Sabotage

Just an angsty check in.  Keto rocks my world, it's been incredible how easy this has been.

I am with 4 lbs. of my lowest body fat % in years. I can run for the bus and not feel like I'm going to die. I'm wearing clothes that I haven't fit into for years.

So last week I got some good news/bad news about a friend. The good news is that he was not angry at me and ignoring my phone calls/emails. The bad news is that he's dead.

This has thrown me for a loop. Completely.  The reason keto has been working is in part, because of the routine I have in place for things like grocery shopping, making food ahead, planning, and a few workouts a week. That is all out the door, along with my sleeping schedule, so I'm up 4 lbs. and having trouble with all of it.

But this too shall pass.

Down over 7% Body Fat since Nov!

So as I mentioned before, I have been eating a Keto diet, which is a high fat/mid protein meal plan. I typically aim for 65% fat, 30% protein and 5% carbs, although there are certain days where I might be a few percentage points, overall I've been within the ballpark. I get most of my carbs from vegetables, nuts, cottage cheese and berries. To meet my fat content, I've been cooking with butter and coconut oil, and eating lots of bacon and sausage. It's not hard to do, as my brekkie is almost always bacon and eggs, and my lunches a huge salad with protein and dressing. On the weekends I tend to get a little more adventurous with recipes, and have found several great sites with keto-friendly fare. When I'm itching for noodles, I've discovered that T&T Supermarket carries Shirataki noodles, which are made from tofu. They smell like socks when you first open the package and drain the water, but I rinse several times before boiling them for 6 minutes or so. They can also be dry-fried instead of boiled, and there is macaroni, spaghetti and fettuccine shape noodles to choose from.

I've dropped over 7% body fat since late fall, which is a huge shift for me. I'm eating the same amount of calories as before, but for some reason my body is happy to continue dropping fat. I've even put on a few pounds of muscle, although it must be noted that I am not killing myself with exercise, just walking and some short Turbo Jam workouts.

Drinking and Keto, I have discovered, do NOT go well together, or they really do depending on how you look at it.  I can drink. I can drink a boatload. But since November, I have had 3 incidents of "lost time" after drinking the same amount that I normally would when not eating keto. Since that scares the crap out of me, I have been cutting my consumption WAY WAY DOWN. This is good for my calories for the day, my aching liver, not blacking out, my wallet, and staying in ketosis, so I am okay with it.

I am still avoiding the gym and all the New Year's Resolutioners. One of my coworkers is still going and has been infuriated at the lack of equipment from the influx, so I am waiting for another few weeks before I resume. I am going to try the spinning classes again. Wonder how different it will be with the fat/weight that I have taken off since the last time I went? (Thank you, Keto!)

Here's a new webseries by a dude that has switched to keto, in case you want to check it out:

Treadmill Desk - Phase 1 Complete!

There is something different about this post...I am typing it while walking on the deck of a treadmill. That's right, I was able to find a treadmill to take apart for phase 1 of building my walking desk.

I started by trawling on Craigslist for used treadmills. I looked. I looked and I looked and I looked. There were lots of big machines with big decks, but nothing that seemed just right. Then I did a search for what other people used, and found models I could not get up here in the Great White North, or that cost a bundle AND had huge shipping costs.

Finally I figured I would just go for a new, cheap and cheerful model. I ended up with an Exerpeutic Walking treadmill, which only goes up to 4.0 (fine by me, I get pain at 2.8 or above!) with a really small deck, perfect for my small desk area.

It was also a bonus, as they only delivered to my front door and I had to drag it up the stairs and to my bedroom by myself.  Thank spaghettimonster for the nifty white packing straps that I was able to use to do this.

Unpacking was fairly easy to do. Those little short arms are for the bottom of the stand to help stabilize it. Since that's not the game I was playing, I just chucked these out of the way.

One of the reasons that I chose this treadmill is because the connector from the arms and the deck looked fairly simple. I was not completely wrong about this, but it took more than a wrench to undo the side bolts.

I had to undo the screws holding the plastic paneling over the motor, but overall it only took a few minutes. I was then able to undo the bolts holding the arms to the deck.

Easy peasy!

Next I took off the bar that raises and lowers the platform, as I had no further need for this.

The wires were not hard to locate, as they were not down in the tubes of the arms as you might expect from a finished product. But then again I cheaped out, so...I really should be making snarky remarks.

Some of the wiring needed to be disconnected and reconnected later. There are only 3 connections, all which appear different, so my super-anal "label them with masking tape" was a little overkill.

There was a small screw on the underside of both arms that I had to undo to be able to thread the additional controls out of the stand arms. One side is the speed control, the other is "On/Off" and "Mode".

Finally I had to add a few blocks of wood to the bottom to accommodate a small metal tab left of the underside of the deck, from the arm that allowed you to store it standing. I guess I could have sourced a metal grinder and taken it off, but well, gluing wood to the bottom and getting a bit of an incline was just as easy.

I haven't yet made a new housing for the controls, so they are floating around my desk, but I am a busy girl and won't do that for the next while. So there you have it, phase 1 of my tread desk.

Happy 2013!

Though I would check in for the beginning of the month.

I continue to eat Keto for the most part. I am pretty quickly getting the idea that cheating always shows up within 3 days on the scale, except if I only have a few Vitamin V's (Voda/Soda) once a week. Breads/Pastas/Rice carbs show up, vodka does not. I can live with this.

I'm down over 16 lbs. of fat and up just over 3 lbs. of muscle, which I understand is pretty hard to do (lose fat and gain muscle at the same time) so I will take it with a grin on my face.

Did a lot more walking in December, and threw in 6 cardio workouts. I think for January I will aim to do 8 workouts, as a way to complement Keto eating, and to kick my ass back into ketosis when I've cheated. Basically I can do 2 workouts over 2 days and get back into ketosis, as long as I am really focused on sticking to the food.

Food wise, I have to mix vegetables into the mix to be able to lose. For some strange reason if I do nothing but meat/eggs/bacon/cream/coconut oil, my loss slows, but if I throw in a salad for lunch and some veggies in my stir-fry, my body responds. This is good, as a keto newb I was nervous that I would not be able to have my veggies!

That being said, I am a very happy girl to be able to eat bacon and eggs every day. (And yes, I pretty much do this every day for breakfast or lunch. Yum!)  If I know I will not be near a kitchen, I will do hardboiled eggs and some bacon in a ziplock. Portable, and delicious hot or cold.

I am also still using Nexercise, which is an app that lets you earn points for working out, and competing with your friends. They have also started letting people earn rewards from different sponsors, such as free eyeglasses, amazon credits etc.

New Game: Find a treadmill to make a treadmill desk

I want to play video games AND I want to get exercise. So the new aim of the game this month is to find a treadmill that I can use for a treadmill desk. I have been thinking a lot about the desk portion, and decided rather than build one, I am going to research them and figure out which one to go with.

My favourite is the GeekDesk, a nice, clean and simple design, however they are a little larger than I am looking for, so the dear continues.

I've done enough research to know that I don't want a manual/crank adjustment sit-to-stand desk.  I think the motorized adjustable is probably the best way to go at this point. That's also why I wouldn't be trying to build one; I have no idea what to do to motorize it going up and down.

Looking at the results so far, I think it's harder to find a sit-to-stand desk in Canada, and I think it's a lot more expensive than I would like to spend, but c'est la vie.

What else is new?

I've been struggling here and there with the food, but it was Halloween season, so I had a few pieces of candy every few days, and that showed up as stalled fat loss. My own responsibility. Regardless, I was definitely feeling the whole Halloween dress-up this year. Here is my second costume, as I had three throughout the weekend and on Halloween itself.

This week I have started back on eating really, really clean, and will be doing a low carb eating plan, as opposed to a slow carb eating plan for the next 2-3 weeks to jumpstart. It's not for everyone, I know, but I actually really enjoy the challenge of hitting my macros, and I figure if I gear down to slow carb every few weeks, I can make this work better. And of course, I get my free Saturdays still so I can indulge if I choose

My downfall as always is planning, so I have to commit to setting my menu and making sure that my food is available to cook, pack, or bring to work with me. For now I am going to use My Fitness Pal, as I can adjust the Macronutrients in the tracking section.

Word, nerd.

News Anchor calls out Weight Bully, and Spinning to Win

So I just went to a spin class, even though my intent was to do a much easier cardio class.

I took it on even though I was scared I would pass out/throw up. And I almost threw up, at least three time in fact!  But I sat where I had to sit, I turned down the tension when I needed it to be turned down.  My heart rate monitor reported 592 calories for the 50 minutes that I tracked (I always forget to start it!)

Afterwards the instructor came over to talk to me about how the class went, and to give me some tips. I was really surprised and happy that she went out of her way to do so! I've promised her that I will come back for at least FOUR more classes, to get acclimated to the activity.

On another note, I saw this amazing video today:

An occasional watcher of this show sent her a letter calling her out for being obese, and encouraging her to be a "better example" to the community, particularly young girls.  In the spirit of Anti-bullying week, she did a piece on the letter, on the impact to her and her workplace, and to how people who are engaging in bullying behaviour have an impact on others around them, especially if it is a parent setting that example to a child.

Ch..ch..check it out!

On the down and down

I just realized how long it's been since I checked in, so here I am!

I had a minor hiccup here and there (for instance, a week of stomach flu) however that's not been in my way at all. I've just been rolling with the punches, and eating on plan as best I can.

I'm finding it easier to stick to the routine, now that I am paying a lot of attention to packing my lunch for the day. That way I don't get to work unprepared, and get tempted to eat junk/fast food. I've been sticking to the while salad with protein combo for lunch, and will use lots of different nuts and seeds, sprouts, vegetables, sometimes bacon tempeh, and usually a chicken breast on top with an oil and vinegar dressing. I'm not sure I can ever get sick of salads, and mixing up the toppings every few days keeps it fresh palette wise.

I'm pretty lucky to have access to a full kitchen at work, and as you can see, I am trying to take advantage of that!

I've been using my heart rate monitor a lot lately, and trying to get the amount of time in the 3 heart rate zones on a more consistent basis. I've also been doing fun stuff to get in my cardio; I tried a Zumba class at the gym, playing Just Dance 3 on the Wii, going for a walk with the kid, etc.  I also have to rejoin the challenge at work, where some of the staff and clients are doing a certain amount of minutes on the elliptical per day.

The muscle activation stuff is going well, I have been doing hamstring activating exercises since the last session. It's had an impact on how my calves react when I walk, and there is a lot let of the crazy shooting pain in my legs the past two weeks. Bonus!