So I totally got what I deserved…

First off, I didn’t blog yesterday but I did okay. I say okay, not great. I had the munchies all day, and then I went out to dinner at a restaurant where everything is super high calorie. I’m pretty sure I didn’t have a calorie deficit at all, and probably was actually slightly over. Not a big deal for one day, though.

Today went well, though. I really got serious about carefully logging every bite … I feel like I’ve gotten a little sloppy lately. I’m cracking down for the next 10 days until I leave for camp. I really want to lose as much as possible before then.

Another exciting thing – a random person at work noticed and commented today that I look like I’m losing weight! So I guess it’s noticeable. That’s exciting. I think this was the first comment I’ve received from someone who didn’t already know that I was trying to lose weight.

Okay, back to the title. I was bad, and I got what I deserved. I bought some Lindor chocolate truffles on my lunch break, put one serving in my purse to eat throughout the afternoon work, and left the rest in my car. I ate the one serving (which is three) at work and all was well. When I was driving home, I decided to sneak one more in. It was warm day so I knew it would be a little soft and melty. Well, it wasn’t a little soft and melty – it was a complete liquid that made a huge mess all over my clothes and part of my car. And of course it’s impossible to eat pure liquid. Guess that’ll teach me. I shouldn’t be sneaking in an extra piece of chocolate.

Here’s todays graph:

Serious Spinning Workout

Well, the morning started out with a serious spinning workout. And I do mean serious. The instructor said we were going to do sprints today, and she wasn’t kidding.

Here’s the stats for today, but the calories are basically a guesstimate because I was at a pitch-in dinner, so I really don’t know the amounts I ate exactly or how many calories were in them:

Take that, you stupid cheeseticks!

Today went okay. Squeezed in a 45 minute workout despite not having time. I had to go with a friend to help another friend pack who is moving tomorrow. So I didn’t really have time after I got home from work to work out. However, I immediately hopped into my workout clothes (and luckily since we were packing it was appropriate to go all sweaty and in my workout clothes so I didn’t have to worry about changing) and did an Cathe exercise DVD – burned 475 calories in 45 minute s- more than I would with the elliptical/treadmill – Cathe’s dvd’s are seriously intense. And I just started working out and had my friend call me when she was getting close to my house to pick me up – that way I was able to workout until almost the second she arrived. I also made myself a sandwich before I started working out so I could grab it for dinner on the way out the door, and I ate it the car. I did this because I was obviously hungry after working out and I knew there would be pizza where we were going and I wanted to not be starving so I could pass it up. Well, the pizza wasn’t all that hard to pass up (if it had been chocolate, it would have been a different story, though), but the cheeseticks were just screaming at me. But I didn’t give in.

Here’s todays stats:

This is not cool!

Okay, I have a secret for you. I know what the NUMBER ONE cause of weight loss failure is:

Tiredness.

Yep. Sure enough. And it’s really no secret. For me, that is the number one thing that will cause me to grab the M&Ms, plop on the couch, skip the gym, throw in the towel, and leap off the badwagon. It can even happen in one fell swoop. Of all the many challenges and roadblocks that I encounter, this 98% of the time this is the one that does me in.

And, well, you guessed it. Today I was tired. I mean purely exhausted. Absolutely didn’t know how I was going to make it through the workday without falling asleep, have to think of an excuse to get up every few minutes kind of tired. Got home, still exhausted as could be. So I skipped the workout – it would have been  horrendous anyway. And I haven’t done much in the way of eating good meals. I’ve just kind of snacked around. But I haven’t thrown in the towel. My calories, while not being the huge deficit I would hope for, are still in check at around 1400 for the day, a deficit of 600. Now, if you saw what those calories actually came from (and how many were from chocolate), I’d be a little embarrassed. Good thing I only post my graphs and not my food journal!

So anyway, my plan is to go to bed early and wake up refreshed tomorrow. But now I don’t feel so sleepy – go figure. Not cool.

Here’s teh graph:

Woo-hoo for another great weigh-in

Well, I’m pleased to report another great weigh-in this morning. Nearly 1.5% this week for a total of over 6% in 4 weeks!!! All this with the girls weekend that included the Cheesecake Factory!

As far as today, not a whole lot to report. I did a little bit of working out, but not a lot because I was extra-tired. But I’m not stressing about it too much. I really wish I could go to a  spinning class tomorrow night, but I’m helping a friend pack who is moving this weekend. I really don’t know if I’ll get in a workout at all. Although, I guess if we’re just packing it would be okay to go to my friends house still sweaty and in my workout clothes. So I will workout for however much time I can.

Oh, I did try something new – Fage Greek yogurt. I tell you, that stuff is amazing. The nutritional stats nearly make you fall out of your chair. This yogurt has 120 calories in a one cup (8.6 oz) serving. So that’s a very large serving – a normal yogurt serving is 6 oz.  But here’s the real kicker: it has 20 grams of protein! I got the 0% fat kind and I couldn’t even tell. It’s still very thick and creamy (not watered down like some low-cal yogurts) and rich tasting. I ended up getting the plain kind – I wouldn’t recommend eating it by itself. I sugared some strawberries and put that and the yogurt in the blender. Then I put it in the freezer to kind of have frozen yogurt. It made a full to the top cereal bowl that’s quite filling for under 200 calories! But the other kicker on the yogurt is the price – you pay for the protein. It’s $2-$2.50 per serving.

I won’t post my graph yet because I’m not sure if I’m done eating for the day.

Tuesday

Not a lot new to say today. I posted about the weekend earlier today. Another very on-track day, and I can’t wait for a great official weigh-in tomorrow!

Here’s today’s graph:

Weekend Update

So are you wondering how I survived the Cheesecake Factory? Here’s a quick recap of the weekend:

We had a girls weekend at my place. It was a lot of fun. I have been very faithfully logging every calorie in my online SparkPeople food journal for the past 3.5 weeks, and then analyzing my calorie deficits and shooting for 7000 each weke. That’s been working very well for me – that intense approach is what I really thrive on. Well, there’s still some a need for some sort of moderation and relaxation every now and then. I mean, I can’t track every single bite I eat every single day for the rest of my life. But on the same token, just not tracking and trying to use good judgment and moderation obviously did not work for me, so I’ve come up with a hybrid. I took the weekend off from tracking. I still did try to eat well – I didn’t pig out – it wasn’t a “free” eat-whatever-you-want weekend or anything like that.  I still exercised. I just wasn’t a slave to my food journaling. And on Monday (yesterday) I didn’t miss a beat – started right back up with the food journaling. I think the 3-day break for the food journal was actually refreshing. So I’m thinking my long term solution is a hybrid approach.

Basically we had one indulgence on the weekend, which was the Cheesecake Factory and everything else was pretty healthy. I think that was a good balance. I really didn’t worry about eating low calorie at the Cheesecake Factory – is that even possible? I split an entree with someone else, since they have huge portions. We got BBQ salmon with a side of mashed potatoes and corn succotash – I didn’t even my entire half of the mashed potatoes. I did have some of their bread. And of course, I had an entire piece of cheesecake! I had the coconut cream cheesecake – delicious! Anyway, what’s strange is that the next morning after I had this big meal with quite a bit of sodium (and I’m certain that meal was around 1500 calories – the cheesecake alone was probably around 1000), I was down almost a pound from the day before. It’s so strange. It’s like it didn’t even affect my weight. I was imagining that I’d have a temporary spike due to all the sodium and decent volume of food eaten late at night. Not so. Strange – I really think my natural weight fluctuations are more powerful than anything else I do or eat. Also I got in a decent 500-600 calorie burning workout on Saturday morning. We also did quite a bit of walking through the mall and things. Also, I did some serious calorie-blasting cleaning on Sunday. I’m serious. It burns calories. (I don’t count them though as exercise – that’s just part of my normal routine). I also did fifteen mintues on the elliptical at the Y on Sunday. Anyway, still expecting a great weigh-in for my official weigh-in tomorrow.

And the shopping! I can tell that I’ve lost some weight. I totally hit the jackpot on dresses. I took about 15 different dresses back to the dressing room (you never know what will fit or look good on you until you try it on.) And all but two actually looked really good on me! I was flabbergasted – nothing ever seems to actually fit correctly. I think I bought seven dresses (for a total of $270 – not bad), but now I must decide which ones to return and which ones to keep because I obviously don’t need seven dresses! Here’s a couple pics of my favorite dress and another pic of me from the weekend that I’ll put on my progress pics page soon:

Monday

Well, I have a lot of updates, including a update about the weekend. However, I chose to exercise tonight during my usual blogging time, so I’ll I really have time for is my awesome graph for today. I actually wasn’t trying for this huge calorie differential – I just was feeling pretty sick throughout most of the day, so I couldn’t even think about food – much less eat. I had just gotten to feeling a lot better a few minutes ago when I decided to squeeze in a little bit of exercise. Tomorrow I should have time for a lot more updates.

Thursday

Not a whole lot to say today. Everything went fine. I did a spinning class today. I’m having a girls weekend this weekend and some of the ladies have arrived tonight, so there won’t be a ton of blogging this weekend. I will however, do my best to continue to exercise and eat well. That said, tomorrow we are going to The Cheesecake Factory! Sadly, they are notorious for not posting nutritional info.

Here’s the stats for today:

Another great weigh-in!

Well, I’m quite pleased to report that I actually had a great weigh-in. My total weight loss after the third week of the biggest loser competition is 4.97%!! Not too shabby. That nearly two pound mysterious weight gain I had yesterday completely disappeared and then a little more! Good thing I didn’t freak out.

Today went fairly well. I actually started off well on a Wednesday which I have not done the past two Wednesdays. I have had a calorie deficit of zero to start off the week the last couple weeks. So today I actually had 1000 calorie deficit – right on track. I have to admit, though, there was a rocky patch today. I got home from work and was planning to go straight for a workout. Instead I plopped down in front of my computer, watched HGTV on hulu.com, and chowed down on a 170 calorie Smart Ones cookie dough sundae. (I’m thankful for those Smart Ones desserts. They are really helping me because they are so good and are individually portioned. If I had not had that,  I would have likely gone for something worse! Well, I noticed Roni had posted a new 30 minute podcast which motivated me to get out the door to the Y so I could listen to it.

Here’s the graph for today: