Thursday

Not a lot to say. No workout today, but did very well eating wise. Here’s the graph:

Tuesday

Sorry, I don’t have long tonight, but today went really well. 1400 calories eaten and worked out for nearly an hour and a half! But those long workouts really make me tired!

Here’s the stats:

Monday

Not a lot to say today. I’m just not feeling too chatty plus I’m ready to go to sleep. Need to be at the Y in about eight hours to start my morning off with a workout. I didn’t post yesterday. It wasn’t pretty. I’m just very roughly estimating upwards of 2500 calories. Don’t see the point of going into a lot of detail. All told, I still had an overall calorie deficit for the week, but it wasn’t huge, and the scale just isn’t budging. Hasn’t for the past three weeks (and prior to that it had gone up five pounds). I’m just really stuck in this rut. Of not being as motivated as I should be because I’m not seeing results on the scale or in the fit of my clothing. The scale not budging is partly because I’m doing the two good days, two not so good days, and so on. Although, because of all my exercise, I still have a calorie deficit, it’s not as big as it needs to be. Plus my body just really isn’t cooperating with me. It’s so weird. Three months when I did the exact same thing I’m doing now, I still lost. But my body’s done with that. I’m going to have to fight tooth and nail for every little ounce, so that’s what I’ll do. I am ridiculously determined to lose weight this week. I have to get myself going. I will have a thousand calorie deficit each day if it’s the last thing I do. If I get to the end of the day, and I’ve eaten too much, I will just start exercising  (workout DVD if it’s too late to go to the Y) until I get that deficit. I just cannot afford to go on like this. Putting in so much effort and not seeing results. (Even when I have not-so-good days that are 100% my own fault, it still takes a lot of effort – the same amount of effort as doing well, really).

Okay, the stats for today, which were actually good:

A decent day

I feel like today went fairly well. Slept in more than I thought I would this morning, but I think my body must have needed it. Then worked out for an hour and twenty minutes – burned 803 calories! Yeah! It didn’t feel too bad – it really helped that there was a TV show on while I was working out that I really got into. That really helped keep me going.

Ate light most of the day, then had 1600 calories for dinner! But that’s okay, it was planned. I cooked dinner for 8 people for my fiancee’s birthday – his favorite, chicken paremesan. Definitely not low calorie. I also got a dairy queen ice cream cake, which I knew I wouldn’t pass up. I recorded in my food journal as soon as I got up – 790 calories, but one serving was actually very large. (I know it was accurate because I weighed it.) I considered eating something different from everybody else to save calories on the meal. However, after I worked so hard on it, I wanted to eat it, and didn’t want to have to fool with cooking something additional for myself and I feel awkward about it. It’s a little bit challenging to cook for several people because my kitchen is small with very little counter space.

Anyway, here’s how I ended the day:

Another less than stellar day

Well, I’m not too happy that today was another less than stellar day. I made slightly different mistakes than the ones I made yesterday, but mistakes none the less. My first problem is something I struggle with often: boredoom eating when I’m at work. It’s always been a major struggle for me and the worst part is that there’s nothing I can do to distract myself at work like there as at home or most other places. I’m not allowed to do non-work things, of course. So I gave in to an empty calorie snack. And then I did it again. And again. Got home and actually munched some. Dilly-dallied for a while to put off going to they Y. Finally went. Couldn’t quite get into the workout. Worked out for 26 minutes, but not very hard, and burned 206 calories. Better than nothing. One thing, though, is that I really tried to log all my food for the day. It was a little hard because I have munched on some things without measuring or portioning out servings. But I made my best guess. So, all in all, I ended the day with a 3 (yes THREE) calorie defecit. The worst part is, I was exercising some self control. There was a lot more that I wanted to eat.  And I didn’t want to work out at all. Tomorrow, while it should be much easier to stay in control because I’ll be home all day, will pose a bit of a challenge as I’m cooking an  unhealthy dinner for my fiancee’s birthday tomorrow. And there will be Dairy Queen ice cream cake! Wow. My original plan was to eat relatively lightly all day, workout of course, and then just eat normal portions of everything at dinner. That way my calories would come out about even for the day – wouldn’t make any progress on weight loss, but also wouldn’t gain anything. But now I hate to do that because the last two days I’ve be even on calories. I’m definitely not skipping the ice cream cake – I would seriously be thinking about it for days if I did. It usually backfires to do that. I will definitely send it home with people, though, so that I only have one serving and am not tempted again. But I might cook something different for myself for dinner. If I skip the chicken parmesan, I won’t miss it or think about it nearly as much as I would the choc chip cookie dough ice cream cake!

Oh, and the recipe I made yestserday. Turned out really well. Fiancee (who hates healthy things) even liked it! I mixed everything up in the crockpot dish and put it in the fridge the night before. So before I left for work all I had to do was take it out of the fridge and turn on the crockpot. And it only took about 15 minutes to prepare the night before. Then when I got home from work 10 hours later it was ready. The chicken was so tender – just fell apart. And I definitely put some shredded cheddar cheese on it. The whole thing made 55.5 ounces, and a moderate serving was 7.5 ounces, so it made 7.4 servings – the recipe said 8. So 221  calories (not counting the cheese). But those calories were very filling. Here’s a link to the recipe:

http://weight-watchers-points-recipes.blogspot.com/search?q=santa+fe+chicken

And here’s the stats for today:

Well, nothing stellar

Well, the day could have been worse, but it was certainly nothing stellar! It started out somewhat rough. My hot water heater went out in my apt yesterday so the water in the shower would be extremely cold. So I went to a friend’s house to take a shower in the morning. Only that didn’t go so well because I realized I didn’t have the key to their house when I had arrived and they were still sleeping so I couldn’t wake them up by knocking. And I had left my phone at home. So I had to go back to my place for my phone, call them to unlock the door, and then go back to their place. Anyway, once at work I snacked on, well, I hate to say it, but FIVE 100 calorie chocolate things. Seriously. Five. They were at my desk and I ate them. I could chalk it up to “mindless munching” but it wasn’t mindless. It was fully mindful. I argued with myself about each 100 calorie chocolate bar that I ate, each time rationalizing by saying “just one more.” All told, by the time 9:30 am rolled around, I had already eaten 1000 calories! Yikes, that’s hard to recover from that early in the day. I did do okay the rest of the day – got a salad for lunch with just some grilled chicken and a few wonton strips. Had a healthy dinner – new recipe that I prepared in the crockpot. Turned out really well. I’ll share it with you all tomorrow. Had sugar free fat free ice cream – just one serving. Didn’t work out. I got busy with a lot of household tasks and time just got away from me. I also didn’t log my foods today, because it’s almost time for bed, so I can start the day more fresh and energetic tomorrow. But they were close to what I need to maintain. So, all told, I didn’t gain any weight today but I didn’t lose any either.

A Relatively Good Day!

Well, the stats at the end of the day were good. However, I must confess that over half the calories came from total junk (as in chocolate). I got in an intense, 73 minute workout. And, I must admit, I just plain skipped dinner because I got home so late and I headed straight out the door to the Y. Just got back and it’s close enough to bedtime, why bother eating? Anyway, here’s the stats:

One Year Blogiversary!

Well, I just realized that today is actually my one year blogiversary. A lot has happened in the past year, and this morning I weighed 19.4 pounds less than I did exactly one year ago. A bit disappointing, but, still, progress has been made, and I’m planning for an even better year this year.

Today went well eating and exercise wise. Didn’t realize until now that my calories were actually so low today. I just didn’t snack much at all, partially because I didn’t have anything to snack on, and partially because I was really busy and focused on other things. And sometimes I can’t find a rhyme or reason to my hunger levels. Eating a mere 1100 calories today and burning 600 calories at the Y, I didn’t get hungry at all. Yet sometimes I do get hungry when I eat more and exercise less. Go figure. Got in an hour at the Y. Here’s the stats:

Weekend Update and No More Excuses

Well, Labor Day weekend was, of course, a blast. I had a wonderful time, and we really had a great weekend. Food wise, well, honestly, not so good. It’s one of those things where it’s so difficult to know how many calories I ate. On Saturday we really didn’t even have the traditional 3 meals. There were definitely lots of breads and sweets. We did have some healthy things that I tried to fill up on. I tried to exercise some moderation on the sweets, but in the back of my mind I knew I was cracking down starting today so I think that kinda made me indulge a little more than I would have otherwise.

Like I said in my last post, the real key is what I do today. And so far so good. I had a lean pocket for breakfast and I haven’t snacked. Of course, it is only 8:42am. I decided not to even try to workout before work, because I didn’t get much sleep this past weekend and I needed the extra rest. I think I will work out at lunchtime, though, because it will be good to get it done early in the day. Less chance of something coming up or me changing my mind. Also, I don’t have any especially challenging events coming up for quite a while, so I have absolutley no excuses. Also, the calendar is actually pretty free this week and weekend. Only thing planned so far is cooking birthday dinner for the fiancee on Saturday. (Which will not be low calorie, of course, but that’s just one meal.) So I should have no excuses for working out, shopping for healthy food (my fridge, freezer, and cupboards are almost completely empty), and even taking some extra time to cook some healthy food.

Oh, and I weigh exactly the same as I did last week. Basically I think I lost some the four days before the weekend, then undid my loss on the weekend, so the end result was that I remained the same. I’m really not disappointed in that. It’s about what I expected. I can’t wait to start seeing the scale finally go down consistently, though.

A so-so fourth day

Well, today was okay, but not as good as the past few days. I did workout for an hour on the treadmill and burned 530 calories, yet again, using time I totally didn’t really have. The “bad” part was the stupid coffee I ate around lunchtime. It was a beautiful day, and I was at this new outdoor shopping mall type place. I ran across a cute coffee shop and went in. Then without even really thinking I felt compelled to buy something, bought a piece of coffee cake and ate it. It was a done deal so quickly. Then I wished I could take it back. Got severely tempted by the ridiculous all-or-nothing mentality, thought about stopping by Barnes and Noble for a cookie since, you know, I’d already blown it with my (estimated) 400 calorie coffee cake. But I got a hold of myself and moved on.

The question now is, will I survive labor day wknd the same weight as I started? Well, I’ll do my best, I do intend to splurge some. My goal would be to consume exactly the amount of calories I need to maintain. So I wouldn’t lose over the 4 days, but I wouldn’t gain either. Although I won’t be actually counting – there’s no way to do so when all the food is homemade plus I want to be enjoying myself and the family and not worrying about sticking by the computer to log my foods. Also won’t be blogging. Anyway, regardless of how I do over the weekend, the REAL KEY, the one that overrides everything else, is getting right back on track on Tuesday. So my real goal is to do well on Tuesday.

Here’s today’s graph: