PHabulouslife

Cheat Day

During week three we had Easter to contend with. While I was willing to concede to the idea of not counting calories for the day, and thus having a “cheat day,” I was very worried about the idea of eating any cake, candies, or cookies.

In the past Desserts have had a tendency to be my downfall. Once I allow myself one, my whole diet derails. I was extremely concerned about potentially falling off the wagon.

Easter morning I had a protein bar for breakfast. Then later, I avoided all snacking until it was time for brunch. Snacking can really get people into trouble. During brunch I had three plates of food (SOOOOO FULLLLL). I got small portions of everything I wanted, including *GASP* a piece of carrot cake, and one cookie. My willpower had given out, leading way to the desserts, but I didn’t go overboard, as I often do.

After this binge, I was so full, that I could not have squeezed anything else in if I had wanted too. Hubbs wasn’t feeling good (sad face), and I could feel myself slipping into a food coma. We crashed, and HARD! Really – we had the deepest most comfy sleep ever. Honestly we probably could have just slept the whole night through.

Boy did my stomach hate me after eating all that food. My poor stomach has been used to eating a few hundred calories every meal, and then in one sitting I grossly surpassed my usual daily calorie intake. I was nervous to weigh myself the day after, so I avoided it. (Which you should not do!) Two days after Easter though, I was back down to my previous weigh in of 151lbs.

Progress?

Today marks the last day of week three. All week I have hovered around 151  lbs. The photo shows my current weight. To be honest (and share a little maybe TMI) I have not pooped most of the week. After I do, I am assuming that I will see the weight drop again.

Today I took measurements so that I can have another marker, besides weight to evaluate progress. The measurements I took are in the photo below. After thinking about it further,  it might be a good idea to also measure and track the ankle in order to see if there is any swelling/water retention going on.

Changes:

For the coming week we have decided to drop my calorie intake to 1500. This shouldn’t be challenging for me, because typically I am not eating all of the calories I have available to me in the first place.

In the last blog I talked about how weight fluctuation should be expected. However staying virtually the same weight for two weeks is a little tough on the psyche. Hubbs and I talked and we agreed that I may be holding a lot of water. Last year I read that apple cider vinegar will help with water retention, so I am hoping that by taking some over the next few days will help release some of this water.

In addition to apple cider vinegar I will also increase my water intake. Drinking water will flush all the old water out of my system, and is essential for overall health and fat loss. I am not on any water restrictions, so I am going to make a big effort over the week to get more water in.

Hopefully next week I will have more exciting results to post.

Week two of summer shredding is over!

The last two weeks I have been very strict about my diet. Especially about the no cookies, candy, etc part of it. Of course I was also very strict about staying under 1600 calories, and getting at least two miles of cardio in per day. There was something I struggled to do, however, and that was loose weight.

Weight – it fluctuates

There is some debate about whether or not a person should weigh themselves every day. Most people in the actual fitness world seem to agree that it is important to weigh yourself every day. I have also been told by my doctors to weigh myself every day, to be alert for fluid retention.

Often in the past, when I knew that I was going to have a heavy weigh in,  I would avoid weighing myself all together, which was really a vicious cycle. Weighing myself daily helps me know exactly where I am at. The people that recommended less frequent weigh ins, (typically weekly or biweekly) recommended that philosophy on the basis of the simple fact that the scale fluctuates. With that fluctuation some people can get discouraged. It is important to realize that the numbers on the scale may not go down every day. There are a number of factors that can affect weigh-ins.

• Holding water
• Eating extra salty foods
• How late you ate your meal the night prior
• How late you were drinking water
• Maybe you just need to poop
• ETC

On Wednesday I woke up weighing 150.4. On Thursday I woke up a whole pound heavier, likely thanks to the glass of wine I had the night prior.  In fact my weight stayed about the same all week, fluctuating up and down by a fraction of a pound.

Thus it is important not to just go by the numbers on a scale, but how a person feels. I feel great, and according to our fancy scale my muscle percentage has gone up by .4%. The same two people weighing 150 lbs can look extremely different based on how much muscle they have.The more muscle a person has, the more food they can eat. So really – I want all the muscles!!

For every day sustainable long term weight loss, don’t expect the numbers on the scale to go down extremely quickly. Fast weight loss, or more than a few pounds a week, can actually be damaging to overall fitness goals.

Other success markers

Not only have I been feeling great but I am looking better as well. In order to have more progress markers, I have decided that next week I am going to take body measurements. In fact, I don’t know why I didn’t do this before!

Dedication and motivation is all in the mind

The last two weeks have been a challenge. It is not just changing my actions, but I have been working to change my thinking. For example, telling myself that I don’t want any chocolate, has helped to stay strong. I know I am lying, you know I am lying, but eventually the idea is that my mind wont even think about chocolate because I don’t want it. At this point the desire for chocolate is no longer an issue, and the habit of not eating chocolate has developed.

Good habits are ultimately the key to success in most anything in life. There have been many days, (including today) where I do not want to do cardio. I have almost talked myself out of doing cardio quite a few times. The problem with skipping a day, is that if I talk myself out of cardio today, it will be easier to talk myself out of it tomorrow, and even easier the next day. Then after a few days, I have ended up right back where I started.

Treat yo Self!

As a treat to myself and hubby for being good, I ordered us some new workout clothing. I read somewhere (probably Pinterest) that you should reward yourself with things other than food. Not only will new workout gear make us feel good, but we will want to go to the gym and use our new gear, thus cementing a good habit.

 

Hubby and I have conquered week one of the Summer Shredding Challenge! As I was telling everyone about the challenge this week, many people asked what kind of a diet we were on. Good question! My response? “We are on a diet where we limit our food intake and watch our calories, and don’t eat cookies and candy”…. Because isn’t that specific? There is no fancy name for the kind of diet we are on… that I know of? We are on a “lifestyle” diet.

Um.. what the heck is that? What if my lifestyle involves eating cookies and cake? Well that was the lifestyle that got me into this mess, it obviously isn’t going to be the one that gets me out of it.

You will find the strategy we are using to get our summer bodies below. Each week I plan to update with progress reports or changes made.

Our Plan:

Eating Habits

We track what we are eating on an APP called myfitnesspal. Our goal is to stay under a certain amount of calories for each day. We also have a goal of having a certain percentage of our food be carbs, fats, and proteins.

For week one Hubbs suggested that I start out by consuming 1600 calories per day. My (macro) goal is to intake 40% of those calories as carbs, 40% as protein, and 20% as fat.

The closest I have been to hitting the macro goal was Wednesday the 21st. I have inserted a photo of the totals to the right. Many of my days end with each category being somewhat even. It may take some time for me to hone in on the Macro tracking part of calorie counting. For now, I am happy if I am consuming fat at a lower percentage than carbs or proteins.

The main goal I have been focusing on with eating habits is staying under 1600 calories. At first I thought this would be really difficult, but I still feel fairly full with this caloric intake. In fact in looking back at the last week, most days my calorie count has been hovering between 1400-1500.

The best part about the way we are tracking our food intake is that we can make minor adjustments in order to eat some normal foods. It is not all salad, chicken and rice (at least not yet, haha). Wednesday we had a pretty intense leg workout. Before the workout, hubbs suggested going for pizza after. I looked at him like he was crazy, doesn’t he know we are shredding?! After the leg workout, it was a completely different story! I needed that pizza.

This is where things get tricky. We can’t simply splurge every day because we have a hard workout. Hubbs estimated that if we split a pizza from MOD pizza it would be 425 calories for each of us. Well I had a good 600 calories available for dinner, so the pizza completely fit within my caloric intake goal for the day. In fact as you can see from the macro chart I posted above, Wednesday (pizza day) was actually my best food intake day.

Exercise

Cardio: Each day the goal is to do a specific amount of cardio. The amount of cardio we do is directly related to how much food we can eat. My goal is two miles per day, either walking or running. If I don’t get the cardio in, I have to decrease my calorie intake  for that day. Hubbs said that rule of thumb is that regardless of weather a person walks, or runs, they will burn about 100 calories per mile.

This week I did most of the cardio as walking, because I was afraid of burning out, and conveniently my schedule accommodated for the extra time most mornings.

The first two days of the summer shredding challenge we did not run at all, because on St. Patrick’s day ( day 3) we ran in the St. Patrick’s Day Dash. The dash is a 5k, and I wanted do as well as possible. I came across the finish line under 45 min which was my goal!

Strength Training: We are going to the gym 3-5 times a week to do strength training. Training with weights is important, because the more muscle a person has, the more calories their body will consume every day. Someone who has a higher percentage of muscle can eat more than a person with a lower percentage of muscle = without gaining weight. Heck yes!

So far, with the calories I have been consuming, I still feel pretty strong. During the winter hubbs and I were trying to gain muscle, and we did! Now I hope to be able to retain as much strength as possible while dieting by continuing to lift weights regularly.

Reflections

The car is where I get the most thinking done. Well the car and the shower haha. Last Monday was the fifth day of the challenge. There I was sitting in the car thinking about how tired I was. My first instinct was to blame the workouts and the lower food intake for being tired. Just as I was thinking those demotivating thoughts I was struck by the remembrance of being in the car two weeks prior thinking the same darn thing (about being tired).

Well two weeks ago I wasn’t on particularly lowered calories. Two weeks ago I wasn’t doing cardio every day. Two weeks ago I was weightlifting less frequently. I was still tired. Like a streak of lighting it dawned on me that “I am always going to be tired.” Being tired is a side effect of what Pulmonary Hypertension does to the body.

I thought back to all the times that I had been so much more tired because of PH than I was at that current moment. It made me feel blessed. Blessed that I am currently able to accomplish so much. I will always be tired, but I can’t let life and my goals pass me by. 

Now don’t worry, I am still cautious. It is important to listen to our bodies, but I think it can often be easy to misinterpret what our bodies are trying to tell us. There is a difference between tired and exhausted. There is a difference between wanting to take a nap, and feeling the need to sit down every 20 feet when walking through the mall. There is a difference between being sore and having a pulled muscle. There is a difference between the heart working hard during a run and having palpitations. Its learning to listen and identify what is going on in the body. Its pulling back a bit but not giving up.

Once this week, and there have been in the past, times that I have to back off of a strength training or cardio session. This usually occurs because my heart feels off. It is not a heart working hard situation, it is not palpitations. It is just off. I have attributed this to the heart having a hard time keeping up with pumping the demanded oxygen that my body needs. So I back off for a few minutes and assess how I am feeling. If I am feeling good, I can try again at a more vigorous pace.

Weekly Result

If you read the last blog, you may be wondering where the contest entry video I mentioned I would upload is. At this time I am not ready to post it. Right now I am feeling a little self conscious about it.

During week one I lost 2.2 lbs. I can already feel that I am fitting into my clothes better, which is marvelous because they had been getting pretty tight. I don’t expect to loose much more than this each week. In fact if I was loosing weight at a much quicker rate, that would mean it would be time to assess and make changes to the diet. Loosing weight too quickly is typically not sustainable, or healthy.

Overall I feel really good. My muscles are sore, so that doesn’t feel great, but the soreness will eventually go away leaving a nice lean muscly body in the aftermath. I am still feeling quite motivated and overall excited about this challenge. Bring it on week 2!

It is so incredibly important to make the most of the life we are given. Since being diagnosed with Pulmonary Hypertension I had the belief that if I weighed less, my heart would not have to work as hard, and I would go longer before going into heart failure. Less strain on my heart meant a better opportunity to live the best life possible.

After being diagnosed I hid in my room for a weekend. Once emerging I was on a mission to loose weight. I had no freaking idea what I was doing, and thus really didn’t loose anything at all.  Before my husband and I were an item, I asked him to be my personal trainer. He has always been interested in fitness, and took on the challenge.

I remember the very first time he took me to work out. We went on a run to assess my cardio ability. I was so gung ho, and I took off as fast as I could go. By the time we went about 200 feet it felt like my heart was going to burst. I slowed wayyyyyyyy down. After about 400 feet, I decided I needed to catch my breath and slowed to a walk. He let us stop to stretch, and then we started out again. We were running down a hill, and at the end of the block I had to stop yet again. Essentially I could not go more than 300 feet without stopping to walk, feeling like my heart was going to explode. He taught me to go slow, so that I was not training my body to stop. At first, I would go so slow, that old people could walk faster than I could. Now I am still slow, but I know that I am going to make it to the desired end goal.

For our wedding a few years later than our first run, I was down to 140 lbs. I felt good about where I was, but was still super self conscious of my body. Later, I learned that this was because I had no muscle. My mindset was that of a skinny-fat girl. My only form of exercise was cardio, and although I would go to the gym and lift weights, it was so inconsistent, that progress was nonexistent.

Eventually hubby and I enrolled at a local LA Fittness, and we started getting more consistent about lifting weights. We watch a Youtuber, Christian Guzman, who does a segment called summer shredding. Last year, we entered into the summer shredding contest. I lost 17lbs! After loosing 17lbs, I was back down to my wedding weight of 140lbs. In fact, I even felt confidant enough to wear a bikini! I haven’t felt that confidant since the summer after graduating high school.

After the competition was over, we stopped dieting, but continued working out. Essentially the idea was to gain muscle. Well last week I hit a personal best of bench pressing 95lbs 3 times. My husband, and spotter, said it was all me. I am ecstatic! No I am not trying to get “beefy,” but I do enjoy being stronger. Since the last contest I have gained a lot of the weight back that I lost, but I still feel pretty good, and I attribute that to having gained at least a little bit of muscle this winter.

Now the competition is starting again, and I am so excited to take part! In order to compete, I will have to upload a before and after video – which I will also upload here on the blog. I want to share my transformation!

It is possible to workout with Pulmonary Hypertension. In fact, the more I work out, and do cardio the better I feel in daily life. Quality of life is the most important thing, and PHitness has helped to increase my quality of life. I learn most of what I know through my husband, who does A LOT of research on the subject. I am going to make an effort to post regularly and show what we are doing to reach our fitness goals, and the progress we are making. If you have any questions always feel free to leave a comment and I will do my best to answer promptly!

My husband works for a great company who goes out of their way to make sure that we are provided with the best options for health care coverage. This year we were told that the company was changing Insurance Plan Providers. This is a Spoonie Nightmare! Well I survived it before, and I know that I can do it again!

I called my Specialty Pharmacy Accredo and informed them of the change as soon as I received the new Insurance Card. The representative told me they would be giving me a call soon to inform me what the new Copay would be. After not hearing back I called to order one of my mediciations Adcirca, and inquire about the new copay. As it turns out, Accredo is not able to send me Adcirca with the new Insurance. They gave me the number for CVS.

On black Friday I called CVS and told them that I needed to enroll with their Specialty Pharmacy. The woman I talked to was wonderful, she informed me that she was going to put a rush order on both of the specialty medications I take. I thought to myself, “wow this is so much more simple than last time.” Unfortunately, that has not been the case. In fact, I never heard back from CVS at all. When I called to place an order, they informed me that Accredo told them that Accredo would still be servicing me. This started a series of me calling back and forth between Accredo and CVS, talking with representatives and being on hold for over five hours. Still no one has filled my prescription.

The only person who has actually tired to help me was Yolanda with CVS. Yolanda sat on the phone with me calling numerous different people with Accredo and CVS trying to get the medication filled. She was on the phone with me for over an hour and a half. We finally reached Benjamin at Accredo who promised to do some research and get to the bottom of the problem, he promised that no matter what he would call me back in 15-20 minutes. Benjamin said it wasn’t right that I had to sit on hold from pharmacy to pharmacy the whole time. So on his word Yolanda let me go, and surprise surprise Benjamin was not good to his word. In fact two hours later, I was calling Accredo again. The lady that I was connected with after Benjamin stood me up was able to tell me that Accredo had faxed my prescription again to CVS and that they would have it, so I waited for them to get my information into the system.

Once again I received no call from either Pharmacy. Yesterday I called CVS and they informed me that I was supposed to go through Atena Specialty Pharmacy. My main question is that if that was the case, why didn’t they call me and inform me that I needed to go through a different Pharmacy last week? Why wasn’t my information given to Atena Specialty Pharmacy, and why haven’t they contacted me? Everyone that I have talked to insists that a transition should work that smoothly.

After speaking with CVS I called the Pharmacy number on the back of my insurance card. ATENA. The woman on the phone tells me that I need to call Accredo and have them send my information over to Atena Specificity Pharmacy. So I call Accredo and ask to have my Prescription sent over to Atena. After putting me on hold, and calling the insurance people and the pharmacist the representative tells me that I actually need to go through CVS, and that there must have been a miscommunication between the insurance and CVS. The rep informs me that the Pharmacist has sent the prescription to CVS and that I should call first thing in the morning.

Well this morning I called CVS and the representative I spoke to informed me that they were waiting on a prescription from my doctor. I told him “no, Accredo sent the prescription to your pharmacy yesterday, so you are going to get on the phone with the Pharmacist and get me my medication.” He said he was going to get to the bottom of it, and call me back, but I doubt that I will hear from him, just like I didn’t here from Benjamin.

These Pharmacies have a whole team of people whose job it is to use the phone. Why is it so difficult for them to call me and let me know that I have to go with a different Pharmacy? Why isn’t anyone but Yolanda at CVS doing their job? Why can’t I get a hold of the same person more than once? Why is it so damn hard to fill my damn prescription? It appeared in the beginning that it would be so much more simple this time around to switch companies, but as it turns out, no one wants to service me. Now I am down to two days worth of medication and I simply don’t understand how all these people can get paid, but yet aren’t doing their job.