In my last body transformation update I reported hitting my goal of losing 13.0 lbs, which was the target weight loss for my challenge against Nima.

In the last six days or so, and especially in the last two days I’ve had a relapse.

I am learning so much about myself during this challenge and about the psychology of weight loss.

What I’m going to share in this Blog post is going to sound like a bunch of excuses to some people.  I really don’t care though.  They can judge me all they want.  I’m sharing this in hopes that it might help some people who can relate.

Beginning of the Relapse

The early stages of this relapse started out due to snow of all things.

Last week here in Vancouver it started snowing and where I live it is always a bit colder, and it snows a bit more heavy.

When I looked at the weather reports it was only supposed to snow for one day and then the snow was supposed to melt the next day.

What I found out though is that the snow never really went away.  I woke up each morning expecting the snow to be gone, but it was still there.

Now, what does snow have to do with losing weight?  Well, the challenge is that my car sucks in snow.

Anyone who drives a Mazda 3 will attest to the fact that these cars are awesome, except when it comes to snow.  As soon as the snow hits, they suck.

More accurately I would actually say that it isn’t so much my car, as it is my tires.  In order to drive well in snow I need a good set of snow tires.  However, the weather here in Vancouver is normally pretty mild and it really doesn’t make sense to buy snow tires just to be used for the two or three days a year we have snow.

Even if I did have snow tires, I would first have to drive the car out somewhere to put the snow tires on as I don’t have a paved driveway and I don’t really like the idea of trying to do a four wheel swap on my car on an unlevel gravel driveway packed with snow.

The bottom line is that the sudden snowfall kind of left me stuck at home.  If I really, really wanted to get out I could have, but on the first day it snowed I just figured I’d wait until the next day, and then the next day I thought the same thing etc.  The whole week went by and I had no fresh groceries in my fridge to cook meals with.

That was the first challenge.  Falling out of my grocery getting routine.  Normally I go out and get groceries on like a Saturday or something and have food in the fridge for the whole week.  That didn’t happen last week so I was kind of stuck with old half-rotten veggies that didn’t look at all appetizing to eat.

Lack of Meal Alternatives

One of the things I’ve done since starting this diet has been to cook a LOT of my meals myself.  I rely almost exclusively on fresh, raw ingredients and I cook from scratch.

Meaning if I want to make a stir-fry, I buy chicken breast, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, etc. and I make the whole stir-fry from fresh ingredients from scratch.  I don’t buy a “Frozen Stirfry Kit” or anything like that.

In fact since starting this diet I haven’t bought anything frozen I don’t think.  I’ve thrown some steaks and chicken which I bought fresh in the freezer, but I haven’t bought even frozen veggies.

There are two things I need to fix here…

(1) Don’t Rely Only on Fresh Foods – Of course the ideal scenario would be to eat the freshest ingredients possible at all times.  However, eating fresh foods like that does require an investment in time and energy to be doing regular grocery shopping as most healthy foods don’t last very long.  We’re talking days  not weeks or months like you get with most processed junk foods.

I need to start looking at stocking up on some frozen veggies, or just cutting up and freezing my own veggies.  Otherwise if for any reason I can’t make it out to the grocery store for a few days I’ll once again get stuck with having no healthy foods to eat.

(2) Don’t Dismiss Meal Replacements – Once again, ideally I’d like to eat fresh, whole foods as part of my diet.  Compared to that, most meal replacement bars and shakes out there aren’t that great which is why I’ve mostly kind of stayed away from them until now.

However, I now see how they can play a role in my diet plan.  With my schedule, there will be times when I get so busy with certain projects that I just don’t have the time to stop what I’m doing and go cook up a meal from scratch.  Or I may not even be home to be able to cook a meal.

In times like this, I’m going to start using some meal replacement products which obviously aren’t as good as making a fresh, wholesome meal from scratch, but which will help me to fill in the holes.

I’ve got two meal replacement shakes in particular that I’m going to try out.  One of them I just got an order of in yesterday, and another one I’ll probably try out after this one is done.

I also want to look at some meal replacement bar alternatives as well.

I would much rather have a ‘not-so-perfect’ meal replacement bar than to have nothing and end up going through the McDonald’s drive through in a bind.

I’ll write more about this as I test out these products.

Getting Out of a Perfection Mindset

One thing I also realized in the last few days is that trying to be “perfect” on my diet is really hurting me.

Meaning, during the last few days I’ve been working on a consulting project where I had to work two 14hour shifts back to back, on location.

This means that I was nowhere near my normal environment where I have access to my kitchen, which is normally stocked with healthy foods and cooking gadgets to be able to cook well.

Also, when I get involved in last minute projects like this I always find that my focus goes 100% into the project and there is a lot of “mental power” that is involved in getting things done.

This “mental stress” always makes me crave sugar like crazy because I get too busy to eat, and then my glucose levels drop and then I just want a “quick fix” which always tends to involve fast food and some kind of sugary drink.

The second challenge is that once you’re in that position of feeling like you’ve got no choice but to eat something crappy, being in a perfection mindset just amplifies the problem.

Instead of thinking rationally and ordering the healthiest thing on the menu, you end up feeling guilty and thinking “Ah screw it.  I’m already screwing up my diet so I might as well just order something that tastes good.”

It’s really interesting to become an observer of my own thoughts in this.  I see the same thought patterns with my mentoring students when it comes to Blogging.

They set a goal to write three blog posts per week, and then they get really busy with something in their lives and end up skipping a whole week without writing a post and then they star thinking “Ah screw it, I already missed a whole week of writing so what’s the point?”

Getting out of a perfection mindset is actually how I got myself to be able to journal for the last 10+ years almost on a daily basis.  I first tried journaling every day.  My goal was to never miss a day.  But then I would miss a day and feel really guilty and bad about myself so I would give up.  I did that a few times over a few years.  Starting out with a lot of energy and excitement and then within a few weeks I would quit because I would miss a day or two.

Then one day I gave myself permission to only write whenever I felt inspired to write.  This would mean I could skip a day, or a week or even a few years if I felt like it.  I eliminated the “perfection frame” of having to do journaling perfectly every day.

As soon as I did that, I ended up journaling more than I ever had before and got so good at it that I do it almost every day now.  Some days I write like 30-40 pages in my journal.  I probably have like 10 unpublished books worth of content in my journals already.

I need to do the same thing with my diet.  I’m not going to be perfect.  There will be days when I *will* find myself at a McDonald’s drive through for one reason or another.  Instead of feeling guilty about it and eating a supersized meal to drown my guilt, I need to give myself permission not to be always perfect with this.

By doing that  I have a much better chance of ordering the salad instead of the Big Mac.

Building Muscle Messing With My Mind

You know what’s really frustrating?

Making the commitment to do six Power 90 workouts in six days during a really busy time in my life right now, then doing those workouts, and ending up gaining weight instead of losing it.

Last week I started my Power 90 program and I really like it, except that one thing I noticed is that my weight loss has come to a grinding halt.

Part of that has been due to my diet not being exactly perfect in the last week, but even with the “imperfect” diet I had all of last week I tracked all my calories (yes even the bad ones) and I was still at a calorie deficit of -3,500 calories for the week, not including my Power 90 workouts which would probably bring my calorie deficit up to around -5,000 calories for the week and yet I actually gained weight!

“Calories In / Calories Out” advocates would tell you that is impossible, but I assure you it is not.  You can put on weight with a calorie deficit.

When I did the P90X program last year I started out at around 212lbs and I don’t think I dropped any weight during that program at all.  I think two months later I was still 212lbs!

The reason for this is that I think know I’m building muscle by doing these workouts and I think that I’m putting on muscle faster than I’m losing fat.

I don’t know why, but I was always under the impression that losing fat always happens way faster than building muscle, but in the last few days I’ve been learning that the opposite is actually true.

If you start doing a full body workout / circuit training schedule 3-6 times a week like I did last week, you will probably put on muscle faster than you will lose fat.

This is obviously a good thing, but not if you’re looking at the scale each morning and you see your weight going up instead of down!

Man, sometimes I wish I had a DXA scanner in my house so I can really see what’s going on with my body composition and not just get a total body weight.

I feel stronger.  I can feel my muscles growing.  I’m able to do the exercises easier now than when I started, but it still messes with your mind when you don’t see the weight dropping.

Where I’m At

As of this morning I weighed in at 205.6lbs, so I’ve gained about 2lbs in the last week or so.  So it’s not like I’ve gained 20 lbs or something but when you work so hard on losing 13lbs it can be disheartening to put the weight back on.

Because I wasn’t home the last two days I skipped my Monday and Tuesday Power 90 workouts but this evening I jumped back on the horse and did my Power 90 Wednesday workout.

I’ve got about 10 days left in the competition with Nima, so I have to lose this 2lbs I just put on otherwise I’m going to owe him $500.