What I learned in Boot Camp

Dennis and I participated in a 9 week boot camp at the Dan Abraham Healthy Living Center. At the end of the program I had lost 10 pounds, 5% body fat, and 2 liters of total body volume. I gained 2.4 % VO2 (aerobic capacity), and increase my flexibility by one point. Dennis lost 17 pounds and 6% body fat. There were 20 participants and we were led by two trainers and a dietician. Each week we met as a group on Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings. We worked out as a group on Saturdays and some Thursdays. We had educational sessions on Thursdays. We both learned ALOT during this program and I just wanted to share some of it in my blog.

1. It really is all about calories in/calories out. I learned that I fall into the category of short/old/female. Which means I have to exercise MORE than my taller female friends in order to lose weight. There is a very long explanation behind this but what it boils down to is that there is a really fine line between adequete calories to sustain my body and keep me from starvation mode...and excess calories that end up as fat. So in order for me to lose weight I have to eat 1300 calories per day....but I should never eat less than this or I'll go into starvation mode. I've found that as long as i'm exercising regularly I can still lose pounds on 1300-1500 calories per day. As I lose weight there is less of me to burn calories...so common sense would tell you that I should eat less as I weigh less...but no I cannot go below 1300 calories so that means I have to exercise MORE to compensate! There is NO SLACKING as I get closer to my goal.

2. I cannot and should not eat as much as Dennis...he weighs more which means he gets to eat more.

3. Low fat diets do not result in weight loss or health. This has been a harder lesson to learn...one I'm still working at getting comfortable with. We need fat in our diets to support bodily functions and to support our immunes system. If we allow our fat consumption drop below the recommended amounts we become sick and we don't lose weight because we hang on to every last pound to help support our health. The key is to eat more mono and poly unsaturated fats and less saturated and trans fats. There is a learning curve with this especially if you've had the "fat is bad" mantra drilled into your head.

4. I can workout alot harder than I had been doing. In bootcamp we had assigned workouts as homework each week and they purposely gave us rigid difficult workouts to do in the beginning. It seemed backwards at first (why not ease us into this gradually?) but looking back it makes sense...they needed to weed out the ones who weren't serious and most of us needed a wake up call right off the bat. I learned what it really feels like to be close to dying or passing out so that in future workouts when I feel like I need to stop...I can look back and say..."no I'm not to that point yet I can keep going!" Now instead of "AM I DONE YET?" as my mantra I say "NO...YOU'RE NOT DEAD OR PASSED OUT YET...KEEP GOING!!"

5. Life is too short to waste calories on mediocre food. We've probably all had those times where we sat and ate a too dry flavorless cookie or roll because we paid for it or because it was there. I'm slowly morphing myself to a point where I stop eating something if it doesn't taste good... Our dietician in bootcamp told us that if we choose to eat something that puts us over our calorie range for the day that we had better enjoy it and it better taste good. This was definitely an "aha" moment for me. She also stressed that we shouldn't look at going over our calorie range as "cheating"..this isn't a contest or a game or a test...we should call it what it really is: "A choice to eat more today"

6. I've learned to enjoy different foods. Quinoa (only whole grain that by itself makes a complete protein), steel cut oats, Wheat thins fiber select crackers (yummm and you get 15 per serving!), soy milk, tofu (a very filling meatless protein!), and greek yogurt. I had eaten the greek yogurt and soy milk pre boot camp but I appreciate their value more now.

7. Yoga and swimming! They are both wonderful forms of exercise even if they are "enjoyable"

8. It takes time and patience to lose weight. Rapid weight loss doesn't give your mind the time to adapt to the lifestyle changes that are needed to make it stick. I'm no where near my end goal but I'm learning that no matter how long it takes me, I'm getting healthier and these lifestyle changes are becoming habit...hopefully that will help me with maintenance. This is not something that has an end date...I will always need to be conscious of my eating and exercise habits...slacking off is not allowed.

9. Keeping a food log is important. I've logged my food off and on for years but didn't always pay attention to it...it was just something I did and hoped I'd lose weight because of it. The key to logging food is to associate patterns with success. Two of my favorite online food diaries are :
http://www.dietwatch.com/ which is a paid site, and http://www.sparkpeople.com/ which is free. Both sites have an enormous food database, and allow you to set your own parameters and too look at trends/charts/graphs. Dietwatch will actually give you weekly feedback and sparkpeople lets you look at your food a week at a time. Dietwatch will give you a calorie deficit, sparkpeople does not.

10. Finally...enough cannot be said for the power of having a buddy doing this with you. This is the first time that Dennis and I did anything like this together...and let me tell you having him doing the same thing as I was doing made it so much easier.