  It didn’t feel any worse after the lifting than before, so I don’t think I’m doing any harm to it by working it this way.  As long as it continues to improve, I’ll continue to slowly add more weight as I feel comfortable.  This situation has reinforced for me the benefits of including low weight/high rep sets in my workouts more often, since I feel I had just as good a workout this way as I was getting before I hurt my wrist. 

‘Get right back up on the horse’ is an expression that really comes from learning to ride a horse, but its use has become much broader to mean in general ‘don’t give up’.  Getting right back on the horse means you don’t let a setback or outright failure deter you from trying again.  When you have a setback, its human natural to feel discouraged, even fearful.  You have to get past these feelings with positive action.  If you don’t take action, a fear of failure can eventually take control of your psyche, and you may give up for good.  You have to learn from your mistakes and keep trying to succeed.  Ask any successful person, they’ve been there.

Well today, I got back up on the horse and it felt great.  It’s all about my desire to learn to ice skate.  Two weeks ago today I had a minor fall on the ice and sprained my wrist and hurt my arm a little.  After a couple of days, it started to heal nicely and as of today its probably 90% recovered.  The biggest challenge was not using the hand during my workouts, I’ve had to do different things at the gym over the last two weeks and I’ll gradually get back into using the wrist again.

This is my busy season for work, and my goal was to arrange my work schedule so I could skate at least once a week (has to be the morning, its the only adult skating time).  Last week I decided not to go since my wrist was still not great and I didn’t want to take a chance of hurting it again.  This week, Friday, today, was the only morning I could get away from work.  As the day approached, negative thoughts began creeping into my mind: "What if I fall and hurt it again?  What if I hurt it worse?  What if I can’t type (most of my work is done on my laptop)?  What if I hurt it and set my workouts back even more?"  Falling is always a possibility.  Experienced skaters fall, not just beginners.  Its part of learning.  I was able to push all negative thoughts from my mind.  A life lived in fear is a life only half lived.  There’s always a chance of something happening, and there are always precautions you can take to minimize the risk.

I realize I probably fell because I was tired and didn’t lift my foot off the ice when I was trying to make a stride.  I was tired because it was at the end of an hour when I pushed myself to go around the rink as many times as I could, and I was also trying to skate faster to better keep up with some of the others.  This combination is what did me in, so I decided not to let myself get in that situation today.  I took a two minute rest for every three laps I skated.  I also concentrated on making smooth strides and pushing off on both feet in a controlled way.  I really took my time, and it went great!  The speed comes naturally when you are pushing off correctly and getting into a good rhythmn.

I received some very encouraging comments from some of the skaters who noticed my improvement, which is a great motivator.   The possibility of falling will probably always be somewhere in my mind, but it will never stop me from trying since I know with commitment and hard work I will be successful.

My wife is not the type to hand out compliments very often.  In fact, what she said to me today would by taken by some people to be a criticism!  I’ll give you a little perspective before I tell you what she said.

For most of the time she’s known me, I was on the road to nowhere in terms of trying to diet, cheating, and failing.  I started a diet with good intentions countless times and failed every time.  So, who could blame her when, that day at the beginning of October when I announced my intentions to clean up my eating, she replied by saying she didn’t believe it and it would only be a matter of time before I was back to my old ways.  But she didn’t realize how far I had come in changing my attitude towards food and in having body transformation goals that are more important to me than food.  Her skepticism was well-founded given my history.

14 weeks later I have had the best success in managing my food I’ve ever had in my entire life.  I’m eating with a purpose, to have energy for lifting and cardio and to stay clean so I can lose the rest of my excess body fat.  The best part is, I don’t feel like I have denied myself anything at all.  When I feel hungry, I eat something healthy.  I don’t want the fast food and junk food anymore, and my chocolate cravings are gone.  I want the food that’s going to best help me transform my body for life!

So, my wife says to me today "You’re getting some scrawny!" (In case that’s a local saying, it means ‘You’re becoming skinny!).  She added "I liked you better with some meat on your bones!"  What she meant by this goes back to the idea ingrained in our traditional local culture, and I’m sure many others too, that people are healthy when they have some body fat, and if they don’t have body fat it must mean they are in some way sick.  My wife loves me no matter how I look, what she said is just that cultural biase coming out.  I know she’s happy that I enjoy working out and that I feel good about what I am doing to my body and that I am healthier than ever.

The fact that she noticed my recent success at losing body fat is why I feel complimented!  It’s another affirmation that my food management and workouts are producing results and I am more dedicated than ever to keep it up!