Musings on why I might be gaining, not losing.
Kirsten suggested I re-read this thread and consider these ideas as possibilities while she looks over my workout/measurement history. Rather than type out an email, I think I’ll put my responses online, here.
Have you ever asked yourself Why am I not losing?
Boy, is this a loaded question that does not have a simple answer. There are multiple factors that play a role in our body’s ability to function. Sleep, nutrition, hormones, exercise, water intake, stress, disease.
It is important to consider that the body is constantly in motion seeking to preserve balance wherever it can.
SLEEP
We all know that sleep is important. Experts say that 8 hours are ideal — some require more and some require less. Quality sleep with no interruptions is ideal but for moms with small children — they find this to be very challenging. During sleep, the cells are busy — repairing, rebuilding and carrying out the work that it doesn’t have time for during the day when we are awake.
Even though I’m the mom of a 2-1/2 year old, my sleep doesn’t suffer any more, except on rare occasions. I usually get at least 7-8 hours per night. From personal experience, I tend to be okay as long as I get at least six hours.
NUTRITION
We all know the importance of proper nutrition but understanding what your body specifically needs and how much can be a daunting task. Too many calories? Not enough calories? More protein? Less Carbohydrates? It’s enough to make your head swim. It is helpful to become your own “advocate” and research many different ways of eating (WOE) so that you can determine which plan suits your needs. Most experts agree that adding more fruits and vegetables, eating lean proteins and complex carbohydrates is appropriate. They also agree that reducing caffeine, excess sugar, and eliminating artificial sweeteners, artificial flavors/preservatives, fast foods and processed foods is a great first step on the path to wellness. I highly recommend tracking your food intake for one week so that you can objectively analyze your eating over several days. Read those food labels.
One final item to mull over - -how many years of poor eating habits, artificial sweeteners and/ or preservatives, yo-yo dieting, diet pills etc. do you need to recover from?
This one is always an issue. Always. While I don’t have a “diet” mentality, I definitely eat better at some times than at others. Since I’ve traveled twice to Colorado in recent weeks, that means more diet sodas and more processed food (junk on the road). Funny, I don’t drink many diet sodas while at home, but man…put me on a road trip, and WHAM.
I really rail against the idea of counting calories, but if it becomes necessary, I will. SIGH. I’m much happier when I’m simply eating the right foods — because then I don’t usually have to worry about “how much” of them I eat.
My current hypothesis re: dairy could play into this. Perhaps I have enough German lineage that my return to dairy (after a few weeks off milk) has triggered a puffiness/swelling in me? I can certainly say that my bust seems bigger, even within the past week, so maybe that’s it. Cutting casein will mean, by definition, cutting many processed foods, so it will be interesting to see what happens over my two-week elimination.
I’m drinking coffee these days, and I’m not ready to quit that.
Hormones
This could be an issue, but it’s hard to say. Recent change: I went back off the birth control pill due to some unpleasant side effects (namely, complete loss of libido, oops). I’m 25 days into my first “off” cycle, but my chart seems to say that my hormonal levels are pretty darned stable. Interestingly enough, I’ve noticed that the morning following days I take entirely “off” from exercise, my temp is roughly 3/10 of a degree lower.
Thyroid: Have had testing done before, told all (including TSH, T3) were normal. Granted, that was last summer, so things could have changed. Since my energy levels are fine (they were horribly low pre-T-Tapp), I don’t believe this is the problem.
Adrenal: Nine years ago, I spent every weekend at Skydive Houston in beautiful, “scenic” Waller, Texas — and in some ways, I’ve wondered if my adrenal gland has been off since then. Stopping regular jumping did correspond with my first major depression. I’m still on a very low dose of Effexor (37.5mg/day), and I notice that when I’m too late with a dose, I get what I’ve thought of as the cortisol effect — it’s like the fight/flight feeling, minus the urgency — an underlying sense of anxiety. T-Tapp has helped level that out, and I’m close to going every other day with meds.
Exercise
See my calendar, link to the side. Cheri suggests that some of the moves can be done daily, even on the days when you do no workout — I might start incorporating those. Otherwise, when I have off days (like my long break at the beginning of March), I feel awful.
My gut tells me that I need to be doing more cardio, and that my body is treating T-Tapp like a weight-training workout. Could this be true? Not sure.
Water
I do fairly well with this one (usually close to 3/4oz per pound of body weight), but perhaps have slacked recently. I’ll start counting glasses again to see what happens.
Possible Disease State
See info on dairy, above. If I’ve triggered a latent dairy allergy, could it cause me to puff this much?