Let March Madness Begin!

Because hokey smokes do I need it! February had me on a steep learning curve and I'm sure I didn't quite get all the lessons I was supposed to, but hey it's still early and I'm a work in progress, no? Which leads me to the most important lesson I did learn:

Progress, not perfection!

Yeah, I stole it from FlyLady, but I'm sure she's ok with that.

And another one from my fave band since High School, the Moody Blues - "admit what you're feeling, and see, what's in front of you, it's never out of your sight."

My stats pretty much drive that point home.

ALL of my measurements went down by 1/2 an inch EXCEPT for my mid-waist (basically right at the belly button.) That went down by _1.5_ inches! (does the little happy dance!!). And my flexed bicep is 3/4 of an inch bigger then un-flexed.



Now here's where the fun starts: my weight is down. YAY! But by 1#. What's even more fun is my body fat %. If I go by the calipers, it's down anywhere between 2-4%; but based on my measurements it's down .5%.

o_O huh?!

If I use the latter, that means I'm down 1.1# of body fat and up .1# in lean body mass.

My inner brats, Veruca & Stevie want to throw a hissy fit and say "ONLY 1 pound!?!? ONLY .5%?!?! But Tom V says we should be down at least 2%!!!" I really wanted to sit and pout as well, not to mention rationalize all the coulda/shoulda/woulda moments (I mean, come on... AF arrived in full force on Friday!), but instead, the semi-adult part of my brain is chanting, "Progress, not perfection... oooommmm... progress, not perfection..." It is what it is - progress. The numbers are just that - numbers, and they're moving in a direction that's acceptable to me and going towards one of the big goals I've set for myself. The frustrating part is that the numbers aren't reflecting how I feel, and the actual physcial changes I'm seeing going on with my body.

Which is why, for March, I decided to toss all this "weight loss" stuff completely out the window!



Sort of...

I am at the point in this journey where all the tracking is starting to really frustrate me beyond belief. I completely believe that, when you're starting out, recording and measuring your food is hugely important. Tracking what you're taking in, the energy your expending, is a fantasic way to come to grips with the reality of your situation and take action to correct it.

While I am not deluded enough to think that I'm now immune from the temptations that surround me, or that I'm a walking calorie/fat/carb/protein encyclopedia and know exactly how much of what I'm eating, I'm also at the point where all the tracking of everything is just plain frustrating.

Now, it's tempting to say that this frustration is part of the struggle and I must be close to a breakthrough, etc... But truth is, I'm close to something breaking, but it's more my psyche and sanity rather than some great plateau/fat loss drop. Honestly, the most progress I made in February came when I took a rest from the intense workouts and recording every little morsel of food I consumed.

So this month's goal is to re-acquaint myself with my intuition when it comes to food. I have a decent handle on what I already eat and need to learn to trust myself to continue that practice. I figure at least 1-2 times a week I'll record everything just to make sure I'm not going off the deep end in any one area, but I don't need to feed that obsession at the moment.

And speaking of obsessions, the big one is the scale. I have a love/hate relationship with it. I love that it gives me feedback on what I'm doing, but since my body is so fickle sometimes it frustrates the heck out of me when it goes up when I don't "feel" like it. So alas, our time together will be fleeting this month. Again, the occasional checks in, make sure I'm headed in the right direction, but not depending so much on it for feedback.

Exercise wise I'm going to mostly continue with the same, only a little different. This month I'm going to focus on strength - 3 days worth - and 2-3 days of cardio. I'm totally digging my Saturday morning walk/run at the Rillito path and will continue that as long as the weather cooperates (and my iPod, which is starting to show it's age, and probably suffering the effects of being bounced around a lot lately.) Otherwise I figure 1-2 times a week hitting the gym for an interval workout will suffice. Again, my body seems to need a break from all the heavy duty cardio I was doing... I love my sweat therapy but can definitely get the fix doing weights. And giving myself a break at the end of the month to ease up all around and let my body recover.

That's the plan so far... I figure by mid-March I'll be able to tell if I'm successful at what I'm doing or if I need to re-evaluate. For the moment, I feel pretty good about it.