Ugly Truths of Weight Loss

Tags

daily grind, Eating Well, fab, fit, happiness, health, inspiration, life, weight loss, women

There are many ugly truths or side effects that very few people talk about. I mean you are getting healthy and fitter so why rain on your parade especially with things  that are not so great. Well, mainly because they do impact your life and they make the process harder. It is also possible to reduce their effect.

Few of those things are excess skin, stretch marks and skin discolouration (the last one is huge if you are insulin resistant like me). 

These are the things that I have a found that go a long way in reducing the damage. Some of them are intuitive and others not so much, so here goes:

Not too much, too fast

It is important to remember that the weight one is trying to lose has accumulated over time. It is important to lose it slowly and steadily. It is probably hardest thing to focus on because you want it all to come off, and come off quickly. But, skin needs time to adapt, to do its thing and shrink. It needs to make the adjustment. It cannot make the adjustment fast enough and will get it wrong if it is doing too much.  It needs to catch-up with your over enthusiastic self.

Hydrate

Give it water. Everyone says drink water. Do. It helps the skin to do its thing. Also, additional water will increase the amount of exercise you get. All the extra trips to bathroom 🙂 

Scrub

It gets the dead skin cells of your body. It makes the blood vessels in the skin pump more blood and gives it opportunity to build new cells.

Moisturise

And I mean moisturise. Do it two times a day at least. Cover yourself in cream or body butter (better choice) or oil (best choice). I use anything that I can get hand of – drugstore moisturising cream to shea butter to coconut oil. I like coconut oil as it also helps with discoloration of the skin. Put excessive amounts of moisturiser of your choice where the skin has been stressed the most – where is has supported your weight the most, in the creases, around the joints, etc.

Massage

If you can, get a massage. A lymphatic massage is awesome because it also helps with drainage of excess fluid but get whatever you can. It helps muscles relax (great for the poor overworked muscles) and it helps the skin. If you cannot go to the spa, do it yourself. It may not be as great or as relaxing as a massage from masseuse but it is better than nothing.

Papaya Skin

Eat the Papaya (great for digestive system) and rub the inside of the skin on your body. Yes, it is sticky and feels a bit ekeey (sp?) but it is great for the skin. It is especially good for the discoloured areas of your skin. It helps to make it better.

Yogurt and Honey Rub

At least once a week I use yogurt and honey rub to wash my body. I don’t know what it does but it definitely makes my skin feel great.

It helps to do these things as one is going through the weight loss process. It is one more thing to do during the weight loss but for me it as important as building muscle and getting rid of fat.

I may not be able to reverse all the damage but as long as I can reduce the damage, I am good. The remaining damage, I will wear with pride as scars of battles fought and won.

Challenges: Sense Over Target

Tags

cardio, daily grind, exercise, fab, fit, fitbit, fitness, gadget, health, inspiration, life, squat challenge, training, weight loss

Wednesday was a long and hard day for me at work. I came home around 11:30 pm, and I was short on my step challenge by a lot. Yikes!

In the morning I had done a strenuous one hour arm’s workout. I also managed to finish my squat challenge (which was 160 squats for the day) and arm’s challenge (which was at some obnoxious level). At night, my fitbit step count for the day was around 8000 steps. My target for this week is 11,750 fitbit steps.

I knew that if I was to make that step count, I would need to go for a walk for at least 45-60 mins. If I ate, walked, showered and then went to bed then I wouldn’t be in bed until 1:00 am. In which case, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men wouldn’t be able to get me out of bed at 5:00 am and I will mis gym.

I decided, target or no-target, I am going to bed. It was probably the most sensible decision I made. I woke up rested, went to the gym. I did cardio for one hour (yesterday was rest day for both squat and arm challenges). I got stuck really late at work (came home at 11:00 am). But, I only had 1200 steps left because I had done cardio in the morning. I walked around my living room, met the step challenge for the day and bam, it was all done. One night sleep saved the next day for exercise.

I know, I have said it before but listen to your body. Look at long terms goals (as in ability to exercise the next day) and adapt as you go along. It is important to remember that this is not about one day or five days. It is about life time.

How did it Happen?

Tags

daily grind, fab

I have been meaning to write this post since I started this blog (I know it has not been many days) but this post requires a fair bit of honesty and the ability to face the truth.

I think there were a number of things that contributed to me gaining and I wanted to list (and possibly) explain each of them:

Health and Wrong Diagnosis 

I became unwell. I think it was the stress of moving away from the family and my comfort zone to a scary unknown place that got my hormones in a mess. I started to have sporadic periods. I went to the doctor and he put me on the pill. The pill did not work so he kept trying one after the other and I started to gain weight. At some point he decided that the thing to do was to put me on steroids, which made things worse.

Thereafter, the great medical geniuses decided that I needed to get my thyroid tested and then put me on thyroxine even though I did not need it.

The worse my medical condition got the more wrong medication I kept getting fed and becoming sicker and sicker.

Laziness

The sickness made me constantly tired and lazy. I did not want to work out or had the energy for it. I got to the point where I could sit and watch tv or read a book for 5 hours straight (or longer) without moving.

Junk Food

It started as buying junk food as a snack for the mid morning/late afternoon snack and it progressively became worse, where I found my self eating more junk then real food. Lack of time for cooking meant that takeaway and delivery became stable supply of food.

And the above resulted in a vicious cycle of not wanting to exercising, junk food and gaining weight.

I have realised that the health is only going to come from medication but the other two I have control over so I need to get the grip on those two.

Why Today?

Tags

daily grind, exercise, fab, fit, weight loss

The reason for starting the blog today is simple – the work is less stressful and I have time to focus on myself.

Also, the weight is one thing that is now becoming a hinderance in my career. I had given up everything to focus on career. However, not focusing on myself to focus on career has now back fired. Therefore, it is time to change.

Today was no better eating day then any other day. As a matter of fact it was worse in many ways. So here is dairy of today’s food:

• Breakfast: Apple juice, fried egg (1), whole wheat bread (2 toast), coffee (not with breakfast but ongoing).
• Snack: oat cookies.
• Lunch: grilled meat and chicken, rice, humous
• Snack: Lindt Chocolate
• Dinner: Grilled Chicken and rice and custard.

Do you see the problem with my eating pattern?The main meals can be healthish but the snacks are bad. I need to change that otherwise no pounds will come off.

Water Intake: 750 ml? maybe.

Exercise: 11 mins on a treadmill.

Excuse for not doing more exercice: machines were busy.

Real Reason: Too many people at the gym and to ashamed to be seen in public.

Plan is to try to go to the gym in the morning.