Week Four: Diet, exercise, and inspiration

I’m into week four of my diet and exercise program. I got completely knocked off my schedule and diet for over 10 days by the Nero Stomach Virus. When I say this is the worst flu I’ve had since the 70’s, I’m completely serious. It really sucked.

I lost 5lbs with the flu, but put back on at least 3lbs of weight since I was able to start to eat regular meals. I don’t count this week for any weight loss for that reason. Not taking in any food, including liquids for days is extremely unhealthy way to lose weight. My immune system was already compromised with the flu. Rapid weight loss on top of it can weaken the system even more. The weight gain that came back after something like this is important to rebuilding strength against catching something else and being reinfected. When I was able to eat, I ate my regular healthy diet. It took a while for my stomach to be able to figure what I wanted it to do. My whole body did that, for a couple of days it protested by feeling like I was getting sick all over again. I finally settled down and things are back to normal.  I’m still struggling with my energy levels, with sudden dips.

Getting back to exercise was the most frustrating for me. I don’t take lying around watching television on the couch well. Sick or not, I wanted to be outside and moving. When I had the energy to start to actually move, I started with walking. Prior to the flu, I was running 3miles, preparing for a 5K. The reality of it, I had to start over again. I’m back up to 3 miles, so I gained it back much faster than I expected. The key was to listen to my body. It told me what it could start to do and didn’t have the energy to do.

This whole adventure into illness was very disappointing for me. What got me going and inspired me was when I was walking stairs at the mall, I ran into an inmate I use to work around in law enforcement. He was at the mall for the same reason I was, running the big numerous staircases.

The Shirt. Hoping I'll look better in it than I do now.

I was surprised he recognized me. We chatted for just a moment. Running the stairs in the mall, was what he called his non-workout day. When I knew him he was a pretty bad drug addict in and out of jail. Now he’s clean and returned to his one great love, boxing. He’s too old to compete, but now trains troubled youths, going down his old path. He works out 5 days a week, has non-workout in the mall. Then one day of rest, when he actually doesn’t do any type of workout. He told me he’s on a high protein diet, and eats very clean. He looked great! Clean from his drugs, healthy and focused. He inspired me to keep going. The day I saw him, I was on a low energy day, thinking of just going home. I kept going figuring if he could recover from a really bad drug addiction that was threatening to end his life early. I could recover from the flu, and run those stairs.

I’m always looking for things to inspire my workouts, to keep me on a diet. Right now its clothes I want to fit into and look good for The Romantic Times conference. I hung a top on my closet door that is a bit snug, I’m determined to wear, and wear well. I see it every day reminding of my goal. It’s about this time in our diet that is the dividing line of going forward or quitting. 80% of dieters who started on January 1st will quit before Valentines. I’m determined not to be one of them.  

Exercise during the cold winter months

I'm a outdoor exerciser. I love to bike, run, hike and walk, all outdoors. When the rain hits here in Nor Cal, I move indoors to my treadmill. It's just not as refreshing starring at the television. I love to be outdoors with the birds, fresh air and other little critters when I'm working on my cardio. I feel alive and all sweaty and tingly. I know it's, I'm easily made happy with such simplicity.


There is different ways to get cardio if you don't own a treadmill or belong to a gym:

• Walk in malls before they open. Take the stairs. I love to run stairs.
• If you have stairs in your house, go up and down. Use them to your benefit.
• Jog in place. If you don't have an knee or hip issues.. 
• Invest in a bunching bag. One with a stand, paste your bosses face on it and go to town. 
• There is numerous Zumba CD's that are very inexpensive. Zumba is fun. I've been looking for a Bollywood one. Now that would be a workout. 
• Exercise CD's. Start slow, some are pretty intense. 
• On demand exercise programs from your cable provider. Something for everyone. 
• Stand in place, lift your knees to her chest, or as high as you can from a standing position while raising your arms over you head.
• Yoga classes or teach yourself how to do it.
• I increase my weight training in winter.Weights are inexpensive. You'll burn calories all day after a good workout. Remember to always start out light. 
• Turn on your favorite music and dance like a fool or until you sweat.

Always stretch and warm up before any activity to avoid injury. Take it from someone who was laid up since August with a torn tendon. I've just been able to return to running and walking any distance. WARM UP!

Above all enjoy what you're doing. You have to like it in order to keep going back.  

Struggling to blog about anything. Okay, my grandkids make me fat

I’ve been struggling to find subject matter to blog about. I can put up recipes. I can talk dieting when I hate to diet. I can talk about bike riding, which I love and am addicted too. I can complain I haven’t lost much weight, and seem to be all over the scale, which drives me to drink wine, which causes me to gain weight. I can talk all that, but it just doesn’t seem very interesting. I heard a well-known blogger say, “Don’t blog about writing. Everybody does it and it’s boring.” That’s true it’s a bit boring and there is only so much I can say about my writing, and writing habits, and along with the wine, it makes me fat.

What else makes me fat is my grandkids. I’ve gotten better about eating out with them. If we go to MacDonald’s, I’ll get a salad without meat. They charge you less, and it deletes more than half the calories from the meal. A Southwest salad with grilled meat is about 320 calories, without meat, 140 calories.You eliminate 180 calories. Besides, I don’t want to know where their meat comes from. I swear wherever it is, it never actually lived.

Regardless, I do have a weakness for the fish fillet sandwich. I’m still not sure it actually hit the water. I’m pretty sure it never swam in the sea, ocean or outside a tank of some sort. Now I feel sorry for the fish. I’ll never eat another one! Okay, I’ll occasionally have a mental meltdown over all this dieting and have one so I can go through a period of self-loathing. Did you know they actually have more calories than a regular hamburger? Ya, know the little one, that I’m sure the meat was never a living creature hamburger. They are about 400 calories just for the sandwich. I think it’s the sauce. If you have the whole crazy meal thing, forget, you’ll really hate yourself. I like the chicken nugget things or use too. I had a trainer tell me once that chickens don’t have nuggets. A real chicken had legs, thighs, wings and breasts. He put emphasis on the breasts. Okay, I was convinced, like a sinner in church to praise the lord, I had been saved, but not exactly on the fish sandwich issue.

The other bad habit, I finally have broken is not to pick at my grandkids left overs. I use to do that with my kids, but then I weighed about 40lbs less and had a metabolism that actually did its job. The other day I made the grandkids mac & cheese (theirs and mines favorite) but didn’t eat any. I was doing the Snoopy happy dance at my sudden ability to say no to myself. I didn’t pick at their left overs, because there wasn’t any. I did have to take a taste test though, just a little one, because after all I was making it. If I had eaten any, like three bowl fulls, I would have thrown in the towel, celebrated my new self-indulgence with a  bottle of wine to really bring on the moment of ‘why bother’.

This weekend I’m going to spend on the coast with friends. It will be fun and so very relaxing. The great thing about it, we’ll be cooking all our own meals, with eating out maybe once at a local seafood restaurant. I’ll bring all my healthy stuff, and pretend I’m really working at dieting, or try to convince myself I can do this and watch the waves crash on the rocky shoreline. The beauty of living in Northern California, bathing suits aren't the main attire on the beaches. If you see someone sunbathing, you know they're on drugs, because it's fucking cold all year round. You can freeze your ass off in no time, as the fog frizzes your hair. We're a lot more into being warm then looking good in a tan. Thank God for that, I would not want to scare off all the tourist with this body.

I'm still struggling with a sprained ankle and torn tendon. It’s a real pain not just in my ankle, but in the ass. I’m hating it right about now. So hiking is out of the question. I plan on riding my bike like a maniac the days prior to going to try to make up for it, because we love our wine. 

On my boring writing life, this retreat will give me the opportunity to finish my latest WIP. I have opportunities all the time to work on it, I'm at the point of avoiding it. A whole other subject matter, I'm pretty sure is boring to blog about, other then my grandkids make me fat. It's nice to have someone to blame for over indulgences in life. I think we all need that, for just a second or two, until reality hits you upside the idiot head.  

The writers guide to detoxing, cleanses and fasts

The diet is going pretty well. You’ve climbed over the stall, and have continued to lose weight at a reasonable rate, which is about 1-2lbs a week. RWA National is three weeks away, and things are looking pretty good. Exercise is a challenge with life, but it’s manageable. Now you’re considering a cleanse, detox or fast.

A detox and cleanse is a good old fashion fast with a modern twist to it. Every major religion in the world has fast and feasts days. It’s part of not only cleansing the body, but the soul. It’s a good time to reflect on life and faith. In modern times, fasting is still widely used for both the cleansing for those old reasons, but it’s also used to jump start a diet or help it over a hump.

My best advice is not to cleanse before you’ve settled into your diet routine. Cleanses are not for the faint of heart. There is some preparation that is needed both physically and mentally to succeed and go the distance. Think about this, detoxes, cleanses and fasting is not easy nor is it fun and they are not meant to be part of a diet routine. It's an occasional fix. 

Here are some suggestions:

• Research the kind of cleanse that fits your taste. Know what you’re putting into your body for two or three days. If it sounds insane, most likely it’s not good for you and the results will be limited.
• Be prepared to be hungry, at least a little.
• Don’t exercise. There is a reason monks meditated during fasts. They didn’t have the energy to do much else.
• Plan it out. Pick a weekend where you don’t have to be anywhere and you don't have to explain to Grandma why you can’t eat anything she’s prepared for the family gathering. It should be a quiet weekend at home.
• Avoid stress. You’ll fail if you’re stressed out while trying to cleanse. If something stressful comes up, cancel your planed cleanse and do it another time.
• Don’t do it if you’re working. Work can be stressful, and you don’t want to be cranky with co-workers.

Right now juice detoxes are popular. They are great for cleansing the body, but they are difficult. You need a juicer with lots of fresh produce and juicing recipes. A friend of mine, did a three day juice detox and lost six pounds. But-the first two days she felt like crap. It was her body detoxing. By the third day she could manage a lot better. She did this prior to her sister's wedding, so she'd look fabulous as the maid of honor. She came off the detox at least three days prior to the wedding, and instantly gained back 3lbs. But she had achieved a goal to lose a couple of extra stubborn pounds.

I just completed an detox using Dr. Oz’s recommended cleanse. I lost 2 ½ lbs in two days. I’ve kept off 1 ½ lbs. I gained back 1lb. That is typical. You will lose weight, and feel much lighter. But will gain back part of it.

When you’ve completed your cleanse, give yourself one full day of eating in your normal diet before returning to exercising. With ingested calories your body will respond much more favorably to a your exercise routine. 

Remember, detoxes aren't easy. If you decide to try one, whatever you're eating it should be clean, organic foods, absolutely nothing processed. Otherwise, why bother.  

Here is one of my favorite detox juice recipe: 

1 to 2 red beets, depending on size. 
2 lg carrots
2 stalks of celery

Clean the veggies thoroughly. Chop the beets into quarters, cutting off the crown end. Run the beets through the juicer, then the celery (whole) and the carrots. The juice will be a very intense reddish purple color. If you make a large amount and plan on storing it, only make enough for a couple of days. It is best if it's fresh as possible. This will clean out your system...

The Writer's Guide to adding Exercise to your diet regiment

In the past few months I’ve fallen completely off my exercise routine. I was editing She Cried Wolf, making it my whole focus. When the book was released, then it was blogging, guest blogging, promoting and just dealing with life. I got lazy.  

It is unusual for me to ignore regular exercise, such as riding my bike, running or hiking. I did do some, but not seriously or on a regular routine. When I was recently in Trinidad in Northern California I was surprised how well I kept up my nieces, nephews and grandkids on hikes. But- I know if I don’t get back into it soon, that won’t be the case.

I’ve been on my Caveman or Paleo diet for over a week. I’ve lost another 4lbs on top of the 5lbs I dropped preparing for the diet. I believe the first 5lbs was simply water weight. Something to consider, the first weight you lose will be the easiest and most likely water weight as the body naturally detoxes as you ingest healthier foods. The body will react positively to the lack of the usual fatty and toxic foods.

Now that you’ve started to eat healthier and have hopefully lost a couple pounds, it’s time to step things up with exercise. Since I haven’t run seriously since May, I’m currently walking to build up to running. In one hour of brisk walking you can burn over 300 calories. Running or jogging of course burns more in the same amount of time, up to 600 calories, depending on the length of time and speed. This is why long distant runners are skin and bones.

When starting an exercise routine, take a good look at it, and examine how realistic it is for your conditioning. If you haven’t exercised in years, take it very slow. I suggest starting with walking a couple of times a day, slowly adding light weights and an exercise ball. You want to build up to a 1hr exercise program 5 to 6 days a week, for weight loss.And you've got to SWEAT in order to burn fat.

I’m not big on joining a gym right away. Gyms can be intimidating, noisy, and discouraging. You walk in and the first thing you see is a cute little girl behind the counter who is in perfect shape. Depending on the gym, there is the body builders, big, noisy and hog machines and equipment. All the classes offered are fun, but again, it is awkward, when you’re stumbling around the Zumba class feeling foolish.  

There are smaller gyms geared towards just women. Those can be much less intimidating, but can be just as expensive.

It is easy enough to start a program at home, with CD’s, walking and an inexpensive workout ball. If you have a treadmill, clean off the clothes hung there, and walk it. Once you have gotten into a regular routine, and are losing weight at a steady healthy rate, and feel better about your body, a gym might be the way to go. Make sure it’s something you’re really going to use. They usually require a contract for a year or two.

One thing I don’t advice, is push too hard in the beginning. I’m a regular fan of the Biggest Loser and am in awe of the contestants and how hard they workout. But-they are under constant doctor monitoring, with trainers, with a regular specialized diet. They lose large amounts of weight in a week, like up to 10lbs. In the real world that is unrealistic, those individuals workout up to three or four hours a day. In the real world, we have to work, deal with family, plus write, without the benefit of a luxury ranch where we’re locked away from life, and live and breathe diet and exercise.

Either find a calorie counting book, or use an app for a smart phone. The apps can be free and update regularly for products and restaurants. If you are counting calories, depending on your weight, taking in between 1000-1200 of healthy calories is considered the way to lose about 1-2lbs a week. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s considered the healthiest reasonable weight loss. The faster you lose weight, the faster it will come back on if you fall off the wagon. Think Oprah, when she went on a liquid diet, within months she was bigger than when she started the diet.   

If you are counting calories, and considering calories burned in exercise, my advice is not to consider the burned calories. What can happen is, “Oh, I burned 300 cals on that walk, so I can eat 300 extra cals.”

What happens, you’ll start to just maintain your weight, rather than lose it. Just consider the intact, not the burn.

Take your exercise easy, build up, let your body adjust before hitting it harder and you'll lose weight. Exercise should be part of a healthy lifestyle. All the way around it's good for you in moderation until you can handle more difficulty. 

Next week, what to do when weight loss slows to a stop.

The Wrtier's Guide for Preparing for a Diet.

Preparing for the diet is a necessary evil to see success.

RWA national is around the corner, and here I am preparing my body for a diet. Yes, preparing. After doing a lot of research on why diets fail, besides cheating on the diet itself, I found it is more about the body’s reaction to the sudden lack of junk and fatty foods. It is one of the biggest reasons diets fail. We’re actually putting our bodies and mental attitude under a lot of stress by sudden denial of everything bad for us, which we often love. It’s a love/hate relationship.

What to do?

Take a look at when it would be a good time to start a diet, and start to mentally and physically preparing in the weeks prior. Most diets started on January 1^st fail by the 15^th. Look at the date, it’s January 1^st, a good time for new beginnings, but possibly the single worst time to start a full blown diet. The weeks prior to New Year’s Day, we party hard, drink too much, over eat foods we normally don’t eat, we're way off normal schedules, are placed in stressful family situations and travel. Then we celebrate the end of the year and think the next day we’re going on a diet. It’s a recipe for failure before it starts.

First sit down a take an honest look at your diet. Not the holiday one, but the one you eat everyday. That is the diet that has caused you to slowly gain weight. Write down everything you’ve eaten normally and add up the calories. It is a sobering experience to see the blaring abuses in the form of way too much caloric intake.

This is when you pick an actual start date for the diet. Don’t make it the next day. Pick a reasonable date one month out. First, pick out the highest calorie item. For me it was wine. I loved to have a couple of glasses of wine with dinner. Alcohol is the biggest diet killer. I started to slowly bring down my intake of wine to two glasses a week. Then what followed was the slow elimination of processed foods. I’m lactose intolerant, so I only gave up hard cheeses, during those weeks. No dairy, was the easy one for me. While I was getting rid of bad things, wheat or gluten's, were slowly being eliminated. As I did this over a month, with the reduction of one thing at a time to get where I felt I was ready to hit a diet full on, I had lost five pounds.

If you are contemplating a detox prior to a diet, prepare your body in the same way, with slow elimination of bad foods. You'll have much better results from the detox. You will lose weight with a weekend or three day detox, but-will gain it back as soon as reintroduce regular meals, even diet meals. Just keep that in mind. And research detoxes or cleanses carefully, there is a lot of really crazy ones out there. I like Dr. Oz's, because you still take in calories. Plan your detox on a quiet, uneventful weekend. Don't do it when you are attending parties, family gatherings or any stressful event.

As I went through this process of preparation of a detox leading into my diet, I mentally prepared myself for the actual diet. This is an important if you’re deciding to go on a strict limited diet. To try to give up everything at once puts both physical and mental stress on you, which can add up to failure. It’s a slow process to become a healthier eater, and requires patience. You've got to plan every meal, and know what you can eat when you go out. Check out menu's on-line before you go to a restaurant. It's all about being prepared. As for parties, I simply go with the flow, don't expect anything special for your diet or ask for it. It's your choice to be on the diet, the world doesn't care.
 

To help with my mental attitude, I cut out pictures of dresses I’d like to wear to National, and tape them in a place where I’d see them daily. For me it was inside my medicine cabinet. I’ve reminded myself daily, I’ve really started late on this, and so I won’t be at my goal weight, but will at least be half way.

Now take a look at diets that have worked well for you in the past, and examine why they failed. Be honest, was it you or the diet. I’m a yoyo dieter, and I can say without a doubt, I’m the reason for failure. 

The hardest diet for me is the low carb, or Caveman diet, but-it worked the best for me. I’ve found success with it in the past. It’s just I hit it too hard out of the gate, and the diet collapsed under the stress. It’s not an easy diet, every meal has to be planned, and eating out is difficult.

Now I’m on my caveman diet, and doing well, because I prepared myself both physically and mentally for it. With this particular diet, I was prepared for the headache from the lack of carbs, but it wasn’t as bad as the first time I did it, because I’ve slowly eliminated high sugar items over the past month. 

Why the caveman? I like meat and love vegetables. The combination is a good one for me. It does require a lot of planning and cooking, both of which I don't mind doing. I also have the support of other family members who are on the diet, and inspire me with their success. I find it to be a very clean diet also. I buy only grass feed meats, and organic veggies. It's an adjustment, but I'm making it work, because of all the preparation.
  
As for exercise, I’m allowing my body and lifestyle to adjust to the diet, before I start to add a normal exercise routine. It's about the stress of trying to do everything at once. Build up to it.

I'm not a nutritionist and am not indorsing any diet. If you have medical problems and are on medication, talk to your doctor before attempting any strict diet or exercise. Pick out a diet and exercise program that works for your physical conditioning and lifestyle. 

Next week, adding exercise.  

The Writer's Guide to weight loss, better health and excercise

There is something new I’m doing here. About once a week, I’ll be posting my journey through weight lose and health. Right now, I weigh 165lbs. It’s the heaviest I’ve ever been. I have Thyroid disease, (which doesn’t help) High cholesterol, mostly because of my thyroid, high blood pressure, and pretty serious stomach issues. Those last two are from over twenty years as a cop. It comes with the territory. I’m on, (as I was reminded by a doctor) very serious medications for my age. Yep, pretty much.

What brought me to this point is what I call a 'Josiah' moment. My nephew who, is a cop, was sitting on the couch with his kids, and it just hit him how tired he was of feeling the way he did, and being at his weight. So he did something and lost a lot of weight and got in shape.

I had my Josiah moment recently. I hadn’t been running, swimming, biking or hiking like I love. I’ve had my butt in the chair writing. It started with going through the edits of She Cried Wolf, and went from there. So there I was sitting on the couch, watching a mindless show, and I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of my computer, and was not too happy at all. The Josiah moment slammed into me like a player up to bat. I couldn’t complain. I had no one to blame, but me. I’ve done this before, where I’m really not feeling so great about myself. I’m going to National in July and would really like to wear something cute for the awards. I did this the last time I went to National two years ago, “I’m going to lose the weight.” I didn’t and wore something I hate, that was black.

I’ve made a lot of promises to myself, and announced to the world I’m going to do this and that. Nothing…Here I am at the same weight I’ve been for almost six years, doing nothing. It is my Josiah moment and I’m ready.

The reason I’m bringing it here to such a public forum is because of the past. When RWA had its National convention in Reno, (those of you as long time members will say, wow that was a long time ago), a good friend of mine's husband met us there. The first thing he said, “Wow I’ve never seen so many fat women in one place, who need a makeover.” 
Yes, he went there. And yes, I’m saying it. I’m not saying it to insult anyone, but to make a point. Writers love to write. We forget about everything else including ourselves. We get lost in the voices in our heads and indulge in our characters lives as we eat the wrong foods, ignore exercise and indulge in chocolate. The part of any good writers life is chocolate. It is the sweetness of our imagination, the fuel for our fingers. And it likes us too, right down to our asses.Fortunately for me, I like dark chocolate, that is 72% or higher in cocoa. Less sugar.

I won’t make my goal by National. I’m starting too late. But I’ll lose something before I leave.  So as the weeks and hopefully the months move along, this will be a honest appraisal of what works for me and what doesn’t. I’ve got the experience as a fantastic YoYo dieter. I've tried everything...This will be the journal of triumphs, failures, what works and what doesn't. I'm hoping for the positive as I take a totally different approach this time. I'm ready to kick my own ass into gear.

I might get brave in the coming weeks and put a picture of myself up on the blog. But for now, I'll just hope I look like the silhouette in about six months. 

Next week: Wrapping ones head around the idea of diet. Believe it or not you've got to prepare your body for it..