(no subject)
New year's good intentions are rumbling along well. They are always sabotaged early on by the amount of leftover chocolate and cheese still around but at least now I'm thinking about what I'm consuming - the gluttony has stopped.
Having already lost a lot of weight a couple of years ago, I now know what works for me. Cutting out high sugar, high GI foods. Cutting out bread. Cutting out anything made out of wheat, really.
Cutting out sugar feels good. It's an addiction, and when you have less of it, you want it less. Cutting out bread is easy enough when you have some good alternatives in place. Missing out on pizza and pies is awful though and I really struggle to come to terms with it! There is a theory out there that gluten triggers underactive thyroid symptoms (sets off your antibodies). I don't know if that's true but the type of food that contains gluten is the stuff that's not great for you anyway in terms of energy and nutrition. But pizza is so damn tasty.
One thing that is working as an incentive is that I have been signed up for Wolf Run, a 10k obstacle course in April, with a bunch of people from work. I am still trying to get my head around how I feel about it. I have only ever run 10k once on a particularly ambitious jog one day when I realised I'd made it to 8k and thought I'd add on a few extra streets to make it up. I ended up running up and down my road just to edge it over the 10k mark! It was exhausting and a bit boring towards the end and I've not done it since - the most I generally do is about 7k. Then there's the obstacles... I'm very short and I don't have much upper body strength at all. That's not even going into how muddy this run is. It is not going to be easy! I'm particularly horrified at the thought of not being able to get over something and my colleagues having to help push/pull my fat ass along. Pretty good motivation to shift the pounds, ha!
Despite my apprehensions, it's given a purpose to my exercise and running and it's encouraged me to throw in some resistance training that I don't normally bother with. It's early days but I'm feeling positive, which is a good sign.
The other thing I've been minded to do is practice tai chi more, since my efforts during December were minimal. I thought I'd try a trick I heard Larry David used to help him write (although I can't find anything about this online now so maybe I've made that up). To form a daily habit, tick off on a calendar each day that you do the thing. The missing ticks in the calendar will be more annoying than the effort of doing the thing. At least, it will be if your brain works like mine, anyway. I'm even using the free calendar we got from our local Indian takeaway so it really does feels like a cheap trick with nothing to lose. I haven't been practising every day, but I've been practising more than I was last month and I'm enjoying it. Just need to keep it up.
I've been thinking about tackling my thyroid problem properly too. I've been feeling rough for months - exhausted after work, struggling to concentrate, awful brain fog. At one point it got so bad I felt I couldn't drive as I couldn't concentrate on the road. I have explained this to successive doctors (I never see the same one twice) who have all dismissed that it's anything to do with my thyroid condition because the blood test results are coming back as within range. Without going into too much detail (because I've been researching this a LOT), they aren't testing me for something I want them to test me for. I'm now getting full tests done through an online service whilst also starting to look at how altering my diet and the exercises I do in tai chi can help with my energy levels. Hopefully I can find something that helps.
Having already lost a lot of weight a couple of years ago, I now know what works for me. Cutting out high sugar, high GI foods. Cutting out bread. Cutting out anything made out of wheat, really.
Cutting out sugar feels good. It's an addiction, and when you have less of it, you want it less. Cutting out bread is easy enough when you have some good alternatives in place. Missing out on pizza and pies is awful though and I really struggle to come to terms with it! There is a theory out there that gluten triggers underactive thyroid symptoms (sets off your antibodies). I don't know if that's true but the type of food that contains gluten is the stuff that's not great for you anyway in terms of energy and nutrition. But pizza is so damn tasty.
One thing that is working as an incentive is that I have been signed up for Wolf Run, a 10k obstacle course in April, with a bunch of people from work. I am still trying to get my head around how I feel about it. I have only ever run 10k once on a particularly ambitious jog one day when I realised I'd made it to 8k and thought I'd add on a few extra streets to make it up. I ended up running up and down my road just to edge it over the 10k mark! It was exhausting and a bit boring towards the end and I've not done it since - the most I generally do is about 7k. Then there's the obstacles... I'm very short and I don't have much upper body strength at all. That's not even going into how muddy this run is. It is not going to be easy! I'm particularly horrified at the thought of not being able to get over something and my colleagues having to help push/pull my fat ass along. Pretty good motivation to shift the pounds, ha!
Despite my apprehensions, it's given a purpose to my exercise and running and it's encouraged me to throw in some resistance training that I don't normally bother with. It's early days but I'm feeling positive, which is a good sign.
The other thing I've been minded to do is practice tai chi more, since my efforts during December were minimal. I thought I'd try a trick I heard Larry David used to help him write (although I can't find anything about this online now so maybe I've made that up). To form a daily habit, tick off on a calendar each day that you do the thing. The missing ticks in the calendar will be more annoying than the effort of doing the thing. At least, it will be if your brain works like mine, anyway. I'm even using the free calendar we got from our local Indian takeaway so it really does feels like a cheap trick with nothing to lose. I haven't been practising every day, but I've been practising more than I was last month and I'm enjoying it. Just need to keep it up.
I've been thinking about tackling my thyroid problem properly too. I've been feeling rough for months - exhausted after work, struggling to concentrate, awful brain fog. At one point it got so bad I felt I couldn't drive as I couldn't concentrate on the road. I have explained this to successive doctors (I never see the same one twice) who have all dismissed that it's anything to do with my thyroid condition because the blood test results are coming back as within range. Without going into too much detail (because I've been researching this a LOT), they aren't testing me for something I want them to test me for. I'm now getting full tests done through an online service whilst also starting to look at how altering my diet and the exercises I do in tai chi can help with my energy levels. Hopefully I can find something that helps.