#EXACTLY 4 SEASONS LATER WHAAAAAAAT | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

strmyweather · 7 years

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“Look at where we are / Look at where we started / ... That would be enough.”

(This is the fourth and final section of a multi-part post. If you’re interested, you can read about the back story, the tipping point, and the logistics here.)

I posted one of those ‘transformation’ posts on social media yesterday—not because I necessarily wanted to insta-brag (although the pride is real), but more because I needed to define an endpoint for myself. By putting it out there, by showing everyone what I’ve been up to, I gave myself the accountability to STOP, and to intentionally begin the reverse diet. Progress is so slow when you’re seeing it in your own mirror that it’s easy to get stuck in the purgatory of “well, I’ll just stick with it for one more week / until I lose one more pound / just until I get to X benchmark.” We humans are extremely adaptable, meaning we eventually get accustomed to just about anything; even a reflection that we initially feel pretty awesome about eventually becomes ‘the new normal’. It hit me yesterday that I have been in some kind of a caloric deficit for SIX ENTIRE MONTHS. I needed to take a step back, observe the (tremendous) magnitude of what has objectively been accomplished over the past 180 days—and then do the responsible thing and let my body and mind have a rest.

Accomplishments:

-- Numbers: March 9, 2017: 173 lb (yikes) May 24, 2017: 156 lb at the start of RP Sept 2, 2017: 144 lb (!) for a total loss of 29 lb (which, by the way, is 16.8% of my starting bodyweight—whaaaaaaat?!?)

-- I lost 3” off my waist, 4” off my hips, and dropped from a 36DD to a 34D (which some women might dislike, but personally, I’m absolutely thrilled).

-- I am literally lighter than I was when I graduated from high school, yet also have significantly more muscle. The two little ‘folds’ in my mid-back have vanished, and I have defined deltoids for the first time ever. In the right light, I can see on myself why quads are called quads. And I’ve always loved my upper back, but now I’m positively obsessed with it; there are contours and ridges that I’ve never been able to see before.

-- The biggest practical victory—more so than clothing size or reflection in the mirror—is that I’ve seen major CrossFit progress for the first time in years. I’ve always been a better barbell athlete, comparatively weaker in gymnastics skills; that skill set has now almost been flipped. When I started this journey, I had zero bodyweight pull-ups; now I can do sets of four unbroken strict pull-ups, three kipping chest-to-bar pull-ups, and nine proper toes-to-bar (no monkey swing!). I also got my first-ever handstand push-ups to a single abmat (25# plates, I’m coming for you!), and although I’ve admittedly lost a bit of raw strength, particularly off my squat, I’ve actually ADDED weight to my bench press. Granted, I’ve been specifically working on these skills; they didn’t ‘just happen’ with weight loss—but physics also dictates that certain movements are just easier at a lighter bodyweight.

-- Mentally, there is a certain freedom to be found within the RP headspace. You eat what you’re supposed to eat when you’re supposed to eat it, and that’s that. Food becomes ‘fuel’, rather than ‘fun’. One day last week, I was coming down with a cold and realized that (apart from the 8g of fat), a full pint of black cherry Halo Top was almost exactly the right post-workout macros. I decided that would feel really great on my sore throat, and that I’d have it the next morning after the gym. But then, when 8am rolled around, I didn’t have a sore throat anymore, and ended up with my usual Cheerios, egg whites, and salsa—just because that sounded a lot better than ice cream. TL;DR—knowing you CAN have just about anything you want makes it so that you don’t actually NEED anything you may want.

-- Bonus: I also accidentally met my longtime ‘capsule wardrobe’ goal of 100 clothing items, because LITERALLY 60% of my clothes are now too big. :)

This new body is both mesmerizing and, sometimes, a little odd. It’s not my first time being ‘leaner,’ but it IS my first time being this lean as a CrossFit athlete. I’ve never been down this particular road in terms of body composition changes—I literally don’t know how my adult body behaves at this size—and some of what has happened has been unexpected. For instance, I have a few more visible veins than I did before. There’s a new wrinkle in my belly when I’m sitting down. A particular contour of my trunk that I always thought was a fat roll has turned out to be, in actuality, defined by my hip bone (duuuuh—I swear I am a medical provider!). And I come from a long line of apple-shaped women, and as such, STILL do not have visible abs—yet can now clearly see my ribcage, which, in the right light, consistently startles me. And although I can’t SEE my abs, I can FEEL them—as in, when my fingers trace the topography, I can feel the sensitive separations of the six-pack—which is both fascinating and slightly nauseating.

Moving forward:

I’m back in a place where I’m eager to put the scale away and stop focusing on it—because, practically speaking, I really don’t need to care exactly what it says as long as I get to keep all my newfound gymnastics skills. Physically, I’ve definitely felt under-recovered for the past few weeks—not ‘injured’, but just a general sense that I’m pushing the envelope in terms of how much my body can take—and I’ll be happy to feel a bit more ‘consistently strong’. Especially on rest days when my carb intake is slashed, I’ve noticed some unusually low blood pressure (87/63) and resting heart rate (43), which corresponds to feeling a bit shaky and weak. Being back on the base plan will allow me to ‘rest’ for a little while—my weight should theoretically stay stable (after a couple pounds’ expected regain over the next 1-2 weeks), but over the next couple of months, I may still see a very slow positive shift in terms of lean mass to fat mass. In other words, I may find that even just the base plan allows me to get slightly stronger, while hopefully also maintaining the level of leanness and new gymnastics skills I’ve worked so hard to achieve. I’m well aware that I’ve lost a bit of raw strength throughout this prolonged process (it is extremely strange to look at my legs—my favorite body part for 30+ years—and now perceive them as ‘too small’!), and that there is likely to be a squat cycle in my future—and that a massing nutrition plan may well be a part of that (gulp)... but this right here, this 144 pounds, is a really good spot to sit and breathe for the moment.

I was texting with a Philly friend yesterday, and in hearing my own responses to her, I was finally able to put words to the core of why things had been so different this time. With previous nutritional approaches—whether Whole30, keto, intermittent fasting, or what-have-you—I was always just sort of ‘riding’ a plan until it stopped working. I’d see some small changes, and then that would be it. With RP, I’ve been forced to take the time to educate myself on the actual physiology of what I’m doing—because with such a complex plan, that’s just necessary, both for psychological reassurance as well as to understand how to make logical adaptations on the fly when circumstances call for it—and that broader understanding is precisely what now reassures me that just because this rewarding ‘phase’ is now over, that that is not the same thing as declaring that all POTENTIAL for progress is now gone. The same rules still apply. The intrinsic makeup of carbs and fat and protein isn’t changing. The same framework still holds true—will always still hold true—as far as how to manipulate them in order to see results. It’s simple math. More importantly, it’s science. This distinction between ‘progress’ and ‘potential’ is not a concept I’ve ever been able to see before.

Transitions are always scary, especially when they involve the end of a phase that’s yielded so many visible benefits. But there’s also a profound reassurance in knowing that this new knowledge will be there whenever I need it. This was merely one season of a lifelong cyclic journey. Pausing is not a ‘weakness’, and it also isn’t the same thing as declaring myself content to not ever progress any further. Resting, and maintaining, are in fact necessary parts of ultimately continuing to move forward with my goals.

And, practically speaking, hanging out at maintenance for a couple of months is going to be really nice. The RP base plan actually encourages 2-3 cheats per week—the prescribed numbers already account for that—and I am really looking forward to having a social life again. :) I also remember how wonderfully I was sleeping back at the beginning, when I first added the casein protein shake to my bedtime routine, and I’m hoping to recapture that. And certain packaged foods that have been languishing in the cabinet for the past few weeks (like RX bars and single-serving packets of nuts—because they haven’t been the right ‘ratio’ to be included in the most recent menu), can now be reintroduced, which will make certain aspects of meal prep easier, especially on workdays.

At this moment, sitting at my kitchen table, it feels extremely odd to NOT be hungry. Today is the first day of incrementally (slowly!) increasing the amount of fat I’m eating (this is how the reverse-diet works, to slowly bring the metabolism back up to speed over a period of weeks), and I’m alternating between fascination, relief, awe, and anxiety. I had creamer in my coffee (!) and two Brazil nuts with my regular “egg whites and veggies” breakfast this morning—two freakin’ Brazil nuts—and a whole three hours later, I am just starting to feel a little bit hungry. For the past few weeks (in the second phase of the cut, with minimal fat intake at all), the grace period without hunger has been more like 45 minutes. When I take a moment to truly think about it, it deeply amazes me, this symphony of quiet chemical processes constantly taking place in our bodies. On a molecular level, we are pretty incredible physical creations.

I’m a bit concerned about my ability to continue to slowly increase my intake in a controlled way, because I’m about to be plunged into a thoroughly uncontrolled environment—I leave on Friday to spend 17 days (!) in a language immersion program in Costa Rica. I’m obviously tremendously excited about this, but it does compound the nutritional anxiety just a bit! The Central American diet is notoriously carb-heavy—rice, beans, plantains, fruit juices, and so forth—and I’m going to be staying with host families, so I’m not going to have a ton of control over what I’m served. I’m just packing a bunch of nonperishable protein sources and crossing my fingers. At any rate, I’m definitely glad I stopped now, and didn’t carry the cut right up to the last minute before departure.

Once I’m back, general goals for the next couple of months are: -- maintain the RP base plan—six ‘meals’ a day, including the two shakes, -- loosely maintain weight somewhere in the 140s—right now this seems to be the sweet spot for performance—but keep the scale out of sight for the most part, -- continue to work on ‘pulling’ and ‘pushing’ strength in the gym—short-term goals include confident ‘RXed’ handstand push-ups (meaning, with 25# plates) and consistent sets of 10 toes-to-bar, and -- definitely pound some shrimp chilaquiles from Gonza at the first available opportunity. ;)

This post has used a lot of ‘words’ to explain something pretty straightforward, which is that the biggest takeaway from this whole process hasn’t been pounds or inches or even reps. Plain and simple, it’s empowerment. I haven’t been ‘dieting’; I’ve been eating for a purpose, working toward specific performance goals. And it feels pretty incredible to be on the back side of such a major journey and to have the sense that the potential is still limitless—to know that whatever my future fitness and body composition goals may be, that I will always possess the tools to wreak this kind of transformation if I so choose.

“We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones.” –Henry David Thoreau

#nutrition #RP #RPstrength #RenaissancePeriodization #weightloss #progress #journey #crossfit #goals

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