What it takes for me to get in shape

I started this blog post last fall, but I felt a little weird about publishing it.  I think that when I’m in the middle of doing something well, I hesitate to post about it because it feels a little self-aggrandizing.  And then when I’m not doing something any more, it feels a little odd to write about because I’m not even doing it any more.

However, for the last eight plus months, I’ve put a lot of energy into exercise and food awareness, and I’d like to share some of what I’ve learned.

Last summer, I was feeling a little fed-up with my body.  Sylvia was over two-years-old; I’d been done nursing for a year; and I was feeling unhappy with the fact that my body wasn’t “bouncing” back into its pre-baby shape.  I’d tried integrating more exercise into life (biking places more) eating a little less (no seconds, thanks), but that wasn’t working.  For one thing, my kids weren’t doing well in the bike trailer, and I really like seconds.

After hearing about Dustin Maher and his Fit Fun Bootcamps from several friends, I decided to accept the invitation of a friend (thanks Deb!) to do a 21-day rapid fat loss bootcamp challenge.  It was a kinda spur of the moment, “Sure, I can get up at 5am for three weeks to jump-start my motivation” thing.  I remember feeling a little dizzy when I hit the registration button…what had I done?!

Well, it turned out that I loved it.  Sure the first week was kinda hellish.  But the friends I started making were wonderful.  Starting the day with all that positive energy.  I love the feeling of working harder before 6:30am than most people (at least me) work on their own all year.  I love working out to a sky full of stars (summer bootcamps are held outdoors) and then watching the sun rise.  And I love, love, love the “you can do it!” energy that flows through the group.

As the 21 day challenge ended, I realized how sad I would be to stop.  I also had shifted my understanding of the way that exercising unlocks inner potential.  I wasn’t exercising to get skinny or even to just to get in shape.  I was exercising because I wanted to be the best I could be.  I didn’t want to let life happen to me, I wanted to take charge of my life and my body.  I had a feeling that taking charge of my body would lead to dreaming bigger and acting more decisively in other aspects of my life.  So I continued my membership through the summer then through the fall and winter.  And I feel so lucky to know the community of trainers and fellow-bootcampers that I do.

Around Christmas, I met my goal of losing 20 lbs.  I didn’t start out with a weight goal…I mostly wanted to feel better about my body and to be stronger and more fit.  But as the pounds came off, it became kind of exciting to see what I could accomplish with hard work and focus.  I can’t say that I’ve ever really tried to lose weight before, but what I learned this last summer and fall is that reshaping your body is completely within reach.  It takes hard work and continued commitment, but it’s not rocket science.  Burn more calories than you consume.

Here…for myself in the future and for anyone who wants to know…are five things that I think were central to my success.

1.  Write it down I find that the relatively simple step of writing down everything I eat makes a big difference in the eating choices I make.  A little notebook in my purse works fine, but I’ve really enjoyed using the iPhone app Loseit.  I don’t think I can overstate the importance of this.  From July-October, I wrote down every single thing I put in my mouth.  If I licked the jelly off the butter knife after making my kids toast, I entered 1/2 teaspoon jelly into my journal.  I was amazed at how quickly the calories add up.  It was often helpful in the afternoon to see how many calories I had left for the day so I could adjust my dinner eating to meet my goals.

2.  Have fitness buddies. It was thanks to my friend Deb that I started going to Bootcamp in the first place.  Then within the first few weeks, I got to know a group of great girls.  There’s something special about getting together each morning while the rest of the world is still sleeping, and then working our butts off together that creates a special bond.   More than anything else, my fitness buddies are my motivation to get moving!  And they hold me accountable.  It helps so much to know that if I turn off that alarm without getting up that I’m going to hear about it from my friends!

3. High intensity workouts.  I imagine that lower-intensity workouts are a good match for some people.  But for me, if I’m going to make the effort to work out, I want it to count.  I like the feeling of pushing myself to the limit, of working as hard as I can.  Bootcamp workouts are so diverse and fun, and with everyone else sweating and grunting together, it feels like a team.  We do exercises for pretty short periods of time (20-40 seconds is common), break for 10  seconds, and then on to the next thing.  There’s a mix of cardio, weights, and core exercises, and I’m amazed that even after months of working out, I’m still often sore.  Especially when we’ve tried pull-ups!

4. Calories/nutrition balance.  So my favorite foods contain lots of sugar and fat.  mmmm  sugar and fat  mmmm.  While I was in weight-loss mode, I had to retrain my mind to think of food as fuel.  I stopped spending as much time reading my favorite food blogs (I read fitness blogs instead), and I didn’t check out cookbooks from the library for evening reading (I went to bed early instead).  To be successful in losing weight, I cut sugar way down.  For about three months, I also mostly cut out wheat.  I wasn’t trying to go gluten free, I was just trying to eat high protein, low carbs.  We switched to sprouted wheat bread, and I’d have either that or oatmeal.  No pasta for me (sniff).  Instead, I got hooked on Greek yogurt (mmm).  I’ll do another post on what kind of foods composed my meals.  The good thing: I didn’t feel deprived.

5. Water and sleep.  When new people start at Bootcamp, my primary advice is to drink lots of water, get enough sleep, (and take plenty of Advil that first week!).  Throughout July and August, I was exhausted all the time.  I was reducing my calories and waking up early, and I remember feeling a little narcoleptic.  If I sat down, I’d drift off.  It helped to go to bed by 9pm so I’d get seven hours of sleep.  Drinking plenty of water also helped a lot (and made it easier to cut calories).  After a few months of bootcamp, either my body was used to waking up early and getting less calories or I’d gotten better about consistently going to bed early, because my energy levels popped back up.

OK, so those are the tips I’d like to remember if I ever want to undertake a get-in-shape period again.

Here’s a graph of my weight loss from mid-July through October.

And here’s a graph of my weight loss from July-March (highest to lowest point is 20 lbs).

I’m happy with where I’m at now.  In October, I stopped journaling my food.  It seemed like I’d developed an intuitive sense for what I could eat, and I continued to lose weight for another couple months.  My goal for 2011 is to maintain my current weight and to stay active with workouts and regular running and 5/10K races.

I tried to find before and after pictures, but it was a little hard.  While my weight and measurements have changed, and while I feel tons better in my skin, I’ve got to say that I don’t think I look that much different!  But as a photographer, I feel like a blog post would be incomplete without some images.

Here’s a few before (May and June 2010):

And here are some afters (December 2010 and February 2011):

Hope this is helpful to someone out there.  If all this taught me anything it’s that we have the power within ourselves to change.  And that taking control of my physical self let to me feeling all the more powerful about taking control of other parts of my business and life.