{"id":37729,"date":"2013-07-18T08:06:09","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T15:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=37729"},"modified":"2013-07-17T21:07:45","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T04:07:45","slug":"dear-diary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=37729","title":{"rendered":"Dear Diary"},"content":{"rendered":"

I haven’t had a chance to make it to the Twitter #fitblog chat in ages. I used to be there every week on Tuesdays and I loved having the opportunity to make connections with like-minded people. Twitter may be a clique and often a time-suck, but I’ve met so many great people on there that I’d consider friends. I enjoy talking to them, I get advice<\/a> from them and learn new things. Then it was no more. \ud83d\ude41 Goodbye Fitblog…<\/p>\n

The last few months I’ve been so busy in the gym on Tuesdays lifting weights that I’ve missed the chats. In the past I was usually on the elliptical Tuesday nights so I could easily participate in the chat. It’s impossible now that I’m focusing on strength training. \u00a0There was a recent chat that I was sorry I missed. It sounded right up my alley. So why don’t we discuss it here?<\/p>\n

\"5494922-black-and-white-dear-diary\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How has self-journaling helped you achieve your health and fitness goals?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nI didn’t keep a journal of my weight loss journey and I REALLY wish I had. I would have liked to look back at what my specific struggles were, how I felt when I hit landmarks and goals, and what my thoughts were. The things I kept track of were my calories and my weight.<\/p>\n

I tracked my weigh-ins on an Excel spreadsheet (which you can see the numbers here<\/a>) and I wrote down all of my calories each day in a little notebook. This was obviously long before I got an iPhone and used an app to track my calories! It worked well and I did it diligently for two years.<\/p>\n

Now, I track my calories on my iPhone in either MyFitnessPal or Cronometer<\/a>. I track my biking and running mileage on DailyMile<\/a>\u00a0and that’s about it!<\/p>\n

What is the most difficult part of tracking your fitness journey?<\/strong>
\nI’m not sure that I have a difficult part of tracking. I’d say the most difficult part of the journey in general is dealing with injury. Me + injury does not = good mental health. Exercise is definitely my source of dealing with stress and anxiety. Exercise has alleviated a lot of the seasonal depression I deal with each winter. When I can’t exercise? I find myself slipping back into the old habits–the stress eating, getting sucked into that “black hole” mentality where I can’t see the silver lining on anything. It’s really hard.<\/p>\n

Injuries that sideline me from doing things I love (run, bike, etc) make me feel\u00a0despondent\u00a0and stressed out. It also makes me start to over-analyze my food intake. I try REALLY hard not to let myself get super restrictive with my calories when I’m injured. Not only do I need calories to heal my body, but lack of exercise should NOT equal severe food restriction! Ever! I just have to be more mindful. Maybe I don’t eat dessert every night. Or I skip the beer with dinner. Little things like that save the calories and aren’t over-restrictive.<\/p>\n

Do you think social media can help motivate people to create better habits?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nI think it does both, or rather it has the potential for both positive and negative things. Sometimes it’s easy to get sucked into disordered thinking<\/a> when you’re surrounded by people who are also struggling. While support is great, if someone’s disordered eating or overexercising is starting to rub off on you–social media is NOT a healthy resource.<\/p>\n

There have been several times over the years where I found myself getting a little disordered<\/a>. It’s happened with running — where I compared myself to more experienced and conditioned runners — and pushed myself too far. I’ve definitely compared myself to other bloggers — why are they so popular when all they do is post photos of oatmeal every day? What helps me is to step away and remind myself that I am NOT them. My journey is different, my body is different, my story is different. Maybe my body type isn’t meant to run marathons or do crossfit every single day. I need my rest days! I also remind myself to celebrate the non-scale victories<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Social-Media-Icons\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How do you build an online community around your health goals?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In terms of community, this happened naturally for me. When I decided it was time to lose 100 pounds most of my friends and family were super supportive. In my trek to finding a healthy lifestyle I started meeting new people who were interested in exercise and healthy living like I was.<\/p>\n

As for the online community, that came later, after I lost the weight. I really wish I had known there was such a vast resource for weight loss online. The chat groups, twitter, Facebook groups, SparkPeople…the list goes on and on! So while I’m not trying to lose weight, I do use my online community for support and common interests.<\/p>\n

\"community\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I love Twitter for this. The majority of people I follow are into healthy living. When I was running a lot, I participated in the #runchat running chat and I met so many cool runners. It’s a great place to get advice or learn new things about running. When I wanted to get serious about strength training I turned to my friend Suzanne<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Twitter <\/a>is what you make it. Fill it will people who will inspire and support you!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Okay, your turn to weigh in!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I haven’t had a chance to make it to the Twitter #fitblog chat in ages. I used to be there every week on Tuesdays and I loved having the opportunity to make connections with like-minded people. Twitter may be a clique and often a time-suck, but I’ve met so many great people on there that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[322,5577,101,1949,318,258,282,298,3372],"tags":[321,8772,3375,6970,6972,6969,6973,1753,8745,1129,6971],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37729"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37729"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39708,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37729\/revisions\/39708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}