Leida

I feel so happy with my choices. I love it that after so many years of trying it all, I am finally ‘getting it’ and it is easy. I think I have finally dialed in my personal, customized way of eating that is 90% right!

I am starting to feel liberated from the tyranny of the sweets. I feel that I am finally winning the War on Sugar. That I am finally over ‘managing hunger’ and ‘living with hunger’ to lose weight.

I am starting to ask in wonderment why so many women trade consuming crap, bread, sugar and cheese for a healthy, slender body and life without the misery of self-imposed malnutrition and starvation?

Yesterday, one of my co-workers who moves to another section brought a bunch of cross-buns and pastries for the team meeting. Well, forget the 800-1000 calories each of those babies pack - it has a list of ingredients about 4 inches wide on the sticker, in a smallest font, most of them scientific names that can be roughly translated to English as ‘crap’. I felt grateful that at least I am progressed enough not to crave and eat that stuff.

Hi folks! What are you doing and planning for New Years Eve?

You know what they say, you are going to spend the year the way you meet it!

What I am going do… let’s see. I am going to take my weight and measurements on the 31st, in the morning, as my official closing in for the 2011!

The gym is going to be open both days starting at 7 am, WOW!!! so I am doing my regular Sat/Sun routines. I want to enjoy the last 2 days of mom’s stay (she is leaving in the evening on the 1st), so we’ll have some outdoors walking and chatting and stuff.

Mom asked for a traditional Russian apple pie, so I will have to brace myself and make that, Saturday morning. I hope to make it before going to the gym, for their breakfast, so it’s gone by the time I am back. I’ll pick some veggies & other groceries too to keep away till they are done with it).

For New Years Eve supper I am making our grass-fed beef steaks (T-bone) with my special coleslaw (with a yum home-made Paleo mayo of course) and roast sweet and white potatoes with a bit of butter (and maybe throw in some turnips and squash too). I should pick up a bit of dill for mom and me, She’d like that on potatoes. So, simple healthy food. I have a bottle of fuzzy grape juice to imitate the champagne too! But not for me. Because sweets are OUT, yes, sir, OUT, OUT, OUT! No sugar to keep me from becoming an Athletic Goddess this year!

Here is to the Simple, Healthy New 2012!

I came to Buddy Slim in December 2008, 3 years ago.  I started with little knowledge, mostly from E-diets and popular knowledge, but as time wore on I became more educated, mainly through my mistakes. I almost ruined my sanity and wrecked my body. I doubt there is a common mistake I haven’t made. I tried it all, with the expcetion of medical intervention and diet pills. Here is some of my best finds in the world of building a better body: Paleo/Primal way of eating and living; Heavy lifting with a barbell; Intermittent Fasting. My goal still remains the same: to look in the mirror wearing a swimsuit and feel great about my body and about my health.

 My quick weight loss (finished sick & overtrained)

Starting a new life, eliminating processed grains and adding fat and protein, after the conventional approach (high carb, high cardio and boot-camp load) stpopped working (January 2010):

Lifting Seriously (October 2010) and eating anabolically (lots of fat, 1 day carb refeed):

On Paleo/Primal lifestyle, experimenting with carb refeeds (current):

I am taking a day off work to prepare for a party for our friends & kids. We are doing gingerbread house decorating, so 7 kids, 7 houses, lol. That’s a day in the kitchen, mixing, inhaling and baking the forbidden sugars and wheat flour. The upside is that it’s not cookies, one can’t really sneak away a piece of a roof!

I asked the guests to bring the candy, so at least I will just have to doge the dough, not the candy! Alas, I forgot to ask someone to bring the quintessential gum drops, so instead of buying them with all the supplies, I will pick them up on Sunday morning. And NOT open them up till the party.

It’s a good plan, I believe, now I just need to stick to it, and make sure I do not over-eat anything else being home-bound for good 8 hours… Cabbage, here I come!

I am trying to look at it this way: If I hired someone to eat for me, i would be really pissy if they started dipping THEIR fingers into dough and putting it into my clean and perfect body!

Well, lookie, 2 months are DONE tomorrow!

Two months of hard work and strict regimen, and boy, what a great ride! After my quiet maintenance existence it was awesome to shake things up and actually lose a bit more weight and with good fat loss as opposite to shredding muscle to zilch. It is funny, now there is just one day left before the final weigh-in, measurements and pics, and I am all jittery, that i will somehow screw up. I keep telling myself, that I can’t waste away the results, that tomorrow’s number on the scale will go up some over the next month of maintenance and lifting, and that at any rate, it is only one 8-week cycle, and I will likely be doing a minimum of 3 cycles to get into my stubborn fat storage on my thighs, but all I got in my head is:”Don’t you dare screw up!”

Aww, can’t wait for today and the morning workout to be over, so I could took pics, and start on the carb-up & maintenance.

I dunno why, but for me a beginning of a new month is super-exciting! I am about to finish my 8 weeks on the Ultimate Diet 2.0, and take December as a month to recover and build strength back up after the cut. In November, I failed miserably my fruit limitation goals. Again. So, I give up temporarily, and reduced that goal. Since we are now really into winter, I am allowing soaked legumes

Eliminations: Nuts, coffee, chocolate, glutinous grains
Limitations:
• 1 cup of berries or 1 sour fruit a day on all weekdays
• Non-glutinous grains or white potato 1x a week
• Dairy: quark/kefir or skim milk on lifting days only
• Soaked legumes no more than 1x a week
Calories: 1,000-1,300 on non-lifting days; 1,500-1,800 on lifting days
Macros: 20-25% Fat and 20% Carbs on Non-Lifting days; under 15% Fat on Lifting Days; 100 to 150 g protein a day
Workouts:
• Tue/Thu: Madcow Lifting; Sat: Intensity W/O; Sun: Power W/O
• Cardio 30-40 min 3-4 days a week (Mon, Tue, Wed, Fri), with as many Interval sessions as possible
• Walking: all weekdays for minimum of 30 min.
• Stretching/yoga: all weekdays for a minimum of 15 min

This morning I had to change out of my pants I haven’t worn in a few weeks. They were sagging too much, so I am hopping it is a good sign, not a fabric stretching. My 8 Week measurements for the 1st Cycle on the Ultimate Diet are coming next Saturday, and if I pushed off an inch or so of the thighs/hips, I would be pretty happy. I know that these 8 weeks were beneficial to my abdominal area, but I was not so sure I got into the stubborn fat at my lower body. I was always thinking that the first Cycle will be about the abdominals, and all the consequent ones - about the lower body. Well, 9 days, and I will see.

Also, I am trying to come up with the best-est way to get off the diet and spend the interim month to regain as little as possible of the body fat I pushed off. I really need to brainstorm it.

I have been doing so well with taking coffee out, sleeping like a baby, and then, out of nowhere, BHAM! A sleepless night. It could be becuase I missed the pill, I think it correlates; also the carb-up water started dropping down, so that could do it as well. Of course I am too old to just shake it off. As the day dragging on, I can’t wait for to just drop into bed and sleep. Correction. Ideally, I would prefer a lazy steam room + hot tub soak before doing that, but of course there is absolutely nothing lazy in my life atm (apart from working half-ass because I am exhausted right now, GRRR!) Of course, i am tempted to get a cup of java juice, but it’s only going to make matters worse, between the blood sugar spike, false energy and then inability to sleep tonight. Yeah, just had to complain. One Pooh! to myself

About 2 or 3 months ago, when I finally got the guts to go for another stub at my goal of 15% BF (on my WW scale), I gave a word to myself that I will not have my hair cut till I reach 17% BF. I was hovering over that number for third week in a row now, despite rather good regimen. While 19 to 18% was good to go, 18 to 17 is harder (rather as expected, since it is not a range my body is accustomed to).

Today I am toying with the idea of rewarding the behavoir, rather than the number. So, I am thinking that I can get my haircut if:

-I hit my 17% close enough this or next Saturday

OR

-I have both met the following conditions:

clean carb up (no wheat, no added sugars, xpt 1 tbsp raw honey) Sat through Monday, with Sunday and Monday being classic No-Nuts Paleo

clean carb-down on Tue-Friday: no dairy, no fruit, meet calorie requirements

 I can’t decide, because it feels like I am breaking my word to myself and trying to wiggle around the very specific conditions. Keeping my fingers crossed that I do not have to resolve this moral dilemma and just see that coveted 17% on the scale by next Saturday!