My struggles with overeating

For those who is reading my blog for the first time, I do exercise quite regularly but still cannot lose weight or yo-yo when I lose significant amount. I am not fond of sharing my personal health experiences, but I do wish to help others and I found it helpful to know that other people have struggled and overcame their struggles.

I say that I exercise regularly, but I do go in slumps. In the big picture, I typically do the worst when I am at a new job because I overwork, eat poorly, eat more frequently, don't exercise, and sleep less. I get too tunnel-visioned in learning as much as I can in as short period of time. I do this rather successfully at the expense of my health.

I also do very, very well when I do not work. I lost 30 pounds in a summer when I was volunteering. I lose a lot of weight when I am between jobs. Basically, I do well when I just focus my attention at one particular lifestyle.

Lately, I have been doing better at balancing these two. Unfortunately, I still have a lot of bad habits. Eat a lot and frequently. I know it, but it is still hard to avoid it. No matter how much I tell myself... I could be telling myself the entire day that I should stop late night eating, I will still waver hard and indulge..... even when I wasn't even hungry.

I do not know why. But once it is late, I just want to eat. By this point, I have already eaten the usual 3 meals. I am even worse when I actually feel hungry. This has a multi-part problem. First, I don't cook frequently so I cook an entire week's worth of food over the weekend. Second, I do not like to waste food (in a broader view, I do not like wasting in general). Third, when I do something I go all the way. Fourth through to infinite, I am pretty bad to almost all bad eating habits except for sweets. 

I have never been much for candy, cakes, ice cream... unless they are the only available edible foods which I practice eat them more like a meal than a snack. I also do not have a problem with snacking, but I like snack foods. So if I am hungry, I can down a bag of potato chips. In between meals, I have no problems avoiding it. Once I am hungry and I eat one chip... the bag will basically be consumed within minutes.

So if there is food around, I will want to "finish" it even if I am full. I don't like leftovers, so I will eat it all. Even if I am stuffed, I will finish off the food. Because I don't buy candy or snacks, I am at least able to avoid very unhealthy foods. When I host parties and have leftover snacks... sadly I will eat them. To avoid this, I have been giving them away as guests leave or bring them to the office.

But easily my one biggest issue is late night eating...

I eat an extra late night meal. This is so hard and no amount of logic can explain why I still want to eat... except out of habit. I will look into every nook and cranny for some resemblance of food that needs to be consumed and make-up some excuse that it needs to be done before it expires. Even to this day, I am staring at the food and practically yelling at myself (or the food) that I should not eat... I will not eat it.... over and over.

I do not know what triggered the change, but in the last week, I have actually been able to put the food back into the fridge and just not eat it. And like that, I have been able to lose 1-2 pounds a day. It does not even matter if I ate unhealthy (fried chicken, fries, etc.). I am not saying that I should be eating it, but this just shows how unhealthy late night eating has been for me. I am already down 8 pounds in the last week. (Just for some reference to those who is trying to lose weight, I should weigh around 170 and currently 250 at the start of losing... so don't be thinking you'll lose a pound if you are already at average weight.)

Even now as I write this post, I still have the urge. It has become literally to the point of my left arm pulling my right arm away. So, I really hope anyone who is trying to lose weight that you are not alone in your struggle. It is hard... and sometimes there really is no good explanation except purely will-power to make a change in one's life. So, keep fighting even if you fail. 

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Edit:
Sorry, I posted this primarily for myself. Because for the life of me, I cannot remember this command line.

Failed 4 mile race

How does one fail a race? By being late to the race. The weather was terrible so traffic was slower than normal, fortunately the weather did not reach the race destination. Then I couldn't find parking, spent 30+ minutes. I ended up 10 minutes late.

I ended up cutting across the park and finish the race without an official time. Although I felt lighter on my feet, I felt that my endurance was actually worse. I have not trained much in long distance, usually running at most 20 minutes. The only extended exercise is the Insanity workouts which is around 40 minutes. I guess that is not a good substitute... also does not help that I cannot keep up the entire time either.

With all that said, I played volleyball today and did surprisingly well. I wonder if I am now able to jump higher which is helping me hit better.

So although I feel better, I think my endurance has dropped a bit. I'll have to experiment this further.

Exercise Break - 20170602

Took a break from any heavy workouts yesterday and today in preparation for a 4-mile race tomorrow. I'm targeting to complete under an hour. Given my 3k of 35 minutes, I think I should be around 51 minutes.

Shaun T Insanity Day 9 - Personal Experience

I think I may have messed up the day numbers. At this point, I'm just going to number the days to be incremental by the days I work out instead of the DVD as I have noticed that I may mix around the exercises depending on how I feel. For example, last night I worked on the second DVD, Plyometric Cardio Circuit.

Since I have completed the whole box set (minus the one DVD that didn't work for me), it is time to start over again. I skipped the first DVD (Dig Deeper & Fit Test) as I just didn't feel to be in the mood to count as it was late.

This time around with Plyometric Cardio Circuit, I definitely noticed that I am do a little more and more flexible on the stretches.My weight is around or maybe slightly lighter than the prior time. (I really should record these things).

I still struggled with the pushups and running pushups, but I was able to do a couple sets (which I believe I skipped completely last time). Again I just went into the half-plank (plan from my knees instead of my feet). My arms are still not strong enough to maintain proper position. They were still tired just from the planks. Mountain climbing is still a struggle but did these much slower and without the hop.

Still sweated a ton, felt good prior and after... this is probably my favorite workout of the whole set.

Reference

http://douglastclee.blogspot.com/2017/05/shaun-t-insanity-day-1-and-day-2.html