Not an Addict

~ K's Choice ~

I am physically twitching....these exercise withdrawals are baaad.  I haven't done any exercise since Saturday & it's taking it's toll mentally. Which is a worrying thing, I'm so desperate to get back to exercising but I can hardly make it up the stairs at work without breathing hard. So I'm trying really hard not to cave & give in to quickly - I promised myself I will see if I'm ready on Saturday (not a day earlier!) & then take it easy (pfft...).  This means Boyfriend is going to Crossfit alone this week; which is a total & utter bummer.

Exercising or playing sport makes me happy, and I feel like I've accomplished something when I'm done. I know if I'm in a bad mood the endorphins will kick in & make me (slightly) less grumpy. If I have bad cramps during a period I go to the Box anyway, because afterwards it definitely feels better. But at what point does exercise become an obsession?  Exercise addiction may not necessarily sound like a bad thing - after all, it is essential to our well-being, however it can have harmful consequences.

Firstly, exercise addiction is maladjusted:  instead of improving your life, it causes more problems. It can threaten your health, causing injuries & physical damage (because you are not getting enough rest) and malnutrition (when coinciding with an eating disorder). Secondly, it is unrelenting: you exercise too much & for too long without giving you body time to recover. We all overexert ourselves, but usually with a rest day every now & then. Exercise addicts will exercise for hours every day, regardless of being tired or ill.

What's scary is that there are several similarities between exercise addiction & drug addiction, including effects on mood, tolerance and withdrawal. Neurotransmitters and the brain's reward system have been implicated in addictions - dopamine has been found to play an important role in overall reward systems, and regular, excessive exercise has been shown to influence parts of the brain involving dopamine. Like other addictive substances and behaviors, exercise is associated with pleasure, and social/cultural desirability.

The Sport Psychology Journal had a trial where the types of sensations experienced by runners who missed a run was studied. Most of the 345 runners reported some kind of distress:  irritability, restlessness, frustration, guilt, and depression were reported most often. Sleeping problems, digestive difficulties, and muscle tension and soreness were reported less frequently. Three causes of exercise withdrawal were proposed: (1) a misinterpretation of the return of dysphoria that had been temporarily masked by the effects of running; (2) an inability to cope with stress in periods when the coping mechanism of running is temporarily unavailable; and (3) the loss of regular, predictable reinforcement of feelings of self-fulfillment gained through success or achievement in previously unimagined and unattainable ways.

There are several warning signs that can confirm if you are in the danger zone ("Daaaanger Zooonnneee" - anyone who has ever watched Archer will appreciate that) - this handy article lists them.  I don't think I'm quite there yet, but I can see how stressing about every little thing you eat can let you slip into this kind of thinking quite easily.  If your need for exercise is greater than your ability to manage your relationships & feelings, you may need help.

So tonight while Boyfriend is practicing his overhead snatch & snatch balance (grumble) I'll shoot at things on Battlefield...at least I can exercise my aiming finger....

Even with a coffee shop lunch date I was able to keep within my macro's today - even had two glasses of water that only mildly tasted like mucus...this nasal drip really needs to pack it's bags now.

Ladies who follow Sleek Girl blogs (or any blog for that matter) - do yourself a favour & join Bloglovin. Create a profile, copy the url of the blog into the search box, and follow. You'll then get notified via email whenever there is a new post - all under one email. Easy peasy.

New Sensation

~ INXS ~

I'm not a natural cook. I'm the person that makes an eatable flop, and by the 3rd or 4th time, has that flop down to a T. I'm pretty sure I get my baking abilities from my mom. Whenever I need to defend my kitchen skills I bring up the birthday cake event of 1987:  the middle fell flat & instead of ditching the cake she filled the hole with icing & caramel. All the 7 year olds loved it; I'm sure the adults that had to deal with the plummeting sugar levels didn't. Boyfriend's mom is one of those women who can glance at a recipe, throw stuff in a mixing bowl & put forth a plate of perfection. I forsee that this might become a daughter-in-law / mom-in-law issue at some point...

But at least I'm willing to try.  And I love trying new things, which this new lifestyle has brought plenty of. I do not know how I ever lived without coconut oil. The taste is amazing & anyone who buys the unflavoured version needs their mind read. My favourite is sauteing green beans in coconut oil & salt - yumm.

Since ditching bad carbs I also had to improvise on starch substitutes. Whoever knew that cauliflower can make a crunchy pizza base, or rice for that matter.  

A lot has been said about bulletproof coffee - you either love it or hate it. Good coffee is a must. Grass-fed butter is a must. A blender or stick is a must.  If you just throw everything in a cup you are gonna have a bad time.  You need to wizz it to hell & back & then top it off with a bit of cinnamon. And it makes your lips nice soft.

Quinoa we'll get back to.  It's supposed to look like the pic on the left, mine not so much. 

Protein Mug Cakes where have you been all my life!  If you are craving something sweet at 10pm on a Friday night, and your significant other has refused to go the store despite all your charms & threats, this is the thing to make. Mix protein, coconut milk, vanilla essence & an egg in a cup & micro. I am sure I am not the only one who has a macadamia nut butter addiction - I can eat half a tub in one go - not my proudest moment. But OMG, it's like sex on a teaspoon.

There has also been the bad ones... Liquorice is my sad, happy, grumpy, cramps food - I love the taste & the smell, and thought "hey, I will then probably love this tea". No. No, no, no...

Exercise wize I'm still out for the rest of the week. At least I'm feeling better & have caught up on at least 3 show's. Now to find out who Red John really is...

Sick As a Dog

~ Aerosmith ~

Dammit. Normally I get flu around August/September, so this year when those months wooshed by (seriously - 29 days to Christmas!) I thought: "Yes! and this went with the deserved air punch.  Then the bastard found me Friday morning. I woke up with a sore throat & dozed it with all sorts of fizzies, I even did the responsible thing & skipped the 05:30 Crossfit session. And it work...for a bit.

Instead of doing the sensible thing Saturday morning & giving my body some more rest, I decided to go join the open WOD (more on this just now), and my body just decided "f*ck you" and gave me every sensation that it could think of in no particular order: hot, cold, crawling scalp, sweats, coughs, drips, sneezes, sore body, itchy feet, etc.  The worst is the sleeping sitting upright, cause as soon as I lie down I basically drown myself in snot.

I hate being sick.  The first day is OK (especially if it falls on a work day), the 2nd day is a bit boring, by day 3 I'm completely over it & just get more & more pissed of the longer I have to stay away from gym.  I hear what they say about moderate exercise & being sick, but I know myself & I know I will be a heaving, gasping heap at the end of the hour. Moderation, pfft....

And healthy eating while sick is horrendous. I've eaten rusks & strepsils today...yeah - quite a combo. I'm going to have to force myself to eat supper just now..

On a happy note: Saturday's WOD.  The workout consisted of Wall Balls & Burpee Pull-ups. So every minute, on the minute (for 10 minutes) you do 5 wall balls & then for the remaining seconds in the minute you do a burpee, a pull-up, a burpee, a pull-up, etc.  I did every one of those bitching pull-ups!  It was an amazing feeling - realizing that 2 months ago couldn't do what it just did.  Now the next thing to conquer is consecutive pull-up's.

Remember to follow K&C on Google+ | Facebook | Pinterest | Bloglovin. Night all!

Motivation Proclamtion

~ Good Charlotte ~

I'm 3 days into my new eating plan & I've realized again that I'm not that big a fan of change.  I have to keep track of everything I eat, I have keep track of whether it's an active or work day and most days I can't even keep track of what day of the week it is.  I feel rushed & out of sorts & a bit sorry for myself. But I also know it's what I normally do just before I bail. When stuff gets to hard let's go back to the old & known ways.  

So I went a bit mad with the pinning of motivational images today to keep me on track.  I don't know if looking at posters of motivational sayings actually work, but every now and again you stumble onto a really funny one, and I do this "snort water through my nose thing" (because I'm trying to force down that glass of water)...and that makes me feel a bit better about life.

At the moment I'm still eating very basic (read: boring). With chicken you know what you get, but with chicken stew there are so many more variables you have to keep track off. I think as soon as I'm comfortable with the basics I'll experiment a bit more. I've also reach the end-year slump - I'm tired & moody and could happily spend the whole day in bed, with ice cream, sour worms, liquorice, nachos & series.

One thing that I realized by taking photies of everything that goes into my face is that I'm drinking way to little water during the day.  I have decided to make that my one thing that I focus on for the next couple of days. If I don't have the water in front of me, in a bottle, cooled with a glass you can forget about it. And don't even let it taste funny... How do you get your 8 glasses in? 

I have to just remember I'm doing this for myself: I want to be fit & strong. And I won't get it without a bit of work. So if it keeps my on the straight & narrow I'll recite these suckers of by heart!

Today was a nice & chilled rest day. Up early tomorrow morning for a 5:30 am WOD - looking forward to it!  Going to focus on getting my water in this weekend & to not go off on the normal weekend binge ringers.

Have a good one peeps!

PS:  A big-ass creepy see-through/white gecko just ran across the floor & is now sitting there staring at me...I might be spending the night on the couch...

[Bi]cycle Race

~ Queen ~

I couldn't find any cool photos about calorie cycling, so opted for the next best thing...

There are so many methods of dieting to loose fat without losing muscle and calorie cycling is just one of them. Instead of just eating less constantly every day, you have a mix of high calorie days (normally in conjunction with exercise) and low calorie (or rest) days.

It is said to speed up fat loss, helps reset your hunger hormones, improves insulin sensitivity and gives you a mental boost.  However, this requires a fair amount of self-discipline, as well as a willingness to measure food and count calories with a great deal of precision. 

An example that is used is the following.  Let's take 1500 calories per day, 7 days a week. So a sample week will look like this:

M - 1400  / T - 1400  / W - 1650  / TH - 1450  / F - 1450  / S - 1650  / S - 1500

That equals 10 500 calories for the week.  10 500 / 7 days = 1500 calories. So effectively you are still getting the same amount of calories in for the week, you're just shaking things up a bit.

Normally you'd have your high calorie days when you need more energy for your workout and recovery & you're lower calorie days on “rest” days. It's a pain in the ass to keep track of everything you eat, but it forces you to take a hard look at what you put into your body.

If you want to lose fat you basically have to force your body into tapping your stores of energy and the only way to do this is to put yourself in a calorie-deficit. If you reduce your calories enough you’ll start losing fat, eat more calories than your body needs, and it will start to store the excess energy as fat. There are two challenges tho, when you reduce your calories below your maintenance level for any extended period of time:

Catabolism:  The body doesn't always just burn fat, it also burns carbs & sometimes lean tissue. So you might be losing weight, but it may be muscle along with the fat.  

Homeostatis: Eventually your body will catch on that you’re eating less food than you need, and it will interpret this as a sign that it might be in for an extended period of food scarcity.  So it will start to slow down your metabolism in order to conserve energy, since it interprets your calorie deficit as a sign of “famine.”

Calorie cycling tries to trick the body into thinking that you are not actually dieting.  And because you are alternating between higher calorie days and lower calorie days, you may be less likely to lose lean tissue and less prone to developing fat loss plateaus. 

That's the theory anyway. Apparently most of the evidence around the effectiveness of calorie cycling is anecdotal, although calorie cycling devotees often swear by the results. You can have a further read here.

It's still early days, and a hell of a lot of food, but I'm sure in a couple of days I'll be back into the swing of things.

Food good, water bad.

Double Unders are getting easier - my new record is 22! And handstands away from wall is up to 4 seconds...whoo, yeah...small steps. I still suck at the overhead squat press.

Remember to follow K&C on Google+ | Facebook | Pinterest | Bloglovin. Night all!

State of Confusion

~ The Kinks ~

Apologies for the late post. After spending most of my time yesterday Googling how much protein, carbs & fat certain food items have, in order to add to my food diary (see below), eating for a "active" day that turned into a "rest" day, incorporating carbs and figuring out MyFitnessPal, I had a bit of a meh & crashed at 21:00.

I might have previously mentioned that I'm not a morning person, so I get up at 7am, do the obligatory work thing, go Crossfit or teach PeeWee's, go home, make supper, pack food for the next day, shower, blog, play Battlefield/read, sleep at around 23:00.  That still gives me a good 8 hours sleep. 

Last night I just couldn't be bothered. We attempted gym, and normally I know that exercise will make me feel good - yesterday I just sat on a step bench while BF did squats & then we went home after 20 minutes. I had to force myself to eat & could have quite happily fallen asleep in the shower. And I was thiiiis close to crying....I don't know what caused it: work wasn't more taxing then normal, I can't see the little bit of carbs (rice) making such a big change in my chemical processes & there was no drama otherwise.

Like I said, most of yesterday was used trying to set up MyFitnessPal (a free mobile & desktop app).  It's quite easy to use and it monitors both your diet & exercise habits in one place. You can create a customized profile, and then use the presets (weight loss, weight gain, maintain, etc) that they recommend or, if you have a recommendation from your Nutritionist you can add these in (i.e. % protein, carbs & fat).

What isn't cool is that you only get one preset. That's it. So I had to set my base settings on my "rest" day values & then eat that & the difference on my "work" days.  It took a bit of playing around but I got it in the end.

With over two million food entries in the database it's easy to find food items.  Not necessary the right brand, but it's easy enough to add an item if you have the values. For home-cooked meals there's also an option to create & save a recipe by entering in the individual ingredients. 

I’m still learning how to navigate everything on the app. Since I eat the same thing for lunch or supper several times throughout the week, it's nice that you can just copy your meal from another day. It's a little bit of a pain to look everything up (like when you have a salad with 6 different ingredients), but once you add something to your log you can just click through your list and find it. All of this make it easy to see where you are overdoing it.  You'd be surprised how much of your fats (good ones) come from chicken....

When you come down to it - who here hasn't counted points or blocks. But it's easy to leave off little additions like a sprinkle of cheese or the butter in the pan or the cream in you coffee. The little things make a big difference in your progress & can make or break you.  

The site defaults Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Snack categories. Which I used the first time. Then I added a 2nd Snack. Then I added a 3rd Snack. Then I changed the 3rd Snack to PWO. Then I arranged the order.  Yeah...my OCD kicked in a bit there. 

I'm not bothering with entering my fitness event - I know I work hard & I don't want to eat any calories "back".  When you enter in the amount of calories you burned for the day the number of calories you can eat gets bumped up.    

Overall, I find that using the app makes me more aware of my diet & holds me accountable for the goals I've set.  But here's the thing...this, like any other diet or eating plan will only work if you’re honest. So with this app & taking a photo of everything I eat – I am holding myself accountable. 

Food wise I felt it went dismally (everything felt dismal last night), but looking back on it, it wasn't that bad. I might have been slightly over on the carbs & fats (because up to around 17:00 I was eating for an "active" day), but at least it was healthy food.

Now lets go start from scratch again today :)  Have a good one!

Everything Counts

~ Depeche Mode ~

Tonight's post is gonna be a short one, because I still have to go do homework on macro's & calorie cycling. And like any change in your lifestyle it takes a bit of getting use too...

I've been following IF for the last 4 months & apart from really suiting my lifestyle (I'm lazy as f*ck in the morning & not at all hungry) it's really helped with my strength performance in the gym.  And it was not IF alone - I've also been on a high protein, high fat, low carbs (only veggies) eating plan.  

Recently (i.e. Friday) I had a bit of a feedback session with David/Evo Fitness & it was suggested that I re-introduce carbs into my diet, before & after workouts & at night, as well as cycle calories between rest days & work days.

Now, looking at the amount of calories that I have to consume on a work day is quite frankly terrifying. But David said it is "over the allotted calories for extra lean mass growth, recovery and keeping the metabolism firing". So I will give it a try.

Calorie cycling is but it’s pretty much what it sounds like - adjusting your caloric intake per day while maintaining a desired weekly caloric intake average. I.e. it's the daily adjustment of total calories (one day higher the other lower).  It is supposedly good for losing weight, but it is especially good for busting through weight-loss plateaus.  

Friday night we got our anniversary tattoo - love it, love it, love it :)

Steampunk Minions :)

I started introducing carbs in the form of dextrose in my PWO shake, as well as some wild rice. The world didn't come to an end.

Crossfit was super amazing tonight.  Full squat cleans with split jerks for sets, then a round for as many as you can unbroken - this girl did 30 on 27kg's...quite chuffed. Then we did a Tabata that came straight from hell. 20 seconds on 10 seconds rest. 8 Rounds Double Unders, 8 Rounds Burpees, 8 Rounds Sumo Squat High Pulls, 8 Rounds Double Unders.  It was a sweaty, heaving, gasping for breath mess of fun.

 

For the ladies who follow a couple of blogs - do yourself a favor and create a Bloglovin profile.  You can add the blogs you want to follow and you'll get all of their new posts in a feed or via email! And yes, you can add any blog, since there are quite a number of SleekGirls blogging about at the moment. You create a profile, and then just copy the link of the blog that you read into "Search Blogs", and follow. Easy peasy.

Skull Tattoo

~ Eagle Eye Cherry ~

Like King George III wrote in his diary (apparently Google says this is a myth, but I'm still owning it): nothing important happened today. It's just a day. No intellectual insights into the human psyche, no lamenting over lost boobs, just a day. (PS: It's also the title of an X-Files episode - loved that show & had the hugest crush in high school on David Duchovney - almost this much - seriously, you have to listen to it!)

I'm quite excited for tomorrow afternoon - getting a tattoo done with BF. I've always wanted a 2nd one & BF has been wanting to get his first for a while, but neither of us could decide on something meaningful we want to ink in permanently.  But then BF came up with the amazing idea of a couples tattoo for our recent 3 year anniversary - we'd get our tattoos AND it would mean something special to the both of us. We are not sure what the final design will look like yet but it will incorporate some of the following ideas. Lu from Otherworld Tattoos in PE will be "doing" us. Will show pictures next week.

On Saturday we will be participating in the Glow Run - it's starts at 7 at night & instead of colored powder we will get splashed with florescent neon paint - cannot wait to see those photos! Baby Mama Mrs T has somehow procured 150 glow sticks - because you can find anything on the Internet. It should be fun :D

BF will probably be working for most of the weekend so that means I will catch up on my Battlefield time.  Sad that I will be missing out on Saturday morning's Crossfit WOD (cause of the tattoo).  The motions are coming a bit easier now, so I've been pushing myself a lot harder the last week and my body is definitely showing it - bruises all around!

Will be trying extra hard this weekend to keep my food on track & eat healthy - will see how it goes.

Remember to follow K&C on Google+ | Facebook | Pinterest | Bloglovin. See you on Monday!

Relax

~ Frankie Goes to Hollywood ~

Somedays I forget that this is supposed to be a lifestyle, not a diet. So, technically there should be no finish line as the "healthy" should continue long after my goals have been achieved. And I must also realize that my approach to this "diet" is sometime my downfall.

Every diet or weight loss program is based on some form of behavior modification. If you eat healthy, portion controlled meals you will lose weight.  How much weight (AND how fast) you lose depends on how long you’re willing to stick to the plan. And then when you do reach your goal you have to worry about keeping the weight off.  

 So shoudnt we rather be more focused on motivation then behavior modification?  Instead of keeping tempting foods out of the house because I can't control my cravings, shouldnt I say "I can have whatever I want"?  Food should then no longer be a temptation & if I decide to eat something "unhealthy", I moderate the amount I eat.

Instead of focusing on losing weight, I should rather focus on being slim, strong & healthy. Instead of completely giving in when I have a "bad day", I must just compensate at the next meal. Instead of depriving myself of the food I love, rather allow myself whatever I want, and I should find myself making better choices.

You don't want to reach your target weight then go back to your old eating habits and gain all the weight (or more) back. I can’t wait until the diet is over so that I can eat what I’ve been missing, as this lifestyle should stick around till I'm not around.

So I'm going to try to change my motivation & attitude.  Also, apparently chronic stress causes release of cortisol which causes belly fat, the most dangerous type of fat...so it's in your best interest to chill. 

Had an arm wobbly Crossfit class! My arms are still a little bit shaky - pike push-up's are really not the easiest thing in the world.  I'm getting more & more confident in my clean's so I think I will start adding more weight from next time. And we ran shuttles...

Night all!

All I want for Christmas is ....

you boobs ~ Mariah Carey ~

If you're like most girls, you have a love/hate relationship with your rack. Your boobs can act all wacko, they itch at inconvenient times, your headlights go on high alert and they disappear (99% of the time) like mist before the sun when you start loosing weight.

Now, I'd rather be fit, healthy and flat chested than overweight with boobage.  And if it bothers you that much you can always have a boob job. Your options are either fork out the cash for the op, wear a padded bra or hide all those kg's under clothes. I know my choice will be 1 or 2.

During the initial (and in my case, ongoing) stages of weight loss, women tend to lose fat in their breasts as a large majority of breast tissue is comprised of fat. Your body takes the fat from where it wants and doesn't really ask your permission first. Apparently the best thing to do is to minimize the amount of cardio performed while emphasizing weight training in an effort to increase the size of the muscles that lies underneath. It won't do much to the size, but it can perk them up slightly (i.e. no rocks in socks...)

Boob jobs are becoming so everyday now, and apart from the cost, are almost available to everyone. I'm just not sure I'll be able to sit on my ass for how ever many weeks it takes to heal up. And I've seen some baaaad side-effect from going back to the gym to soon.

Also, my new Crossfit obsession does not bode well for the gals.

On second thought - I don't mind being part of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee if I can look like these ladies.

Christmas Abbott & Camille Leblanc-Bazinet

I remember my Gran's advice: squeeze a tennis ball between your hands, elbows up & say "I must, I must, I must increase my bust", while squeezing the ball.  I wonder if there are tennis balls in the house....night all.

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