After my weight loss meltdown last week, Trainer Amy gave me two tasks to focus on for the next few weeks:
- No eating after 7pm. No water. Nothing after 7.
- Try juicing for breakfast.
Let's dissect my two new focus points, shall we?
No eating after 7pm
Look,
I work 40 hours a week. I have a life outside of working out. I am a
late mover and shaker, and I hate going to the gym in the AM. So I go at
night, after work. By the time I get to my classes at the Y or get to
do a run, it's already 6pm. Add in a shower, a drive home, and preparing
dinner, and it's after 7. This is a NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE GOAL. But I'm
trying.
And Trainer Amy said if I work out prior to 7pm (which is typical), I need to eat something
small pre-work out, then after the workout I can have something small with
protein (yogurt, eggs, chicken). But that is the ONLY exception.
I'm
an evening snacker. Realisticly, I'm an all-day snacker. Or all-day
eater. Whatever. But I don't like telling my body that it can't have its
nightly snack, whether it be a granola bar or frozen yogurt. It's
habit. As a child, we got a snack at night, after dinner but before
bedtime. On Sunday nights we went crazy and had a bigger snack- like ice
cream in a warm waffle right from the waffle iron... but I digress.
Runner's
World covered the "no eating after dinner" topic on it's online version
in June 2013. Researchers from Brigham Young University looked at the
short-term effect of
night eating restriction on daily calorie consumption, weight, and even mood. They recruited
29 young men and asked them to avoid consuming calories (water was okay)
between the hours of 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. for two weeks. During these two
weeks the participants recorded every bite they consumed, and their
weight, mood, and level of hunger at breakfast were monitored. There was
a one-week break, and then for two more weeks (a control period) the
subjects were monitored as they returned to their usual way of life. The
average weight change was a loss of nearly 0.9
pounds during the two weeks of nighttime fasting and a gain of
approximately 1.3 pounds during the control period. When they avoided
eating between the hours
of 7 p.m. to 6 a.m., participants reduced their daily calorie intake by
an average of 238 calories. Which helps to explain the weight loss of
almost half a pound a week.
So... maybe it's worth
trying? I'm going to go with the "no eating after dinner" instead of the
7pm. I'm trying to push dinner up in my day, but I also don't want to
eat dinner then work out on a full stomach. Because that's just gross.
Try juicing for breakfast
This
was a new one. Trainer Amy looked at my food journal on MyFitnessPal
and saw way too much junk- and not enough protein or vegetables. I tried
to argue that there's not a lot of veggies and fruits in season, but
she quickly shushed me. The bottom line is that I'm opting for
carbs and not going for the more filling, vitamin rich breakfast. She
gave me some juicing recipes, told me to grab some protein powder to add
to the juice, and sent me on my way.
For the first few
days, I made her "blue power juice"- 1/2 c frozen strawberries, 1/2
pear, 1/2 apple, 2 c. baby kale/spinach/swiss chard mix, 1 baby
cucumber, 2 carrots. I tried to use the roommate's juicer but I couldn't
figure it out. So I blended instead of juiced.
It tasted like dirt.
It
still tasted like dirt when I had it day 2... and day 3... and when I
made it on day 4 and couldn't fight it into my stomach, I gave up on the
"blue power" and made my own juice. My juice started out as an
entire orange, a whole apple, a whole pear, and 2 carrots. I was then
guilted into adding 2 c of the kale mix (by a 9 year old!)- and I threw
some strawberries in there for good measure. This was AWESOME- it didn't
taste like an old shoe at all! But I know, deep down, that I should
have added more veggies. And I totally forgot the protein powder. Oops.
Which leads me to my juicing rules:
Juicing rule #1 Go easy on the fruits- while fruit is good for you, it's the vegetables
that you need in the juice. Fruits are some vitamins and a lot of
sugar. Vegetables are full of vitamins and...taste like dirt. But when
you consume 4 servings of fruit in a juice, your insulin may spike and
you will crash. Hard.
Last
night, I grabbed a few new pointers and ran to the grocery store. I
picked up some lemons, a bunch of mint, a pineapple, and a hunk of
ginger root. I mixed the base of the "blue power juice" and omitted the
blueberries. I added a half of a lemon (naturally low in sugar), half of an orange, a small bit
of ginger, and some mint. It was great. It looked like a puddle of mud
in my Nalgene this morning, but it was actually tasty! Still probably too much fruit, but it's ok. I'll get to more veggies. Eventually.
Juicing
rule #2- juicing is totally different than blending. My roommate
laughed when I said I couldn't figure out how to use the juicer. Then he
read off the reasons why juicing is superior to blending. Dude, I just
need juice. I don't care how it's made. But apparently I *should* care.
A juicer extracts liquid nutrition from vegetables and fruits and leaves
the fiber behind. This absence of the bulky fiber is the main
difference between juices and smoothies (blender). Since most of the fiber is gone, it's best to drink the juice on an empty stomach- and don't expect the juice to make you feel full. Which leads to..
Juicing rule #3:
It's OK to still eat breakfast while juicing! I love that I'm getting my vitamins in and all of
that, but I NEED FOOD. I wasn't feeling too powerful after the first few "juicing breakfasts" so now I drink the juice and have walnuts or some other small breakfast item about 30-60 minutes later. The problem with this theory is that I've now added 300+ calories to my diet in the AM without feeling full. Maybe if I go back to rule #1, the calories will go down.
Juicing rule #4: Juice the soft stuff first, then the harder veggies. Otherwise everything will get stuck inside of the machine and you will spend 20-30 minutes digging out carrot pulp from a device that only a skinny knife will fit into. And we all know how me and knives don't get along.
Good grief, let's hope I survive this next week...
