Weekly Weigh in

Previous weight: 197
Current weight: 194.7

Lost: 2.3 lbs

Yeah! This is the first time since I started my journey that I've lost any substantial weight and I'm really happy!

Now that I'm averaging my weekly weight, I've decided to post my weekly updates on Sunday (Sundays are day #7). Here's how I averaged my weight for the week:

Monday: 196
Tuesday: 195
Wed: 194.2
Thurs: 195
Friday: 194.4
Sat: 194.4
Sun: 194.4

I added the weights together (196+195+194.2+195+194.4+194.4+194.4) which gave me a total of 1363.4 and then divided that number by 7 which gave me an average weight of 194.7 lbs.

I'm not sure how to handle my weight goals, though. At this point in my journey, I needed to be closer to 187 lbs in order to be on track for my 29 lbs weight loss by my 30th birthday. I'll need to think about if I can get back on track and eventually catch up, or if I need to readjust the goals to be a little more realistic.

For now, I'm going to stick with the established goals and see if I can lose any additional weight per week and catch up.

And see, now that I've lost some good weight, I'm starting to get motivated to work out. Nothing too much (remember, slow and steady!) but maybe a workout DVD 1-2 times/ week. I'm scared to gain muscle, though, because muscle weighs more than fat. But muscle also burns more calories.

I'm glad my efforts this week paid off. I need to spend some time today planning for the week.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Good week

It was a great week in terms of my weight loss journey. On Sunday, I started a new diet which I anticipate will turn into a new lifestyle.

It's been nearly a week and I'm down in my weight! It was so nice stepping on the scale and seeing either weight loss or a steady weight.

I don't want to post my weight until Monday when I do my usual weekly update. Remember that I'm no longer taking whatever I weight on Monday and using that as my weight. I'm averaging my daily weight throughout the week and using that average as my final weight.

To help better track my daily weight, I created an Excel spreadsheet. I'll print out my copy and keep it in the bathroom.

But, I've made the spreadsheet available for you if you want it too! Click here to access it, then from there you can save it to your PC. If you enter your weight into the spreadsheet, it'll calculate your average weight loss each week (after your Sunday weight in).

Sticking with the plan this week wasn't difficult at all. Honestly, it wasn't.

Anything I was craving was eaten during my 60 minute dinner (along with the salad and veggies).

Just to give you an idea of what I ate during my breakfast and lunches during the week, here's what I did:

Breakfast: McDonalds sausage egg mcmuffin (minus the mcmuffin), sausage egg and cheese biscuit (minus the biscuit), Hardees low carb breakfast bowl (I had McD's 4x during the week)

Lunches: Hardees little thickburger with cheeseburger (minus the bun) with tomatoes and mayo plus a salad, Taco Bell taco salad (didn't eat the shell) plus a bean burrito (without the tortilla), Imo's side salad (my absolute favorite salad, YUM!), Red Robin mushroom'n'swiss cheeseburger (without the bun) plus a side salad with Ranch dressing, and Texas RoadHouse pulled pork with green beans and a side salad with french dressing

Dinners were crazy! Here's what I had:

Sunday: Salad with fresh veggies (lettuce, mushrooms, grape tomatoes, cucumber, sunflower seeds, bacos, french dressing and cheese), Fried chicken, 1 Cup steamed spinach, ice cream cookie sandwich

Monday: Chevy's Mexican restaurant- side salad with apple catalina dressing, soft beef taco with sour cream, and 1 Cup of corn tomatilla (I needed to have more veggies, but we were out and I didn't bring any with me). I drank iced tea that I sweetened myself with the pink stuff. We stopped and got ice cream cones on the way home (still within the 60 mins)

Tuesday: Bowling night so I stopped by Imo's on the way to bowling and picked up a side salad (with their house dressing), I brought veggies with me and ate those (mushrooms and cucumber). Then at the alley I got a pretzel with cheese and a beer. No dessert that night b/c I didn't leave the alley until almost 10pm. I normally would have stopped for a dollar cone on the way home, but I was passed my 60 mins.

Wednesday: Work dinner- salad with ranch dressing, salmon and green beans, plus two Suntini martinis (YUM). No dessert.

Thursday: Salad, Pot roast with corn bread muffins, fresh veggies (cucumber and califlower), ice cream sandwich for dessert.

Friday: Salad, califlower, Little Caesar's pizza (one piece of pepperoni) plus 3 breadsticks and 1/2 Dr. Pepper (I couldn't finish the soda, it was too sweet!). For dessert I had 1/2 roll of Thin Mints (girl scout cookies) and a glass of skim milk (I can only have milk during my 60 mins meal which is probably the most difficult thing for me because I LOVE MILK and used to drink 3-4 glasses/day).

See how eating healthy during the day can pay off in the evening? As long as I eat during the 60 minutes, I can eat whatever I want so long as I start with a salad and eat veggies.

I don't plan on writing down everything I eat each day, but I wanted to give you an idea of how I'm doing this.

A few challenges thus far:

• $$- I can't keep eating out for breakfast. It's about $4 to get the breakfast sandwich and the bottle of water. I need to plan ahead and hardboil some eggs and cook some bacon so I can just take that with me in the morning.
• Lunch with Mr. O. I don't mind spending the usual $6 on lunch and getting whatever I used to get, but taking away the bread, but Mr. O doesn't like spending the $6 and then not eating everything. We eat lunch together almost every day (we work in the same building), so it'll be a challenge to find places to eat that aren't expensive but that also cater to a low/no carb meal. I'm also a creater of habit, so I could easily eat the same lunch 2-3 times/week, but Mr. O can't do this. Maybe he and I will need to plan a few days where we don't eat lunch together!!
• No drinking milk at night. Like I said earlier, I'm used to drinking several glasses of milk/day, but milk is something that should only be consumed during the 60 min reward meal. It hasn't been terrible, but out of habit, I tend to grab a glass before I head to bed, so breaking that routine has been a little difficult.
  

Surprisingly, I'm NOT hungry throughout the day. I worried that I would want to snack at work, but I don't keep any snacks there, so I can't cheat plus I'm not hungry throughout the day.

I am a little disappointed that I haven't had more energy. According to the book, people that live this lifestyle almost always get a big energy boost after a few days on the diet. The reduced carbs has positive anti-inflammatory affects on the body and that usually leads to more energy.

I haven't been any more tired, I was just hoping for more energy when I get home after work.

I still haven't been good at taking my Vitamin D! DANG IT! When I don't take it consistently, I feel so down. Sarah left a comment on a previous post suggesting that I take the pills when I take my watch off at night. I might need to do that; although, I usually don't wait until bedtime to take off my watch. I'm pretty inconsistent when it comes to taking it off.

Alright, this post is long enough! Just wanted to share what I've learned this week with you!

I can't wait to weigh this weekend and then post the weight on Monday!!

Day 2

Today is Day 2 of my weight loss strategy (low/no carb breakfast, low/no carb lunch, and whatever I want for dinner in 60 minutes, plus a salad and veggies).

Yesterday I had 2 eggs for breakfast. For lunch I had tuna fish and lots of veggies (pickles, olives, etc). Last night during my 60 min meal, I enjoyed a piece of fried chicken, a 2 cup salad topped with lots of veggies, 3/4 cup spinach, and then an M&M ice cream sandwich for dessert.

Seriously. Who eat fried chicken and ice cream sandwiches on a diet?

I DO!

Although the book cautions against getting too excited over daily weights, I am down 2 lbs since Saturday :)

Today I had a sausage egg mcmuffin (minus the mcmuffin) from McDs. For lunch I had a salad from Imos (those are my favorite). Tonight we went to the local Mexican restaurant where I had a salad, a beef soft taco, and 1/2 of the tomatillo (sweet corn thingy).

Of course, we stopped and got dollar cones for dessert.

I ate everything in exactly 60 minutes.

So far, I can definitely keep up with this. Knowing I can eat whatever I want during dinner makes the light lunch much easier to handle.

The key to dinner is: you MUST eat everything within 60 mins and then NOTHING more the rest of the night. You also have to eat a salad FIRST and then balance your high carbs with an equal amount of veggies. It's not difficult.

I'm really optimistic :)

Weekly Weigh in

I've decided to post my average weekly weight, rather than posting the weight on the day I weigh in.

There are so many factors that can influence a single daily weight.

I'll weigh myself daily and then average those weights on Monday when I post my weekly update.

Makes sense, right?!

I'm an addict

If you're like me and you can spend HOURS on the internet *hangs head in shame*, then chances are, you've ended up at a website or a blog and you honestly can't remember how you got there.

You started at Becky's blog, then clicked on a comment that Heather left, now you're at Heather's blog and you click on one of her sidebar blogs that looks interesting and 10 minutes later, you end up at Kevin Bacon's blog (6 degrees of Kevin Bacon..get it?).....

That happened to me earlier today and I'm so glad it did! I somehow ended up at Tara's blog and was very intrigued by her approach to weight loss. Apparently, she's an addict. A Carbohydrate addict. She raves about The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet, a book by Drs. Rachael and Richard Heller.

Always the skeptic (and researcher), I immediately Googled the book and read mixed reviews. Everything from, "I've kept off the weight for 5 years!" to "this diet sucks and I've put back on the weight I had lost."

Basically, it's the same mixed reviews you hear with any diet.

What has me interested in this lifestyle is the science combined with the low-carb approach. When I read this excerpt, I related:

"It seems like an uncontrollable craving at times. I think I should be able to control myself but I don't. I know I'm not weak-willed. I keep most other aspects of my life together- but not my eating."

The approach to this diet is: consume high-protein, low carb meals for breakfast and lunch, then eat whatever you want in a 60-minute period for dinner.

The Basics: Your body releases insulin (the "hunger hormone") a few minutes after you begin eating a meal. How much insulin is released at this time depends on what you ate during your last meal. If you ate a meal higher in carbs, then the first round of insulin release will be significant. The second round of insulin your body releases occurs about 90 minutes after your meal and the amount released is based on what you ate during the meal. Again, if you consumed a meal higher in carbs, then the second release of insulin will be significant. An entire biological process occurs with insulin, glucose, etc but the end result is this: "an excess of insulin remains in the bloodstream. As insulin levels fail to drop, the brain levels of serotonin fail to rise..." and the body thinks its hungry again.

Here's how it works: By eating high-protein, low-carb meals for breakfast and lunch, your pancreas releases the right amount of insulin. When you eat your Reward Meal (whatever you want at dinner) and you eat it within 60 minutes, then the first round of insulin your body releases will be appropriate (based on what you ate earlier in the day) and because you're done eating in 60 minutes, the second round of insulin released will be minimal and you won't experience the sugar drop that most people feel after eating a high carb meal.

Interesting, huh?

I've read about 1/2 of the book and I'm very curious and will probably take this approach.

I've studied insulin resistance and the science is the same. Too many of the complex carbs results in increased insulin being released. Too much insulin circulating in the blood over time makes your body less resistant to it and then the problems begin.

As excited as I am about this, I approach it with caution. Afterall, it's a "diet" that should develop into a lifestyle, but aren't all diets like that??

We'll see!

Day late and a dollar short

I had every intention of posting my weekly update on Monday, but I didn't get home until after 10pm, so I put it off until Tuesday. Tuesday night rolled around and same thing- I didn't get home until after 10pm.

Then I just figured I'd post whenever I could. That happens to be right now.

My Monday weight was the same as last week, 197 lbs. Again, I didn't do much to prepare for the week (didn't have fresh fruits and veggies on hand, didn't meal plan).

I did better about taking my pills. I think I took them 3 days out of the 5, so Yeah! My friend texted me a few days and that was just the reminder I needed, so thanks to Connie!

I also got 8+ hours of sleep each night. Sleeping is never a problem for me. Thank God!

Despite my lack of motivation and progress thus far, I am still in it to win it. I'm not mad that I haven't made progress. I can't be mad; I haven't done anything differently to create progress.

I've been very introspective lately. I think a lot about me, which, believe it or not, is unusual.

I'm usually going, going, going...always on the move, always doing something. I tend to not slow down enough to think about much of anything, let alone myself.

For whatever reasons, every since our vacation last month, I've spent a great deal of time thinking about myself. I've made very conscious efforts to slow down. Slowing down has freed up my brain and my thoughts. I actually have time to....think.

For example, a few weeks ago, I forgot my cell phone at home one morning. While driving to my destination, I came to a red light and reached into my purse to grab the phone. I couldn't find the phone and realized I had left it on the kitchen table. OK, no big deal.

At the next stop light, I reached for the phone again. I reached into my purse and spent another 30 seconds trying to find my phone. I then remembered I had left it on the kitchen table. Unbelievable. I had the same conversation with myself two stop lights in a row. It was at that moment that I realized I've been living life on fast forward. In reality, I couldn't even sit at a stop light without unconsciously reaching for my phone to check Facebook or my email.

Fast forward to a few days ago when I was sitting at my desk at work. I clicked on the Quickbooks icon to open the program and while it was opening, I clicked on the internet icon so I could check the newswire to see what was happening in the world. I have two monitors at work, so while the one program opens, I almost always open the internet to check the news.

Seriously? I can't sit for 10 seconds while a program opens without having to entertain myself with something else?

All of this to say that my mind has been working overtime and I believe this is one of the many barriers I face to weight loss. I'd like to think that weight loss is a priority, but my actions tell a different story. Clearly, I haven't taken the time to develop my strategy. I haven't committed to doing anything of significance that would result in weight loss.

I'm hopeful that by slowing down, I'll spend more time on important things, like weight loss and being healthy. Always being on the go is mentally exhausting and its left little room for me to truly focus my time and thoughts on whats really important.

So I'm adding another goal to my daily list: Focus on me. I really need to take the time to do this.

I KNOW this will result in results.

Rut-Ro

Previous weight: 195.5
Goal weight: 193
Current weight: 197

I gained 1.5 lbs.

I was supposed to LOSE 1.5 lbs, NOT GAIN.

Once again, I didn't prepare well so I didn't have a good array of fresh, healthy foods to choose from during the week.

I definitely don't have the motivation I had while on vacation. I go through spurts during the week. One meal I'm motivated, but the next, I'm rushed and I don't even think about what I'm eating. I'm trying to get healthy and I'm not even paying attention to what I'm putting in my mouth.

In trying go slow and steady, am I not focused enough? Am I being too relaxed in my approach?

I sense maybe I've swung too far in the opposite direction. Afraid of failing based on how I've approached weight loss in the past, I've tried not focusing too much on changing everything at once. As a result, I haven't actually changed anything. I'm in the same routines as before, but I'm expecting different results.

You would think that I must not be that interested in losing the weight. You'd think I must be content with how I am. But I'm not.

I'm sick of wearing the same 3 shirts because I don't have any others that fit.

I'm having trouble getting going.

But, that's all about to change.....

In the past, I've enjoyed successful weight loss when I've had an upcoming event planned.

During Mr. O's senior year in college, I attended his final fraternity formal and had dropped about 15lbs prior to the big night. I had also weight trained, so not only was I thinner, but I was more toned that I had been previously. Everyone noticed. People I hadn't seen in almost a year complimented me on "healthy" I looked! It was fantastic. I felt like a million bucks. One of my favorite pictures of Mr. O and I is from that night. My smile was a true reflection of how I felt. Now, its just a reminder of how unhealthy I am.

Prior to our wedding, I lost about 28 lbs. Once again, I was down to a healthy weight and I was so proud of myself. My wedding dress had to be altered THREE times because I kept losing weight. At the final fitting, the seamstress begged me to GAIN about 5 lbs so my top would fit better. She grew tired of rebeading the bust line. Of course I politely refused to gain the weight :) I had worked too hard to get the weight off. I actually preferred having a loose fitting dress rather than putting on the weight.

When I have an event to look forward to, that provides sufficient motivation. I picture myself at the event and how I want to feel.

Well, I have an event coming up in about 5 weeks. Over the weekend, a group of my college sorority sisters began planning a reunion. I haven't seen many of these people in 8 or 9 years (in terms of my weight, that was at least 30 lbs ago). Many are moms who have 2-3 children and they look fantastic! Bitches They haven't gained a damn pound, even after childbirth!

There will be a family picnic and then a girls night out (which I'm SOOOO excited about).

I recognize that losing weight in anticipation of a big event isn't a good long term weight loss strategy. However, I feel this is the push I need to get me started. I clearly haven't been successful these past 2 weeks mustering up the motivation on my own. And, knowing my past successes have come as a result of preparing for a specific event already has me planning my next week in greater detail. Because it's worked before, I'm looking forward to doing it again. It's a proven strategy in my weight loss war chest.

I feel like a broken record. I have the same goals as previously stated:

1. Take my daily vitamins/supplements

• Vitamin D 10,000 IU
• Iodine 12.5mg (down from 50 mg during my initial replenishment)
• Magnesium 250 mg

2. Eight hours of restful sleep

I've been getting 8 hours of sleep, but I haven't take ANY of my pills. WTH?!

I really want to add another goal, but until I can accomplish the two on my list, whats the point? I'll wait until I can handle those before I start adding more.

Hope you didn't come here seeking motivation. Right now I'm still struggling to get my own ass in gear. I promise you, though, that I WILL get things going and then, watch out ;)

This chapter isn't over yet...