Emotion is a force that drives harder than a stampede of buffalo and is as secure as a tall glass of water sitting on the edge of a table…

I have wanted to do this series since the beginning of last year and have danced around the topic in a few posts since then but have never really “gone there” because this is so close to me.  Whenever I’m this close to a topic, it never really comes out the way I want because I struggle with getting the point out and making sense at the same time.  It’s like I have a conversation in my head and you’re supposed hop in at any time and figure that out. Ha!  Good luck with that.  With this series, though, I know what the hard part is going to be so why not tell you what that is beforehand so you may be prepared in case I begin to become confusing or go over your head in some way?  If you are going to successfully navigate through this series, there are 3 things you will need to recognize as you follow along all week:

There is an internal GPS device that drives us goal oriented folk, whether we acknowledge it or not.  Some of us are super aware of it and it almost seems obvious and silly to mention, sort of like, “Duh. I’m goal oriented.”  However, some of us never realize how much it is driving us until it suddenly stops working one day and then we’re left thinking, “What the heck was that?”  Everything about us operates around that GPS device.  How we treat others, how we treat ourselves, how we handle our jobs/career and even how we handle our relationships is all preprogrammed into that device that is hidden away in us somewhere way out of our view.

To be fair, the less psycho, goal oriented folk have it, too.  It’s not like they are doomed to a life of aimlessness because they are not taskmasters like us.  It’s more like they have compasses, though, or paper charts and trip-tiks than they have GPS devices.  Ours seem to be much more precise, much more focused which cause us to move with a force and speed in life that is undeniable.  This doesn’t mean that we are super successful or anything because that is not a prerequisite.  It means that if we’re hanging laundry somewhere, we’re hanging laundry somewhere.  It will be done efficiently, with fervor, purpose and zeal.  We may measure out the space or research the best place to hang our laundry.  We may hang more laundry at one time than the average woman would ever hang.  Or we work on several techniques to hang the laundry, visiting other laundromats to make sure we were doing a good job.    Then we move on to hanging laundry while folding at the same time, too.  Then we master folding.  Then we master hanging and folding in several different formats making sure that we stay current in both the hanging world and the folding world.  THEN we want people to know that we are the masters of the hanging world, the folding world *and* the hanging and folding world together.   Most importantly, we want to be recognized for it.  Make no mistake about that.  It’s not enough to do this or learn about it; someone somewhere needs to recognize it.

I use laundry as an example on purpose because the mode in which you burned yourself out has nothing to do with the fact that you burned yourself out.  You may be tempted to blow off this whole series as not pertaining to you if I used an athlete as an example and you don’t feel athletic at all.  Or if I used dieting as an example, you may think that that wasn’t what kept you from running that race so this is about someone other than you because you are the athlete.  I want to make sure I emphasize that it doesn’t matter what you were driven about or whether or not you accomplished your goal, what matters is that your drive is gone.  The GPS signal went dead and now you have no idea where you are going because you have no compass of your own, no paper map to fall back on and no drive to make it happen.

Recognition #1: It’s not about {XYZ}, it’s about my GPS device.  And the question is, “Why did it burn out?”

Once we have lost our way, the chaos and mayhem that follows can be overwhelming:  up and down eating, in and out of the gym, no type of normalcy in our eating or exercising, endless guilt, confusion, questioning our worth, countless attempts to get going again only to have them end in failure.  Each time we try to go back to where we left off but fail to make it happen, we sink deeper into a pit that may show up as anger, depression, resentment or passivity.  It’s either we’re mad at the world, beaten down by the world, sticking our middle finger up at the world or we walk away from the world.  No matter what, we cannot get back who we once were no matter how hard we try.

Recognition #2: No matter what I do, the woman who once was, is now gone and I have to own that.  However, that’s not a bad thing.

It is at this point that all of our stories begin to go in different directions.  Whether we choose to be introspective or stay more on the surface and become more task driven, the journey we take is ours and ours alone.  For me, I went so deep inside that I almost got stuck in my colon for a minute there and wasn’t sure I could get out again.  It has been awesome and hard all at the same time and I want the same thing for you.  But there is work to be done and it is more than just picking another event.  There is a bit of soul searching to do and some realizations that need to be made about ourselves if we are ever to get that drive back again to the degree that was there before AND in a healthier way.  Not everything I say is going to ring true for you, but some aspect of it will.  Take what is yours, leave all else on the screen.

Recognition #3: Ok, I get it.  This series is not “my answer” but the beginning to “my process”.  Getting my drive back is directly related to the amount of digging I am willing to do.

As always, ladies, I cannot wait to hear from you.  Email me, comment below or send a carrier pigeon to my house.  Who cares.  But let me know what you’re thinking…  Cool?  Woop woop!

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I have seen my share of heart wrenching train wrecks in my time:

• The girl who thinks she’s going to lose 30 pounds and look like Heidi Klum when she’s done, only to lose 35 pounds and realize she still looks like herself but smaller.
• The girl who trains really hard for 4 months for a marathon, only to break her foot one week out from the race.
• Tons of girls who sign up to compete because they think they are “going to the next level” only to crash and burn after their first show and walk away from diet and exercise for good.  Not a little while.  For good.

When I watch these things my heart aches.  First, I see it happening in slow motion.  No matter how much I want to spare her the hurt, I can’t.  I am powerless to her emotions and her preconceptions of how this is all going to go down so I am left to take a seat on the sidelines while she barrels head first into mayhem and chaos.  Secondly, there’s usually very little that I can do to get her motivated to do something that intensive again.  Normally, that’s not a problem but since we’re type A’ers, anything less than “all out” is not very satisfying.  So if you were training for a marathon and lost your mojo in the middle of it, me talking you into a 10k isn’t going to do much for you.  You’re over it by this time.  And lastly, the girl inevitably feels like it was something that she did wrong to cause this calamity.  That somehow she failed the ‘sisterhood of iron will’ or didn’t make it through initiation like all the rest of us did.  To be on the front lines of the death of a goal is tough and I have been doing it for years now.  Enough is enough.

I am wondering if we can have an honest talk about goals next week.  Is that possible?  We’ve talked about setting realistic ones before, how about we talk about what it takes to set them—again.  What happens when that goal dies?  How do we get back on track?  How do we pick another sport or do we pick another sport?  How do we do {fill in any daily activity} because for at least 6 months to a year we are useless to ourselves.   It may or may not be specifically about goals, I won’t know til I “go there”, but just know that we’re getting messy next week.  It’s time…

This is a big deal, ladies, and it means we have to go below the water line to figure it out.  I can’t wait; I hope you feel the same.  If there is anything in particular that you want me to cover, let me know below.   We’re diving in on Monday.  Tomorrow I explain Monday’s post on my weekly audio post.  See you then.  Woop woop!!:o)

Did you ever have a girlfriend who stuck up for you all the time when you were younger?  She would gladly talk for you whether you asked her to or not:  Someone talk trash?  She was on them.  Someone lie on you?  She’d shut ‘em down.   Someone get in your face?  She’d come between you and them, be all over them and then shut ‘em down.  She was awesome—at first.   And then, as you got older, you found she was buttin’ in even when it wasn’t necessary.  Some of the things she would say would not always be right or even nice.  You started to feel like it was more of a hindrance than a help and at times, she was bordering on being offensive.

But now, you have a dilemma.  This is your bestie.  Your other half who you have been super tight with since Kindergarten.  You share everything.  Telling her that you want your independence is not only going to hurt her feelings, it may even turn her against you.  The girl who spent half of her own childhood defending you could now become your worst enemy if not handled well.  You need an exit plan and it better be well thought out.

And so it is with The Pill…

Nowadays, more thought is put into the foundation we choose to put on our face than the choice of whether to go on the pill or not.  Medicine has done an excellent job of making the decision seem as basic as ‘paper or plastic’ and that we should not be concerned about any health risks or side effects because they’ve been around for years.  When you go into their office for a consult or annual appointment and try to discuss it with them, they give you a list of options like you were picking out a different flavor of ice cream for the first time.  They barely go over the options, they smooth over all the side effects and they never tell you what can happen if you choose to stop one kind and head over to another.  Essentially, you are at the mercy of their bedside manner which is not always great for doctors.

If you understand the pill’s role in your body, you understand why it is so important for you to be on top of the choice you make.  The above story is a good representation what the pill does in your system.  It’s your advocate.  It snuffs out all the other “voices” (hormones) that your body has such as estrogen and progesterone and does not allow them a chance to speak.  The problem is, just like in the story, that’s not your voice.  So it doesn’t get it exactly right.  There are some things misinterpreted and as time goes on, less and less of what it “says” corresponds to what you need or want.  After a while, it’s doing its own thing and you’re just a bystander in your own story.

Once you know this, think about who you are and how your system is different from every other dieter on the planet.  You have chosen to be on the leaner side.  This means that the balance in your hormones is in a much more delicate state than someone who is of average body fat.  You walk the thin line between respecting your body and thumbing your nose at your body.  Depending on where you are in the diet, you could be doing either one.  Therefore, you cannot afford to have an advocate who is shouting the wrong message at the wrong time.  This is the difference between gaining a pound or two when your cycle comes around and ballooning up like a floatation device every time you think of eating a starch.  I don’t know about you, but I prefer the former for sure.

If you are using the pill as contraception, knock yourself out—that’s out, not up.  Just sayin.   I am not here to poo poo the pill entirely and I want to make sure I say this so no one misinterprets this post.  As contraception, that’s your personal preference.  But as a fix for your hormonal nightmare going on, it’s not a very wise choice.  It does not “fix” your hormones, it masks them.  It will not “regulate” you like they say it will, it just causes other issues to crop up while you search aimlessly for the formulation that won’t break you out, make you fat or give you migraines.  And any change in your pill formulation will halt your dieting for at least 3 months while you wait for your body to stabilize.

I know firsthand this lifestyle can be challenging.  It’s a lot of work to pack meals, plan your workouts around an already packed week and still live life so having another thing to keep track of is annoying.  But of all the things that can truly affect the beautiful vessel you are living in, it’s this.  Pay attention to your hormones, particularly your cycle.  They are the Town Criers that you need in your life to keep you on track and to keep you healthy for real.  Listen to them.  As always, let me know what you’re thinking below.  I truly love to hear.  Woop woop!:o)

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I need to interrupt the current series on The Pill.  Normally, when I get on a topic I am like a dog with a bone and I want to finish it but this has cropped up so much in the last week, it is worthy of a post.

We need to chat about…food.  Not just the edibleness of food, but what food represents and how personal it is in our lives.  If you really want to know the power of food, take a mixed crowd of women of all ages and bring out two trays.  On one tray is a healthy appetizer that is very good for you but maybe a 7 on the scale of 1 to 10 in flavor.  On the other tray is a not-so-good-for-you appetizer but is an 11 on the scale of 1 to 10 in flavor.  The event is a high visibility event, there are at least 50 women in the room and everybody there knows at least 2 people.

Some background for you:

The room is full of different sizes of women but not inclusive of all sizes.

Also, all types of women (athletic, moms, single, married, childless—you name it) are represented.

There is no music or anything that serves as a distraction.

The average age in the room is 36 with the age span going from 28 to 46.

There’s at least a few races represented in the room.

It’s an event for an organization-type-thing which means that there’s politics and there’s a pecking order.

The appetizers are the only food served at this event.

The trays were being brought around but everyone knew what the choices were without having to see the trays.

This is fully fictitious but I want to make it as real to you as possible.

Here are some observations for you:

• There was a ton of chatter in the room before the trays came out.
• About 30% of the women were not talking with anyone, though.
• There was noticeably less chatter in the room once the trays came out.  It wasn’t silence, but it was a loud hush.
• Three women hopped on the yummy appetizer right away and were very loud and funny about it.  Jokes were flying as they were eating.  They made at least 2 self conscious remarks but kept on eating.  They looked around the whole time without looking like they were looking around and 1 of them went back for a second one.
• An even bigger group of women, say about 8 or so, attacked the healthy appetizer.  They said nothing about it. They kept talking about whatever had their attention in the first place but never mentioned the food once.
• The majority of the women abstained from either choice…until…the “captivating women” chose what they wanted.  Then the other women in the room slowly made choices to eat.
• As soon as the trays came out, at least 70% of the room began to fidget with their clothing.  Pulling down skirts, flattening out their shirts on the bellies, buttoning jackets—if you could adjust it, then it was adjusted.
• At least half of the room suddenly learned how to scope a whole room out without moving their heads.  Their eyes developed some kind of Xray/360 degree vision where they could see through the back of their head to see who was eating what and how much.  It was eerie.  Felt like a bad M. Night Shyamalan movie.
• Those that ate more than one appetizer all had a remark.  Either about what they were wearing, how they were on a diet, how they hadn’t eaten all day.  Basically, qualifiers.
• Some stared at some women in pure, noticeable disdain for either their choice of appetizer or for the quantity they ate.
• A few women went around offering their friends an appetizer—the yummy one—while they themselves chose the healthy one afterwards.
• Those that were alone chose the yummy appetizer 2 to 1 to those who were engaged in conversation.
• By the end of the serving of the food, 80% of the room had one of each appetizer although it was varied as to who had which one first.  Thirteen percent had only the healthy appetizer with the other 7% having just the yummy appetizer.  No one could abstain from eating all night long.
• Over the course of the evening, at least 2 separate groups broke off and headed to the bathroom to talk about who chose what and why!!

On Friday I will finish this in my audio post.  I will tell you where I am going with this and why.  But just know:  food IS…  Do you recognize yourself in there anywhere or someone close to you?  I’d love to know below.  Back to the series tomorrow.  Woop woop!

Every Friday I will be posting an audio message for your enjoyment. I am working on getting video going, too, so look forward to that coming soon.

Feel free to comment below and let me know if you have experienced anything close to what I am talking about in this week’s post.  There may be 2 more posts in this series so hang tight while we get to The Silencer…the Pill.  Cool?  Woop woop!

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 Why Our Cycles Are Important [8:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Remember in the last post that I said there is a lot of info out there–some good, some bad?  We need to put this whole issue into perspective by at least reviewing the information that is out there and then discuss how it does or does not apply to us:

Your cycle is a barometer by telling you:

Whether your hormones are balanced or not.

Find yourself crying because they made your coffee wrong that morning?  You may be a bit unbalanced.  Also, ladies, if you find yourself with a 5 o’clock shadow and it’s only noon time, you may have a problem there.  Shaving your beard on the way to work in the car is not cute, no matter how discreet you are.  If your chest hurts for weeks at a time (and you are not menopausal), you have extreme exhaustion from 2 to 5 pm, up all night long staring at the ceiling, some days you are Hercules—other days you are Pee Wee Herman or lastly, you have night sweats.   Any of these scream hormonal imbalance.

Whether your metabolism is fully functioning.

Gaining weight just watching fast food commercials?  Time to see if the thyroid is up to snuff.  Ate a piece of bread and it was as if someone opened an umbrella in your tummy five minutes later?  Could be issues with your gut which in turn mess with your metabolism.  Have a gall bladder issue and you aren’t your typical candidate for it?  Sounds like a possible thyroid problem there.  All of these things say, off kilter.

Whether your moods are in alignment.

Punched your husband in the face because he ate the last of something and then said, “so what?” about it?  Your free testosterone might be a bit too free, eh?  Feel like you need to have a baby yesterday and you are happily single and under 35 years old?  Get a hold of yourself, girl!  What’s wrong with you?  Sorry…that was my own personal interjection.  What I meant to say was, “You may be a bit estrogen heavy there.”  Gave somebody the finger in traffic and then realized it was your boss?  That progesterone may be getting the best of you.

If your cycle was off before you began clean eating it may be because of:

• Menopause/perimenopause
• Stress/Exercise
• Significant change in weight—up or down
• Medications
• PCOS/estrogen dominance/hormonal imbalance
• Nutrition
• And at least 5 other things that aren’t worth mentioning in this post

Most doctors help their patients manage these issues by:

• Focus on nutrition
• Limit stress
• Vitamin supplementation
• Prescribe the pill

This gives you an idea of what every woman faces whether they have chosen to lean out or not.  All of these are real issues and well documented in the medical community.  The question then becomes, “How is this different for you?”

Hormonal Imbalance

This is a given for us the first time we diet down to anything.  It doesn’t matter if we went from 200 pounds down to 180 pounds; dieting throws your body into a tail spin.  Some of us make it through unscathed, the rest of us are still picking up the pieces years later.  It’s different for everyone.  How it shows up, though, after dieting is anxiety, bingeing, mood swings (very high highs or very low lows), metabolic disturbances and our cycles.

If your cycle was off after you began clean eating it may be because of:

• Too little fat in your diet
• Too much exercise for way too long
• Too low of cals for way too long
• Too much exercise with too few cals for way too long
• Anxiety/depression medication
• Adrenal fatigue
• Insulin resistance
• Metabolic syndrome

What your doctor will suggest you do to help:

Eat right and exercise.

I know.  Don’t hit them.  Seriously.  But they will tell you that you need to eat healthy foods and make sure you do some cardio.  This is after you bring them 6 months worth of food journals and a plate loaded iso-lateral chest press machine for their waiting room.  You’ll be amazed at how many of them think that you are not doing enough even though you did the whole appointment with them on your own personal treadmill that you carried into the office all by yourself. Crazy.

Limit the stress.

This is about as effective as using chapstick as a gluestick.  Do they know who you are?  You’re Mrs. Type A.  You’ve already worked out, did 8 hours worth of work and made all your meals for the week and it’s only 9 am.  Getting you to relax is as laborious as 10^th grade summer reading list.  Totally no fun and getting it done takes forever!

Supplementation.

Not a bad thing to add in here but most likely, you’re already taking what they will suggest.  But it’s a good start.

Take the Pill.

WHOA NELLY!  This is the next post!  Sit tight!

There’s more to come and on Friday, I will have an audio post for you to listen to.  If you have never heard my voice or my crazy antics, now you will have your chance.  Can’t wait!  Woop woop!

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I have truly mellowed out in my old age.  Back in the day, I assure you, I was a much feistier gal.  I would like to say that that was a good thing, but alas…it wasn’t.  I have many a dead body behind me of those who entered into an argument with me and I wouldn’t say they “lost” but they lost something (i.e. limb, voice, money, life—who knows.  It wasn’t pretty.).  And those losses didn’t come because I knew something and was smarter than them—because that’s definitely not the case.  They came because I was ferocious at defending my end of the argument at all cost.  Whatever I knew to be true was true as far as I was concerned…and then I got older.

Getting older meant that I had to concede that I may know the truth or I may be “right”, but there could be a whole segment of information that I have never been exposed to that could stomp on whatever I am presenting as fact at that moment.  This doesn’t mean that I didn’t know what I was talking about; it means that I had limited knowledge in the topic being discussed.  This happens to all of us in some way, shape or form.  Think about how dumb we used to think our parents were when really, we were the dummies.  Or, say you are a trainer and a client tells you something that sounds odd to you and in your mind you call “bullcrap” because you think she just doesn’t want to diet or workout hard.  Then like a year later you find out that not only was she telling the truth, but now you have what she was talking about and you’re upset because now no one believes you.  Things like this happen all the time and I expect some of this to crop up during this series.  I need to debunk a lot of junk (wow, can I use that somewhere else?) that is floating around out there in the land of Greek Mythology, aka girl talk, surrounding our cycles and I expect some raised eyebrows.  There’s a ton of misinformation and we need to slog through the details to get to the truth.  Here are a few to start with:

1. Getting to the truth.

There’s no such thing.  There isn’t a central location of hormonal information that you will find that all of the medical community is going to agree upon.  There are two types of medicine that I am familiar with and I refer to them all the time:  Western medicine and naturopaths.  Western medicine is your traditional doctor who tells you what the insurance companies let them tell you.  They are not bad people, just limited by the system.   I will qualify this later so don’t get your underwear in knots if you don’t agree.  Hang tight.  Naturopaths are not exactly MD’s but they have a much more open view of tackling medical issues which is what you need when it comes to hormones.  The problem is, when you need a drug—you ain’t getting’ one there.

These two professions tend to be at odds with each other.  This is tough on us, the little guy, because we look to them for the answers and then find ourselves having to make a choice between the two without any real information to back up our decisions.  YUCK.

2. My cycle has always been messed up.  It’s just the way it is.

Umm…no it’s not.  And don’t accept that either.  Here is where I qualify my above statement.  Unfortunately for doctors, they do not have the resources to make you well.   They only have the capability to make you better.  That is not the same as being well.  Doctors look at the symptoms you present and make them go away.  They do not necessarily cure you.  And when it comes to a syndrome or chronic condition, they can only ask for so many things to be done that insurance will cover because after a while, they start getting vetoed.  Again, not their fault—it’s the system’s.  Hormonal issues require patience, lots of lab work and a good eye for detail.

3. My doctor diagnosed me with “fill in the blank” so that’s what I have.

Maybe so.  I have no right to argue that in any way.  I am not a doctor and do not profess to be.  But I am an advocate and I challenge you to get a second opinion.  Especially if what they told you that you had was a syndrome.  Things like PCOS, fibromyalgia and so on that do not have definitive tests (although PCOS does but few get the ultrasound done) but more like a list of things that you seem to have in common with them.  Syndromes are a great way to say, “I-have-no-idea-what’s-wrong-with-you-but-I-know-you-need-a-diagnosis-or-you-won’t-be-happy-so-I’m-going-to-tell-you-this-so-you’ll-leave-my-office.”  They have no true way to “fix” them but they give you something tangible to hang on to because it makes you feel better.  Not become well.  Just feel better.  And even then, you may not feel better, you may just be symptom free.

Why do I bring this entire subject up?  Why do I care so much?  I know some of you are thinking, “I was just fine before you started kicking up all this dirt.  Now you have my head spinning.”  (Or maybe that’s just Kas thinking that  I bring it up because if you are not optimal at normal body fat levels, you are REALLY not optimal when you get lean.  And for some of you, it’s what’s keeping you from getting the body that you desire.  Your cycle screams “I am not well” and to lose weight, change body composition or be the best you can be:  you need to be well.

Much more to come.  This is a big topic when it comes to changing your body for the better.  If you have any horror stories, you know I love them.  Hit me up below.  Woop woop!

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Is it me or does my littlest one look like he just saw something gross right before the shot was snapped?  These CIA agents have zero loyalty to their mother.

My kids are awesome.  Yes, I am biased in saying that, but truly, they really are awesome kids.  However, they tend to throw their mother under the bus on more than one occasion.  They say they don’t mean to, but the two older ones are worse than the town crier.  The main thing they tattle on me to their father about is the high flying antics stuff that happens when I drive them to school.  Now I am one of the most aggressive and psychotic cautious drivers there are out there so I’m not sure why they find it necessary to tell their dad that we were driving on two wheels to school but they do at times and it is very inconvenient.  Clearly they got to school by the hair of their chinny chin chins because they weren’t in my car when I got back home nor under the tires and the school didn’t call to say they were psychologically damaged absent so obviously they were fine.  So there are days I just want to hush the two town criers in my back seat by forcing them to listen to their father go on and on about it bopping them upside their heads—but I can’t.  But there is a town crier that we are silencing that we should not be and it is usually warning us of impending peril.  This would be our cycle.

Cycles are very funny because we loathe having them but we hate missing one even more.  They possess an uncanny ability to show up the week you go on vacation no matter when you book it and they make every day activities uncomfortable and cumbersome.  They’re about as welcome as a tummy virus is after a Sunday dinner with the family.   But missing one, for some of us, is more traumatic than being robbed at gun point so let’s just be honest that it’s not like we’re rejoicing because we skipped a month.  And even if missing one doesn’t send you into cardiac arrest, it still makes you think in the back of your head, “What’s wrong here?”

If you hop on the web and start googling, you will find a ton of information regarding missed periods, or as the medical community refers to them:  irregular periods.  Some of it is inaccurate, not all because there is some good info out there on the more prominent websites, but almost all of it is inapplicable to the lean community.  We are a special breed that is incredibly underrepresented in medical studies and on the medical websites.  We are lumped in with the general public and when it comes to issues regarding our hormones or how our bodies react to dieting, we aren’t even close.  But contrary to popular belief of us clean eaters, we do not lose our periods because we are low body fat.  Very few of us ever get that low of body fat to say we lost our cycle for that reason.  I know I have mentioned this before, but we have a warped sense of what our true body fat is.  I have heard girls say they are 8/9% body fat at their leanest and that is a far from the truth.  They are most likely 11/12ish but highly unlikely they as low as 8 or 9%.  The thing that most of seem to miss is that the accuracy of the measurement tends to decrease as you move out to either extreme.  Super lean BF levels and super high BF levels are normally not accurate because they are out of the range of accuracy for that measuring tool.  This is another post for another time but just know that unless you have some ribs showing and your femur perfectly outlined, you are not 8% BF.

We lose our periods due to high levels of the stress hormone cortisol.  It is the grand interrupter.  Cutting your cals and beating your body into submission is a great way to raise your cortisol levels which in turn messes with your sex hormones.  (Of course, this beats the old fashioned way of fight or flight which just shows that we have become bored with more traditional ways of jacking ourselves up and moved on to more sophisticated methods.)  Once that balance is off kilter, so is your period and it can take an act of Nature to get it regular again.  But why the fuss and who really cares?  If I’m missing my period, why don’t I just take the pill and make it come back, right?  That’s up to you but your period is the best loud mouth you will ever have in your body.  It’s forever telling you how you are doing medically.  Silencing may not be the most prudent thing to do.

Hang on tight while we jump into what your period really tells you on a monthly basis and why the pill may not be the answer you expected it to be.  Can’t wait, ladies!  Woop woop!

We’re at that part of the diet where we begin to doubt.  We’re 8 weeks and counting and we’re not seeing enough of a change to feel comfortable about the goal we set out to achieve.  Hang in there because many times what you do to “speed things along” is actually going to mess you up more.

GUIDELINES FOR WEEKS 8 & 7

• Get rid of miscellaneous foods now.  Anything you may have been eating that does not have as much “cluck for its buck”:  low carb tortillas, beans, lentils, corn, peas, sugar snap peas…etc.
• Focus on STarches such as steel cut oats, shredded wheat, oat bran as well as the usuals like yams and brown rice.
• Eliminate any tropical or dried fruit and focus more on the heavy hitters that have high vitamin impact.
• Cheat meal stays the same for now.
• There MUST be a rhythm in your dieting by now.  You cannot still be “getting it together” at this point.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW AT THIS POINT

• You will change in the mirror long before you will on the scale.  You will see the changes, but your weight may not reflect it.  That’s ok.
• You will not have very defined arms and abs right now because you still have a good amount of non essential foods in your diet.  But they are necessary for sanity, so leave them alone.
• Doing extra cardio may help you short term regarding your goal but will kill you long term in terms of maintaining.  Don’t add anything in extra.

“Have no fear of perfection–you’ll never reach it.”  Salvador Dali

With all this adoration comes something new that you didn’t think you would ever have:  pressure.   Suddenly, people are watching you everywhere you go.  Whether you realize it or not, they started watching you the first day you showed up to work with Tupperware and smelly food.  That fact that you ate often, on a schedule and you regularly turned down sweets at the office screamed, “I am doing something different.  Yoohoo!  Look at me diet.  Wooooohooooo! Here I am making you feel bad about my choices.”

“Hawk eyes” begin to pop up here and there.  These are women whose x-ray vision is so keen for weight loss changes you would think they were part of some government agency specially trained for enemy warfare via the human body.  Their noses have been trained to pick up as little as a 2 pound weight loss and their eyeballs are calibrated in grams—not even pounds.  And they will make you feel like they are supporting you the whole way but you kinda feel like they are waiting for you to fail.  The sad thing is—some are.  But not all of them.  A few of them are encouraging family members and friends who want to support you on your new endeavor which makes you feel like you’re not just dieting for yourself but for them, as well.  Pressure.  It’s mounting.  You’re getting closer to the goal date and the expectations are growing.    You wonder…

Am I changing enough?

{Pinching something somewhere no one can see} What about this?  I need to lose “this”.

I am not changing fast enough.  I won’t make it.

There is a voice that pops up in your head about four to five weeks from whatever thing you are dieting for that starts to taunt you.  It says you can’t do this.  It says even if you do “do” this you still won’t look good.  It says that you won’t be able to maintain it so why bother.  It says that you have never done anything right, why will you now.  This voice is adept at getting to your core.  It knows your weak spots.  It’s going to bring up every bad memory that you can think of and when that doesn’t work, it starts threatening you with new ones.  Things that aren’t even related to dieting become the focus of your anxiety.  If you don’t make goal, you won’t get that promotion at the office.  Your husband will figure out you can’t achieve anything you set your mind to therefore he’s probably wondering how you really parent the kids.  The women at the park where you bring your kids won’t want to talk to you if you can’t make your goal.  They’ll laugh at you behind your back and not invite you to things.  Pressure.  Irrational pressure. All of it from you, almost none of it from outside forces.

Our pressure is different than that of other dieters.  We are not trying to attain a waif like body that is gaunt and thin and it is not weight loss “at all costs” either.  We treasure our muscles and love our shape—we just want that shape to be without the ripples and the dimples.   Therefore, when mainstream magazines and shows talk about diet pressure, we tune them out thinking that we don’t qualify.  And we don’t, or at least not with that type of pressure.  But we are type A folks; high achievers.  We get ‘er done and we do it efficiently.  We also want to be recognized for doing so.  Gradually, this goal represents a whole lot more than it did on the onset.  It becomes the litmus for whether we are getting married, graduating college, going to the moon and so on.   And then because of that, it becomes the goal that must happen because there is nothing else.  It’s ‘going down’ because there’s way too many people involved now and too many people know.  Pulling out now means failure everywhere.  Not making goal means failure everywhere.  The saddest thing about this is none of this really matters.  None of it.  The hawk eyes will always be just that—hawk eyes.  And if we weren’t doing this with dieting, we’d be doing this with something else so why can’t we just ease up?

Man, if we thought this was bad, wait til we add in competition from our family and friends.  Oh boy.  Let me know below what your experience has been like with not letting yourself off the hook.  I think we can all relate to this one.  See you tomorrow.  Woop woop!:o)

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Last week’s series was great because I had a ton of you asking me a ton of questions (which is always a good thing).  It’s good mainly because I love to answer questions…unless you’re one of my children…and I just got on the phone.  Let me focus.

The number one question asked was,  “Am I skinny fat?”  Or basically, what constitutes being skinny fat?  And the way it was asked was like I had some big book on the side of my desk about the size of an almanac that had all kinds of guidelines and questions in it like what’s in “other natural flavors” and “do bananas have seeds”.  It was quite interesting and quite telling.

First, you should know by now you can’t ask me a question like that because I’m just going to go into a ten minute over the top diatribe about fat levels and our perception of ourselves vs. gaining muscle and so on that in the end is tragic and hard to listen to.  I think in a polite way I am referring to myself as a blowhard.  Whatever.  If the shoe fits…

Second, what you’re really asking me is, “I know you can’t see me right now, cuz this is just through email an’all, but…is the small farm animal hanging off my backside…fat?  Or is it just displaced muscle?  Because I have been ignoring it for months and I was hoping you would alleviate my fears by telling me I’m ok.”  Honestly, you know I won’t get on board with any of that so stop asking me to call you fat.  Personally, I am not a fan of the term but seeing as ‘thin body wrapped in strategically placed insulation to keep the woman warm’ wasn’t a big hit, I’m going with skinny fat for now.

Third, it is just too hard to put into words what it is because as soon as you do that, the exception walks into the room.  (Who can guess how much I people watch and observe body types?)

Lastly, there is nothing wrong with you.  You are not “fat”, unattractive, useless and whatever other negative word you may want to put in there because you have extra body fat.  What you are, though, is unhealthy and that concerns me more.  Weight is an indicator that something is wrong in Dodge but when it is absent, what’s left is undetected illness.  Stay on top of your healthy habits.  Cool?

So I am not going to give you a hard and fast rule, but I will give you some ideas by telling you that skinny fat girls:

Put NASA on alert

One of the things about being SF (makes me feel better about the term) is that they are smooshy.  They look good in clothing but when they are not in clothing much more is revealed about their current eating habits.  In other words, if you can take a size 4 body and shove it into a size 2 pair of pants in such a way that when you take them off a sonic boom is released into the atmosphere from the expansion, you may be on your way to SF.  Now you would think that about *any* size girl, but not so!  With SF girls, they still *look* good in those size 2’s.

Are Off the Charts

Most of us have no idea what is an appropriate amount of body fat to have once we have entered into the clean eating zone.  We start out looking ok/good—basically, not bad per se—at about 22% body fat.  We fully invest ourselves into the eating and lifting regimen for a season or so and can get down to as low as 11-14% body fat.  We realize we need a break from killing ourselves and ease up to about 16 -17%, which is awesome but now we think we’re obese.  Really right now?!  So our idea of what’s an acceptable body fat level is not exactly what I would call a ‘good litmus’.  BUT, if you are a grown woman and fit into your doctor’s weight chart as an acceptable weight for your age (because let’s face it, those charts are biased toward prepubescent nymphs that live in a fairy land somewhere) and your body fat % is 24% or over, you may be skinny fat.  So if you’re 5’9”, weigh 125 pounds and are 25% body fat…you would be…really SF.

Are Like Cockroaches and Taxes

…they have just always “been”.  Almost all SF girls have been just that—SF—all their lives.  Yeah they may fluctuate a few pounds here and there (as much as 15 and then qualify for NASA) but for the most part, dey small gurls.  Small.  Real small.    And not much is changing that other than hardcore prayers from some haters and maybe a bad, bad, bad break up.  But other than that, that’s who they are.  So…if you dieted down to that small of size but also, that high of body fat level—that’s not SF.  That’s bad dieting.  You need to knock your coach upside his/her head and hope that your weight doesn’t bounce back up like a superball dropped from the roof of your house.

So there you have it.  If I met you and assessed you and you had any of these things, the only thing that I would think is:

• You need to clean up your diet.
• You need to lift heavy and smart.
• Cardio is not the answer.
• Watch out for alcohol, it’s not your friend.

That’s it.  Nothing more.  So no more asking me questions phrased in a way that I can hear the fear coming through the email.  You, like the rest of us, just have some bad habits that need attention but you are still worthy and gorgeous as far as we are concerned.  Cool?  Woop woop!!