Back on Track!

Well, after a few “off days,” for many reasons which I don’t have time to go into right now, I am happy to announce that I am back on track!! Which in and of itself is a moral victory, that even after bad days I’m back to it again. I worked out for an hour and ten minutes today. I preplanned my entire menu for the day, and stuck right to it except for one low-fat pumpkin cookie as pre-workout snack. I didn’t even have so much as one piece of candy and my ONLY snack was that 75 calorie cookie. I’ll admit I was dying for some candy at work today. But I didn’t have any at my desk and I didn’t bring any money with me for the vending machines. I really think if candy had been there, I would have eaten it. I am basically trying the pre-conditioning part of the Metabolic Research Center diet. I won’t be able to follow it to a T, but I can come pretty close except for the birthday party on Saturday and I may deviate some when I have ppl over for dinner on Friday. (And I know that cookie wasn’t on the diet. Tonight I boiled an egg that I can eat as my pre-workout snack tomorrow. I think the official plan says not to have any snacks at all, but I don’t feel like it will hurt to have a little something before the workout.) Anyway, the menu:

• Breakfast: 2-egg omelette with 1 oz. of cheddar cheese (261)
• Lunch: shredded lettuce, 5 oz of 99% lean ground turkey w/ taco seasoning, and 1 oz cheddar cheese (368)
• Snack: Low-Fat pumpkin cookie (73)
• Dinner: 1 can of green beans, 1 salmon filet, and 1 cup of thawed frozen strawberries (303)
• Total calories consumed: 1005
• Calories burned exercising for 70 mins on elliptical/treadmill: -700
• Net calories: 305

A Good Monday

Everything went pretty well food and exercise wise. I did not let my bady weigh-in discourage me. I think the menu pretty much speaks for itself:

Food	Calories
My own “Egg & Cheese McMuffin”	304
4 Lifesavers and one bite size Milky Way	98
Turkey and Chicken Lunchable (cracker stacker Deluxe Oscar Meyer)	360
Aldi fudge popsicle	110
One salmon filet, sauted with a few spices	132
1/2 package of Birdseye Steamfresh Southwestern corn	184
1 glass of Powerade	72
1 miniature Mounds bar	80
Total Calories Eaten	1340
Exercise
77 mins at the Y on treadmill and elliptical	-718
Net Calories	621

Week 2 Results – Dissappointing

Well, I weighed in this morning – not so good. I was down .2 (yes that’s a point before the “2″, so essentially nothing) pounds this morning (from last week). A little discouraging, to the say the least. It’s so frustrating to work hard for so little results. However, I’m figuring it could possibly some sort of weird scale thing or my body taking a while to catch up or something like that. So I will give this plan another couple weeks to see what my overall for four weeks are. If that’s not good, we’ll have to try more drastic measures. Anyway, here’s some stats for the week: (I found out my CalorieKing program lets me export data to a tab delimited file — meaning I can open the data in Excel, so I can do all kinds of fun analysis with it. However the format is a little less than ideal, so it will take a while to play around with it. I think I will that be one of my weight loss “rewards.” These are the stats I can easily see right in the program):

• Total number of workouts: 4
• Total workout time: 4 hours 20 mins
• Total calories burned through exercise: 2,331
• Average calories eaten (for the past week): 1789
• Average calories burned through exercise: 333
• Net energy: 1457 (57 calories above my goal of 1400)

Sunday (Day 14)

Welll, suffice it to say, I was still craving that chocolate today! I won’t post my menu, because it’s honestly too embarrassing! The calorie count wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t healthy stuff. However, I was not actually very hungry for some reason so I felt fine eating more “junk” food. No work out on Sundays. (Y isn’t open very long, and I like have one day where I don’t work out w/o feeling guilty.) I ate 1871 calories.

Saturday

Did well today. Slept in until 7:30, which felt wonderful! Then I went immediately to the Y and was there by 8 am. I worked out for an hour and 25 minutes, but it was a fairly light workout, especially at the beginning. I go a lot slower when I workout first think in the morning, even if I’m not tired. I’m not sure what it is. It’s almost like it took 30 minutes to “warm up.” I also got a lot of housework and errands done. Went to Olive Garden for dinner, and I was in the mood to get something other than my usual five cheese ziti. In retrospect, I think it would have been a healthier option. I got the Chicken and Gnocchi something or other. It was swimming in a sauce made w/ heavy cream and cheese (and not the lower fat cheese)! And I think the gnocchi themselves are higher calorie than pasta. Anyway, I ate one bowl of minestrone soup, and I exercised some self restraint to eat only one and a half breadsticks. I ate about half of the entree. The calories on that are, of course, and estimate. I guessed that the whole entree had about 1100 calories, and I ate half. Here’s the food journal:

Food	Calories
Omelet made w/ 2 eggs and half an ounce of mozzarella cheese	198
half a serving of goldfish crackers and one (yes, only ONE) Lifesaver gummy	88
5 ounces of fresh grapes	98
1 miniature Hershey bar	77
half of Olive Garden Chicken and Gnocchi Veronese entree (estimate)	611
1.5 Olive Garden breadsticks	210
1 bowl of Olive Garden Minestrone soup	164
1 Fun size Twix bar and 1 miniature Hershey bar	157
Total Calories Eaten	1602
Exercise
85 mins at the Y on treadmill and elliptical	-726
Net Calories	876

Friday

Today went fine. Nothing too interesting to report. I only got to workout for 35 minutes, but I had been hoping for an hour to make up for the last couple lackluster days. But I’m glad I was able to 35 minutes. Still really wanted that chocolate!! But I avoided it.

Food	Calories
2 servings of wheat thins	260
piece of chocolate	70
4 Lifesavers	90
Turkey and American cheese Lunchable cracker stackers	390
Various afternoon snacks (should have cut this back a lot–it was a lot of mindless nibbling)	370
Michelina’s Budget Gourmet Three Cheese Chicken	290
TLC Mediterranean Bruschetta Crackers	60
4 oz of sparkling red grape juice	80
Total Calories Eaten	1610
Exercise
35 mins at the Y on the elliptical	-307
Net Calories	1302

Thursday

No exercise. Ended the day at 2186 calories. That was a combination of several litle mistakes – a few extra calories for lunch, dinner at a friend’s house, a few nibbles here and there, and the major mistake – hershey pumpkin flavored kisses!!! No exercise – none was planned, b/c I was not at home very long. A little discouraged to have two not-so-good days in a row. Also wish I could have worked out. And I am just really, really wanting chocolate!!! I mean, really, for no reason whatsoever. I have (or should I say had) no chocolate in the house, and I just out the blue start wishing that I could eat some. What is wrong with me!? It’s like I have a disease or something that I just can’t stop thinking about that stupid chocolate…the number one culprit in my weight problem. For all the problems chocolate has caused me, I really should absolutely hate it. Anyway, will focus on doing better tomorrow. Also, the other discouragement is that the scale was up THREE pounds (yes I said UP) this morning for NO apparent reason. sodium yesterday was the same as usual. So frustrating…I’m back up to my starting weight. I do believe it’s a bit of a fluke and it will be down again by tomorrow morning. It’s just that you can’t be really sure you’ve lost anything real until you’ve lost at least 6 or so pounds (especially when you weigh so much).

Week One Summary: Down 3 pounds!

Monday is my “official” weigh-in day. I lost exactly 3 pounds! I’ll take it! And there was definitely some fluctuation throughout the week. Here’s some stats:

• Worked out 4 times for a minimum of 45 mintues each time
• Avg calories eaten: 1635
• Avg calories burned through exercise:  291
• Avg net calories: 1344

Wednesday, Sep 17

Don’t have long, but a quick rundown of the day. First off, didn’t fit in the exercise. I got home from work and had a only about 1.5 hr until the boyfriend arrived for dinner. The house was a bit of a mess (esp. the kitchen) and I was just really tired. So i took a 10 min nap and did some cleaning. There is a slight change I’ll be able to squeeze in some exercise tomorrow, but it will REALLY be pushing it, as I will arrive home only about an hour and a half before needing to leave for ladies Bible study. (that hour and a half includes going to the Y – about 3-4 mins away – and coming back home and showering) Eating wise, today did not go well. However, I didn’t even think about “throwing in the towel” and I journaled every single bite.  The calories were 2200, which is near what I’d need to maintain. So I didn’t do any real harm. Just didn’t make much progress either. I still feel like it’s an accomplishment to not feel like giving up just because I made a few mistakes. Anyway, the menu:

• a couple servings of Wheat Thins
• a Kashi oatmeal cookie
• a serving of M&M’s
• 2 lifesavers
• 1 serving of Aldi’s chocolate
• Granola bar
• gatorade
• Lunchables turkey and american
• Spaghetti w/ turkey meatballs, 2 Bisquick garlic cheddar biscuits, 5 oz of sparkling red grape juice
• Total Calories: 2171

Internet Down, Quick Summary

Well, my power was out for a while and internet was down for even longer, which is why I haven’t been able to post. But I have continued to journal all my foods, so I’ll give a quick summary of the days I missed.

Sunday, 09/14: 1568 calories eaten, another wild guess because I ate dinner at TGIFriday’s and don’t know what the nutrition information was. I had grilled chicken with mac & cheese. (I’m sure the mac and cheese was NOT healthy at all.)

Monday, 09/15: 1455 cals eaten, 784 cals burned with exercise, 672 calories net; I had an hour and 20 minute workout today.

Tuesday, 09/16: 1632 calories eaten, 514 cals burned with exercise, 1118 cals net.