Week 1 Summary

Grand Plans

So I had grand plans of writing a fabulous, long post and letting out all my thoughts about my dieting disaster over the past few weeks, which I really need to do just for my own sake, if nothing else. However, as usual, the evening has flown by and it’s already time for bed. However, it was a fabulous and productive evening.

Weekend Summary

So for a quick update on the weekend. Friday I had no reason to eat poorly because we didn’t leave until after dinner, so I didn’t eat any meals outside of my control. However, I must confess, I ate too much junk – I think in part because I knew I wasn’t tracking, in part because of my looming fear that I would be forced to consume a bagillion calories the next day thereby ruining all my efforts anyway, and in part because it was Friday and I somehow thought candy and chips would make the time fly by (it doesn’t, by the way – all it does is make you feel fatter as you still watch the clock wondering if the end of the workday will ever come). Anyway, I didn’t just completely blow it, but I munched on a lot of extra goodies and had pizza for lunch. Saturday turned out to be okay eating wise, really. The family we stayed with had some relatively healthy foods available, so calorie wise I probably still had a deficit. Also, we hiked for three hours, so that burned some calories. And, really, I hard even thought about food or worried about it the whole weekend – wonderfully refreshing! And I did not overindulge despite the fact that I wasn’t obsessing over calories and weight loss and how to maintain my self-control – if only I could do that all the time!

Today

Today went pretty well. Felt confident. After just a week of being more on track I am no longer feeling quite so enormous (all psychological, I clearly haven’t lost that much actual weight in one week) and not quite so completely hopeless. My overall calories eaten were 1421 with 500 calories burned through exercise (so net well under 1000). So calorie wise, that’s right on track. The only bad thing is where some of those calories came from – I had most of a bag of Hershey dark chocolate miniatures at my desk drawer leftover from Friday. And, well, I ate 15 of them – about 600 calories worth. And that was while trying to exercise some self restraint, believe it or not. Moral of the story which I already knew all too well: Don’t have snacks stored at the desk. But, like I said, I still feel good about the day. My workout was absolutely, incredibly intense. I didn’t have a fully functioning car available to me, so I did a couple workout dvd’s instead of going to the Y. I did a new one – Cathe Friedrich’s 40/20 HIIT (high intensity interval training) from her new STS Cardio. I was so worn out I by the end I almost lost the dinner I hadn’t eaten yet. But I felt so great. And that intense of a workout takes away my appetite as well (for a couple hours afterward, but it comes back with a vengeance – I’ll waking up extremely hungry in the morning.).

The Weigh-In Results

I’m calling last Monday my first official day of my new plan or whatever. So, for the first week I lost 2.2 pounds!

Who needs the gym, when you have two feet of snow!?

It’s been a couple days since I updated, so I’ll just have to summarize the weekend.

We woke up on Saturday to two feet of snow!! It was unbelievable. Absolutely beautiful. Obviously, we couldn’t go anywhere. Roads weren’t plowed yet, a state of emergency had been called, and even if we could go anywhere nothing was open (nothing – groceries stores, drugstores, the Y, etc). All this would not have been so bad if only we had power! It went off sometime before 4am, and with such a big snowstorm, we had no idea when it was coming back on. It is really amazing how many things that I take for granted require electricity, including the foods we normally eat. No stove, oven, microwave, and I wanted to open fridge/freezer as little as possible. So all we had to eat were crackers, chips, salsa, candy, marshmallows, and high-calorie homemade sourdough bread. After eating a really early dinner on Friday, I woke up very hungry Saturday morning. Unfortunately I took this situation as license to eat basically whatever I wanted. That’s the not so good part. However, I did want to get some exercise, so I dug out one of cars – took a good 45 minutes of shoveling, worked lots of muscles, and burned some calories! Luckily our power was restored in the early afternoon!

Pic of snow near our house:

Sunday, I am happy that I worked out using exercise DVDs at home (Y isn’t open on Sun morning). Burned a lot of calories and had a decently intense workout. I did Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred for the first time. It really is a good 24 minute workout. And I was very sore from it today! I also did another video to get some extra cardio in. Unfortunately my resolve to make good food choices waned steadily throughout the day. By the time the superbowl party was ending, I dug into the cookies! Whoops! All told, my weekend was definitely high on the calorie side. And also very difficult to count since I ate at other people’s houses. I would guess 2500 or so calories Sat and Sun minus the exercise calories of course. So, bottom line, my calories for the week overall were probably a slight deficit, but not too much. Which brings me to the next topic:

This week’s weigh-in: -0.0, stayed exactly the same. Funny, worked out exactly as I thought it would. Unfortunately this week doesn’t look to be a stellar week calorie deficit wise. Leaving Thursday night to stay with a friend, so I won’t be able to work out Thurs, Fri, or Sat plus the food probably won’t be as healthy as if I were eating at home. However, I’m going to continue to do the best I can this week. I really would like just a slight lose, and then I can really pick up my intensity next week.

Which brings me to today. I did a killer bootcamp class at the Y. Once again, I made a fool of myself and couldn’t keep up, but I did burn some calories. And I’m liking trying all these new classes. I’m also getting a bit of weight-training which I never did on my own. I burned about 500 calories in 56 minutes. Most of the workout was cardio drills (Jump rope, jogging, sprinting, suicide drills, etc) followed by leg/arm combo moves with weights and a few stationary arm exercises. The last 10 minutes were ab work, and although my abs got a killer workout, ab work doesn’t really burn many calories. The heart rate is really low. Plus, with so much weight to lose, I won’t even be able to see muscle definition until I lose another 70-90 pounds.

Anyway, here’s todays stats:

Weigh-in Results!

So, as always, having “restarted” my weight loss efforts so many times, I never know how to number the weeks/weigh-ins. Do I start again with one? Do I pick up at the beginning? To make my life easier and so I don’t have to spend a bunch of time counting weeks, I’m calling last week the first week, and we’ll go from there. Hopefully, soon I’ll get a chance to update my progress page which is in dire need of some attention. Please note, however, that calling this “week 1” does not mean that I’m viewing as the start of a “diet.” I view everything since September 08 as one big journey to health with a lot of ups and downs and bumps along the way. After all that, what did I lose for my first weigh-in? (By the way, I’m a daily weigher. I log my weight each day, but don’t pay too much attention to those numbers as they do fluctuate a lot. I count Monday morning weigh-in as my official weekly weigh-in.)

Stats for Week 1:

• Weight Lost: 5 pounds! (Some of that was definitely water weight b/c my weight definitely spiked last Monday, but I’ll take it!)
• Avg cals eaten: 1671 (including yesterday’s wild guess at a 2500 calorie day)
• Avg cals burned through exercise: -375
• Avg net cals: 1267
• Total deficit: 5131 cals (1.5 lbs)

And today went well. My goal for the week is to avoid snacking/munching/mindless, hard to count calories. I did fairly well on that today. I did grab a few wheat thins and a few fat free Pringles. Other than that, did great. Went to spinning class at the Y tonight, and got a great workout! Burned 500 calories.

Weigh-in Results

Well, yesterday was my official “weigh-in” day and I must admit, the results were dissapointing. Up 1.2 pounds. No good rhyme or reason. I’m trying not to get frustrated because I do know that my body loses weight slowly and that I didn’t truly gain fat – there’s just some natural fluctuations.  I have done okay eating wise yesterday and today, but not great. I just haven’t felt really in control and things haven’t gone as planned. I did workout for an hour on the elliptical today – that went pretty well. My fitness is improving and I’m toying with the idea of torturing msyelf with some jogging soon. Tomorrow promises to be a major challenge as I’m having a special all-day, off-site work meeting where they feed us snacks and lunch! And we’re probably sitting there with the food right in front of us the whole time. My plan is just to do the best I can and try to compromise where I can. I’m sure the food won’t be at all diet-friendly, but I will still try to make the best choices that are available to me. This weekend also promises to be a big challenge as the food will be out of my control (at a friend’s house), but again, I will do the best I can. And I guess I will be satisfied if I simply maintain this week. Although I must admit that I’m getting so anxious to see some results. I want a significant loss. I’m sicked and tired of hanging around the 15-19 pounds lost range. I want to at least move to the 20-25 pounds lost range.

Week 23 Results

I’m happy to report a loss of 2.4 pounds this week! To finally put me (barely) at all time low since I start this effort back in September. I’m excited now that each pound I lose will be more new territory. I was also looking at pictures and the next 30 pounds (which will take a while, I know) will make a huge difference.

I think my greatest accomplishment from this week was fitting in exercise when I really didn’t have the time. I just squeezed it in wherever I could. And I didn’t let the death of my Heart Rate Monitor, or days that didn’t go at all as planned, or a houseguest from out of town, or long to-do list, or plans every evening, keep from working out. I worked out 4 times for a total of 218 minutes (6 minutes more than last week). I’m still just ellipticalling but hope to add a little bit of jogging soon.

Week 22 Summary – Great News!

Well, I can’t believe it’s already Week 22! But I have great news to report. However, a little history, and to see the numbers look at my progress page:

In short, for a brief history of my recent weight loss to give you a little perspective, I started this most recent “weight loss journey” in the beginning of September. I lost steadily until Thanksgiving for a loss of about 15 pounds (in about 3 months). From Thanksgiving through just a week ago (also about three months) I essentially just maintained my weight, although I fluctuated up and down about 5 pounds. I considered the maintaining through the holidays a true accomplishment. However, I have no excuse for not getting back on track with the losing in the beginning of January.

Anyway, was back on track for last week! And that resulted in a loss of 4.4 pounds! Most I’ve lost in one week all 22 weeks, although a lot of that was due some natural fluctuation. However, I weigh myself daily and for some strange reason my weight has really been fluctuating a lot more than usual for no good reason. Up and down by a couple pounds. And it doesn’t match what I ate the day before. It doesn’t bother me as long as it goes in a general downward direction. I also exercised four times last week for a total of 212 minutes, and 2162 cals burned through exercise (that’s a little over half a pound right there).

Week 14 Summary

So did anyone notice that last week was “Week 10” and this week is “Week 14.” Probably not, but in case you did, I’ll explain. Yes, I do know how to count. Whew! – you should all be relieved to know that the person designing nuclear power plants knows how to count (along with a few other mathematical things)! Anyway, I had “restarted” my weight loss after the third week so I started back again. But since then I have realized that there’s no such thing as restarts. And if there were, nearly every week would be week one again. I don’t want to wipe the slate clean every time I mess up…it’s all part of the plan. Besides, my body doesn’t negate all the extra calories, just because I arbitrarily declare a restart.

Anyway, not too much in the way of stats this past week, as I did not journal my foods and only (dare I even say this – this may be the worst yet) exercised two times for 30 minutes each. Better than nothing. And a positive step considering how in the past I would allow the all-or-nothing mentality overcome me and not even bother exercising any at all because I couldn’t do it as much as I thought I needed to.

Okay, on to what you really reading to find out. I lost 0.6 pounds this week, and I’m thrilled with that. I was afraid I would gain, with how little I exercised and how poorly I ate. I think my continuing to try in spite of many mistakes has really helped me make it through the last couple weeks without a gain. This week, however, I am really trying for a more serious loss.

Week 9 Summary

Lost 0.2 pounds this week. It was Thanksgiving week. I’ll take it. I don’t have stats because I stopped journalling my food for Thanksgiving.

Week 8 Summary and Stats

I already wrote my feelings about this on my last post, so I’ll just stick to the facts here:

• Pounds lost this week: +1.6 (yes, that’s a gain, my friends)
• Total pounds lost: 16.0
• Avg net cals this week: 1175
• Avg cals burned through exercise: -326 (not bad, if I do say so myself)
• Total calorie deficit this week: 5,075 (see I ACTUALLY burned 1.45 pounds of fat this week, even if the silly scale is being contrary)

Week 7 Summary and Stats

Alright, so this week I lost 1.6 pounds. I’m very happy with that.

The stats:

• Average cals eaten: 1423
• Avg cals burned through exercise: -310
• Avg net cals: 1113