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General Weight Loss Tips

Finding My Groove

Today marks week four, day two of consistent exercise with Insanity. That is, 6.5 workouts, most of them are 40 minutes long. And I’m reminding myself that I’ve been here before. In the spring, I made it 14 weeks. I was seeing improvement and then it stopped. I don’t remember why exactly (something to go back and read) but I’m telling myself that this doesn’t stop when the calendar fills up or when 60 days are over. If I’m being honest, it will take a full year of consistent exercise for me to really be in a better place physically. Probably two. And then for the rest of my life.

In the past three weeks, my food intake has been hit or miss. I’ve been experimenting with different calorie counts, and I think I’ve found one that will work for me. On myfitnesspal (lorriebee) you work with net calories. This means if your net calorie goal is 1,400 and you burn 500 calories, you can eat 1,900 calories in a day. I think this is a great tool, but for some reason I’ve been struggling with the notion of eating all of my burned calories.

Myfitnesspal gives you an estimated calories burned, but I’m not convinced it’s accurate. I think I’m burning 400-600 calories during Insanity. But when I log it in, it’s usually more. And then I’d see this insane amount of food I could still eat. And for some reason that triggered me to eat beyond hunger.

So to calm my tender brain I’ve decided, which some research and calculating, that I will consume 1,600 calories a day regardless of how much I burn during exercise. Of course there will be some ups and downs with that number, but I feel good with that. I’m burning about 400 calories, six days a week, so that is a net of about 1,100-1,300 calories which is totally in the weight loss zone for me.

I also feel like 1,600 calories is a very reasonable amount of food for me. I can wrap my head around it and not be obsessive. I can move the numbers around easily to accommodate my day. It feels flexible to me.

If I know I’m going out to dinner or to an event in the evening. I can still have a 200 calorie breakfast and 400 calorie lunch with 1,000 calories to work with in the evening. Or if I’m in the mood for a bigger, 500-600 calorie breakfast/brunch sort of thing. I can make that happen too. It goes with my new mantra “I can have what I want, but I can’t have everything I want” which simply means that yes, if I want to go out to dinner with my husband, I can do that. But, it doesn’t mean I need to go out to eat twice in a day and then snack all day and have dessert after every meal. I just don’t need that much food.

Yesterday was my first day trying out my new set calorie count and it went so well. I even showed a two pound loss on the scale this morning from it. I woke up and had a serving of mexican chili for breakfast, and again for lunch. I measured it and estimated the calories. I hate two teas with milk and sugar. A small treat. And dinner was teriyaki chicken. I didn’t feel obsessive about anything and when I hit the 1,600 calorie mark I felt comfortable and done for the day.

I know this probably sounds like the ramblings of a man-woman, but I needed to share. Mainly to work through these fears I have of sharing and acting. I’m trying to change my inner dialogue and making this a positive journey. Not one of self defeating agony. Last night I was in that bed staring at my clothes hanging in the closet and I visualized what it would be like to fit in all of them, effortlessly. And then I visualized them being too big. I imagined that the sweaters looked like deflated balloons where my arms used to go. I realized in that moment that I can make all of these things happen, there is nothing stopping me.

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Weight Loss Exercise

Positive Outlook Helps Focus




How you think and handle your emotions and stress is probably the most important factor in your general well-being or happiness. This, in turn, directly impacts your physical health and your abiliting for losing weight. And, when you think about it, even if it wasn’t connected to your health (it is!) would it still not be of primary importance?

Positive Outlook Helps Focus

Positive Outlook Helps Focus

Positive Outlook Helps Focus

It is no simple matter to ‘be happy’ or ‘think positive thoughts,’ or ‘relax and go with the flow.’ I put these in quotes because they sound like cliches, which they are. Still, they are of utmost importance. That is, what you eat, how you breathe and your thoughts all impact each other. That is actually why I chose to mention this subject. Because it is both the most important and hardest to practice when losing weight,

I wanted to set the stage with other, more straightforward things first. After all, it is easier to simply stop eating a certain junk food and start eating something healthy or to start exercising than it is to change your focus in a more positive direction. Yet if you start with better nutrition and more exercise, it becomes a bit easier to get more positive in your outlook.

More and more people are starting to believe in the notion that we create our reality with our thoughts and emotions. The Law of Attraction has become a popular subject since the release of the book and movie, The Secret (there is considerable debate over this, but I recommend you see it/read it if you haven’t already).

Whether we physically create our reality this way is debatable though some interpret quantum physics in a way that supports this. However, it is much more clear and obvious that, at the very least, our thoughts and emotions some say ‘attitude’ largely determine our experience of reality. This includes our well being and happiness. So, it follows that, if we want to feel good and be happy, we do best if we think positive thoughts and feel positive emotions.

The problem is that life, in the form of events, other people, memories, news stories and other sources, often sends things our way that we don’t find pleasing. So we feel angry, sad, nervous or some other negative emotion. This, in turn, sends signals to our body and all its cells and organs that causes stress. What is even worse, is that these signals tend to be self-replicating. That is, negative or stressful states tend to perpetuate themselves, causing more such states in the future. Fortunately, the reverse is also true the more you can feel good or happy, loving, relaxed, euphoric- the more you can feel good in the future. The body, once again, absorbs these messages as well and this has a very healing effect.

One very important aspect to have a positive outlook helps focus and how to do it is:

LIVE IN THE PRESENT!

I was almost going to devote a whole post to this, but I am trying to keep this brief. Living in the present means that you let of regrets of the past and worries about the future. No one, except maybe some meditation masters living on a mountaintop, lives in the present 100%. It is still a worthy goal, though. It is most important, naturally enough, to let go of negative feelings regarding the past or future, but even positive ones can be limiting if they keep you from realizing your potential in the present moment.

A person who is often nostalgic about happy times in the past has a belief that the best of everything is already over. If someone is always looking forward to some future happy outcome, they, too, are missing out. The problem with the future is that it never arrives. When what we think of as the future does occur, there is always a new future to look forward to. It is a fact of quantum physics that time as we believe in it is not real. It is an intellectual construct that makes everyday life easier to manage. It is not real in any fundamental sense. Keep this in mind when you find your mind wandering into the illusions of the past or future.

So the first step in thinking more positively is to set it as a priority in your life. There are many tools to help with this several in this report, especially breathing and the techniques in the following chapter- but the particular techniques you use are secondary to your basic commitment to do this. You simply cannot have well-being if you are not thinking good thoughts. Period

So if having a positive outlook helps focus why not start this right now and change you life?


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General Weight Loss Tips

What I Need

I’ve come to realize that what I need in life to be happy, is much different than what I always thought I would need. For most of my life I believed that hard work and sacrifice meant pain, uncomfort, and burnout. I would avoid these feelings  by quitting. This isn’t to say that I wasn’t a hard worker or a good employee, student etc. I just never applied myself, as they say. I knew how to complete a task for something else, but not for myself. I would get so far as the first or second bump and decide it wasn’t for me. Move on and continue the cycle.

Coincidentally, my adult life has been filled with bouts of anxiety, depression and insecurity. Just a slight feeling of unease that I was always trying to suffocate with excesses. Material items, food, and neediness have all been the way that I would cope. Often I would just hole up and wish the pain away. I thought these feelings were a result of what I was missing in my life, rather than what I wasn’t doing.

But lately, as in, the past couple of months. This course has changed. I’ve come to realize that my past actions of inactivity made the feelings worse. And thus the cycle of never being fulfilled. What makes me happy now is so far removed from what I wanted to believe would make me happy. Shopping or a pint of ice cream. They are like alcohol to the flame. They are good in the moment, but never filled the gap.

Today, as I write this, I’ve found that completion makes me happy. If I set out to do something in a day, I’m not content until it’s done. Inactivity makes me anxious. I notice that when I slide out of my good habits, old feelings begin to creep up again.

The funny/weird thing about all of this, is that I’ve rejected the notion that energy=energy. I always thought that I needed to reserve my energy to gain it, but I only get positive energy when I put it out there.

Today happiness looks like this to me:

– A balanced diet. This means eating when I’m hungry, stopping when I’m full. Eating what I only truly love to eat, not because I used to think it was indulgent, but genuinly enjoying the meal. Vegetables and fruit are also very important for this balance.

– Exercise. Any sort of movement is absolutely neccessary for me to deal with stress and anxiety. Even if the movement is cleaning the bedroom, clearning off the deck, or washing a load of dishes. Movement in all forms makes me feel better.

–Focused work. Everyday I have a set list of tasks. I’ve gotten in the habit of setting a timer for 30 minutes just to get started. If I am overwhelmed with projects I say to myself “just do something–anything”. Checking off items on my to-do list brings me so much pride and contentment.

– Time to relax, alone. I find that my work/life balance is only in harmony when I have time to do absolutely nothing. It feels better and is more appreciated when it’s earned. I have never been bored a day in my life. I could sit on the couch and read for hours and be totally happy. I could sit with a notebook and pen and write and draw until my hearts content. I look forward to doing nothing, I cherish the art of inactivity only when it’s balanced with work.

– Making things happen. I’ve always struggled with the notion that things just happened. Growing up we are sent to school, then we are sent to high school and then, sometimes we make our way to college. This course is set out for us. And the whole “making things happen” idea missed me. I had no concept of making my dreams come true. When there wasn’t a clear path or map to my destination I got lost. I didn’t understand how the world worked, how businesses were ran. I just assumed that I was destined to follow course and just move on to a normal job with a steady paycheck. And then I woke up and realized that everything is totally up to me. And I was scared, am still scared, but figuring it out anyway.

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