Healthy Journey

 Getting right to it, this isn’t the first time I’ve become dedicated to weight loss and lifestyle changes. And really, until you’ve been doing it consistently for a few months, you’re never sure it’s going to stick at all. The beginning is so full of discouragement; hunger, moods, the days where you can’t move because you pushed too hard exercising.

When you keep a log, which you should in some form, you truly get to see where things start to change. It’s not always going to be in the form of weight loss or perfect habits, but it’s there. In fact, I haven’t dropped any weight in two weeks at this point and I’m not freaking out. Why? Because, in the past two weeks, I’ve not only hit every daily minimum goal I set on FitBit, but on more than half of them, I doubled or even tripled those minimum goals and in some cases I have been meeting larger goals that I wasn’t getting close to before.

I’ll elaborate on this more. FitBit does a system called Active Zone Minutes, which I consider my primary goal every week. Divided up into a daily goal, it asks you to get your heart rate in one of three Zone categories: fat burn, cardio or peak. I hardly ever hit peak times but those also aren’t mean to be prioritized and don’t ‘count’ for more than cardio. You get one Active Zone Minute for a fat-burn heart rate and two for cardio. On my slowest days, fat burn can account for all or about 3/4 of my AZM. On my most intense days, it can be flipped to where cardio covers 3/4 of that balance. Essentially, when you reach cardio, you need less time but more effort to reach that goal.

Now, that is the most involved stat. The others that I keep on my dashboard are calories burned (which calculates both sedentary and exercise to let you know how much you’re using daily), step count (which I keep on 10K for the goal— a secondary goal that I don’t always enforce), stair count (really just how many times you go up a full flight of stairs daily), and miles. Adding that I’ve learned that my 5 mile default goal actually takes a little over 11K steps so if I’ve made the 10K goal, I can decide whether I want to go ahead and push it a little more before the day is out.

Now each day is different and I figure out what I’m up for once I get there. Strength workouts get the heart rate up faster and are shorter workouts but I’m also more likely to push muscles too far and really limit exercise the next day. They’re not my favorite days, actually, and at this point I only do them 2 or 3 days a week. If I do a strength workout, I don’t aim for 10K steps. I usually follow up with careful stretches and hop in the shower (you’d be surprised how many active minutes you can get just from that bit of hygiene— I make it a point to tack on some extra minutes by keeping my heart rate up with a shower!). 

Now cardio days are where I end up walking or jogging, going for stamina. Jogs, of course, don’t need to last as long and doing them in bursts is just as good as doing it the entire time. I’ve managed to build my endurance to where I can do a brisk jog for 20 minutes at a time. And yes, that took time to build up to; I started with 5 30 second bursts with one minute of walking in between to 5 one minute bursts and 30 seconds walking. One minute went to two and then three and then I actually jumped to 12 minute jog/2 minute walk twice then a 6 minute jog and 3 minute cool down to finish. Every time you push, you think there’s no way you can do more. So you go back to a spot that isn’t as much but was hard at the time... and suddenly that place is actually too easy! So, it’s not a setback to say I’m not pushing today. You’ll get a huge boost in confidence when you can do far more than you could a week ago. That’s the kind of measure you will need sometimes.

A little off track there, but a jog can cut the 10K step count down to a little over an hour where a brisk walk will take an hour and a half (and yes, you can still get fat burn minutes with a two hour stroll; you never need to stick to only moderate or vigorous workouts to maintain healthy goals).

So while I would LOVE it for the scale to drop, I have been consistent in my diet and workout. Some days I have been eating less than I should, but not in any alarming sense; I’m still getting at least 1500 calories but my tracker tells me that’s about 500 calories short of where I need to be... and eating less than you should can sometimes trigger protective mechanisms in your body. You might be losing fat still but inflammation from digestion or muscle recovery will keep that number up. I can visibly SEE I’ve lost weight in my face, chest and shoulders as well and I do build muscle faster than the average bear...

I don’t do measurements but I know from experience that those numbers are... weird for me. I am able to lose 60 pounds and not drop a single pant size. Most of my weight, at any time in my adult life, just likes to sit in my hips, thighs and ass. I’ll lose inches everywhere else and that will go nowhere. It can be motivational for some people to take measurements but, for me, it’s pointless. There isn’t actually a goal or a one-size-fits-all goal for that one unless you’re a model that has to be a certain size to fit clothes and... I’m a stretchy clothes kind of gal. I don’t even know my damn number size because everything I buy has a variable letter. So that one is just not a priority; I’m looking at variables to measure health and that one just doesn’t.

I won’t delve into diet too much here. I eat a combination of food I enjoy and sometimes it’s just a healthy choice. I don’t hate it but I’m not gushing over it either. To have a good relationship with food, it works best for me to moderate but indulge. Restrictions are not happening and sometimes even substitution is a bad idea. If ‘healthy pizza’ is a joyless piece of cardboard, it doesn’t absolutely nothing to satisfy the craving. You’re better off eating a slice or two of the good stuff than crying over that edible (?) frisbee of despair.

I know what I’m in for. While it’s possible to reach my weight loss goal of 150 by the year’s end, that’s super ambitious and may not be realistic. And once I get there, it’s not a finish. I must still maintain an eye on exercise and diet or that weight can slip right back on. I’m not going for speed this time. I want these habits to be sustainable now so I’m not starving for the freedoms I took away later. The weight loss goal will have perks too though. I’ll get to embrace those minimum goals of activity and eat more on maintenance (not a LOT more, but maintenance calories are still more forgiving).

I try not to look too far ahead. You have to embrace where you are and not look too wistfully at what you aren’t. You have to find what you’ve accomplished when you feel stuck and find comfort in personal progress. Stop telling yourself where you need to be or coming down on yourself when you’re not where you wish you could be. For most of us, doing everything you should do for certain results just doesn’t happen. It’s not necessarily because you didn’t do enough. Sometimes you’re doing too much but you’ll have to wait to see the benefits. (Also, don’t make it a habit to do ‘too much’ because it’s NOT a healthy habit and could lead to disease and disorder.)

And this last bit goes for people like me; try not to obsess on it. You will absolutely need to prioritize more than diet and exercise. You will need to get your mind onto other things you enjoy. You will need to consider diet and exercise as a part of a full life and not turn it into the central existence. If, like me, you are doing this to help build creative energy and stamina, then like with exercise, you’ll have to test your creativity regularly too. Last time the weight crept back on, it was because I had denied creativity and fell back into it obsessively after depriving myself of it too much. If you don’t make it a PART of your life, the parts that go missing can overwhelm  it later.

You might need to reflect on diet and exercise a lot in the beginning, but as you find your stride, you will need to learn to trust what you’ve learned more. Ease up on it and make sure you’re keeping your goals and priorities balanced. A healthy lifestyle is only as healthy as your overall well-being.