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!

I don’t know about you (Actually that’s a lie, I do know about you but I’m going to act like I don’t know about you so you can stop feeling like I’m staring at you—and just you.:) but I notice that for most of us struggles with cheats, treats and chocolate (yes, it gets its own category) come in cycles.  We’re not always struggling and we’re not always winning.  We have moments or seasons, if you will, of chaos and mayhem that take us down more than normal and begin to chip away at our dieting confidence until we feel like we “suck”, “we’ll never get it done”, “why bother” and so on.  The best thing we could ever do at this time is go to maintenance eating but that’s actually the last thing we do and so begins the battle.

Heather the slave driver putting them through and endless up/down cycle of cardio.

How Does This Happen In The First Place?

Sadist Masochism.  No really, we love to torture ourselves.  I think some of us are so good at this that we have it down to such a degree that we can determine the level of torture we want to inflict on ourselves based on whatever drama is going on in our lives at the time.  Lots of drama means we drag out big whips and chains and cat-o-nine tails in the form of huge weight loss and per4mance goals and not so much drama means we want to just take off a few pounds here and there.  Ever done this?…

Aunt Betty Ann* has a big work project coming to completion at her workplace.  She’s been on the project for a while and it is finally coming to a close within the next 6 weeks or so. It’s a huge project and the tension at the job is thick. Three months from now is a big race that ABA wants to run in and she’s been waiting all year for it to come around.  Four months from now ABA’s sister is getting married and she’s going to be in the wedding.  Suddenly ABA feels like she needs to lose at least 10 pounds for the wedding.  She knows the race will help with a few extra pounds—she hopes—but the stress of all that’s going on begins to weigh on her.  So what does ABA do?  She starts a 16 week diet to get ready for her sister’s wedding (because that’s exactly what we would all do) but she can’t stick to it for the life of her.  She’s nibbling, dabbling and wavering more than she’s dieting and working out.  Of course she thinks it’s because the plan’s not strict enough and she has too much choice so she changes what she’s eating from chicken, broccoli and an occasional sweet potato to wallpaper paste, shoe leather and dust (you know those earlier choices were taking her down).  Now that her diet is more realistic, she should stick to it, right?  NOPE.  Now she thinks it’s her workout schedule and she’s not working hard enough to stay focused because she keeps finding herself eating a lit bit of this and a little bit of that.  Finally, ABA realizes that she’s not going to make goal so she scraps the diet and throws caution to the wind.  Does this sound familiar?

When I first started to come across this scenario years ago, I used to believe that it was the busy schedule that made ABA unsuccessful at staying on track.  I would tell her she was nuts for trying to diet during all of that commotion and to either wait until everything calmed down or zip some things out now.  But then I began to realize that she wasn’t interested in dieting when it all calmed down.  At that point, she was happy with herself (kind of) and was really in a maintenance way of thinking and what was really going on was her trying to manage her chaos through the scale.  This is really destructive in nature but is such a pattern with type A women that it needs a name.  I’m working on it.

What we do is find something we can mother all over while everything else in our lives is “going to he** in a hand basket” because as far as we’re concerned, our weight is controllable.  Now is it really?  NO.  But we think it is at the time and we’re going to whip it around like an amusement ride at the Brockton Fair.  I’m not going to build this now although I have a lot to say about this topic because it is SUPER relevant to us but it’s too big to tackle in this post.  But I am going to say that this is a function of emotion more than it is a physical issue that you can just control.  “Not eating the treat” is not going to work so knock it off and trying to tighten up the diet to make you stop is even more pointless.   Stop beating yourself up because you can’t stop eating the cookies on the counter and start inner dialoguing with yourself about how you can focus your attention elsewhere while you are dieting.

This is THE most common of the three scenarios presented and unlike the other two, there’s very little resistance here.  This is the one that can make you gain weight because you are not denying anything.  You are not focused–you are just wrecking shop.  Every day you “try” to get it done and every day you say you’ll do better tomorrow.  Twenty pounds later, you realize you’ve gone through 45 “tomorrows”.  There are other reasons for this, too, besides the one above:

• You denied yourself for so long (scenario #2) that you have begun to unravel and can no longer justify locking it down anymore.

• Your head has not caught up with your heart.  This happens when you keep shooting for a goal that you really do not want anymore but have not taken the time, yet, to reconcile that with your head so you keep gunning for it.

• You want something for all the wrong reasons and your heart is smarter than your brain.

• You’ve lost passion for the goal.  You want what you originally fell in love with but somehow that has been stained by reality in some way and you can’t admit that.

These are permutations of the same thing, pick which one is yours.  I suffered from 3 of the 5 and it took me a long time to get my head back in the game.  Some of you have sent me some of the best emails with battle scars as to what this looked like for you and how you came out on top afterward.  I want you to know that I have heard all that you have said and am using some of it tomorrow as I talk about how to move beyond all 3 eat-cheat cycles.

Email me or leave a comment below if you have a story you want to share or have any questions on what I’ve talked about so far.  I would love to hear from you: Jodi@trans4mationstation.com or add it below.

Suggestions come tomorrow! Woop woop!!:o)

*Depending on how long you’ve known me and I’ve been telling you stories, Aunt Betty Ann is a regular on the scene.  She’s completely fictional alongside her husband Uncle Peanut, cousin TayTay and Frank.  Try and keep up with them.

Seanna is wrapping up her R & R this week so I thought re-posting her thoughts on balance from MP4 might be especially relevant this week.  Enjoy!–Jodi

I know someone who has struggled his whole life with psoriasis. This someone went to the dermatologist (again) for help treating a mean outbreak of the itchy, red spots. I was sharing with Jodi and she mentioned that this person is more than likely, due to the inflammatory nature of psoriasis and his typical, albeit fancy, western diet, chronically heavy in omega 6 and deficient in omega 3, ie. his omega 3-6 ratio is way out of balance, and that daily doses of omega-3 will in time help keep the psoriasis under control. (I’m giving my dog omega-3 every other day for a similar reason.)

This got me thinking about equilibrium in all areas of life. When things are out of whack, man do we know it. I’m convinced that our minds and bodies want to exist in a peaceful stability. For me, the keys to staying in balance are enough physical activity, clean eating, lots of sleep and a peaceful day-to-day outlook.

Physical

Take training for example. The MP4 call last week was about recovery. Heather does this and Amy likes that, and then there’s me. I was the “control” group because I always feel pretty good. Recovery for me isn’t so much of a thought out thing, but obviously I do recover because for the most part I always feel pretty great. I feel like this is due to me not pushing myself as hard as they do in the training ring because I know myself. I exert myself as much as I need to for my purposes (health and physique maintenance), and that’s all. Mostly because I don’t want to do more, I don’t need to do more, but also, who has time? In other words, I know my personal limits and myself. I’m meeting my needs and so feel good physically most of the time. When I up the ante and take on more (for a specific purpose and stated time frame), I feel it, and so have to plan around this so that the rest of my life isn’t sacrificed to the increased physical demands from a new goal.

Nutrition

A very big piece to being able to stay well, recovered, and in balance is a great diet. We’ve all talked about this to death but it bears repeating, you won’t feel or look your best, let alone be able to really get it done for your sport if you eat like crap, not enough, too much, etc. You’ve also got to know what you need. What sits well in your tummy, what doesn’t? What weighs you down or makes you feel alive? Knowing yourself and what you thrive on is important with eating too. I’ve walked this clean eating walk for a long time (at MP4 we all have) and could probably plan meals in my sleep. I know what I need and what I can get away with adding in or leaving out. But clean eating, with a few treats sprinkled in as life offers, is key to my steady state of being recovered and feeling great.

This is a classic!

Sleep

Oh man, I love to sleep! I love when I can go to bed early, like by an hour, even if I’m not tired, because I’ll fall right to sleep. Can I just add that after sleeping a solid 9 hrs or so, your skin glows and your eyes sparkle. Well, mine do, but then I thrive on lots of sleep. You may not need as much and glow and sparkle with 7 hrs. Like eating, sleep is one of the areas that I’ll have to plan to tweak due to increased activity demands. I can’t increase my activity output and not also compensate with a bit more sleep. When that’s impossible, the sleep I do get must be quality. I’m not a frequent nap taker, but occasionally my body will force one out of me. That’s my rather obvious clue that I’m getting out of balance.

If you’re like me you may have thought she was blowing her nose in her hand, but she’s not.  She’s crying.  Hope that helps you out in your travels today.

Emotional

I won’t get into this too much, except to say that emotional balance is precious to me. All of us that have lived through a season of emotional upheaval know what I’m talking about. I’m convinced that emotional and physical health go hand in hand, one greatly enhancing the other. For me and mine, a peaceful existence is a priority.

So the take home message from today’s post is this … stay in balance – know yourself and give your body and mind what it needs – activity, nourishment, rest, peace.

What are some of the ways you keep your life in balance? What activities specifically address this for you? Thanks ya’ll. Have a great day!

If you haven’t noticed by my past few posts, right now is a busy time for me.  With the amount I am working, the stress levels that come with work deadlines, and the lack of sleep; it is no wonder I am worn out.  Couple that with the fact that I really don’t like to miss workouts and will get up to get my butt to the gym, even if I haven’t slept enough; and you have a recipe for disaster.

 Of all people out there, I know how important sleep is.  When all is right with the world, I get to bed around 10pm and get up at 5am.  When all is really right with the world, I’ll go to bed at 9pm.  But when stress kicks in and I don’t get home from work until 8 pm or later, I end up staying up until 11pm or; dare I say it, midnight.  I can keep this going (the stress and staying up that late 1-2 times/week) for about 2 weeks and then it catches up with me like a bad hangover.  Add on a lack of weekends because I am working, and it gets really ugly. 

 Last week was my breaking point.  I ended up taking 2 rest days instead of 1 (oh the horror) and pushed the snooze button more times than should be legal.  Despite repeated conversations with friends and family that I needed to take time to rest, I kept pressing forward.  Thankfully, I completed three large projects last week which allowed my 80-hour weeks to slow down to a 55-hour week.  My mind and body must have sensed the ability to rest and took full advantage. 

 But prior to that rest, I have to set the tone with my Friday and Saturday workouts.  On Friday I had every intention of getting up (like I normally do) and getting to the gym.  That didn’t happen.  Instead, I went to the gym after work all set to get in a lift AND cardio.  Well, half-way through my lift I could barely move.  I started trying to try and figure out ways to cut the lift short.  The very thought of cardio was a distant memory.  I managed to finish my lift and made it home to bed.  Unfortunately, I was still high-strung from the weeks of stress.  My brain couldn’t stop trying to think of something to stress over and I didn’t get to bed until 11:30. 

 Cut to Saturday morning.  Granted I slept for 7 hours, but that clearly wasn’t enough.  I woke up and dragged myself to Jodi’s Beyond Bootcamp class.  Have you ever gone to do a burpee or a squat jump and no matter how hard you try, you cannot get your body to move quickly?  It feels like you are moving through quicksand.  Well, that is how I felt.  I got through the workout, went out for breakfast and was home on the couch by 11:30am. 

 I did not move from the couch except to go to the grocery store and get food.  Other than that, I had a date with my DVR, curtains drawn, no lights on, snuggled under a blanket, in and out of consciousness, for the remainder of my day.  I was fast asleep at 9 and slept until 9 the next morning.  Now that was the recovery and sleep I needed.  However, I never should have let it get that far. 

 The way the past three weeks should have gone down is a different story.  I should have adhered to a strict bedtime.  I should have allowed myself extra rest days if necessary (although I must say the gym tends to set the tone for my day) or at least eased up on the workouts.  I should have built in extra time to decompress.  But we live and learn.  And since there are still 7 more weeks until the end of this tax season, I will have plenty of time to implement this strategy. 

 The point, however, is that there comes a time when you are so worn down that your workouts are pointless.  Your returns diminish to the point o being nonexistent.  That is where I was last week and knowing that, I can’t even worry about taking more than one rest day.  I had nothing to give and pushing myself any harder would do nothing but hurt me.  Those are the times we need to realize it is time to say uncle.

Not like the Exercise Slump post, this is different. I want to know, how do you weather the storm? How do you deal with organized chaos or do you not deal at all?

So where am I going with this? With age comes wisdom is the saying but I am not always sure of that. Sometimes I wouldn’t say it’s wisdom as much as it is recognizing patterns. Say we’re on a roll of working out and eating well and we’re in a really nice groove. Life begins to get hectic and we start to fall apart. At what point does your emergency broadcasting system kick in and tell you to kick it into plan B? And if it doesn’t kick in, why not?

When I am stressed or distracted, the first thing that goes with me is food. I would rather not eat when harried than eat. Back in the day, I would allow that to happen. I would feed into it (for the lack of a better word;) and go for long periods of time before I would eat. The bad thing about that is my cortisol levels are shooting through the roof, my blood sugar is as crazy as NYC at rush hour and my thinking becomes impaired because I lack the glucose to have a coherent thought. What ensues after this is a downward spiral of what I refer to as organized chaos. I call it that because it always unfolds the same way, it has a predictable outcome but yet it wreaks havoc on my life for as long as I allow it to. Not anymore, though. Now I see the storm brewing on the horizon and I have a contingency plan in place to keep things from getting out of control.

First, I have a series of yummy meals in my freezer that are ready to go at any time. So the minute I start thinking that I don’t want to eat because “there’s nothing to eat” (my famous line when I am stressed and avoiding food), I know that that is bull. Next, I save parts of my workouts for my time with my clients. This forces me to workout with them and it keeps me in the exercise loop. Doing this primes me for my own personal workouts later in the day. Lastly, I openly recognize that this is going down. I don’t avoid it or start saying cute sounding platitudes, I literally acknowledge it, talk to it, talk about it, whatever—but I honestly take the time to point out to myself that it could get ugly.

So my question to you is, what do you do to weather the storm? Or, how do you recognize the storm is on the horizon? What makes your emergency backup system go into effect and what do you do when it does? I am hoping we can help those who do not have one in place right now or do not realize that they can have one in place thereby keeping the organized chaos to a minimum.

Hit me up and let me know what you do…:o)

Oh it’s about that time.

You know…when we stop being so serious about hormones, looks and such and discuss what’s really on our minds:  bad driving!

Oh you know it bothers you!  If it doesn’t, then you are who I am about to talk about!hehe

In this day and age, we need to be careful of stress.  Free radical damage is serious and having high levels of cortisol can cause your hormones to go out of whack (thereby causing unnecessary weight gain) and your body to be off kilter.  So how can we keep this happening?  GET RID OF THESE BAD DRIVERS!

OH HEAR ME WHEN I SPEAK, PLEASE!

If you think a stop sign secretly reads PARK–I am talking to you!  Please don’t camp out at these things!  They did not want you to stay for long so they made the sign short:  STOP.  Not…STOP AND READ THIS SIGN FOR 10 MIN WHILE CONTEMPLATING THE FONT USED ON THE SIGN AND THE SPECIAL COLOR RED IT IS PAINTED ON.  You got me?  OY!

If your car goes from 0 to 60 in 5 min.–remove it from the road!  You are a hazard to society.  If I can run beside your car the whole time while you are trying to gain speed, you need some new pistons.  Honestly!

If you drive so slow that my 3 year old has to call you out: “Mama, why you behind dis’ slow poke?  MOVE! Mama, can you go pass him? Pass him, mama!  MOVE IT!”  It’s a shame folks but he’s learning early!

If you slow down to gawk at an accident I hope you pop a tire on any free flying glass!  It’s you clowns who cause 5:00 o’clock traffic!  In fact, you also slow down for tire changers AND disabled vehicles.  You deserve to run out of a gas on a long stretch of road…in the dark…in a foreign country…while it’s snowing…up hill…both ways…lol.

lastly…

If you cannot solve a rubiks cube with one hand while building a lego castle with the other, don’t talk on the phone while driving.  Clearly this task is beyond you.  I have had the luxury of seeing some outrageous things lately like talking on the phone while eating and driving a stick.  Actually, that was me, but I got it done!  Unlike these other yoyos who try it and end up 3 lanes over straddling 2 lanes at the same time.  This also applies to putting on make up while driving too!  Honestly, lip liner is meant to line your lips–not trace your major facial features!  Try a mirror in your bathroom please…

Keeping your stress levels down is key to a beautiful face and body.  I recommend that you pull over, stop the car and help a fellow brother or sister out by turning the car off.  Walk to the nearest bus stop and get on.  Suddenly, they will notice fine lines and wrinkles disappearing and their youthful glow will be back.  It’s time for you to give back to others and get off of the road.  This has been a public service announcement from your local annoyed trainer/nutritionist.  Peace!