Chocolate and I Had a HUGE Fight . . .

…And I’m sorry to report that chocolate won. It was really no contest. As you may know, chocolate and sweets are my major weakness. For the past 8 weeks, I have not kept any food whatsoever at my desk at work (and no sweet items at home either for that matter.) I know what happens when I have candy at my desk, so I was smart enough just not to have it there. Well, of course, I’ve been majorly craving chocolate and was feeling a little weaker than usual yesterday. Then my size 2-ish friend asks if I want to go to Target with her for lunch. She proceeded to buy 3 bags of chocolate to keep at her desk, so what do I foolishly do? I buy a bag of hershey’s little miniature candy bars and a bag of mini kit-kats to take to my desk. After all, they were on sale and Miss Size Two kept them at her desk. Believe it or not, I really TRIED to not eat too many today. I really did. And, I know this is hard to believe but I reallly did hold back somewhat. I think had 17 pieces of chocolate, but I’m not certain. It could have been anywhere between 15 and 22. I sort of lost count around 12. When will I learn? I simply CANNOT be around chocolate. At all. Period. It never ends well. Ever. Oh, and needless to say, the rest of that chocolate is now safely in the garbage. Covered in nasty, icky food so I won’t be tempted to retrieve it. To try and look at the bright side of things, my overall calories for the day were still fine. Also, I think I have done well up to this point, which proves that I CAN do it. And, this is what I’m most proud of, I didn’t let the chocolate fiasco derail me at all. I didn’t even say “oh, I’ll start again tomorrow.” I went ahead and did my workout and ate my healthy dinner. My goal now is not to keep dwelling on this mistake. Just move on.

Speaking of a workout, going 4 days without working out was definitely not good for me. The workout was painful. I thought it would never end. But it did. I worked out for a total of an hour and seven minutes. I did couch to 5k week 4 day 1, even though I really didn’t think I would make it. It wasn’t even my cardio system that was bad. It was my legs – actually, my calves were just not liking me at all. I really had to play mind games with myself to get myself to complete the two five-minute jogging segments. But I think it was a HUGE moral victory to complete that.

One more thing that I want to note: Despite yesterday’s eating – more than I’ve eaten in weeks – and huge amount of sodium consumed (4000 mg), and my lack of drinking enough water, the scale was down 1.6 lbs pounds from the day before. Go figure! My weight really fluctuates very drastically from day to day for no apparent reason. However, I’ve accepted that, so it doesn’t really bother me. I just look at the overall trend, not the daily, or even weekly, numbers.

Okay, the menu:

• Usual cheddar omelette (261)
• Usual lunchable (340)
• 17 pieces of chocolate (773)
• Healthy Choice zesty gumbo soup with cheddar cheese and saltine crackers (417)
• Total Calories Eaten:1791
• Calories burned through exercise: -603
• Net calories: 1188

Wednesday – What Can I Say?

Not feeling too creative right now. I think the menu for today speaks for itself. I won’t bother make all my excuses. Here it is:

• 2 servings of Kashi TLC Honey Sesame Crackers (260)
• Usual Lunchable: Turkey and Cheddar on Crackers (340)
• 1/2 personal pan size pizza from Target food court (310)
• 1 serving of Cheese Nips (150)
• 2 miniature kit kats (147)
• 8 pieces of Hershey miniatures (364)
• 2 small-ish slices of generic pizza at friend’s house – these calories are probably an overestimate (596)
• 1 medium chocolate chip cookie (96)
• Total Calories: 2263
• Total Sodium: 3980 mg

What a Disaster!

So you might imagine from the title that I ate 2 pounds of chocolate and 5 slices of pizza. Thankfully, that didn’t happen, although that’s about what I wanted to eat! The worst part of the day is that I did not exercise. And I know that I cannot exercise tomorrow because I have plans immediately following work. I should be able to exercise on Thursday, but it will have been four full days without exercising. I’m so worried that I will have lost what I’ve worked so hard for. Will I still be able to run week 4 of couch to 5k? I really hope so, but I’m worried. I hate to have to go that long without a workout. I will probably repeat week 4 next week, but, still, I hope I haven’t lost too much. With so much a stake, you might be wondering why I didn’t exercise. It’s not that I absolutely couldn’t fit into my schedule, but it would have been tight, and I really didn’t want to rush. I got home from work at 5:15 and I needed to be at church by 7:30. And I wasn’t sure if I would have time to wash my hair after my workout, which really makes me feel all icky. I don’t like that feeling. I really love being able to wash and dry my hair after I workout, but that takes so long. (I have long hair – drying it takes 11-12 minutes.) Also, I was unusually hungry when I got home, so I wanted to eat first. Then, to be honest, I just absolutely was not in the mood for a workout. Not at all. It’s freezing cold and it was dark and it just felt like the time to curl up with a good book. Next time I’m just going to force myself to the gym. Anyway, enough on that topic.

On to the eating. Well, I was just totally off eating wise. I slept in too long, so I didn’t have time for my usual omelette. Instead had a cookie and some crackers (not nearly as filling.) Then I was absolutely craving chocolate (which I don’t keep in my house), so to make up for not being able to eat that I munched on everything else – things I didn’t even really want. And I went back to some bad habits – eating crackers straight out of the box, breaking off little bits of cookie instead of having a measured amount. I was feeling a lot less optimistic and motivated than usual. The amounts of stuff for today are just guesses, because, like I say, I didn’t portion out what I was eating. (by the way, the rest of the oatmeal cookies are in the trash, where they belong. when will I learn?) Today’s food (in no particular order):

• About 3 or so oatmeal cookies, I think, could be more, though (390)
• About 3 servings of Kashi crackers, I think, could be more or less (348)
• Usual turkey & cheddar on crackers Lunchable (340) – about the only thing where I’m actually sure how much I ate
• About a serving of Powerade (60)
• About 2 servings of Saltine crackers (122)
• 1 Encrusted Tilapia fillet from Aldi (190)
• a Weight watchers smart one’s frozen dessert (170)
• Total (estimated) calories eaten: 1624

Week 4 Stats

So, drumroll please . . .

I lost 3.8 pounds this week!

I’m super excited about that. It’s about time. I will say that my weight is wildly fluctuating though, so I don’t really know what to believe. I think the fluctuations are because I eat vastly different amounts of sodium each day (anywhere from 1000 to 4000 mg) and I don’t monitor how much I drink. Oh well. The overall trend is what is most important. That brings my total loss to 11.8 pounds and my loss for the past four weeks to 8.6 pounds (just over 2lbs/week). I still can’t see a see a difference in my appearance, though. Hopefully that will happen soon. Some stats for the week:

• Weight loss: -3.8 pounds
• Average calories eaten: 1110
• Average calories burned through exercise: -245
• Average Net calories: 865 (wow, that’s really low – that loss may have been real)
• Minutes of exercise: 189.5 (3 hrs 9.5 mins)

Monday

Well, today was definitely a little blah! I woke up feeling just weird. I half thought it was Sunday at first and wondered why my alarm was ringing at 5:30am. I had also been having a less than pleasant dream but I couldn’t remember the details – it just made me feel kinda sad. Then I ended up having to stay fairly late at work to get an important thing done. So I got home too late to exercise!! Oh no! I generally allow myself to skip 1-2 weekdays (so that means I workout 4 times per week). However, I’ve never skipped a Monday. Yeah, I’ve actually worked every single monday for the past 8 weeks!! (since I started this weight loss journey.) It just seems like such a Monday thing to do and such a good way to start the week. Now I’m worried. Also, I know that I won’t be able to workout Wednesday and fitting it on Friday may or may not be possible, and if it is possible it will really have to be squeezed tightly into my schedule. I’m really gonna need some extra motivation tomorrow. Today was the first true winter – feeling day. And it really put me in the mood to bake. I was so desperate to do so that I just baked oatmeal cookies. I just couldn’t fight off the urge to bake. Here’s the menu:

• Usual breakfast omelette
• Usual turkey and cheddar lunchable
• Unusual cheese pizza lunchable
• 2 oatmeal cookies
• Total Calories: 1136

Sunday

Well, today went well. I was shocked that my weight actually went down .4 pounds from yesterday – I was half expecting to be up 4 pounds. Hopefully I’ll stay that way for my official weigh-in tomorrow.  I did something stupid today, but I corrected my mistake. I had decided to allow myself a dessert today. I was at Aldi this morning, and they don’t have the Weight Watchers frozen desserts (not that I would expect them to), so for convenience I wanted to pick up a dessert there. The problem is that they don’t really have individually portioned dessert. So I bought this frozen chocolate cake log thing that has 8 servings at 150 calories each. Came home, portioned out one serving, even weighed it to be sure, and ate it. It was fine, but nothing great. Then I found myself STILL wanting chocolate, which is no surprise – that’s what got me here in the first place. So I take the cake log thing back out of the freezer and unwrap it again, telling myself that I will eat just one more little bite. So I do. Then I eat one more little bite. Then I say to myself, “Laura, you knew buying this thing was a mistake in the first place. You knew you would do this very thing. If you don’t stop, you’ll eat half the cake before you know it.” So I immediately threw it in the trash. It really was a mistake to have bought it in the first place. Anyway, today’s menu:

• Breakfast: Encrusted Tilapia from Aldi – so good! (190)
• Lunch, I guess: Chocolate creme cake stuff from Aldi (145)
• Dinner: Grilled chicken salad from burger king, no dressing and 1 miniature hershey bar (345)
• Snack: 1 Weight Watcher frozen dessert (170)
• Total calories eaten: 851

Splendid Saturday!

So, today was actually a fantastic weight loss day. So I get up this morning and head straight for the scale as usual, still a little groggy. I look down at the numbers, and my heart skips a beat and here’s what goes through my head: sinking feeling, something is wrong – this number isn’t right – what a disaster – what does that number mean? – oh, wait, that’s actually good – wow, that’s three pounds less than yesterday – oh my, i’ve actually lost a lot of weight. Anyway, I got on the scale again to make sure it was right, and sure enough, it was.  I just totally wasn’t expecting the scale to drop that much. While I obviously didn’t lose three pounds of fat overnight or anything, I think I really have lost that much fat and it was taking my body a while to catch up. What I’m saying is that I don’t think the weight will go up again. I only lost one pound last week, when calorically I should have lost closer to 3.

Anyway, after the fun weigh-in, I went to the Y for a workout. I was a little worried because morning workouts don’t usually go so well for me. However, I have started doing things around the house for at least 30 minutes before I go to workout instead of hopping on the treadmill 10 minutes after I wake up. This does help some. It was the most calorie blasting workout I’ve had since I started losing the weight. And I really didn’t feel like I was killing myself. I used a different kind of elliptical which got the heart rate up pretty quickly and it stayed high. Then I did a fourth day of c25k week 3. Went fine. So I ended up working out for only 45 minutes, but I burned nearly 450 calories (according to heart rate monitor). Yipee! I wish I could do that more often.

Then I went shopping and actually found some clothes that I liked – clothes that probably would not have fit a month and a half ago! I’ll post the details of that separately.

By the end of the day, I was really hungry, and I was craving sweets and carbs – I mean things like bread and cheesey potatoes, etc. Nothing that was healthy. Then we went to Cracker Barrel, and I was thinking, “Oh now, I could definitely go crazy with all the empty carbs and sugars here.” Well, after debating with myself for a while, I went for the grilled chicken salad. Honestly, it was the BEST grilled chicken salad I’ve ever had. The chicken was hot and had a delicious marinade on it. (I do honestly wonder about the calories that the marinade added.) Then it had super fresh grated cheddar cheese on it. The boiled egg was split and half and on the side of the salad, so it was very easy to know how many calories that was. I did allow myself to half one and a half biscuits. They were relatively small. Don’t get me wrong, though, even though that salad was good, it still isn’t an adequate substitute for what I really wanted – pancakes covered in blackberries and whipped cream!

Here’s the menu:

• Breakfast: Aldi’s Baked Encrusted Tilapia (190), Steamed Broccoli (48) with cheddar cheese (114)
• Lunch: Zesty Gumbo canned soup (200) w/ Crackers (62) and Cheddar cheese (114); Fudgesicle (110)
• Dinner at Cracker Barrel: Salad w/ Marinated Grilled Chicken (188), Cheddar cheese (114), and 1/2 boiled egg (39); 1.5 biscuits (216)
• Total Calories Eaten:1425
• Calories burned through exercise: -466
• Net calories: 960

Friday

This will be short because it’s awfully late. Anyway, the menu:

• Cheddar Omelette
• Turkey/Cheddar/Cracker Lunchable
• 3 miniature hershey candy bar things
• Sam’s Choice three cheese stuffed chicken
• Total Calories: 978

Survived Thursday

Well, I made it through the day perfectly on plan, but it wasn’t easy. I was really, really craving chocolate. To make matters worse, it was an awfully boring day at work without a lot to do. (Tomorrow promises to be the same, but next week should pick up.) Therefore, I’m sitting at my desk with little to think about except how much I’d like to have some chocolate. I survived the morning by using sheer willpower and promising myself I could have a snack in the afternoon. In order to avoid buying chocolate, I went to Kohl’s (instead of Target) on my lunch break so that I couldn’t be tempted by chocolate. I made it throug the afternoon by making the rule for myself that I had to buy a bottle of Diet Pepsi and drink it all before I could purchase a snack. Well, it worked. I bought the Diet Pepsi in the late afternoon and then only actually drank a little bit of it. I did let myself have a 100 calorie thin of light popcorn when I got home. Then, for no reason at all, I wasn’t in the mood to work out. I went anyway, and it ended up being a fairly good workout. I did couch to 5k week 3 day 3. (I’ll do it again on Saturday, so I’ll end up doing 4 days of week 3). Anyway, the c25k run didn’t actually go as well this time as did on Tuesday. Strange, but true. It just seemed a lot harder to run plus I was running slower. Oh, and to top it all off, I’m STILL craving chocolate. I have absolutely NOTHING sweet in the house, which is a good thing, b/c I would probably eat it if I did. Here’s today’s menu:

• Breakfast: Kashi roasted veggie pizza (250) and half of a Fiber One bar (65)
• Lunch: Turkey and Cheddar on crackers Lunchable (340)
• Snack: 100 calorie thing of Popcorn
• Dinner: Sam’s Choice Three Cheese Jalapeno Stuffed Chicken breast (240) and green beans (52)
• Total Calories Eaten: 1047
• Calories burned through exercise: 417
• Net Calories: 631

Wednesday

I’m actually writing this on Thursday, b/c I was so tired last night. Anyway, the day started fairly well. Except I slept a little too long – actually couldn’t get myself out of bed due to my recent purchase of an ultra-comfy electric blanket. I needed to get to work to get a couple things done before an 8 am meeting, so I really didn’t have time to make my usual omelette. So I warmed up a serving of pizza from last night and ate in the car. Actually worked fine. The boyfriend and I went out for dinner, and I was all prepared to go to Wendy’s and get a mandarin chicken salad (no dressing, no almonds) for a mere 280 calories. However, the boyfriend wanted to go to Hoss’s – a steakhouse with a limited and soup/salad/appetizer/dessert bar that comes with everything. I actually think I did quite well considering. I got grilled chicken (just plain chicken that was marinated in a little something) with a side of baked sweet potato (by far the healthiest side). Had a salad with just cheese on it for the salad. A small slice of bread. And a small serving of ice cream for dessert, but I did add quite a few calories by putting toppings on it. As usual, the temptation is to get discouraged and throw in the towel, but I won’t. Besides the calories weren’t all that bad. I estimated on the high side of my dinner calories. Anyway, the menu:

• Breakfast: Kashi thin crust veggie pizza (250) and a Fiber One bar (130)
• Lunch: Turkey and Cheddar on crackers Lunchable (340)
• Dinner: Lettuce with ~1 oz. co-jack cheese, small slice of bread, grilled chicken breast, 1/2 a baked sweet potato, 1/2 cup soft serve vanilla ice cream, 3 Tbsp. of chocolate syrup, 2 Tbsp. oreo crumbs (876 calories)
• Total calories eaten: 1596