I weighed in at 230 lbs this morning, so I lost 9 lbs. this week. Apparently the 6 lbs I was up yesterday was due to the 5 gallons of water I drank trying to make SURE that sodium would have no part in this week's weigh-in. I peed myself to death last night, so sleep was intermittent.
Now before anyone gets overly excited, you all know I gained 6 lbs. last week. I'm willing to bet at least 4 of those lbs was from the sodium I ate the previous night and just didn't have time to fall off yet. So in the 9 lbs I lost this week, I think 4 lbs of it was water weight, and 5 lbs of it was actual fat lost. I'm 2 weeks into my month, so with a 6 lb gain the first week and a 9 lb loss this week, I've lost a total of 3 lbs, which is an average of 1.5 lbs a week. I am perfectly happy with that.
I'm ready to change some things. It doesn't excite me to lose 5-6 lbs in a week and then have a gain the week or 2 after that. It just doesn't. What I am longing for is CONSISTENCY. I want to figure out my own personal groove where I'm dropping 1-2 lbs a week nearly every week.
My first thing I'm going to change is up my calories to 1700 this week. I'm hoping a few more calories will lesson the deprivation feeling I've been battling with. Also, I'm re-distributing my calories through my day. I've been eating 4x a day. Breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner. I eat dinner between 5-5:30pm and I don't eat anything else before bed, which is usually around midnight. I don't like going 7 hours with no food. It irritates me. So I'm going to start incorporating a snack around 8pm probably. I had a personal trainer once tell me that not eating after 6pm is a myth. She said it's perfectly fine to eat an evening snack, but the trick is to make sure it's no more than 150 calories.
Also, I've been eating the bulk of my calories at lunch due to something Pam's doctor told her. He said to eat the bulk of your calories earlier in the day to give your body a chance to burn them off and make dinner your lightest meal. I've been trying to work towards that. For example, my dinner last night was a 150 calorie bowl of soup. I know the dr is probably correct in his thinking, but it doesn't feel right for me. I want to try to make the calories I eat at each meal a little more even to see if it keeps me feeling more full throughout the course of the day.
Another thing. My mom told me last night that she thinks my metabolism still isn't right. She said that I eat way too little fat. I haven't done this by design, I actually never count the fat in anything I eat. The only thing I count is calories. Naturally, with scouring the earth to find the lowest calorie foods so that I can have as much volume in 1500 calories as possible, I've ended up with way too little fat in my diet. Sparkpeople says I should have between 45-60 grams of fat I day. I usually average 20-25 grams. I had to go back and look at this at their website from where I track my daily calories, because as I said, I've never paid attention to the fat before. So upping the fat is going to reduce the volume, but she says that fat helps to satisfy you, so I'm hoping the less volume won't bother me.
This is all trial and error for me. Obviously, if I get to next weigh day and I've gained, I'll have to do some more adjusting. But I don't think my problems lie with my exercise. I think walking/jogging 4 miles 5-6x a week is pretty good for my exercise. I've also been lifting free weights every other day to work on my bat wings, but I plan on incorporating some other free weight exercises this week. I think the issue is with my calories, and the way I'm eating them.
My goal is now to get to a consistent loss every week, even a small one. If I can find my groove, I will gladly nix my 10 lb/month goal and just be happy with whatever I lose....as long as I'm losing pretty consistently. The people that I've been thinking about are Jo at 282.5 and "K" at Fat [Free] Me. They are so consistent....1-2 lbs week after week after week for months on end. That's the kind of success I want.
Keep your fingers crossed for me this week!! I really need to get the "diet" feel off of this healthy eating lifestyle and find a groove that I can settle into for life. I'm in this for the long haul. :)
Quote For the Day:
"If you don't do what's best for your body, you're the one who comes up on the short end." -Julius Erving
Showing posts with label lifestyle changes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lifestyle changes. Show all posts
Friday, October 16, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Complaziness
I've got good news and bad news. Which would you like to hear first? The good news, of course!
My mom and I got over the argument and everything's back to normal now. She didn't feel like it was that big of a deal in the first place, so that made me feel even better. Things are always a bigger deal to me than anyone else because I'm so emotional.
Dwayne called me today from work on his lunch break and we talked about 45 minutes. He's not pulling away this time! I can't tell you what a relief that is. He's looking forward to a good weekend with me and Scarlette and will be here tomorrow evening after work, just like normal.
The bad news is, I got on the scale tonight to see what kind of damage the retarded eating from last Fri, Sat and Sun was going to cost me. My official weigh-in is tomorrow morning, but today it said 240 lbs. I was 233 lbs last Friday. That's a 7 lb. gain, but I will say that I've been known to lose up to 5 lbs overnight after all the bodily functions have been taken care of. Even if that happened, I'm still up a couple of pounds. Now here's the REALLY bad news. I had way too much sodium today. Didn't go crazy on the volume or calories, but what I did eat was just too damn salty. As if a 2-3 lb gain weren't enough already, I didn't pay close enough attention to what I was doing today.
I got to thinking about how retarded that is. Normally, the day before my weigh-in is the strictest day of the week for me. I watch everything like a hawk. Not today. I wasn't stressing over it like I normally do. I don't want to say I didn't care, but it's almost like that. Hmmmmmm. Time for some reflection here. What the hell is going on with me?
I've decided I've become complacent with the weight loss. I think because I'm 4 months into it, the new has worn off, the calorie counting is getting tedious, and some days I just feel like "winging it". Some people call it complacent. For me, I'm going to call it laziness. Thus the title of this post...a combination of the two...complaziness.
Bottom line is, I don't like it and I don't want to stay this way. So that means I need to find a way to nuke the boredom, even if it's just a small change or two. My one main goal for this coming week is to work on the consistency. I noticed that nearly every month, I have 2 pretty big losses, and 2 gains. And it's entirely my fault. It's because I suck in the consistency department. That bugs me. I would really like to see a loss, no matter how big or small, but an actual LOSS 2-3 weeks in a row. That is my next goal.
I'm also going to try some new recipes this week. At least 3 new ones, and to hold me accountable to that, I'm going to take pics of them and post them on my blog, no matter how they turn out. I've got a few different healthy eating recipe magazines and books now so there's no reason not to take a little time to sit down and prepare for my coming week. I'm going grocery shopping tomorrow with the $85 that Shane gave me, so I'm going to pick out my recipes, and make my list.
I'm thinking about something else. I'm thinking that I may have also screwed myself this week by cutting back on the exercise. Last week I walked nearly 6 miles every day, but I was really hurting. This week I cut it back to 4 miles a day...and I think I'm suffering from it. So next week it's back up to 6 miles, with making sure I have one rest day in the middle...probably Monday.
So that's it for tonight. I'm going to really HATE posting my weigh-in tomorrow morning. This one feels like the worst one yet. But...it's like Abby said on the Biggest Loser show this week..."this is a marathon...not a sprint". My biggest concern is trying to stay on course, and when things aren't going right, stay after it...figure it out...change things up...whatever I have to do to get to that goal. I really love that I'm learning so much along the way. This has never happened any previous time I lost weight. I'm really doing it the right way this time....working out the kinks as I go. I'm doing something that I'll be able to maintain for life and that just thrills me!
I'm off to find some recipes.....I'll be back in the morning with my head hung in shame and 'fessing up.
Quote For the Day:
"The time for action is now. It's never too late to do something." -Carl Sandburg
My mom and I got over the argument and everything's back to normal now. She didn't feel like it was that big of a deal in the first place, so that made me feel even better. Things are always a bigger deal to me than anyone else because I'm so emotional.
Dwayne called me today from work on his lunch break and we talked about 45 minutes. He's not pulling away this time! I can't tell you what a relief that is. He's looking forward to a good weekend with me and Scarlette and will be here tomorrow evening after work, just like normal.
The bad news is, I got on the scale tonight to see what kind of damage the retarded eating from last Fri, Sat and Sun was going to cost me. My official weigh-in is tomorrow morning, but today it said 240 lbs. I was 233 lbs last Friday. That's a 7 lb. gain, but I will say that I've been known to lose up to 5 lbs overnight after all the bodily functions have been taken care of. Even if that happened, I'm still up a couple of pounds. Now here's the REALLY bad news. I had way too much sodium today. Didn't go crazy on the volume or calories, but what I did eat was just too damn salty. As if a 2-3 lb gain weren't enough already, I didn't pay close enough attention to what I was doing today.
I got to thinking about how retarded that is. Normally, the day before my weigh-in is the strictest day of the week for me. I watch everything like a hawk. Not today. I wasn't stressing over it like I normally do. I don't want to say I didn't care, but it's almost like that. Hmmmmmm. Time for some reflection here. What the hell is going on with me?
I've decided I've become complacent with the weight loss. I think because I'm 4 months into it, the new has worn off, the calorie counting is getting tedious, and some days I just feel like "winging it". Some people call it complacent. For me, I'm going to call it laziness. Thus the title of this post...a combination of the two...complaziness.
Bottom line is, I don't like it and I don't want to stay this way. So that means I need to find a way to nuke the boredom, even if it's just a small change or two. My one main goal for this coming week is to work on the consistency. I noticed that nearly every month, I have 2 pretty big losses, and 2 gains. And it's entirely my fault. It's because I suck in the consistency department. That bugs me. I would really like to see a loss, no matter how big or small, but an actual LOSS 2-3 weeks in a row. That is my next goal.
I'm also going to try some new recipes this week. At least 3 new ones, and to hold me accountable to that, I'm going to take pics of them and post them on my blog, no matter how they turn out. I've got a few different healthy eating recipe magazines and books now so there's no reason not to take a little time to sit down and prepare for my coming week. I'm going grocery shopping tomorrow with the $85 that Shane gave me, so I'm going to pick out my recipes, and make my list.
I'm thinking about something else. I'm thinking that I may have also screwed myself this week by cutting back on the exercise. Last week I walked nearly 6 miles every day, but I was really hurting. This week I cut it back to 4 miles a day...and I think I'm suffering from it. So next week it's back up to 6 miles, with making sure I have one rest day in the middle...probably Monday.
So that's it for tonight. I'm going to really HATE posting my weigh-in tomorrow morning. This one feels like the worst one yet. But...it's like Abby said on the Biggest Loser show this week..."this is a marathon...not a sprint". My biggest concern is trying to stay on course, and when things aren't going right, stay after it...figure it out...change things up...whatever I have to do to get to that goal. I really love that I'm learning so much along the way. This has never happened any previous time I lost weight. I'm really doing it the right way this time....working out the kinks as I go. I'm doing something that I'll be able to maintain for life and that just thrills me!
I'm off to find some recipes.....I'll be back in the morning with my head hung in shame and 'fessing up.
Quote For the Day:
"The time for action is now. It's never too late to do something." -Carl Sandburg
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Lazy Days of Summer
Today has been incredibly lazy. I did absolutely nothing productive today except my 20 minute walk on the treadmill. Nothing else. Not even a load of laundry, lol. Well, I did load the dishwasher but that doesn't really count since it has to be done every day.....kind of like breathing. I had originally planned to get up and go to Mom's, borrow the truck, come back, load up, haul it back and unload it into the new house. Didn't happen. I just did NOT want to go out in that heat today. I kept trying to make myself, but to no avail.
So....that left plenty of time to catch up on some people's blogs....go back to where they started and see the difference in where they are now. I enjoyed navigating through their trials and tribulations, finding out what worked for them, and gathering some good advice for my own travels.
I also went back and read the first several posts on my own blog. Wow! What a difference one month makes! Things are still hard...a lot of the days are still a struggle...but not every single day....not every single hour like when I first started. I no longer think of bolting out to a fast food restaurant every 2 hours, like I did on the first day of my post. Yes, they're still a temptation...one of my biggest issues, actually....but things are getting easier. I also noticed that although I ended up at Subway in a couple of bad situations....in the entire month I have not had one single binge. I haven't had a double bacon cheeseburger. I haven't had one single french fry. I haven't had one single chocolate milkshake. I haven't had any fast food past a couple of times at Subway, and one time at Taco Bell. And even those weren't horrendous. Are you believing this??? Yeah, me neither. Simply amazing. I haven't had another single 3-4,000 day since I started. Now that's progress, folks. That's what it looks like when you finally get your mind in the right place...when you finally say "NO MORE"....when you finally start caring about your health and your future and everything you want to do in life. THANK GOD!!
I was reading along through my posts and finally got to the one labeled "Free Day". As we all know, I eliminated this Thursday night as part of my new plan to do better. After reading the post, I remembered why I started it in the first place....all of those parties/celebrations/cookouts/birthdays/holidays/family reunions where you're undoubtedly going to be surrounded by bad food....food that you didn't prepare and you have little to no idea how many calories are in it. Special days that you cannot avoid or "get out of".
As a matter of fact, before I eliminated Free Day, I agreed to meet up with all of my girlfriends and Dwayne for "Friends Night Out"next Saturday night, July 18th. This is where we meet at either Los Reyes or Bailey's Pub and Grille and catch up on everyone's busy lives. Because of everyone's hectic schedules, we haven't had a friend's night out on the town in about 6 months. We are due. I suggested Los Reyes, thinking it would be a little easier to figure out the calories there than it would at Bailey's...a restaurant filled with greasy bar food. Even though it was going to be on Free Day, I still didn't like the thoughts of going completely crazy. I gained 4.4 lbs. last weekend from not caring. I paid for it on the scale this week.
The weekend after that is my birthday. I already knew that Dwayne was going to set something up with our friends for my birthday and it always includes a restaurant with good food and good beer. This year, I told him I want to skip the restaurant. It just wouldn't jive with my lifestyle changes, and could we set something up somewhere to grill out. That way I would have a little more control over making sure there were some healthy options there for me (i.e., grilled chicken, fresh fruit, etc.) Today I realized I've got 2 events coming up 2 weeks in a row and I got rid of Free Day. Hmmmm......now what?
Thanks to being able to take the time to catch up on all of those blogs today, I finally found the solution. After all, EVERYONE has days like this that they can't get out of. Somebody had to have figured it out by now. I found the answer on my new buddy Sean's blog: http://www.losingweighteveryday.blogspot.com/. I started reading his blog from the beginning, and found out that the first cookout he was faced with, he decided to allow himself an extra 1,000 calories that day. He has a 1500 calorie a day limit so that gave him 2500. At first, I was appalled at that amount. How am I ever going to lose weight eating 2500 calories a day, Sean?!?!
I had to really sit and think this through to see if I thought it would work for me. When Sean first started, he weighed 505 lbs. I was thinking he could probably stand to eat a lot more calories than me and still lose gobs of weight. I wasn't sure I could afford it. I surely didn't want to implement something into my plan that was going to cause me to go backwards. So....I went back to before I started losing the weight. I have already established that I was eating around 4,000 calories a day. And that was a normal, ordinary day. On a day that I would splurge, (birthdays, cookouts, and let's not even talk about the family reunion back in May), that was easily 5,000 calories...possibly more.
So, fast forward to now and my 1550 limit per day. Giving myself an extra 1,000 calories and allowing it to climb to 2500 is still WAY less than what I was eating just a month ago. Providing I don't have more than one 2500 calorie, event-filled day in one week, I started thinking this might be okay. Then I broke it down a little further. I was challenged to keep my calories strictly between 1350-1550 a day for this entire week. I've been eating at the 1550 mark for the last 2 days. If I dropped it to 1350, there's an extra 200 calories a day there that was already "ok" to eat....so technically, that extra 1,000 calories can break down to the extra 200 a day over 5 days. Suddenly, the idea of allowing myself the extra calories seemed very doable. And I like the fact that you're making yourself count the calories. If I didn't, and just left it as Free Day, I'm betting an extra 2,000 calories could slip by me without even noticing. Thanks Sean!! (Of course, if I show a gain the next weigh day after I do this...I'm hunting you down, lol).
Goal Stats:
Calories 1550
Carbs 250
Fat 60
Protein 136
Today's Stats:
Calories 1530
Carbs 120
Fat 51
Protein 160
Here's my food intake for the day:
Breakfast casserole
2 c. coffee w/ sugar-free creamer
2 homemade chicken soft tacos on wheat tortilla w/ shredded lettuce
Jambalaya Confetti Casserole ( I made up this recipe tonight and it was AMAZING!...although I did steal the word "Confetti" from Pam's Confetti Chicken recipe :))
2 oz. Boar's Head 42% lower sodium ham
7 crackers w/ 2 tbsp. of roasted red pepper hummus
1 pc. Russell Stover Sugar-free 60% cacoa dark chocolate (I'm really diggin' this stuff)
1 protein water
64 oz. regular water....NO TEA...NO COKE!!
I plan on working my butt off tomorrow moving some boxes. I haven't moved any in 3 days...time to get busy!! Due to this and knowing how worn out I'll be when I get done, I'm going to do the treadmill in the morning before I leave, and I'm also taking Pam's advice and throwing some chicken and veggies in the crockpot before I head out so I don't have to cook when I get home. See there....I do pay attention. :)
Quote For The Day:
"Failures do what is tension relieving, while winners do what is goal achieving." -Dennis Waitley
So....that left plenty of time to catch up on some people's blogs....go back to where they started and see the difference in where they are now. I enjoyed navigating through their trials and tribulations, finding out what worked for them, and gathering some good advice for my own travels.
I also went back and read the first several posts on my own blog. Wow! What a difference one month makes! Things are still hard...a lot of the days are still a struggle...but not every single day....not every single hour like when I first started. I no longer think of bolting out to a fast food restaurant every 2 hours, like I did on the first day of my post. Yes, they're still a temptation...one of my biggest issues, actually....but things are getting easier. I also noticed that although I ended up at Subway in a couple of bad situations....in the entire month I have not had one single binge. I haven't had a double bacon cheeseburger. I haven't had one single french fry. I haven't had one single chocolate milkshake. I haven't had any fast food past a couple of times at Subway, and one time at Taco Bell. And even those weren't horrendous. Are you believing this??? Yeah, me neither. Simply amazing. I haven't had another single 3-4,000 day since I started. Now that's progress, folks. That's what it looks like when you finally get your mind in the right place...when you finally say "NO MORE"....when you finally start caring about your health and your future and everything you want to do in life. THANK GOD!!
I was reading along through my posts and finally got to the one labeled "Free Day". As we all know, I eliminated this Thursday night as part of my new plan to do better. After reading the post, I remembered why I started it in the first place....all of those parties/celebrations/cookouts/birthdays/holidays/family reunions where you're undoubtedly going to be surrounded by bad food....food that you didn't prepare and you have little to no idea how many calories are in it. Special days that you cannot avoid or "get out of".
As a matter of fact, before I eliminated Free Day, I agreed to meet up with all of my girlfriends and Dwayne for "Friends Night Out"next Saturday night, July 18th. This is where we meet at either Los Reyes or Bailey's Pub and Grille and catch up on everyone's busy lives. Because of everyone's hectic schedules, we haven't had a friend's night out on the town in about 6 months. We are due. I suggested Los Reyes, thinking it would be a little easier to figure out the calories there than it would at Bailey's...a restaurant filled with greasy bar food. Even though it was going to be on Free Day, I still didn't like the thoughts of going completely crazy. I gained 4.4 lbs. last weekend from not caring. I paid for it on the scale this week.
The weekend after that is my birthday. I already knew that Dwayne was going to set something up with our friends for my birthday and it always includes a restaurant with good food and good beer. This year, I told him I want to skip the restaurant. It just wouldn't jive with my lifestyle changes, and could we set something up somewhere to grill out. That way I would have a little more control over making sure there were some healthy options there for me (i.e., grilled chicken, fresh fruit, etc.) Today I realized I've got 2 events coming up 2 weeks in a row and I got rid of Free Day. Hmmmm......now what?
Thanks to being able to take the time to catch up on all of those blogs today, I finally found the solution. After all, EVERYONE has days like this that they can't get out of. Somebody had to have figured it out by now. I found the answer on my new buddy Sean's blog: http://www.losingweighteveryday.blogspot.com/. I started reading his blog from the beginning, and found out that the first cookout he was faced with, he decided to allow himself an extra 1,000 calories that day. He has a 1500 calorie a day limit so that gave him 2500. At first, I was appalled at that amount. How am I ever going to lose weight eating 2500 calories a day, Sean?!?!
I had to really sit and think this through to see if I thought it would work for me. When Sean first started, he weighed 505 lbs. I was thinking he could probably stand to eat a lot more calories than me and still lose gobs of weight. I wasn't sure I could afford it. I surely didn't want to implement something into my plan that was going to cause me to go backwards. So....I went back to before I started losing the weight. I have already established that I was eating around 4,000 calories a day. And that was a normal, ordinary day. On a day that I would splurge, (birthdays, cookouts, and let's not even talk about the family reunion back in May), that was easily 5,000 calories...possibly more.
So, fast forward to now and my 1550 limit per day. Giving myself an extra 1,000 calories and allowing it to climb to 2500 is still WAY less than what I was eating just a month ago. Providing I don't have more than one 2500 calorie, event-filled day in one week, I started thinking this might be okay. Then I broke it down a little further. I was challenged to keep my calories strictly between 1350-1550 a day for this entire week. I've been eating at the 1550 mark for the last 2 days. If I dropped it to 1350, there's an extra 200 calories a day there that was already "ok" to eat....so technically, that extra 1,000 calories can break down to the extra 200 a day over 5 days. Suddenly, the idea of allowing myself the extra calories seemed very doable. And I like the fact that you're making yourself count the calories. If I didn't, and just left it as Free Day, I'm betting an extra 2,000 calories could slip by me without even noticing. Thanks Sean!! (Of course, if I show a gain the next weigh day after I do this...I'm hunting you down, lol).
Goal Stats:
Calories 1550
Carbs 250
Fat 60
Protein 136
Today's Stats:
Calories 1530
Carbs 120
Fat 51
Protein 160
Here's my food intake for the day:
Breakfast casserole
2 c. coffee w/ sugar-free creamer
2 homemade chicken soft tacos on wheat tortilla w/ shredded lettuce
Jambalaya Confetti Casserole ( I made up this recipe tonight and it was AMAZING!...although I did steal the word "Confetti" from Pam's Confetti Chicken recipe :))
2 oz. Boar's Head 42% lower sodium ham
7 crackers w/ 2 tbsp. of roasted red pepper hummus
1 pc. Russell Stover Sugar-free 60% cacoa dark chocolate (I'm really diggin' this stuff)
1 protein water
64 oz. regular water....NO TEA...NO COKE!!
I plan on working my butt off tomorrow moving some boxes. I haven't moved any in 3 days...time to get busy!! Due to this and knowing how worn out I'll be when I get done, I'm going to do the treadmill in the morning before I leave, and I'm also taking Pam's advice and throwing some chicken and veggies in the crockpot before I head out so I don't have to cook when I get home. See there....I do pay attention. :)
Quote For The Day:
"Failures do what is tension relieving, while winners do what is goal achieving." -Dennis Waitley
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
