Rumspringa...My Tracy Anderson Transformation: Diet Dress Rehearsal

Friday, December 9, 2011

Diet Dress Rehearsal

So I've started noting my weight in the "labels" section at the bottom of each post because I got a scale. Anyway, I wake up this morning and suddently I've lost 1.2 pounds since yesterday. Don't know where that came from. I didn't do any extra cardio yesterday, or eat particularly less. Yesterday it seemed like my weight was creeping back up. Oh well, just goes to show our weight exists in a range it seems rather than a fixed number.

So, today was a rest day for me, but I went to the grocery store and got a few items to practice some of Tracy's recipes in preparation for the diet starting January 1st. I bought a parsnip for the first time in my life. I didn't even know which vegetable was a parsnip and had to look up at the sign to figure it out. Also bought some coconut (dairy-free) kefir, olive oil spray, sprouted tofu (never tried the sprouted kind but it's supposedly more digestible), frozen organic corn, sweet potato, blueberries, kale, and apples. Lots of fresh foods! It was nice. I tend to eat all natural foods but yet very little fresh and unprocessed foods. I'm looking forward to my tastebuds reprogramming to enjoy more simple flavors. I'm looking forward to cooking for myself (rather than getting take-aways) and generally just feeling healthier with these clean foods.

I'll let you know how the recipes turn out.

5 comments:

NinaDecember 10, 2011 at 12:33 AM
Hi Leah, since starting TAM I am more aware of food than ever before. Yeah I started slowly before the method to get information on whats great and whats not, but not as excessive as I am now. Originally I started TAM in June/July this year. After a longer break of nearly three months I re-activated my muscle memory for absc L3 and started again with the method. But in all this time the awareness of food has not changed - on the contrary it has increased. I only buy all my vegetables from a farmers market, as well as the fruits. Unfortunately oranges are only available as imports as they are not growing in our country, but oranges are one exception on my list. What I want to say is that I am much more aware of what I eat and where I buy it and all since TAM - it is astounding how this metamorphosis is changing our habits and thoughts.
you are doing a great job with your metamorphosis - I am soooo looking forward hearing about continuity!! You must be really excited to start it next year!
Cheers to you!!! :-)
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karenDecember 10, 2011 at 7:17 AM
hey Leah, just read your whole blog, i started slowly, and have had a similar process / experience as you. I didn't do the diet thing as restrictive diets always mess with my head but i'm doing things in moderation and balance... we are almost on the same day as each other, i'm level 8 day 8 today omni meta, did no cardio today, but have been busting out some hour DC this week. tomorrow will be both dc and ms - take care and have a great xmas! Karen
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LeahDecember 10, 2011 at 9:39 AM
Hi Nina, Metamorphosis really is amazing at creating changes in thoughts and habits in so many unexpected ways. I mean, when I started blogging I figured I'd have stuff the say in the beginning but in time it would just become about saying what my weight changes were, or what I ate that day. Yet here I am 3 months later still learning new lessons. I haven't even started dieting yet, or losing any significant amount of weight so I know the future holds new and interesting things to experience and talk about.

Hello Karen! I'm am so happy to hear my blog was relatable to you. That type of wanting to reach out to others and say "hey none of us are alone in this" is what made me want to share this blog with others. How cool that we're both on level 8. I hear level 9 is supposed to be a killer. I've previewed it and it looks intense...but somehow I'm looking forward to it ;) Great job doing an hour of cardio! Are you moving onto Continuity after this?
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Michelle StylesDecember 11, 2011 at 7:38 AM
Leah --
There is a HUGE difference between eating processed and non processed foods. Fresh foods do give you so much more in terms of nutrients and vitamins. You will be discovering lots more great tastes and textures as well as feeding your body the sort of fuel it craves. The tastes are not simpler, in many they are more complex which is why the top chefs insist on fresh in their resturants.
Fresh can often be less expensive and simpler to prepare (once you know what you are doing). I really reccommend using fresh herbs rather than dried ones. Fresh mint with the strawberries for example.
If you ever tasted fresh parmesan cheese, rather than the grated stuff sold in cardboard tubs, you will know how intense it is and how much less you need...
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LeahDecember 11, 2011 at 1:39 PM
Michelle, I think you are so right. I imagine trying to make pesto w/dried basil...it would not be the same! I've tried a couple recipes so far and an amazed at how 2 ingredients combined together can be so tasty!
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What has Made This Time Different?

I have attempted to try to stick to an exercise routine so many times in my life, and yet I've rarely made it past a week or two at the most. This time has been a whole new experience, and this is a list of the reasons why (subject to change). Perhaps one or all of these will resonate with you too:

1) I have a simple, mental, visual analogy to help me focus on the bigger picture: In the past I've dieted and exercised and wondered why am I not losing weight? The key was that I wasn't consistent. The truth was that my efforts were sporadic rather than stacking one on top of the other. So it felt like I had exerted so much energy (which I had), but because it was not one foot in front of the other, my efforts did not stack up to any actual results. This made the most sense to me once I understood the the visual analogy of climbing a wall. My goal (lose weight/get fit) was to get over this wall. My attempts to get over the wall included climbing up (working out, dieting). However, I was constantly climbing back down the wall without realizing it (getting off the dieting, not exercising). Over time, I was exhausted from climbing up and didn't understand why I had not yet made it over, after all I had put in a lot of effort. It was then that I realized that every time I stop exercising, I am not picking up from where I left off the next time I start up again. Instead, I have to start from the very bottom of the wall. The steps up the wall do not help you climb over unless the are consistenly moving in a forward direction upward. While this may seem simple, and easy to understand intellectually, it was something I had to understand in the form of an epiphany. It was the first step to me being able to be consistent with my Tracy Anderson Method.

2) Make the goal about following through with the actions, rather than just focusing on the end results: Now that I understood that consistency was such an important factor in being successful with my goal, I had to figure out how to actually be consistent when I had never before been able to. It was so hard for me to imagine getting past level 1, because in my previous attempts I had learned how to do a few days of level 1, feel defeated, take a break, and then start over on level 1 again once I felt like I just couldn't take being overweight any more. My brain only understood how to stop and start over, so it just couldn't imagine what it felt like to move forward to L2-L9 and beyond. So, I made a commitment to myself that I did not even have to do the levels if I did not want to, but that I would play the videos every day as though I were doing them, just for the sake of my brain understanding what that would feel like. Amazingly enough, this triggered something in my brain so that it could at least entertain the possibility of experiencing the program beyond level 1.

3) Don't tell anyone I am learning to establish an exercise routine, until I'm on a roll. I understand using someone as an accountability buddy, and I do think that is helpful. But for me, I found that when I told people I was starting to exercise I diverted energy away from my goal (establish a regular exercise routine). So when I used to tell people, "oh I'm starting something new" people kindly wanted to know how it's going, how much I've lost, all these reasonable questions. For me, that added an extra pressure that I just didn't need. I didn't want to be accountable to anyone but myself, and I because I am someone who worries too much about what other people think, it just served me better to start the journey on my own and learn from my own experiences, learn to trust myself and my own instinct, and feel free to experiment without fearing judgements from others.

4) Don't make any changes to diet initially, but instead first focus on making exercise a regular part of my routine. Learning to exercise regularly and consistently & eating nutritiously are both lofty goals in and of themselves. To do both simultaneously has never ever worked for me. For my brain, my emotions, my inability to adapt to change, it was far too large an undertaking to attempt diet exercise simultaneously. For me, exercise is the easier place to start because it feels more in my control. There are only two choices (to exercise or not), and it is completely up to me, and not influenced by much else. On the other hand, food requires more preparation what with shopping, and storing and cooking, and taking food with me places. Exercise is just once a day whereas eating is something to work on multiple times throughout the day. Another thing is that if I attempted exercise and diet at the same time, if I did poorly in one area that day, it wiped out any good work I did in the other area (in my mind), and made me want to give up on BOTH. Exercise is the place to start for me.

5) Accept that my objectives are long-term and therefore no matter how hard I work, I will not be skinny in a month or two. But a year from now and for the rest of my life I will be.

6) Keep a blog or journal. For me, blogging has enabled me to see that some days are challenging, but there are also other days are easier. It is easy to forget the good days when I'm just focusing on the negative one at hand. Blogging allows me to go back and remember the positive things I've gained and learned along my journey.

7) Exercise with a buddy in the beginning to help make exercise a daily habit. While I didn't tell anyone about working out until about 2 weeks after I'd started, after that when I told my friend she was excited and wanted to try it out too. We exercised together for about two weeks, and that helped me establish a routine of exercising first thing in the morning consistenly.

8) Immerse myself in the success of others. I read others' blogs and success stories and facebook and the TA forum. www.masteringthemethod.com was such a great tool because it was the first visual I had to understand that this was going to be a journey and a process. It is so easy to see the "before" and "afters" and think that 1 week or a month of commiting will take me from before to after. Being able to see the "during" as well made such a difference to my brain because it was like the missing piece of the puzzle to understand this is not in any shape or form an overnight, overweek, or overmonth process. It showed me the bridge from "before" through "during" to "after".

9) Watch and re-watch and watch again Tracy's informercial and multiple visits to QVC. Especially the first month I watched them almost every day. Seeing the informercial is the pique of excitement in the beginning of a new exercise routine. Watching the infomercials help me remember the feelings I had in the beginnning and reminds me why I began this journey in the first place.

10) Trust Tracy, yourself, and those who have come before you, and have faith that while you can't imagine it today, each step you take will lead you to your after as it has for so many others.

11) Let go of being a perfectionist. Being a perfectionist prevented me from succeeding 100% of the other times I've attempted to exercise. It was vital to learn to only do whatever my personal abilites are and nothing more. Understanding and believing that I would build from wherever I was starting, as there is no need to exhaust myself physically and mentally by exercising beyond my capabilites was again instrumental. The very first time I tried metamorphosis, I was beyond defeated and in tears as there was no way I was gonna be able to do 40 reps of all the leg exercises as she did. I initially would pause the TV after every exercise attempting to complete 40 reps like Tracy was going. Helllllloooo, Tracy is in shape and she invented the method for goodness sake. I never exercised and was carrying around at least 50 pounds that didn't need to be there. Because I couldn't be "perfect" I thought I couldn't do the method. This was completely false. Finally, I figured out that I just had to do whatever reps I was able to do while she was doing the same exercise. Then when she moved on, I moved on to the next move. Suddenly my abilites were increasing, just by doing my personal best. It was the same thing with the cardio. It was important to me to play the whole tape, but that didn't mean I had to be jumping the whole time. Instead, I would step touch or march in place, drink some water. The point is that I got to experience what 30 minutes of cardio would feel like, and eventually be able to build up to it. I can now do an hour of cardio :)

...to be continued

90 Day Metamorphosis with Tracy Anderson

Friday, December 9, 2011

Diet Dress Rehearsal

5 comments: