Starting over

This past week was one of those weeks where I just wanted to crawl under a rock and not come out until spring.  I try to really limit my "treats" to one, maybe two per week.  This week, however, I was very indulgent.  Not pre-clean eating indulgent, but I did overdo my treats.  I believe that it was all stress eating.  The stress: my husband's schedule changed to night shift, our dryer died, my cycle is out of whack, I was a little anxious about this project with KPVI and Gold's Gym, and I have been increasing my mileage and adding some classes at the gym. This week for exercise I did manage to get in Tabata and kettlebell classes on Monday, I ran 7 miles on Tuesday, kettle bell class again on Wednesday, 4 mile pace run and walking on at 30% incline plus core work on Thursday, upper body strength training on Friday, and I ran 15.27 miles on Saturday.

Today I met with my personal trainer, Evelyn, for our initial assessment for this segment on KPVI More.  I was happy to learn that I had a body fat percentage of 19.2.  Not that I'm proud of this number, but because it is actually less than I had thought that it was.  My goal is to get it down to at least 16%.   I just have to say that the fat jiggle and pinch test is very humiliating.  There are just certain parts of my body that I do not like to have anyone look at let alone jiggle and pinch, such as my back and abdominal fat. It was encouraging though to have Evelyn comment on my bicep muscles and thigh muscles, these fat pinch numbers were my lowest.  I'm not sure if Libby filmed this whole procedure, but I'm hoping that if she did, it will make not make it onto the show.

So what I am talking about?  What is KPVI More?  It is a local talk show that airs on KPVI channel 6, weekdays at 4 pm.  My friend, Libby Wood, is the co-anchor and also the founder of my book club.  As women often do, we discuss our weight at book club.  There are 6 women in our book club:  Libby, Melissa, Heidi, Sarah, Monica (who is a fitness instructor and the picture of fitness and health, which is why she is not included in this fitness challenge), and me.  Libby came up with the idea of having the 5 of us participate in a fitness challenge because we all have such different shapes, fitness levels, and lifestyles.  The sixth member of our group is Melissa's husband, Clayn, to add in a male perspective.  Over the next four months, each of us will be working with a trainer at Gold's Gym.   On Saturday we met with our trainers for our initial assessments and to set our goals.  Next week we will be meeting with our trainers again to get our fitness plan.

My trainer is Evelyn.  I have actually known Evelyn for quite awhile and I requested that I have her as my trainer because she also runs marathons.  I learned a lot today about what I'm doing wrong and what changes I will need to make.  As Evelyn and I talked, it became apparent that the biggest factor that is holding me back is my eating.  I stress eat and I am eating too many starches.  She discussed with me the importance of making choices and thinking in the terms of what is good, better, and best.  She figured out what my daily net-maintenance calories were based on my weight and level of activity. What I will be doing each day is keeping track of the calories that I eat and the calories that I burn. My goal is to have a 500 calorie deficit per day or 3500 calorie deficit per week.  She emphasized that I need to eat when I'm hungry.  There will be some days that I may go over or be under the allotted number of calories, which is why I will be looking at the weekly average.

She will also be changing up my fitness routine.  I really want to beat my personal record (PR) at the Utah Valley Marathon in June and she is going to gear my workouts around this goal.  She also didn't think that I was allowing enough time in the week for recovery.  I'm really interested to find out what changes she will be making for me.  I can be stubborn and I like to do things my own way, but I have decided that I have committed to this project and I will do exactly what Evelyn tells me.  That's why I feel like I am starting over.