The ELFF Diet

So, It's New Year's Again

Or at least it will be in a day.  Have you made a New Year's Resolution yet?  Have a specific pound amount you wish to lose in your mind?  Want to cut out sweets and treats?  Need to add protein or water or veggies to your diet?

Baby steps.  Baby steps.

Spend the last day of the year determining your goals.  Set realistic ones - it's not feasible to say that you plan to lose 100 pounds.  It just isn't.  It's an overwhelming number that can defeat you almost before you begin.  Break your large goal into much smaller 5 or 10 pound increments.  Make a commitment to only work on one goal for a week - maybe the first week you'll concentrate on eating breakfast.  Only when you have that habit formed will you add another.

I plan to bring back my Make Elff Work For You series - one past every week, defining a new change to add to your diet and exercise routine. 

Are you ready?  It's a new year, a new slate - a new YOU is well within your reach!  Baby steps, baby steps.

Duh

I've never made a secret of the fact that I really like granola bars.  I try not to eat them too often, because they are really not that healthy.  Even the Cascadian Farms ones, even the Simply Quaker - all of them have too many additives and HFCS and not much in the whole grain department.

I had what was, for me, an epiphany.  I thought I'd share it.

So you can laugh at me.

I took my granola recipe that I make.  I mixed the dry ingredients with a ton of dried fruit, nuts and seeds, and then mixed in all of the wet ingredients.  Instead of spreading it around in a pan, I poured in the honey (I'd usually dribble it over the top of the loose granola) and then spread the entire gooey mixture into a greased pan.  I mushed it down with my hands, baked it for an hour or so at 300 and voila!

Yummy, healthy granola bars.

I can't believe it took me this long to figure it out.

Score!

The End of the Week has Arrived

So, check in.  Check in!

How did you do with your goals?  If you didn't make it, can you see what was the hindrance?

The Tale of The Tape

I took my measurements for the first time February 25th, 2006.  I did this after talking to my friend Jenny repeatedly about exercise and weight loss.  I was frustrated by the unwavering stance that the scale appeared to be taking.  She encouraged me to keep on exercising, stop worry about the numbers, and instead focus on the inches.  She claimed that if I kept it up, soon I'd see a change in the inches.  So, I wasn't so much a believer in this as a skeptic, and I wanted to prove her wrong.  Really, what could it hurt, though, I thought to myself.  In the interest of keeping it real, I had already come clean about my weight and I might as well add the entire truth of the inches to the matter. 

Here's what I started with:

 

Bust  (fullest part) : 43 inches

Rib cage : 32 inches

Waist : 36 inches

Hips : 44 inches

Circumference of one thigh : 26 inches

 

Now, I wasn't any good at this measurement stuff, so months would go by before I'd remember that I was supposed to be measuring myself once a week or so, in order to gauge progress.  In fact, when I pulled out the tape measure this week, I realized it had been since May that I've done it.  Here are today's measurements:

To sleep, not ever nearly enough

I never ever get enough sleep.  In fact, it's 8:30 right now and I'm dosing off at the computer.  It's lights out for me, as soon as I finish.

From Women's Health:  According to recent studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the Lancet, sleep loss tends to increase hunger and affects the body's metabolism making it difficult to maintain weight loss or lose weight...."Sleep loss disrupts a complex and interwoven series of metabolic and hormonal processes and may be a contributing factor to obesity," said John Winkelman, MD, Ph.D., medical director of the Sleep Health Center at Brigham and Women's Hospital and assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "What most people do not realize is that better sleep habits may be instrumental to the success of any weight management plan."

Now, we all know that getting enough sleep won't get you skinny.  Diet and exercise, getting it done day in and day out - the only way to lose weight healthily and successfully.  But it does make sense that if you don't have enough sleep, you won't want to get your sneakers on and get out there.  Also, being sleepy makes you more likely to choose a comfort food, and those are odds on not apples and carrots.

I need eight hours of sleep a night.  I need it.  I crave it.  I don't get it.  I average 5.5 hours.  Between  laundry, dishes, kids, cooking, blogging, writing, work, kids, house cleaning, grocery shopping, lunchpacking, and getting an occasional shower, not to mention capoeira class, running and weight work - I rarely get to bed before 11 and sometimes 12.  I know that not enough sleep affects how I feel, how I react and how I work.  So it's a constant battle, walking that tightrope of getting it done and letting it all go.

How much sleep do you get a night?

So, it looks like...

I'm going to be (gulp) writing a book.

At least, that's what the comments over at Real Simple's Question forum, where they posted my question off the interview page.   One reader even went so far as to determine my address and mail a letter to me - although it went to another family member - encouraging me to write. 

Even though it's not a work of fiction, I've decided that I'm going to loosely follow the parameters of NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month.  Write a novel during the month of November.  So that gives me ten days to get my stuff in gear and determine exactly how I'm going to do this.

What I'd like to know is what you, the readers, would want to see in a book discussing diet, exercise, healthy living and weight loss.  I have an outline, and kind of know what I'd NOT like to discuss.  But what would really make this book fly off the shelves and into your hands?

I am very pleased with myself

And also more than slightly shocked.

Two years ago, I wore a very tight size 18 in jeans.  I loved JJill jeans because they had a lot of stretch and I could wear a 16.  I was able to lie to myself for quite a while once I made that discovery.  I had room for lots of ice cream, lots of brownies and lots of laying around on the sofa.

Today I went shopping for new jeans, since it's starting to get a bit chilly.  I walked out of the store with two new pair of jeans, size 2. 

That is not a typo.  A size TWO.  A size I don't think I've EVER worn, and one I NEVER thought I'd see.

If I can do it, you can.  Stay strong, hang in there, and KNOW that all of your hard work will pay off. 

The truth is, nothing tastes as good - well, the dark Scharffen Berger Chocolates come pretty close - as wearing a single digit feels. 

True Confession Time

What did you do for exercise today?

The tale behind the desire for Capoeira

Let me be straight up about this.  I love Capoeira. Big, pink, fluffy hearts.  Here is a great link that tells you an awful lot about it. 

I also hate Capoeira, but for very different reasons.  Let me 'splain.

About a year ago, The Hubster bought me a set of workout dvd's off the television.  In those tapes, the teacher said that this workout utilizes aspects of capoeira.  I really really enjoyed the workout, and so I decided to look up a place that teaches the art.  At about the same time that I decided this, there was section in Women's Health magazine about different forms of exercise, and three were profiled - ballet, capoeira and I can't remember the other.  Hula, I think, or something similar.  So, it seemed like fate to look up capoeira.  Without knowing any more than the two moves in the dvd, and a bit I saw online, in a static page - without actually seeing the physical moves at all - I found the one place in my state that is authorized to teach it.  I called and found that they teach a class that meets three times a week, and I arranged to come in and watch for a while.  It didn't look too hard, and I do have an extensive background in ballet, so I signed up. 

Now I know that I am stupid.

I had watched the beginning of the class - the stretching and basic movements.  Pardon me, but that's not the class.  The class is SO MUCH MORE than that.  Capoeira incorporates dance, martial arts, acrobatics and music into one sweat filled hour.   During my first class, there was a man there who trains the new students and he took me off to the side to learn the basic movements.  They really didn't seem that difficult, and I found myself wondering why the students who were in the class, a bit away from me, were sweating so hard and, at points, out of breath. NOW I know. 

Check out this video on youtube.  Or this one is actually a bit easier - not quite as many flips and stuff.

The second class kicked my ass all the way to Cleveland.  It was hard, HARD, and I was soaked with sweat when I left.  The third class saw me in tears.  Here's the deal:  the last activity that I was new to learning was ballet, and I learned that 25 years ago, with kids my own age, and we were all learning the same skills at the same time.  This class, I was one of two beginners, in a class of people ten years younger, and I knew NOTHING.  Different students come into the class at any time - that's the peril of one adult level.  Rank beginners are lumped in with professional level masters.  During the third class, two people came in who were amazing - way better than I could have ever hoped, and I was tired. I'd had a rough day and had argued with various family members about the propriety of me taking said class, not to mention the fact that I'm OLD and my body isn't made to do things like back flips any more, so maybe I should just stop.  The fourth class was worse, and I called my good friend Jenny in just about defeat.  I was giving up. Maybe I WAS too old.  She talked me down from the ledge and reminded me why I wanted to do this.

It's a challenge, a skill, and it's fun.  It works my abs, my legs - the squats that you do, just about the entire class in the ginga, will either make a man out of you or kill you. I've fallen on my face during the esquiva, and the negativa, learned the meaning of the words quexada, armada,  meia lua, shapao de coro, and compasso.  I kicked hard enough to knock someone over and learned how to use my elbows to drive an attacker down, although that's not the purpose of the class.  That was a bonus. ;)  I landed flat on my back in a misbalanced headstand.  The majority of the students are young and male, and I really feel every bit of my age when doing it.  It's fun, though.  I have hopes of getting better, of remembering to keep my chin down and relaxing my arms, of turning my legs IN rather than out in a straight line. As a funny, we have to do the splits, and it's the one area that I excel.  One of the guys was ribbing me, and another one said, "Hey, let her be.  Everyone has to have a moment to shine, and this one's hers."  Gee, thanks. 

One thing that took me completely by surprise was the music.  We have to learn to play three instruments, which make up the music, and we have to SING and clap during the roda.  (pronounced with an H sound instead of an R. )  If you know me, you know I love to sing but others don't like to listen.  I'm also not an instrument player.  Guess I'll be learning.

I highly recommend capoeira, both for the art form and for the exercise. It'll stretch you both physically and mentally. What I really like is that I'm pushing myself, harder than I thought would be possible, and having a good time doing so.

Here is a list of studios that are certified to teach.  Is there one in your area?