Think about this for a second. What REALLY drives you to get up & get moving? What REALLY pushes you to lace up those shoes & press play on that iPod that you know will immediately throw you into the zone? Aside from the obvious health benefits that exercise delivers, what REALLY motivates you to push through on those days when you don't think you have anything to give which, in turn, ends up being one of your BEST routines?
In partnership with Governor Dannel P. Malloy, I’ve declared war on childhood obesity and each day an army of kids, parents, educators, elected officials and Fortune 500 companies are joining me to help battle this disease. How bad is this disease? In Connecticut alone, childhood obesity impacts more than 12 percent of our children.
Making the matter even more urgent is the fact that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity in children jumped 17 percent compared to a generation ago. And, a multitude of studies have also shown that the childhood obesity epidemic is a real problem. The New England Journal of Medicine recently published a study that found kids who were obese or overweight by 5 years of age, would most likely keep that weight on through adulthood.
During the first week of the challenge, things have been going along nicely. My weight is the same, which is what I want, but my body fat percentage is going down! I'm almost in the teens when the trainer used the calipers on my body fat! So I'm slowly getting it down but it's a long process.
I also was able to finally check on my activity during the past week. The FitKik Pebble we use keeps track of all activity, but you can't really monitor the activity live. Once last week's info was uploaded at the YMCA kiosk, I saw that I met my personal goals… I still get 10,000 steps a day! This tells me that I'm more than active enough. I hope my other team mates did well too!
When I think back to when I was in my worst shape and at highest weight I was constantly eating unhealthy food. After some self examination I was able to realize that I wasn't eating to fuel my body, rather I was eating to fill an an emotional pain/need that had not been met. So I was eating unhealthy foods (and lots of it!) as an unconscious way to cope with my feelings. Around this time I came across a great book by Cal Banyan called The Secret Language of Feelings. From the great foundation of that book I found great personal success by tweaking his method and forming a protocol that better suited me and I would like to share that with you.
I call this the NCIS Transformational Self-Help Protocol. NCIS is a protocol to transform your feelings from “bad” to satisfaction and fulfillment.
My suspicions were confirmed. My jumpstart weight-loss had stalled. Why? Stupidity on my part. As much as I thought I was following my program I inadvertently introduced elements that were different and it has put a bump in the road.
I am following a low carb food strategy and I started using Truvia sweetener. Truvia carries 3g of carbs per packet. Shame on me for assuming it was carb free as other sweeteners I had used in times past. Truvia IS the healthy way to go... but for now I will hold off on using it until the maintenance phase of the diet. Since I drink Green tea like a fiend, I was consuming about 35-45 grams of carbs per day alone with Truvia. That is what I believe is causing the the jumpstart weight-loss to stall. For the jumpstart program to work, I need to consume next to 55-75 grams of carbs per day for 8 days... (And yes it is not that fun... remember, jumpstarts for any type of diet plan, are to be tolerated... anyone selling "fun" is trying to sell you product, I'd say to save your money.) The rest of the intake is an overload of protein, minimal fats, appropriate amount of salt and a whole lot of water.