The Elephant in the Room

 

Another month has passed in this seemingly never-ending weight loss journey.  I am telling you, it has gone on forever.  And that is disheartening.  However, in the same breath, I know that this journey of weight loss and fitness is one that NEEDS to go on a lifetime.  I just wish I was at the maintaining journey and that I hadn’t spend so many years struggling.   And if truth be told.  I am still struggling. In fact, there is an elephant in the room that I have been blatantly ignoring and not talking about.  But I am sufficiently frightened at this point.  So it is time to talk and reveal the weight loss and fitness elephant in the room.

Elephant in the Room

Over the last almost 19 years of being on this journey and publicly writing about it on this forum, I have frequently written about how I was so lucky that I never lost mobility.  I may have gained weight but I was going to Zumba three times a week.  I was still running.  I was riding my bike.  I was active.  I was the fittest fast person!  I KNEW I was writing this post today and last night I was reading some old posts as I was looking for something in particular and I accidentally stumbled upon just such a statement. (You can read that post here.)   I know that the movement and that the fact that I never stopped moving was instrumental in my relative good health!  I then read in a different post about how I had clawed and worked so hard to get to a point where I could consistently run multiple miles.  I talked about my hard work and the effort it took to get there.  I actually wrote about how I would NEVER let myself slip back to the point where I was starting from scratch again.  Yet I have allowed myself to slip backwards big time.  No that’s not the elephant in the room!  The elephant in the room is that I didn’t just slip back to the beginning point, I have regressed and have LOST mobility.  Life is a struggle right now for me.

Exercise

Jason and I were quite active for so many years.  But then something happened after we got married.  I don’t know that I rightly want to blame buying our house as the culprit.  I don’t think I can lay appropriate blame on his accident with the axe.   I can’t blame it on mom and her stroke, or the addition of a dog, or my bout with Gerd.  I mean, seriously since we got married it’s been a roller coaster.  I even titled one post ‘A Year for the Record Books” (you can read that post here).    No, the blame lies with me.  Sure those things contributed, but when it’s all said and done I am the one that failed.  I had grand plans on so many instance.  In fact at the beginning of 2023 I actually exercised religiously for about 5 months.  At one point since we lived here I started to run again.  I have sporadically vowed to start and I stay strong for a day, maybe a few days or even a few weeks but then I fall apart and stop.  There have been more failures than successes.  My failures are due to not due to lack of desire, but they are still failures.  Meanwhile, Jason’s run in with the axe, the hours spent visiting mom each week, and everything else combined to break the habit of our activity levels.  Hiking?  Yeah, that stopped happening.  Bike riding?  I haven’t been on my bike since we moved into our house 2.5 years ago!   It was a one two punch.  I wasn’t exercising and we stopped being active.   I don’t know why I didn’t think things would get ugly, but they did.

How bad is this mobility Issue

So the question is how bad has this mobility issue progressed?    Too far, is my answer.     Any mobility issue is too far though!  I started noticing issues about 6 months ago.  Yes, I have been sitting on this for about 6 months.  The first thing I noticed?  If I had to get down to the ground it had become quite laborious and decidedly awkward.  Deep knee bends and crouching as they say on my haunches?   Yeah, that couldn’t happen.  Kneeling on one knee and then standing back up.  Nope.   I devised work around because face it, sometimes you have to get down on a knee.  I was scared at the loss of mobility.  And I vowed to work on it.  Apparently, I didn’t work on it hard enough and /or consistently enough.

Fast forward to more recently when I was going about my normal daily life and walked a bit more than I normally do and my legs were so sore!  Inclines about felled me!  It was so embarrassing and demoralizing!    How much did I have to walk to feel that pain each night?    I’m so embarrassed to say it was a whopping 7,000 to 8,000 steps!  What?  I am struggling with only 7,000 steps!  My legs are so sore and achy after 7,000 steps spread out over one day?   This is NOT normal and highlights how my mobility is diminishing each and every day.  

The silver lining in facing my decreasing mobility

There is a silver lining in my discoveries about my decreasing mobility.  There are actually two things that I am grateful for.

1.       I am grateful that even while I made the horrendous discovery that 7,000 steps were enough to cause me to ache and hurt I am able to recover rather quickly.   I walk like I’m on two peg legs by the evening, but by morning I am completely recovered.   That is a good thing!

2.      The other thing that I am grateful for is that I have had my eyes opened.  The squatting thing where I can’t squat or get up off the floor easily was bad, but the walking thing was jarringly in my face.  I wear a garmin watch. Apparently I haven’t been looking at my step count.  My struggle with those measly 7K step count days made me look back at recent weeks. I have been averaging less than two thousand steps!  That is pitiful.  That is embarrassing.  That is shameful.  But, my eyes are opened.

The bonus silver lining is that it’s not too late.  I can turn this ship around.  It is going to require a change in my thought processes.

The biggest change in my thought process is the mentality toward exercise.   The best time for me to exercise is first thing in the morning at 5AM while Jason is in the shower.  I hate to exercise that early and I have been for the last SOOO many months saying that I will exercise after work.  But after work never happens.  So the mentality has to change.  5AM is when it has to happen and as of now planned exercise is non-negotiable.  If it’s a scheduled day, it’s non-negotiable.  I need to start thinking in that term.  To put it into the proper perspective.  My alarm goes off at 5AM.  I don’t want to get out of bed!   But I do.  It is non-negotiable.  I get out of bed because Jason and I have to work.  It is non-negotiable.  When you weigh the consequences, it is obvious to us that even though we don’t WANT to, we have to.  And thus when that alarm goes off we get out of bed.      Likewise.  Do you think I like walking the dog outside at 5AM in the morning, in the middle of winter when it’s zero degrees?   Of course I don’t want to.  But I do it.   Because it is non-negotiable.   The consequences of not doing it are abhorrent.  I don’t want to have to clean up a mess OR potentially allow my dog to develop bad habits.   So I do it, even when I don’t want to!  Exercise has to be that way now for me.  I don’t want to do it at 5AM (the only time that doesn’t get sucked up with other activities and responsibilities) but I have to.  It’s non-negotiable because I have to beat down this elephant in the room. 

 

Now that I have faced and admitted my decreased mobility, I have to do something about it.  I have to stop the downward spiral of my mobility.  Furthermore, I have to INCREASE my mobility.  It’s not too late for me.  (It’s never too late)  But the quicker I fix this problem, the easier it will be to minimalize the losses and recover what I have lost!   

 

Trying Noom for Weight Loss

A few months ago I was at a stage in my life where I found myself desperate.  I was desperate with where I am in terms of my weight loss journey.  This journey to lose weight has not been easy.  It’s been long and arduous.  And about two months ago I found myself in a position of saying that something needed to change. I needed to shake things up.  I needed to finds something different, something new.  SOMETHING.   I needed to enter a new era of my weight loss journey.  And I did just that.  I joined Noom. 

 

Noom

 

In an effort to shake things up in my weight loss efforts I joined Noom.  I was totally hesitant to join this program for a few reasons.  First and foremost, I am cheap and Noom costs money.  Secondly, the program is cloaked in secrecy.  All I could find was that it was calorie based in its approach.  I was good with that, but wanted to find more.  I couldn’t find more, not until I signed up.  In fairness, they do give a 10 day free trial…..or rather a 10 day ‘give a donation if you can since it costs such and such amount of money to give you this free trial.’  Every time I had looked at the program that turned me off!  But this time I was open to it.  I was actually open to paying also.  I guess you could say I was desperate for a change to get my life (my weight loss and fitness life at least) back on track.  I joined.  So as a brief rundown.  It is calorie based and if you drill into your calories, it ranks all your calories into three different colors.  Orange, yellow and green.  As you can expect green colored foods you can eat pretty much as much as you want.  Green foods are things like your vegetables and fruits.    The yellow foods are foods that are still pretty healthy.  This includes options like eggs and chicken breasts.  You can have yellow foods but you just want to pay a little more attention to them.  And then you have the orange foods.  Orange foods are foods that you can still have, but in moderation and with care.  Nothing is off limits with Noom, just work it into your day’s budget for calories and more specifically for calories in each food color.     The program also gives you daily ‘lessons’.   The early lessons teach about the program and the science behind it but those lessons segue into lessons about the psychology on how to combat some of the issues in life that cause weight loss issues.   The program also works treat days into the program  to make this program a sustainable option.

 

What I like about Noom

There are some aspects of Noom that I really like. 

1.      I really like the concept of the colors within your calorie count.   I like that they break down your projected calories so you know how many of each color you SHOULD be eating and how many you did eat.   It is a great way to quickly identify if you are eating the right kind of calories.  Because lets face it, I could eat my daily calories in cake and then eat nothing else.  I would still be within my calories…but would it be a healthy day?  So the colors really show where your weak points are. (I’m looking at your butter and jelly on my toast…….).    I know that with myfitnesspal you can use the macros for this aspect of tracking.  But there are so many different macros to watch that it can get overwhelming.    Weight watchers also tries to steer you toward the healthier foods with their number system and their ‘free foods’.  But seriously, a color system is SOO much easier!  

2.      I really like how they work the treat day.  Randomly (I know, there is a system to when I earn them…and they may have explained it, but I don’t want to know, I like the surprise aspect), you will get a message that says you earned a treat day.  You can use it immediately, or you can bank it and save it for a later day.     I have discovered a few neat things about the treat day.  The first thing was that the day that I used a treat day, when I went back the next day the app greeted me with a “did you have a fantastic treat day?”   It took all negativity out of a treat day, which I have talked about numerous times when I say I don’t like the word cheat day! (which so many people use).    In this way, Noom is encouraging people to live their lives and celebrate life without guilt and without shame.   Furthermore, that day when I came back after a treat day, it stopped and had me reaffirm my commitment to my journey!    The second thing I discovered that I liked was that one day I didn’t go onto the app because I was busy and life just got in the way.  When I went back the app prompted me with ‘do you want to use a treat day”.   They recognized that days when you aren’t on the app, may likely be the days that you slip.     So yeah, I really like how they manage the treat days.  It is a refreshing way to handle a treat day.  From ‘earning’ the treat day to the celebratory attitude to the recommitment when it is done, it is all refreshing.

3.      I debated about where to place the psychological aspect of Noom was it a like or a dislike?  It honestly falls into both.   The psychological aspect of Noom is conveyed to the user through daily lessons.  These lessons take about 5-10 minutes to complete.   You do not have the option to do more Noom as the program limits how many lessons you can do it a day.  The lessons rare full of information and knowledge about weight loss, techniques for losing weight and yes the psychology behind it all.   The information is solid, and that is why I am placing it on the what I like side of things.    However, after so many years of being on a weight loss journey the information is more a review and a reminder.  (How can it almost be 19 years since I started this blog/website?).  But a reminder isn’t a bad thing!    On that note though, how I wished I would have had Noom and all the information when I was first starting to lose weight!

 What I Dislike about Noom

Of course with the above things that I like about Noom, there are things that I dislike!

1.      I do not like the tracking app.  This is probably my largest dislike!  In fairness, it is functional and does a great job of keeping track of my caloric intake.  However, it is a rather cumbersome application.  I have tried to give it the benefit of the doubt and say, “well I used myfitnesspal for so many years that I am just set in my ways”.   But not.  Even after months of using Noom, I am still finding the tracking aspect to be awkward.  My biggest issue.  You have to click into tracking….then click into the meal you want to add.  Standard up to this point.  From here is where it gets unwieldy.   You can enter your food.   They give you four standard options for portion size.  To change the portion size, you have to click her and click there and whatnot, it’s not just clicks on the same screen.  It is click here and it takes you to another page…and then click there to go somewhere else.  So when you finally get the food and the portion you can start entering your next item.  And you start the process again.    When you are done entering, you are actually not done.  You have to click “Done” at the top of the page….which to me means it’s done and you have entered it into your tracker.  But NO….then you have to click the tab at the bottom that says log ‘breakfast’ (or lunch, dinner or snack).   Done yet?   Nope, there is now an intermediary page that pops up and you have to the chose close which takes you back to the main page.   Ohhh, not the main page of the tracking….the main page TOTAL.  So if you are entering your days foods all at once (either at the start of the day as pre tracking or at the end after you’ve already eating, you now need to start right back at the beginning and CHOOSE tracking….then CHOOOSE the meal…..and then start again with the multiple clicks.   It just seems over the top annoying!   Ohhh and if you try to bypass one, it will delete all your hard work and take you back to the beginning.  Believe me, I have done it so many times by accident because crazily enough, I think that when I click ‘done’ it really means done.  Or that when I click ‘log meal’ that it means I’m logging the meal.  So frustrating!

2.      The psychological mumbo jumbo lessons!   Yes, I am putting the daily lessons on the dislike page also.  I really should have made an ‘ambivalent’ section, but since I didn’t I am putting this one on both the like and dislike!   These lessons.  They are not a work at your own pace in the regard that you only have the option for 3 or 4 a day.  Now if you don’t read through them, they just transfer to the next day.  So you definitely have the option to do them slow!  But you do not have the option to do them faster.   That is annoying and I can clearly see that as a ploy to keep people coming to their site…and paying.

3.      And with that dislike, I will talk about the cost.  I dislike the cost of this program and how they operate.   You can purchase one month at a time, which would be the standard way things operate.  I will preface the next few sentences by saying that I can’t remember the actual prices for each payment plan, so I may be off in the prices a bit.   But, if you pay month to month you will be paying somewhere near $70 for that month. (yes, you read that right…and yes, this one is one of the prices that I know I’m pretty close to what it cost it’s the following numbers that I can’t remember.)  If you opt in for two months, you will get a deal and pay less, $60 a month.   Three month plan?  You pay even less at $55…..and downward to the longest plan, which was 10 or 11 months….at $200 dollars.   The longest plan is actually doable at $20 a month…but I had to commit to the long term.   Which is what I did.  I made a commitment to try it for long term.  

So, here I am in a long term commitment with Noom. Some of the things I like are important and are helping to ‘reset me’.  The color system for my calories is really neat because it is helping remind me that all calories are not created equal.   So I am ok with my commitment.  But the tracking is so annoying that I can honestly say that unless something changes drastically In the next 6-8 months that my time with Noom will end when my current commitment runs out.   

And once again, I ran out of room to unpack all of what has been going on in the last month.   Tomorrow, I promise.  I am kinda dreading sharing and actually admitting this out loud (well, I consider on here 'outloud), but it's time! Tomorrow I will finally share the elephant in the room.