Day Nine & Ten

This is a tough blog to post...

Yesterday was my weigh-in day and I was devastated to find out I had only lost 1.2 lbs after busting my butt all week at the gym, so I decided I needed to bust it again and went to the pool and tried to work off the other 8.8 lbs I wanted to lose during the week. Sadly, weight loss doesn't work like that. Fortunately for me, I found out a small little reason I didn't lose as much as I expected - water weight. Squeamish gentlemen stop reading here, I'll start a new paragraph that you can begin reading. I have been so focused on measuring foods, scheduling workouts, doing school assignments, and taking care of my Mom that I had forgotten one very important thing - my menstrual cycle. I awoke this morning and suddenly realized that I was not going crazy and my body was not rebelling, it was doing what it does every month before my period - adding water weight, but this time I still managed to LOSE 1.2 lbs. I figure at least 5 lbs. is going to be water weight so for my next weigh in I can probably expect a fairly dramatic loss. It is SO easy to get discouraged when you are trying to lose weight and you get a smaller number than you were expecting or even gain a little... we don't need to let that happen though, it's imperative to keep a positive attitude and accept that things happen, our body plateaus, we have a particularly stressful/busy week. Even with all these reasons, we should never use these as an excuse to give up or take a break from what we're doing. It would be so easy to say "Oh, screw it! I am done, I'm just going to eat healthy and hope that's enough,"or simply "I give up, this is just how I am." Remember... once you set your mind to it, follow through.

I've found myself becoming hungry late at night... for several reasons. First and foremost is the fact that I'm not eating enough calories - I've got to learn to better manage my meals and eating times. Secondly, I'm staying up way later than usual and doing things such as this blog and using Netflix to find documentaries about weight loss, organic foods, vegan diets, etc. A movie that I ran across awhile back was "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead," it made me question many things. You see, the film is about a man named Joe who is overweight, on medications for numerous conditions due to obesity, and is pretty much knocking on death's door if he didn't do something to help himself. Joe documents his journey to a healthier person via juicing. While the film is very informative and shines a light on many things including the average American diet... the big attention grabber was the fact that Joe lost around 80 lbs. in 60 days just by juicing alone. Another guy, Phil, lost an astonishing amount of weight as well. Both went on to keep the weight off, but are still in an "overweight" weight range. Still... much better than morbidly obese. Here is the movie if you're interested, this is hulu, it's free to watch:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/289122/fat-sick-and-nearly-dead

I have to admit I thought numerous times of doing what he did in the video, Joe was nice enough to include the prices of the juicing per week, inorganic and organic as well. Sadly... I did not have $1,000 to spend for 60 days of juicing because I am without a job and am going to school. If you have the means - go for it, but please consult a physician before embarking on that fast. It is also important to note that both men added physical activity into their lives to maintain their weight loss and I think it's still important to note that these men are still a bit overweight. With some tweaking, I do believe juicing can be beneficial, even for just a 10-day detox, sadly I think most people that try this will expect to do a 10-day "fast" and go back to their normal way of life and gain everything back. If you can't afford this "miracle diet," it gives you a bit of information on nutrition and is helpful. I honestly learned quite a bit from this video and I've taken countless biology courses - nutrition, anatomy, physiology, microbiology, yadda, yadda... I just want to say one last thing and I'll end the blog for today... taking an easy, fast way to your goal isn't always the answer and CAN backfire, especially if you are unaware of what is going on with your body. It's important to keep your focus on one objective and get there, there are enough details to figure out and fix along the way. :)

Message of the Day: Don't get discouraged, even when you feel like this: