This is going to be a crazy experiment, but only crazy if you actually know me, so let me explain. I work well with a map and a plan. I need goals, deadlines, and projections. I just can’t get fired up with ambiguity in the air. I need to know what to do, when to do it, and will optimize my plan for maximum success with minimal effort. I get my rocks off on efficiency. This is serious business for me.
I have been told I have a good intuition. However, the fact that I didn’t really know if I did or not before that probably says something about how often I use it, though. I form an opinion, I check my data, and generally, yeah, I’m right, but I fear moving forward until I am sure. I make sure my footing is stable before I leap. I am totally not this guy, though I share a lot of his ideals. I just like my spontaneity a little more – planned, I guess?
Why am I driving this point home over and over? Well, I’m doing something very out of character for me this month – intuitive eating and exercising. Whereas pretty much everyone in the world besides us calorie counting diet-y freaks live this way, not writing down what I eat scares the crap outta me. Not knowing exactly what I am going to do at the gym tomorrow is terrifying. But, someday I am going to have to learn how because I don’t want to track every little thing I eat and do for the rest of my life, and I’m really curious to see what I pick to do if I let myself do whatever workouts I want.
Specifically? The general plan is to:
- Foodwise – not track my calories for the entire 4 weeks. Keep the same goal as always, to eat 6 servings of fruits and veggies per day, up the protien and lower the fat a bit, and put the least amount possible of anything chocolate, fried, or generally high in calories in my cakehole. Just without putting it into the tracker.
- Exercisewise – the general plan is 2 days of DDR + yoga, 2 days of intervals + weights, and 1 long run. But I have full permission to deviate and do whatever I want (as long as it’s a decent calorie burn).
- Mentalwise – to nurture my body and mind through what’s already shaping up to be a helluva month. Give myself permission to maintain at the weight I’m at now if that’s what it needs to do, but also to shed unwanted weight if it’s ready to do so.
- Measurewise – I plan to get a tape measure and do a before pic this week and after pic on December 1st. I want to see if I am making any progress beyond the scale.
Wish me luck on my new approach! I fully expect to be running and crying back to my tracking and structured workouts come December, but it will be an interesting experiement.
I'm a video game producer and a lover of anything game related by trade. I'm a triathlete by hobby. I live for being on or in the water as much as I can - scuba diving, snorkeling, paddleboarding, water slides... you name it. The dichotomy between my outdoor and indoor realities are interesting, but they're all mine! Longer version
Liz
Sounds like a very worthy challenge. I’m just getting into the whole weight-loss thing again, but I hope that at some point down the road my food journal will reach obsolescence once I have a good grasp of what works for me. Good luck with this month’s experiment!
Divinari
I know part of this is because your upcoming vacation (well, okay, it’s a guess).
What about easing into it by kind of pictorial food blogging. Take pictures of most of what you eat and write about it. Not how many calories, how many grams of fat, or how much fiber, but how it tastes, what you liked about it, what you didn’t like about it, what Zliten (or whatever you call him here… can’t quite remember) thought about it. It’ll give you a bit of a way to keep track, in case you either do very well or really not so good, and it’ll assuage your OCD nature so you don’t freak out about it. 🙂
Inspiring though, you talking about the having-to-write-every-thing-down-and-plan-the-hell-out-of-it thing. I think that may be a very good idea for me. Maybe. 😉
Divinari
Random – is there a way to get a wordpress account, but not worry about the bloggy part of it? I wanna have a user icon here, too. ;D
charlotte
Good luck with your experiment!! I’ve tried Intuitive Eating several times and haven’t had great success with it but I did manage to kick my food journal to the curb and I can’t even tell you how much happier I am without it! I don’t think I’m ready for Intuitive Exercising yet but I’m very excited to read how it goes for you! Two cheers for less crazy all around!! 😉
Quix
Thanks for the well wishes, it’s going well so far, I think. I haven’t really missed doing the food tracking, I just have doubts that I will actually have any success without it. Will see. It was a fantastic way to open my eyes to how crappy I ate, but I definitely don’t want to do it for the rest of my life. I had resigned myself to doing it until I was done losing weight, but now that I’m rethinking the timeline on that…
As for wordpress stuff, gah, I’m still figuring it out. Like I have to sign out of my blogging login to make a comment here. You can always sign up for a blog and just not blog, I guess? If I figure it out I’ll let you know.