Do I have a tapeworm!?

As promised, here’s the daily post:

Today went fairly well overall. I’m not going to start journaling all my foods (and strictly counting calories) until next Monday, but I am really working on avoiding the sweets and snacks. And I still do some mental tallies. I probably had around a 500 calorie deficit today – nothing stellar, but certainly not as deplorable as it has been lately. I had an unbelievably hard time avoid the vending machine snacks. Wow, it was rough. I don’t even really like the junk they have in the vending machine (they don’t have that much good chocolate stuff), but I was so hungry. I mean I was truly feeling hungry. But I ate good meals. I really think it’s my mind that’s causing my body to feel hungry. I couldn’t possibly actually be hungry. But, I tell you, when  your stomach is growling and you have a hunger headache, it’s so difficult to resist the food temptations. But I really think I’ve been doing so poorly lately and eating so often that my body just needs to get used to not eating all the time.

I feel like I must confess that, although I did avoid the vending machine, part of it was fate – not my own willpower. In a moment of weakness I counted out my change and head for the vending machine to snag some Snackwell’s cookies (item #144 – isn’t it terrible that I know that?), but the guy was there restocking the machines. I took it as a sign, was very relieved that an obstacle was there to save me from my moment of weakness, and didn’t return.

Also exercised for half an hour today on the elliptical. Not as long as I usually did when I was losing a lot of weight, but it was something, and tomorrow I’m hoping for more.

Plan for tomorrow is to slice up a bunch of apples (soaked in diet sierra mist) and take them with me to work, so I can snack on something healthy. I will also leave my money in the car, so I can’t go to the vending machine.

Post Number 200

This is post number 200 for me. You’d think I’d be writing some really encouraging post about how I’ve been doing so well and what not. Well, in the way of reflection, I’ll just say this. I am 21.2 pounds lighter than I was when I wrote post number one. That’s an average of 0.106 pounds/post – sounds like I need to get posting!

Anyway, there is really no excuse for my (dieting/exercise) behavior lately. None. Last week was a little rocky although I was still hanging on. It was the first week in a long time that I only worked out 3 times and didn’t meet my 225 minutes of exercise goal, although I did come fairly close. I bought that whole one pound box of chocolates. I skipped several days of the food journal. Sometimes I feel like once I get to the end of the day, I’ve eaten what I’ve eaten, so what good is journalling it going to do? I read almost no blogs and only posted a couple times. Although I was still trying to exercise and still eating okay-ish. Well I did even worse Sat, Sun, and yesterday. I skipped the workouts on Saturday and Sunday for absolutely no good reason – I just couldn’t motivate myself to do it. Then, I made a batch of cookies Saturday night. I was just really in the baking mood. Luckily I gave most of the cookies away but of course I ate the rest (in both dough and baked form) throughout the course of Saturday evening, Sunday, and Monday (yesterday). They’re gone now. I didn’t journal at all. I don’t know how many I ate, but somewhere in the 10-20 neighberhood. My calorie counts wouldn’t have been too horrible if I were journalling because I didn’t eat all that much else besides the cookies. I did, however, make one good decision yesterday. Despite being just completely exhausted nearly to the point of tears -you know, where you’re so tired, you just feel like you’re actually going to cry for no reason? But I exercised anyway. I went to the Y and went to my spinning class – burned nearly 500 calories! It was good for me to do something like that even though I wasn’t feeling good and even though I wasn’t having a very “on track” day.

The natural question is why have I allowed myself to do poorly this past week when I have been doing SO well and losing SO much weight? Well, first of all, I think I am suffering a little bit of burnout. I’ve been at it really intensely for six weeks. It’s natural to get a little burnt out. Also, I haven’t been taking hardly any time to do things that motivate me and help me refill that motivational tank – like reading blogs, posting on my blog, creating graphs, having discussions about it, etc. The other reason for this episode is that I have been so busy with so many other things lately that I just don’t  have the time and energy left to focus on my weight loss. But the thing about weight loss is this – there’s always going to be some urgent thing to get done that’s going to compete with my weight loss effort. Always. No immediate consequence is going to come if I skip a workout, or don’t take the time to measure or log my foods, or if I don’t read motivation blogs, etc – but other things competing for my time do have those immediate consequences. I need to refocus and realize that, yes, many of those other things are extremely important and a lot of them really must be done, but my health is too important to put by the wayside. I might not be able to give it 100% of my focus every day or every week, but I can and will give it the focus it deserves. One more thing about why I’ve done poorly the past week: Camp is coming up next week, and I know I won’t be able to exercise or count calories and high carb, high sugar, high calorie temptations will abound, and so I’m so afraid I’m going to undo some of the hard work I’ve done to this point. And it’s already starting to effect me now. That’s ridiculous. Yes, that week may be difficult. I’m going to do the best I can, of course, but something of a gain might be unavoidable, but that is absolutely no reason to give up NOW! I can still exercise now. I can count calories today. I can lose as much weight as possible until I leave on Saturday. I can and I will.

Okay, so on to what I’m doing now. First, I got a good night’s sleep which always helps a lot. I got up to go do my spinning workout, was up for about 15 minutes and was still tired, so I went back to bed. Now I feel much better, much more energized, and much more motivated. I will instead workout on the elliptical or possibly with a Cathe step DVD after work today. I made myself a healthy breakfast and I’ve already started logging my foods for today. As you can see, I’m blogging, and I’ve read a couple other blogs already. This afternoon, I’m going to take 15-20 minutes to sit to and write out a prioritized to-do list so I feel more in control for the rest of the week and so I know what I really need to get done and what can be left undone. Trust me, the “undone” list will be long. But this way I can focus my energies on my weight loss goals without worrying that I’m neglecting other things that have to be done.

Calorie Blastorama!

So, forgive the cheesy, 80’s title – I don’t know what’s gotten it to me, but we have a lot to catch up on, and we’ll get to the calorie blastorama later.

First, I can’t believe I haven’t blogged since Tuesday, I think. Weigh-in was Wednesday, and, yet again, I about fell over when I saw my two pound drop on the scale. (I’d been nearly the same all week.) Somehow my body magically knew it was official weigh-in day. Of course, I was sure it was a fluke, and it’d come right back on the next day, but it hasn’t! I lost 1.1%, and am still solidly in the lead in the Biggest Loser Competition.

Now, I must confess. On Tuesday evening, I gave in and bought a ONE POUND box of assorted dark chocolates. Delicious! Probably around 2200 calories in the whole thing. Oh well, it’s gone now thanks only to yours truly. The thing that may astound you is that I did exercise a lot of self control in eating the chocolates. I really did. Also I didn’t eat the ones that contain nuts because I didn’t like them, so that saved a few calories. Plus, and I know that this is not really healthy or advisable at all, but I skipped dinner in order to eat the chocolates. Sometimes, you just need chocolate, you know? All told, I’m pretty sure a couple days I ate about the number of calories needed to maintain my weight, but nothing way over or anything. So I didn’t gain anything or anything like that. Oh, and did I mention that the box of chocolates cost $20? Poor budget. But they were worth it.

Okay, another confession. In addition to the box chocolates, I didn’t work out on Tuesday or Wednesday. I have some fairly decent excuses, and I did walk for about an hour on Wednesday (but I don’t count just walking as working out although I do think it’s a good thing to do). I also didn’t journal my foods for two or three days. But again, I didn’t go wildly off track or anything. Just took it easy and was much less intense.

But, I’ve got my intensity back and I’m gonna make these next 8 days before camp some really good days, so I can be ahead of the game, since I know I won’t be able to lose a lot at camp.

Oh, and so this morning, I did about 10-20 minutes on the elliptical and then went to an awesome spinning workout, and burned a total of 700 calories! What a great way to start the morning. And my graph for today looks stellar. I’m posting it now, and I don’t think I’ll eat anything else tonight:

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:

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.