Monday, September 28, 2015

Week # 2: Sept. 28-Oct. 4


Week 2: Continue Week 1 habits. Cut out all sugar, junk food, soda pop, and fast food! This is going to be the hardest week for all of us. My friend Joyce would say this is when your fight or flight mentality is going to come out! Just start getting prepared NOW and get all the sugar, junk food, and pop out of the house. This is as much a mental challenge as a physical challenge. Also, you can allow yourself natural sugars like fructose just make sure that you pair them with a protein to maximize energy. So, if you eat an apple pair it with some nuts or a string cheese. Also, you can have the sugar that is in a small amount of a sauce like a dressing or BBQ sauce.

Total Week 2 Points Possible: 14

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Week 1, Journal Entry

Once when I did this 8-week challenge we were supposed to write a blog post each week too. I don't know why this part of it isn't in my list of points this time around.

Anyway I'll still try to write something every week about how I'm doing with this 8-week challenge.

First, why did I choose to do this in a time period when Halloween will be happening (second week I'm supposed to cut out sweets and junk food---how will I do that?!?)? Answer: I had to get started, and now was the time, and I'll just have to deal with all that as I go along.

Second, why is keeping a food journal the very first challenge? Because it actually helps a person who is trying to get control of his/her eating habits.

The Web MD people  cite a study which found that "...people keeping a food diary six days a week lost about twice as much weight as those who kept food records one day a week or less."

What's weird about the Web MD link when citing this study, which I expected to link to the actual study, does not actually link to the original study but to another Web MD page with helpful hints for keeping a food diary. Here they are:

  • Write as you go. Don't wait until the end of the day to record what you ate and drank. "We recommend they write it down as soon as they can after they eat," says Stevens.
  • Focus on portion size. Practice at home with measuring cups, measuring spoons, or food scales. And be aware that people tend to underestimate how much food they're served.
  • Use whatever type of food diary works for you. It doesn't matter whether you use scrap paper, a personal digital assistant (PDA), or a notebook. What matters is that you use it, says Stevens.
  • Don't skip your indulgent days. "We encourage people to keep records especially on days when they're tempted to eat," says Stevens. "What gets measured tends to get changed."
  • Cook at home. You'll have more control over what you consume, and you know what that food contains, and how much of it you're eating. That makes for a more detailed entry in your food diary.
 Okay, great hints from Web MD, but not great for people like me who want to read an actual study instead of someone else's summary of it. So I found the study myself, and here it is:

"Weight Loss During the Intensive Intervention Phase of the Weight-Loss Maintenance Trial"

And, oops, there are some problems with the data and the statistical analysis thereof: Over 130 "missing weights" at the end of the study had to be "replaced." Which is not okay. They used the famous (?) "Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling" method  to guess---yes, I said it---GUESS---what the missing values were and "replace" them. Then, "Parameter estimates were then averaged, standard errors were adjusted with a function of the between-imputation variation, and the degrees of freedom were adjusted to obtain unbiased p-values."

So, what I think is that when you average a bunch of estimates and adjust the standard errors AND degrees of freedom, you're just showing how desperate you are to get your study published. (If I did that for my own scientific work, I wouldn't have said scientific work any more.)

But does keeping a daily food journal help people lose weight? I still think it does, though admittedly the basis for my conclusion is even less solid than the statistical methods used in that study. I think it does because it has helped me in the past.

And I think it does because, as the Web MD people note, "What gets measured tends to get changed."

Friday, September 25, 2015

Week # 1, Sept. 21-27

First week, Sept. 21-27:

Start Keeping a Food Journal.  Each day, write down what time you wake up, the time you eat, what you eat, how much you exercise, how much water you drink and what time you go to bed. For those of you who work, it may be easier to keep track of this on a little notebook kept in your purse. Earn 1 point for each day that you complete a full journal.

Total Week 1 Points Possible: 7

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Eight Weeks

I'm going to start this again. I'm thinking tomorrow, Monday the 21st, because Monday is a good day to start something like this. Anyone want to start with me? We can just do the postings and reporting back and forth by comments here or by email messages to each other. 

I'm pasting below the 8-week challenge as I've done it with friends in the past. We don't have to do it this way, don't have to do it with points, the way it's written here. In fact, I think it works better without that competitive edge.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

The purpose of this challenge is to motivate us and help us take one step at a time toward a healthier lifestyle, NOT overwhelm us! We need do this the right way so that we can make PERMANENT changes. We will start by going for 8 weeks. Each week, we will work on adding one new healthy lifestyle habit. Together we can take things to the next level. We will write on this private blog to help support each other. This will be a fun part of our challenge and and will provide us with the accountability and motivation to stay in it. Participants earn 1 bonus point each week for blogging on our private blog. ***(See note at the bottom about bonus point blogging)

Here's the full scoop on the points structure---

Week 1: Start Keeping a Food Journal.  Each day, write down what time you wake up, the time you eat, what you eat, how much you exercise, how much water you drink and what time you go to bed. For those of you who work, it may be easier to keep track of this on a little notebook kept in your purse. Earn 1 point for each day that you complete a full journal.

Total Week 1 Points Possible: 7

Week 2: Continue Week 1 habits. Cut out all sugar, junk food, soda pop, and fast food! This is going to be the hardest week for all of us. My friend Joyce would say this is when your fight or flight mentality is going to come out! Just start getting prepared NOW and get all the sugar, junk food, and pop out of the house. This is as much a mental challenge as a physical challenge. Also, you can allow yourself natural sugars like fructose just make sure that you pair them with a protein to maximize energy. So, if you eat an apple pair it with some nuts or a string cheese. Also, you can have the sugar that is in a small amount of a sauce like a dressing or BBQ sauce.

Total Week 2 Points Possible: 14

Week 3: Continue Week 2 habits. Eat 2 servings of fruit and 3 servings of vegetables per day.

Total Week 3 Points Possible: 21

Week 4: Continue Week 3 habits. Exercise a minimum of 30 minutes per day, 5 days per week. This can be as simple as brisk walking. The goal is to raise your heartbeat. If you're feeling a good cardio workout, working up a sweat, increased heart rate, it counts. Also, the more that you can vary your exercise routine the better. So, do cardio one day and weights another. Try different forms of exercise (i.e. an elliptical one day and swimming another). Try to establish a routine. If you must, you can split this into three 10 minute segments for a total of 30 minutes.

Total Week 4 Points Possible: 26

****For the remaining weeks, we will need to eat low glycemic, sticking to the recommended foods list and we will earn a point for each day that you do so.

Week 5: Continue Week 4 habits. Drink at least 64 ounces of water per day, but current studies suggest that drinking at least half of your body weight in ounces per day is a better choice. So, if you weighed 200 pounds you would need 100 ounces of water per day.

Total Week 5 Points Possible: 40

Week 6: Continue Week 5 habits. Take supplements each day as recommended on the packaging. This can be a simple vitamin or something more as you need it.

Total Week 6 Points Possible: 47

Week 7: Continue Week 6 habits. Start your day with "Quiet Time" every day. This should be at least 30 minutes of meditation, but can include your own scripture study or other meditation that you currently do.

Total Week 7 Points Possible: 54

Week 8: Continue Week 7 habits. Sleep at least 7 hours each night.

Total Week 8 Points Possible: 61

Cumulative Points Possible for the ENTIRE 8 Week Challenge: 270

Friday, September 11, 2015

Getting Back to Training

I just saw an orthopedist today, eleven days after having my shoulder rotator cuff operated on. He checked the puncture wounds in my shoulder (healing nicely) and gave me advice about how to treat them (no more antibiotic ointment and no bandages), and told me to keep taking it easy on my arm.

He told me that different orthopedic surgeons give different advice about how to recover. He said the one who did my surgery has a somewhat conservative approach: Don't start doing any exercises for at least eight weeks. Why? Because he believes the possible risk to the surgical repair is too great with exercising too soon. Some surgeons have you raising your hand above your head and so on; my surgeon wants me to wear my sling faithfully and to do only those little pendulum exercises three times a day until I see him in another three weeks.

"He says the purpose of the surgery is to fix the joint and relieve the pain; you may have stiffness from not exercising sooner, but you don't risk tearing out the tendon attachments."

And I say, "Hurray for that opinion." I totally agree. Stiffness can be dealt with later. In fact, it seems to me that with other joint and muscle injuries I've had in the past, when I worried about getting stiff and exercised those muscles too soon I just incurred further damage; when I was forced to lay off the exercise for awhile, I started recovering much sooner.

So I'm going to be watching the men's semifinals whenever they come on, binge-watching "Sherlock" for as long as those old episodes keep being replayed, and reading, reading, reading.

And then I'll get back to training.

Veni Vidi Vinci (Put the Ball in the Court)

One thing about having my left arm in a sling (and still with the pain, in spite of alternating between aspirin and acetaminophen every 3 to 6 hours), is that for the first time ever I've been watching the U.S. Open without too much guilt. Still some, but not as much as in the past.

So today, rooting for Serena all the way, I watched Roberta Vinci beat her in the semifinal, and I was crushed. Not as much as Serena was, obviously, and what struck me was the courtesy with which she handled the inane questions from the "press" right after the match.

Some started off with the usual stupid question: Can you tell us how disappointed you are? Serena gave the perfect reply: "I don't want to answer any questions about how disappointed I feel. If you have any other questions, I'll be able to answer them." And she went on answering for a good 10 minutes longer. Brave woman.

It reminded me of a press conference she had to participate in after the quarterfinal. So many questions, so many of them idiotic and undoubtedly maddening to Serena, or anyone. Finally someone asked her why she wasn't smiling. She said (paraphrasing), "Well, it's 12:30 in the morning, and I'm tired, and I have to get up early tomorrow to practice, and you all ask the same questions all the time..."

Now, for what Roberta Vinci said after her amazing win, replying to the usual set of inane questions, this time about what she said to herself, how she powered through and won even when she was down in the second set, and kept on even facing break points in the third set:

"Put the ball in the court, and then run. Run. Run."

A great philosophy for all of life, not just tennis.