Post-Christmas/Pre-School Plan

Okay, so I didn't do quite as well with the whole Eat Like A Thin Person Buffy Style (ELATPBS) plan over the holidays.  In fact, I ate like a fat person... hence my expanded waistline.

I ate lots of cookies, lots of candies, and lots of bread with every meal.  And I didn't listen to my hunger signals one iota.  This went on for about a week.

Plus... I didn't really exercise at all.  This was from December 22 to about the 29th. 

My formerly loose 14's are now tight.

The good news?  I'm not beating myself up over this minor setback.  Lots of people gain a bit of weight over the holidays, it's not an unusual thing at all. 

So...  I know that I said that I would be practicing ELATPBS, but I had to go back to tracking for a bit.  Since the 29th, I've been back to My Fitness Pal and tracking every bite.  I've also increased my exercise plan from 40-60 minutes a day to 60-100 minutes a day (not all at once usually).

This is just to help get the holiday weight off, and I'm planning to go right back to ELATPBS on January 12, which is when the next semester of school begins.

Didn't I tell you?  I'm a college student!  It's so rewarding and amazing and I cannot wait to finally have a college degree, which is a feat I'm about 2.5 years away from now, which feels so soon to me. 

Anyway, just another way that I'm like Buffy.  :-)

I'm not weighing myself right now, rather, I'm going by how my pants fit and how I look both in the mirror and in pictures.  I'm pretty sure that by following this post-holiday plan for about two weeks, my 14's will be loose again. 

Then it's back to slowly losing more inches or maintaining, whichever happens is fine as long as I'm honestly ELATPBS.

My school plan will be interesting!  I have a full schedule, and my university offers gym group classes to all students for free, so I am finally going to take advantage of that and go Monday through Friday to the gym to take classes ranging from kickboxing to yoga. 

"Delivering melted cheese on bread, doing your part to keep America constipated." ~Spike, Season 4

A Buffy Christmas!

"Tree, nog, roast beast. Just me and Mom, and hopefully an excess of gifts." ~Buffy Summers

Okay, so I'm vegan and will not be partaking in the roast beast, but... other than that, I think that I will be having a very Buffy-like Christmas. 

One thing that she and I have in common is religion.  Buffy never really talks about it, but she definately has very ecclectic beliefs, as do I.  Willow is Wiccan, and Buffy believes a lot of those things (gods, demons, etc.) but she doesn't practice witchcraft often and isn't really vocal about her religious beliefs. 

I think that she mostly just deals with religion as it comes, and treats Christmas and any other holiday as a secular event, just for family and fun, not associated with religion.  And that's what I do, too. 



Buffy and Angel on  Christmas stroll



Anyway, this blog isn't meant to be about religion or philosophy, so I'll stop there. 

This blog is meant to be about diet and exercise, and how I'm working towards a goal of eating and exercising like my favorite superhero, Buffy Summers.

And that, my friends, is going splendidly.  I'm not tracking my food, I'm not weighing myself, and I'm not obsessing about calories or other numbers.

My pants still fit great, so I assume that I'm getting this intuitive eating thing down.  I'm definately learning how to eat like a thin person, but it has not been easy.

Some days I feel as if I'm terrible at it.  And most days I'm still counting calories a bit in my head. 

Baby steps, though.  Some day, I will be a total pro at this, and food will just be another thing that I do, another part of life, NOT something that my day revolves around.



Buffy ornaments!  Kind of creepy... but I still want some.

Christmas will be about family, fun, love, and happiness.  There will be presents, games, cookies, and laughter.  There will be Santa Clause marathons.  There will NOT be obsession over how many calories are in each cookie.

Happy holidays, folks!



ELATPBS - Day 28

Once again:  So far, so good.

I also have not stepped on a scale for awhile.  I don't remember the exact date that I weighed myself last.

It feels great to be done with regular weigh-ins!  I will let how my clothes fit and how I look in the mirror/in pictures be the judge on how my body is doing.



You were weighing yourself HOW often?  WHY??

I wasn't an obsessive daily weigher.  Nope, just once a week, a habit taught to me from Weight Watchers years ago. 

I'm ready to be done with the scale once and for all! 

My pants feel great right now (US size 14) and I look pretty awesome in both the mirror and in pictures, by my standards (and mine are the only ones that I am currently considering).

Do I still want to be a size 8 or 10?  Definately.  But I'm not going to worry about it.  If my body wants to get smaller, then it will.  If it wants to stay a size 14, that will be fine, too. 

And because of vanity sizing, my size 14 ass could become a size 10 ass without actually getting any smaller.  LOL

I have noticed that I'm not so good at the "stop when satisfied" bit of eating like a thin person.  I overate quite a bit over the weekend...

Eat when hungry.  Don't eat when not hungry.  Easy-peasy, right?

I'm trying to make healthier choices today, which I think is what  naturally thin person would do after three days of junk food. 

My body wants greens, beans, healthy fats, and lots of water.  And I'm giving it what it wants.

PMS is a bitch, and I do partially blame it for the overeating (and the food choices) of the last few days. 

Anyway, nothing much else to add.   Just an update on ELATPBS.

"How do you get to be renowned? I mean, like, do you have to be nowned first?" ~Buffy, season 4

ELATPBS - Day 20

It's been several days of not tracking my food, and so far so good!

I already feel more like Buffy Summers.  My focus about food has shifted from "how many calories do I have left" to "I'm hungry, time to eat something that I love". 

Calories?  Who cares?

I'll share a bit of what I've been eating and how I've been exercising.  Not in a tracking sense, but just to share.

Today, I had my usual bowl of oatmeal mixed with peanut butter for breakfast.  I'm still eating this right now, actually.  I also brought along a banana and an applesauce, but I may not need those snacks this morning.  I didn't measure my oats or peanut butter, just mixed in what looked like a good amount.

I'm not sure what else I will be eating today, there is no plan!  But I bought some hummus yesterday, so that will probably be on the menu.  ;-)

Over the weekend, I walked and I biked.  Both felt amazing, and I tried to not think about the calories burned.  I'm probably not going to exercise today, because I won't have time which means that if I do it, it would definately be just for the calories.

And that's how ELATPBS is going.  I'll be ready to kick some butt soon.

"Giles, there are two things that I don't believe in: coincidence and leprechauns."
Buffy Summers, Season 3

No more tracking!

I'm going to start a no-tracking challenge.  This is the complete opposite of what I've done for years, so it feels kind of uncomfortable right now.  I'm going to go for a week first, and see how it goes.  Hopefully it will go so well that I'll want to continue.

When I say "no tracking" I'm talking about food and exercise.  No more recording everything I eat and every movement I do. 

No more calorie counting. 

If I'm going to ELATPBS, I have to do this. 

Buffy doesn't diet.

I'm not even 100% sure if I want to lose weight anymore, either.

My new goals are:

1. Learn to love the body that I have.
2. Not diet.  (no tracking my food or avoiding any foods because they are "bad")
3. Eat when hungry, don't eat when not hungry.
4. Exercise when I want to, and do fun exercises for the sake of feeling good, not for the sake of burning calories.
5. Get stronger, faster, and healthier.

 Doesn't that sound better than a list like this:

1. Lose weight.
2. Eat less, eat fewer calories.
3. Move more, burn more calories.

Come on, you know it does.

So this is day one of no tracking.  It feels weird.  I want to tell you what I've eaten, but that would be tracking.  See how tough it is for me?  I've been tracking my food on and off for over 10 years.  And those times when I wasn't tracking, I was binge-eating and depressed. 

Now I'm happy, not binge-eating, and while I'd still love to be a smaller pants size, I'm not worried about it so long as I'm healthy and happy. 

I'll leave you with one more Buffy picture and quote!

"Sure. We saved the world, I say we party. I mean, I got all pretty." -Buffy, Season 1

Sharing my food diary, Day 1!

oatmeal made with almond milk and peanut butter

strawberry applesauce

kidney beans with steamed veggies and evoo

melba toast

banana

Newtons fruit thins (3)

pretzels (8)

cherry tomatoes

baby carrots

Morningstar Farms chick'n grillers (2)

cheerios with almond milk

redvines

Total calories today according to My Fitness Pal- 1823

The only foods that I ate today that I wasn't really hungry for was the Redvines, which I ate mostly to keep myself awake for late-night paper writing! 

I'm going to share my food diary with you guys for a bit and see how it goes.  I'm definately still leaning towards giving up on calorie counting, but for now I think that I still need it for portion control.

I shared an awesome ehow article on Twitter and Facebook today, which explains how to lose weight without counting calories.  Here's the link- How to Lose Weight Without Counting Calories.

ELATPBS - Day 13 (and Thanksgiving recap)

There is no getting around this:  Buffy is not a vegan.  And I am.  And I'm not going to let that little fact ruin my attempt to eat like her.  It's pretty easy to get around it, usually.

The main point of my eating and exercising like Buffy in order to some day get a body simular to hers is the whole intuitive eating thing.  The Eat Like A Thin Person Buffy Style (ELATPBS) concept.  And that is going pretty well!

I am slowly but surely becoming a thin person.  My actual start weight was in the 200s.  Yeah, I was definately obese.  It's been awhile since I've been obese now though, and I'm beginning to accept this thinner body as mine.  I know for a FACT that I won't ever be obese again.  Seriously, I have learned too much over the last couple of years to ever go back to the lifestyle that lead to said obesity.

I'm ready, however, to finally take the next step.  And that step is getting to my actual goal size.  Which is smaller than I currently am, however comfortable I may be at this size (which is size US 14).  I'm ready to lose a few more hip and thigh inches, and get comfortably into some actual skinny jeans.  I currently have my goal weight set to 135, but I think that may be too low for me.  I really have more of a goal size or look than I do a goal weight.  I'll know that I'm at the right weight when I get there, ya know?

ELATPBS is going pretty well for me.  I definately ate intuitively over Thanksgiving weekend.  On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday to be specific.  No tracking.  Listening to my hunger signals.  Enjoying my food, but not in excess.  It felt pretty good!  I may start doing this at least one day a week. 

On Thanksgiving, I made a vegan loaf and some vegan pumpkin pie.  Okay, "made" is an exaggeration.  I bought a frozen loaf and pie, and baked according to package instructions.  All turned out well and was delicious!  I was happy that I did this, because the dinner that I attended had ZERO vegan options, so I had to eat my own food only. 

Anyway, just a quick update for you on how ELATPBS is going for me.  :-)  It's going really well, and I'm excited about this part of my journey. 

I'm still tracking over on My Fitness Pal.  I'm thinking about sharing my journal for the next few days on here, to help show how I'm eating "like" Buffy.