Day 11: - Billy Blanks Tae Bo (1998)... and binge rant

There are 720 calories in a sleeve of nutter butter cookies. Any guesses as to why I know this? I had a little slip up yesterday that resulted in an epiphany that will (hopefully) prevent such slip ups in the future.

I have been trying to pay attention to my blood sugar lately, because I have noticed I get weird when I’ve gone without food for a while. Though I’m not a diabetic (at least I don’t think I am), if I haven’t eaten in a few hours, I start to feel dizzy, hot, shaky and just not really “there” mentally. Because of this, I try to eat something with protein every 2-3 hrs, hungry or not, and I try to carry emergency snacks with me. But every once in a while I get caught in a situation where I am starting to feel icky and I don’t have a healthy snack to bring me back to normal. This happened yesterday at the library, where I was studying with my Anatomy study group. I started to feel the familiar clues that something isn’t right. First I couldn’t concentrate, then I got hot and dizzy, then I felt shaky and panicked. I excused myself from the group so I could get a snack and meet them again to finish up. Then I drove to CVS to find something that would make me feel better, without ruining my appetite for dinner and without sabotaging my weight loss efforts. Peanuts were the best choice, and I had them in my hand at one point. But in my panicked state, I felt I needed carbs NOW. It’s hard to describe but it really felt like a survival thing. Now the next day, I can understand I would have certainly survived without anything at all, but at that moment, I felt like I needed carbs to exist. So I did what any confused, hungry person would do and I grabbed a bag of nutter butter cookies (they have peanut butter, after all!). In the car, I quickly opened the bag and like a prospective contestant on the Biggest Loser I ate them frantically. When the feeling didn’t go away, I popped another and another and another into my mouth. I was conscious of my decision to eat the cookies – every one of them. In fact, at one point I told myself to stop, that I was eating way more than I need to feel normal again. But because the feeling was still there, I kept going. Until they were gone. Pulling into the parking lot, I felt defeated. The low blood sugar feeling was gone, though I don’t even remember it leaving. It was just me, coherent and full, staring at an empty package of nutter butters and wondering what the heck I just did. I quickly calculated the calories and sighed when I realized I had just crammed 720 calories down my throat in 5 minutes. 720 calories. Not to mention the fat! I went back to my study group and tried to finish up studying nerves, which ironically are all about cause and effect.

Lesson learned here: when my blood sugar is low, I don’t think clearly. If I’m not thinking clearly, I can not expect myself to make good decisions. In order to make good decisions about eating, I need to make sure I keep my mind sharp by eating a healthy snack every 2-3 hrs.

Today is Monday. A new week. I am up and have worked out, so I am back “on track”. I am going to try to be good to my body today and make decisions that will help me. And hopefully in a few weeks my jeans won’t be too tight. I seriously have two pair of pants that I can wear, besides workout clothes. Incidentally, its two weeks into this workout challenge and I had hoped that I would be a few pounds down. For obvious reasons (above), I am not going near the scale.

My Workout: Billy Blanks Tae Bo (1998)

What I liked:
1. It is everything that it promises to be, “Energizing! Explosive! Powerful! Uplifting!”
2. Super high energy workout that got me sweating. If I did this every day, I could reach my fitness goals
3. I like that he starts each move slow and then speeds it up to double time. It gives me a chance to get coordinated before going fast.

What I didn’t like:
1. It was hard to get past the bright blue, skin tight leotard that he wore. Not to mention the leg warmers. It was a little older (1998), in his defense. Anyway, I’m sure it was hip back then. But then again, was it really ever hip to display your package while you worked out??

“Your success or failure in life will not be decided by the number of setbacks you encounter, but rather how you react to them” - Mac Anderson