Week 4, Day 1 - Megan

In response to Kimmy's blog last week regarding diet soda and cravings: You were mostly right. I kindof knew the same answer, but wasn't really able to articulate it well. I've found this article that seems to sum it up nicely:

Diet Soda - by Jonah Lehrer

Also something I found interesting from The Frontal Cortex (Jonah's Blog...)

Why do we like the taste of protein?

I like this article. Kinda explains how once I re-introduced protein now I want to eat it *ALL THE TIME*

Now, on to my actual post.......

Is the belief in what you're doing and trying your best enough? Shouldn't we be getting an A for effort?

It's been an interesting experience looking back on the last week. I'm going to cut it so it doesn't take up the whole blog... Whining is involved... so continue as desired :)

 So.I'm frustrated. Still. Seems I can't quite get past it. Today marks the first day of my fourth week Paleo. There's been plenty of cheats - but above and beyond I am still eating much better than previously.

Regardless of the cheats, I still feel like I should be seeing more results. So far....nothing. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. In fact, I've gained weight. I'm wearing skirts to work because my pants continue to be uncomfortable. Yeah, they fit - but still not the way they used to. I've tried to think of ALL the possibilities as to why nothing is working.

Am I not working out enough? 

• Sunday: Rowed 35 mins (6000meters)
• Monday: Hour-long spin class
• Tuesday: Aforementioned 5 sets of 5 backsquats and push press
• Wednesday: The 15 minute lunge/hang powerclean/jumpsquat routine - followed up 4 hours later with a 3 mile interval run and 10 rounds of stairs (570 total)
• Thursday: Off (per instructions from B)
• Friday: Walked 4 miles
• Saturday: An entire hour of floor work/weight room (included abs, crunches, leg lifts, 30# kettlebell swings, lat rows with 20# wts, benchpress, pushups, dips, weighted situps on the decline) followed by a 500m row for time (beat my xfit record by 1 second!). Then that evening I ran a mile and then ran hills (one block length uphill three times) THEN I rode my bike to and from the park - a little over a mile.
• Sunday: Ran 1mile intervals to the Blaine stairs, did two rounds of stairs (590 total), ran 1 mile intervals back home

so......... I don't think it's the workouts. To be noted: I am sore. All the time. Constantly. It doesn't go away.

Maybe I'm drinking too much? - I know that's inhibited me in the past... I can't remember 100% but if memory serves, I didn't drink at ALL this week other than saturday and sunday. Saturday I had 2.5 beers, Sunday a half bottle of prosecco.

Maybe eating clean STILL isn't enough? But *&^% I DO NOT WANT to count calories!

Maybe I really have the most dysfunctional metabolism in all of history? I'm hungry every 2 hours pretty much without fail - Shouldn't this mean my body is burning exorbitant amounts of calories? - About a year ago I was hooked up to a legitimate respirator. Yknow, the machines that cover your mouth and nose and you sit there for 7-10 minutes while it calculates your basal metabolic rate (the rate at which your body burns calories while you're doing nothing) - My total was 1050. What that means is, if I did nothing but lay in bed all day, it would still take my body 1050 calories to continue the functions of living (breathing, liver detoxing, heartbeat, etc) - Sidenote: Did you know your liver takes up FORTY PERCENT of your body's energy reserves? Insane. Anyhoo - 1050. That seems pretty damn low to me. When the activities of regular living (working, walking, etc) were factored in, according to this calculation, I should need about 1500 cals to maintain. .... So, according to lore, if I cut out 500 cals a day I should lose a pound per week, right? There's NO FLIPPING WAY I am going to eat 1000 calories. Not only is that retardedly dangerous, but it'd probably send my body into ketosis and it would begin eating itself while continuing to not lose weight as it'd go into starvation mode and hang onto fat even harder. Was the machine wrong?

Above all else - I so badly WANT to continue to believe in what I'm doing - both diet and exercise wise.

My exercise choices are being met with a fair amount of opposition from people that I know. Mostly women. I'm so sick of the female fitness industry - To me all it screams is "CARDIO AND STARVATION!"

I was told yesterday to begin doing 2 hours of cardio a day. TWO HOURS OF CARDIO A DAY. WTF. This is not only impractical, but ... hello.... boring?!

I've read a lot on the science of female weight lifting. Having more muscle means burning more energy while doing nothing, thus decreasing body fat percentage. Old science obviously touted massive cardio and a low-fat diet (enter.... processed foods... and obesity epidemic). Clearly this didn't work for anyone... just look at the national numbers.

Then why (for me personally) is THIS not working either? I'm going on week 4. There should be SOME sort of changes going on by now, other than being in pain every second of every day. I can't believe that it's my cheats here and there that are holding me back. Maybe it is. I just don't know. I'm going to stick at it - because I so deeply believe in both of the things that I am doing right now - the Paleo and the weight lifting.

I also think I might be addicted to running - My foot is still not 100% healed yet now that I've gotten a taste of it and the sun has started showing up, I want to go all the time.  I've already overdone it I think this week with the few miler's that I did on wednesday and sunday. Sigh. I'm afraid of either elongating the injury or doing further damage - but when I handed over my half marathon packet this weekend, my heart broke. That was supposed to be MY thirteen miles. Getting emotional just writing about it. It was supposed to be mine.

In summary - I want this to work. I'm in a better headspace and having a healthier relationship with food and exercise than I have in so long that I can't remember - But I swear to god, if something doesn't change soon I am going to start living on protein shakes and lettuce.