Working out!

You can't be lazy and lose inches of fat.

Two years ago this summer, I set my alarm for 4:45 in the morning so I could make it to Spring Hill Adventure Boot Camp for Women.

Upon waking up when it rang, I finally realized I'm not sane. I mean, who, pray tell, gets up before 5 -- before 6, even -- five days a week for a month to work out with a trainer? Let me tell you: I did.

And it changed my life.

For the first time since high school, I saw results from working out. In four weeks, I lost several inches in several places. I saw, for once, that like much of life, I couldn't get where I wanted to be if I tried to do it alone. We're designed, after all, to be our brothers' (and sisters'!) keepers.

I'll be honest with you -- though it's been more than four months since I've eliminated added sugar from my diet, it wasn't until recently I noticed any change in my size or shape. That's because I wasn't getting adequate exercise. Any good trainer -- like Frank Pastorelli in Florida or Dustin Maher in Wisconsin -- would tell you the best results will come when how you eat and how you work out are both top notch.

Four reasons to hire a trainer

Expertise

"If you hire a good trainer, they definitely know things you don't know," said personal trainer Dustin Maher.
Those things, he said, can make or break your workout. Among them? Ways to work out without getting injured. Ways to safely work out after a pre-existing injury. What to eat in order to best reach your fat loss goal (and when to eat it!). How to keep the fat off once you've lost it.
"Personalized programs and nutritional plans for your needs, goals and body type," said personal trainer Frank Pastorelli. He also said a good trainer makes sure the trainee doesn't hit a fitness plateau. Often times, when you work out alone, "you'll get results in the beginning. But they'll come to a permanent halt." A trainer, he said, can see those plateaus coming and change the workout routine before they happen.

Accountability

Pastorelli can always tell when a trainee has reached his or her limit. But in the following, he's a firm believer: "You would have quit 20 seconds ago if you didn't have me, or whoever, there to get the most out of you."
A trainer, Maher said, doesn't just keep you accountable during the workouts. His or her presence also keeps you accountable on the days in between them.
"Chances are, someone who's really unhealthy (or) overweight doesn't have a good support network around them," he said. A trainer can be that network -- or, at least, get it started.

You can probably afford it.

"Some people truly can't afford it," Maher said. But "I tell people there's no money in the world to trade for health."
One of his trainees, Becky Runo, agrees.
"So many people will pay $4 a day on a calorie, sugar-laden mocha and not give it a second thought," she said. "But when it comes to paying for even one personal training session, they can't afford it."
Pastorelli sees the same pattern.
"Just brew your own (coffee) and hire a trainer," he said. "I hate the excuses." Some people say they can't afford it, he said, but "they'll go spend $50 on a meal at Outback."
The issue, the trainers said, is usually less about money and more about priorities.

Results

Runo, 38, has been working out with Maher for more than 15 months. Before she started training, she weighed 174 pounds but changed her diet. When she reached 154 pounds, she met Maher. Three months later, she weighed 124.
"My body has really transformed in more (ways) than the scale alone conveys," she said. "I have much more tone and definition."
And the results, she said, wouldn't be as good without a trainer.
"I never push myself as hard as Dustin pushes me," she said. "Even on the days when I'm working out on my own, I know he is going to ask me about what I did. So, in a sense, he is still there, encouraging me."

I'm back!

As of Tuesday night, I am academically free!

Until summer classes, that is. But maybe once they start, the workload won't be as heavy as mine during the spring semester and I won't neglect the blog. Just in case, I'll try to step it up with updates in the time between now and then.

You'll be glad to know that since my last sugar snafu, my eating has been without mishap. I am still sugarless! Speaking of which, I've got a quick story:

The other morning, while I got ready for work, I stood near my mom's mug of coffee. I'm not a coffee drinker. I don't taste it. I don't make it. Nor do I pay attention when others do. So, I had to ask her.

"Do you put sugar in your coffee?"

She said yes.

And I knew it. Wanna know how?

Because I could smell it. I wonder if that's a sign of my sensitivity to sugar now that my body's not used to it!

I could be wrong, of course, but I really don't remember ever getting a whif of coffee and knowing the difference between it with and without sugar. Interesting, no?

Disclosure.

Forgive me.

Not just for failing to update since mid-March, but for sitting here at my desk munching some Snyder's of Hanover pretzels that have dextrose (a.k.a. sugar) in them.

Clearly starving, my foggy brain convinced me that I'd gotten the pretzels before and all was well in my sugar free year. But upon donating $.50 to the vending machine, I realized I was wrong.

But today, hunger outweighed wrongness.

And I won't let this happen again.

My sugarless brain does it again!

Forgive me for taking far too long to write! Let's just say my Spring Break felt a lot like finals week. But while I work toward repressing that (I kid.), let's move on to the matter at hand.

You might remember that a few weeks ago, I took a test in my human growth and development class. While I studied for it, and when the time to take the test arrived, my brain recalled what I needed to know with a rapidity I'd never before experienced. (In case anyone wondered how I did on the test, I got a 98. Go on. Celebrate with an air guitar solo. I did!) Immediately, I became convinced my elimination of added sugar played a part in that.

I am still convinced.

Two nights ago, I took a mid-term in my legal, ethical and professional standards of counseling class. Because of a few scheduling snafus (and a slight lack of diligence on my part), fate left me with Thursday, Friday and Sunday for making my flash cards. That left me with Monday -- until the exam at 6:20 p.m. -- to quiz myself with them.

Would you believe my brain did it again? One card after another. And my professor posted grades last night. How did I do, you ask?

I got a 60.

Out of 60.

[Insert celebratory air guitar solo.]

the whole person

I'm off to study shortly, but something hit me this morning and I'd like to share it!

Last semester, a professor of mine expressed her qualms with the fact that there's always been this great divide between mental health professionals and medical doctors. So many mental health professionals are solely concerned with the mind and so many medical doctors are solely concerned with the body. But what happens to one affects the other since they are, in fact, connected. No matter the setting, we need to look at the whole person.

That's why I think it's time to take my sugar free year up another notch.

So I've got this sugar thing down. Thanks to sugar's many names and perpetual need to show up in the most surprising of products, I've really cut back on eating anything that comes in cans, bags or boxes. If I do, I read the entire ingredients list and I don't go for it if I'm not completely sure it has no sugar. But as I ultimately head toward taking care of my body the way a body really needs to be taken care of, there are a few more steps I'll need to take.

1. Prayer. I pray -- but I need to be more consistent. If I could only get my sleep schedule on track, I'd be up early enough to go to daily morning mass. Which brings us to...

2. Sleep. Oh, how I enjoy sleeping. But I a) need to get to bed earlier so that b) I can get at least eight hours but still arise early enough in the morning so I won't need to rush to get to work.

3. Exercise. I do -- but I need to be more consistent.

I figure if I'm taking this year to eliminate my dependence on the excessive sugar the food industry says we should all be ok eating, I may as well work on some of the rest of what's necessary as part of a healthy life.

Why not now?

To quote a Tobymac song I've heard a lot lately...

"If you gotta start somewhere, why not here? If you gotta start sometime, why not now?"

Every time I hear it, I think of the state of this culture.

I think about the American obsession with all that's quick and easy. I think about the way so little of what goes on here is about preventing problems. I am reminded that this culture's focus is always, always on finding ways to negate problems without actually removing the things that caused them. And so few seem aware that living like that never works out well. Without fail, the quick fixes screw something else up in one way or another and in response, we look for a new quick fix to fix the mess the first one made.

Absurd, no?

What a place. What a place where drugs exist for every symptom. We can't get food except for from an industry that cares more about profit than people. We choose coffee over sleep and we're all right with it. We live for money (think about it. We do.). Will power is obsolete. Toddlers eat Circus Peanuts.

The longer we let it go, the worse it'll get. The longer we participate, the more it gets our vote. It's overwhelming. And it's hard. What are some ways we can make a change? Shop at a farm or a farmer's market instead of a grocery store. Get enough sleep. Make lunch for a homeless person. Simplify your life. Declutter your space. Give it away if you never wear, use, look at it. Don't feed crap to your kids. What are your ideas?

We've gotta start sometime.

Why not now?

Marie brings up a good point.

A friend and former colleague of mine named Marie sent me a great note in response to my blog. I'd like to take a quick sec to share part of it with you!

"I had some work done on my teeth. I could only eat soft food and my daughter, trying to help me, brought me some baby food. I was horrified at the amount of sugar in baby food. Food companies should be sued for this. Poor babies. I wonder if mothers read labels. I wanted to scream! Needless to say, the baby food is still in my pantry two months later. I do not want to give it to a food bank because I feel it will harm little ones."

Wow she's right! Even among all things food related that cross my mind on a regular basis, since I don't have children, I never really thought about what the youngest of us eat. Marie's baby food experience reminds me of the time I saw a woman walk out of a convenience store with a package of Circus Peanuts. She opened it and gave it to her toddler.

Would you like to know what's in a Circus Peanut? Sugar. Corn syrup. Gelatin. Pectin. Artificial flavor. And colors yellow 6, yellow 5 and red 40. No adult needs that, let alone a toddler!

Sigh. Something's gotta be done. We really do need a food revolution.