Bless me, someone, for I have slacked

Slacking is not the word for what I have done. I have embarrassed myself. And as it was last time, the camera is what did me in. Photos of myself that were horrifying. I have gained all the weight back that I had lost, and then some.

At the pinnacle of my weight loss in the spring, I bought some size 10 pants that were fitting me. A little snugly, but they fit. Now, I'm buckling into size 14s again. They're not tight, but they fit. Before, they fell off me. I'm actually pretty emotional about it.

Meanwhile, Boyfriend and I are doing splendidly. Which may have been part of the problem. Happy Teresa eats. And unless nightly sex counts as cardio, I haven't been doing hardly any. My gym membership has become a fat tax. It's humiliating.

I almost feel like I need to go to a different gym so that the people that work at the old gym don't judge me when I come in, head hung low.

I have a friend, Angela, that I've totally let down. She has this great blog and people who joined her in their weekly weight loss reports. As my shame, embarrassment set in, and my lack of drive to keep eating healthy and working out dug deep, I didn't even respond to her weekly emails with a lame "hey." I just ignored them. I not only lost my own accountability, but I began ignoring the external accountability that I had set up for myself.

So here's what I want to do:
Go to the gym.
Reluctantly, and maybe tearfully, weigh in.
Slowwwlly, get back to working out. Walking on a treadmill. Elliptical. Something I enjoy like that. About a week ago, I rolled my ankle pretty badly, so we'll see how I do there. Maybe swimming? I don't have a lot of experience swimming for exercise.
But the goal is to not feel like I'm punishing myself for my failings. Everything in me is telling me that it's a punishment, so I just need to get back to that feeling I had when I thoroughly enjoyed working out.

I dunno. I'm pretty low. And roly poly. :(

As an addendum: I measured myself. Since my last measurement in mid-May, I have gained 10.3 inches. the largest gains (no surprise) are in my chest, waist, and hips. Wahh waahhhhh.

Ugh. Gains and Bad Attitudes

It's obvious. Every time I give myself permission to slack, or every time my bad attitude (often cycle-related) gets in the way of my goals, the scale suffers. After sitting pretty at 170 for a few days, eating sushi (in moderation--but not moderating the soy sauce like I should) and giving myself permission to eat fast food, the scale showed me 171.25 today.

Laaammmeee.

Water weight? I dunno.

PS: BF and I are pretty much patched up. YAY! Also, the extra calorie burn that comes from being "back to normal" with him is helping, too! (tee hee)

170?!?!

Holy crapfuck?!? I lost 15 pounds? In just under 14 weeks?

WHAT?!?!?!

We'll see on Thursday (my official "weigh-in" day) if this is a real number.

Weighing 170 makes me feel several things:
1) Almost to the 160s. I wonder how much time I'll spend there.
2) Oh god, oh god. I've lost 15lbs. I'm only 3.5lbs away from losing 10% of my starting weight.
3) I should start lifting weights more seriously. When I feel on my arms, I feel lots of fat. If all of that fat burns off, I'd have some damn scrawny arms. I never want to be scrawny. My legs/shoulders are super muscular. I need to develop my:
Biceps/Triceps/Delts
Lats
Glutes
Abs
4) According to BMI, I'm still 25lbs away from getting out of the "overweight" category. I've said goodbye to "obesity." 25lbs seems like a faaarrrr way to go, and it would only still put me at the cusp of "health" and "heifer."
5) I'm loving how exercise has so easily become incorporated into "routine." I don't dread it. I look forward to it. Even if most of the time, it's a 20-25 minute lunchtime cardio adventure.
6) I'm going to take photos every two weeks. I think it will help me better catalog my journey. Especially if I start to hit a plateau.

170.75 and some early progress photos.

I was encouraged by a buddy to maybe take pictures every month? I'm not so sure that I'll do that, but I wanted to compare the starting vs. current photos now.

Front view; Left 171lbs, Right 180lbs

Right side; Left 171, Right 180

Left Side: Left 171lbs, Right 180lbs

Backside; Left 171, Right 180

Face front, Left 171, Right 180

Face Right; Left 171, Right 180

Face Left; Left 171, Right 180

 Anyone see a difference? I sorta can. 

??? Disappearing posts and my recently awful job.

Okay. So last time I posted, I wrote a long thing complaining about a problem with the BF. Yesterday, I couldn't log in to blogger (no one could for a while, apparently). Today, I show up, and that post is gone? I don't feel like rewriting it, and I don't have it saved anywhere.

SO, here it was in a nutshell. BF (who quit smoking in October) has been smoking for the last two months and hiding it from me. I got super upset because when I caught him, he lied about it, and then finally came clean. My own neuroticism (due to my history with my lyin' cheatin' ex husband) lead me to believe he was having an affair (he's not) and get SUPER upset about him lying to me and hiding it from me for so long. Especially since I'm pretty sure he knows that I wouldn't have even been all that upset about finding it out in the first place.

Anyhow, because I under eat when I'm stressed, I had a day where I worked out twice and ate less than 1100 calories. I decided to nip that in the bud right away, especially since BF and I are well on our way to working things out. I don't want to stall my healthy journey by being fatigued due to undereating.

At work, we're putting together all the final documents for submitting our recent research to a journal. It is a LOT of work. Everyone compiles their data into a document that should be uniform in format. However, my coworkers are idiots that don't understand "uniform" or "format" or "data," so I'm having to go through pages and pages of things that look like this:
¹H NMR (500 MHz, CDCl₃) δ = 7.41 – 7.21 (m, 7H), 7.22 – 7.16 (m, 2H), 6.35 (dd, J = 1.4, 6.1, 1H), 6.16 (qrt, J = 7.0, 1H), 5.94 (d, J = 6.1, 1H), 5.22 (s, 1H), 4.74 (dd, J = 3.4, 9.8, 1H), 3.95 (d, J = 16.1, 1H), 3.74 (d, J = 16.1, 1H), 2.54 (d, J = 9.8, 1H), 1.69 (d, J = 7.0, 3H). ¹³C NMR (126 MHz, CDCl₃) δ = 166.99, 163.23, 137.78, 135.76, 135.11, 132.41, 131.73, 129.35, 129.01, 128.43, 128.31, 127.77, 127.45, 100.04, 94.18, 81.95, 78.16, 48.01, 43.13, 11.16.

And make it look like this:
¹H NMR (500 MHz, CDCl₃) δ = 7.41-7.21 (m, 7H), 7.22-7.16 (m, 2H), 6.35 (dd, J = 6.1, 1.4, 1H), 6.16 (q, J = 7.0, 1H), 5.94 (d, J = 6.1, 1H), 5.22 (s, 1H), 4.74 (dd, J = 9.8, 3.4, 1H), 3.95 (d, J = 16.1, 1H), 3.74 (d, J = 16.1, 1H), 2.54 (d, J = 9.8, 1H), 1.69 (d, J = 7.0, 3H). ¹³C NMR (126 MHz, CDCl₃) δ = 167.0, 163.2, 137.8, 135.8, 135.1, 132.4, 131.7, 129.4, 129.0, 128.4, 128.3, 127.8, 127.5, 100.0, 94.2, 82.0, 78.2, 48.0, 43.1, 11.2.

I have to do tiny tiny things like changing the types of dashes used, italicize all the J's, reverse the orders of the constants, for example, changing (dd, J = 3.4, 9.8, 1H) to  (dd, J = 9.8, 3.4, 1H), and changing all the two decimal place ¹³C to having only one decimal place. Oh, and did I mention that I have to count the number of H's represented and C's in each molecule (for example, this compound should have 20H's and 20 ¹³C peaks. Oh, and I also have to make sure that the ¹H data makes sense (for example, making sure that if a peak is a dd, that it has two J constants).

Obviously, each one of the TINY MOTHERFUCKING MINUSCULE DETAILS must be changed one by one. And because my boss doesn't trust the idiots that fucked it up the first time to fix it, it's MY JOB. Even though I tried to explain about 20 times the right format. And this sort of thing is not conducive to being active and on my feet all day like I'm used to. Unsurprisingly, I'm left MORE tired at the end of the day than when I'm up and about. I'm tired just writing this by now, so that'll be all until next time.

Yikes!!!

So today, I weigh 171 lbs (BMI 29.3). WHAT THE HELL?!?!?! TO show you how crazy my weight loss pattern has been in the last month, have a look at this lovely graph:

Sorry about the image quality (clicking on it shows it much larger and clearer). Apparently, you can't save a "chart" as an image directly from excel. You have to paste it into MS Paint. At least, that's how my feeble computing skillz had me do it.

Also, you'll notice I added a ticker. Bonus: I'm growing out my hair (and hopefully, cutting out all color treatment of my hair), so the image of the gal on the bike with the long flowing locks seems appropriate.

Sad news about my hair, though. So during my divorce, I decided I needed a change. My hair is naturally a dark ash blonde/light ash brown color. "Hair-colored-hair." I had dyed it dark brown for YEARS upon years. I bleached the shit out of it and toned it to a light ash blonde in the hope of getting close to my natural color again (because the stark blonde roots against the dark brown hair was a nasty look. And growing it out with such a harsh demarcation was out of the question). Obviously, it fried the shit out of my hair, and I cut it from armpit length to just below chin length. In the ensuing months, it became obvious that I had aimed WAYYY too light. My darker roots were just showing through like mad. And again, I hit a point where I needed a change. With such light blonde hair, I felt like I looked SOOO young. With my big cherubic cheeks, I just looked like a doll (and not in a good way). I had also lost a lot of weight at that time (this is in the late spring/early summer of 2010), and I felt like a VIXEN.

172.75

That's what I weighed in at yesterday. I rode my bike to the gym, did some weights (triceps and chest) and a little bit more cardio before riding my bike home. It felt good to use my muscles again. It also felt good to feel like I'm heading in the right direction again with my weight loss.

I'm slowly making my way back towards eating healthier. Sort of. Yesterday, I hadn't eaten very may calories by the time dinner rolled around. D and I went to my favorite Indian buffet. I did a really good job of sticking to healthier choices (nothing fried, nothing with thick creamy sauces, plenty of veggies). I only ate a few bites of naan, but I did have a banana lassi. In all, I ate a LOT of calories anyway in that sitting, but I did end up sticking to my daily calorie goal.

I cooked up some BIG batches of food, so I've been encouraged to (and enthused about, really) eat at home.

SO! I intend to just get better and building and keeping healthy habits. It's so hard not to feel DEPRIVED when I avoid foods that are...troublesome (like french fries, for example). I'm working on both adjusting my mindset and doing various things to avoid binging (which is basically what I did about a week ago).

Something about Wagons?

So I weighed in at 174.75  today. DANNGEERROUSLY close to 175.

I have officially fallen off the bandwagon off the beaten path short of my goals off of my bicycle in a few ways (a new and improved metaphor! See below for details).
1) I ate some fried food.
2) I succumbed to the desire to eat Taco Bell (wth!?!?!)
3) I have not been exercising 5 days a week like I had hoped I would be doing.

SO! Back on the...wagon? Why is that even used? People only talk about "the wagon" when they're wanting to get back on it. But when someone's doing good and sticking to their plan, do they really say they're on a wagon?

To me, being "on a wagon" implies that something (a parent, a horse/donkey/mule, a vehicle of some sort) is doing the hard work. So when I'm doing a good job at this weight loss business, I'm not sitting back and letting someone/something else do the hard work--I'm doing it.

Additionally, a wagon is so far removed from modern society's luxuries that the use of it doesn't bring an actual "wagon" to mind, just the idea of a journey, maybe? Back on the road? On the beaten path? But again, that implies that the route is already forged.

I hereby retire the phrase "Back on the wagon." While I'm at it, I will also retire the term "happy camper."

So I'm back on the (metaphor), and here's what I'm gonna do:

1) I'm going to be more strict with logging my calories (I skipped more than a few things on my food log these last two weeks). And by "more strict" I mean I'm not going to skip anything. AT. ALL.
2) I'm going to re-start my 5-x-a-week-for-12-weeks goal (of exercise). I did two weeks in a row of 4 days a week, promising myself to add an extra workout in the following week. No more of that. I won't bargain with myself anymore here.
3) I'm going to cook meals at home at least twice a week. I let myself slack on this, and I suffered the consequences (and so did my wallet). If I cook two big meals a week, end up with enough food for lunches and dinners for the whole week.

A mini-goal is to save money this month. I think the cooking will definitely help.

All right, guys. Back on the bicycle for me! (HA! An exercise-based thingie that is powered by me and helps me move forward. Way better than any sort of silly wagon. Plus I actually want to bike to my gym anyway, so....ba-DOW).

Complainnnn!!!

Stupid scale. 173.5 today.

I didn't do so hot on either calories or activity on the weekend, but definitely not 3,500 more calories eaten than burned. Why such a gain?

Magic. The bad kind.

I will do a better job of eating well, try to do better at being active on the weekend, and try to STICK TO my gym regimen. I need to exercise twice either today or tomorrow to keep to my goal.

173.5??? :(

A weird weekend.

So on Saturday, I indulgently slept in until 10, went to work until about 3:30, and then went to my 3rd tattoo session at 4. The result? Not a lot of movement for the day. I average about 12,000-13,000 steps on the week days. I think I didn't break 10,000 for BOTH Sat. and Sun. :( :( :(

Laying on my belly getting my back tattooed for 4h, followed by being relatively still during recovery does not amount to a lot of movement. As such, I ate like normal-ish (maybe a BIT more indulgently) and did not have the nice calorie deficits that I'm used to. For example, I usually shoot for eating 1700 calories a day and burning 2400. I am almost always very close to this. On Saturday, I ate 1400 and burned 1900. On Sunday I ate 1800 and burned.....1750. Whoops.

So I've had a good run of weight loss in April. I've lost 6.5lbs since April began. I started out the month with upping my calorie intake from about 1700 to about 1900 for a week. I then dropped it back down to about 1500 for a week. I'm not sure if that's what did the trick, but I did see great numbers this month so far. That's part of the reason why I'm not stressing out about it.

I'm currently (as of my weigh in last week) about 6 lbs away from losing 10% of my body weight. I'm 2.5lbs away from my next photo-session (and 2.5lbs away from 15lbs lost!).

All-in-all, I feel....weird. It might be because of how lax I've been lately. Maybe it's the tattoo pain that's making my brain strange. Maybe it's the weird things going on in my audio book. Maybe it's feeling antsy from not working out since Friday.

But today is a weird day. I intend to get things back on track by having a nice, HARD, cardio session with a bit of weights thrown in at lunch today. Wish me luck!

172.5lbs and Existentialist Crises (Crisises? Dilemmae?)

So I submitted my "Thursday" weigh-in on my weight loss group. I weighed in on Wednesday at 174. My Thursdays are unpredictable and busy, so I usually submit the weight that I get at the gym on Weds as my weight so that I'm not super late in submitting.

I weigh in on a balance beam scale in my gym. With those balance beam scales, sometimes you can tell that you are "in between" the readings. I was less than 174, but more than 173.5 for sure. I don't like standing in the locker room naked for 5 minutes staring at the slowly moving balance beam, so I often just accept certain reads as "close enough." I use "quotes" a lot.

Yesterday (Thurs), I did have some unexpected free time to pop over to the gym. I weighed in at 172.5. Because I was skeptical of this weight (it seems that I'm always skeptical of my weigh-ins), I stood there, nekkid as a jaybird (you can thank my dad for that phrase), staring at that stupid balance beam until it was SMACK in the middle of the thingie. You know what I mean. I was SURE that I must be imagining it. But there it was. 172.5lbs, BMI 29.6.

SO! As for my existentialist debacles. Last blog post, I was discussing ideal weight and frame size and whatnot. Because I'm a scientist, I obsessed over the numbers of it all, looking up a multitude of sources for my ideal weight. Additionally, I consulted the American Medical Association as well as the surgeon general's recommendations. Both of those adhere to BMI, so basically, there's way too much random "facts" to pick one. So I have decided to amend my current weight loss goal.

At 5'4 I want to weigh 130lbs. EVERY single weight loss recommendation I saw had this number within their "healthy" range.

I'm a touch worried that I'll get to 150 and quit. I still have this fear that I won't feel like myself if I'm not at least a bit more "fluffy" than skinny people. But I don't want this fear of the unknown to stop me from getting where I'm going. Maybe I'll get there, keep it for a few months, and decide to keep things at a more relaxed weight?

Maybe I'll get to 145 and hit a monster plateau and stay at that weight forever. I read a lady's blog recently where she stayed within 225 and 232 for 20 months. 20 MOTHERFUCKING MONTHS TO LOSE 7 LBS?!?! I don't know if I could emotionally handle that.

So! What's the plan? I plan to not let myself get discouraged before I even approach obstacles. I've already lost 12.5lbs. I'm 27.5lbs away from my original goal and 42.5 away from my new one. I will keep that initial goal in the forefront for now, though.

Diet Chic recommended that I should keep goals of 10lbs at a time in mind. And I do sort of do that already, but mostly I keep the end in mind. Maybe I should do what she says, eh? 2.5lbs away from new pictures!!! 7.5lbs away from the big 2-0 loss. I should make some mini-rewards for that.

Still at 174 and a Re-evaluation of my goals.

My weight is 174lbs
My BMI is 29.9.

I am so...tentative about this weight. I hate stepping on the scale for fear that it's a weird "up" day and that I'll be magically obese again (175 and up is "obese" according to BMI for my 5'4" height).

I know, I know. BMI sucks. Blah blah, body frame, something about muscle density. But it still feels profound to be labelled as OBESE, whatever the measure. In good news, my waist-to-hip ratio is still 0.79. This is puts me in the "healthy" range.

So my initial goal was to get to 145. That is to lose 40 lbs. I've lost 11 pounds. 29 to go?

Well that's tricky now. Because if I'm adhering to BMI, 145 puts me RIGHT at the line between overweight and "healthy." I really want to be smack in the middle of healthy. Not hovering in between. That would mean 127 pounds. Holy fuckcrap. That's super tiny. AGAIN. I know that BMI is lame.

For adjusted ideal body weight (according to frame size), I'm "in between."

According to my wrist circumference, I have a "broad" body frame and should weigh anywhere from 132-149.
According to the breadth of my elbow, I have a medium frame and should be somewhere between 122 and 135.

So to be safe, maybe I should set my goal for the average? 134.5? Hot damn. I can't even remotely imagine what I would look like at that weight. I feel like I have too much muscle to weigh 135. Losing 50lbs?!?! That's like, impossible. And that means I'd have 39 more pounds to lose.

I had a mini-promise to myself to take pictures at every 10lbs lost. But I forgot to start the photos until I was 180. So at 170lbs, I'll take some photos. What I might do is get to that magical 134.5 and maintain it for a while. If maintaining that weight feels like way too much work, I might review the photos and reconsider what is a comfortable weight to maintain. I dunno. Anything under 150 feels unreasonably thin to me somehow. I've not been that small since....early high school? I don't have any idea what size I would be wearing. It's just impossible to fathom.

And will I still have this round face? Will my boobs sag? Where will my skin go? Will my tattoos look different?

Do I even want to be "skinny?" Ugh. We'll see. I want to be fucking hot, that's what. I want to look good on a beach.
Even though I live in the mountains, haha.

Delicious dinner--More calories than expected.

So I made some salmon last night. Salmon with a honey sriracha "glaze." I saw some recipes for a honey glaze on salmon, and I just wanted to spice it up. I was inspired by a delicious wing sauce that is made at a local pub, unsurprisingly named "Honey Sriracha" sauce. All of the recipes I saw had about 1tbsp honey, thinned with 1tbsp vegetable oil, various other seasonings, and then brushed on the salmon and baked. First of all, I love sautee-ing things. Salmon especially. But, okay, I'll bake it. Fine. But when salmon (and all fattier fishes) render out their fat, it forms a sort of white gelatinous pool either on top of or around the fish. It looks..unappetizing. When sautee-ing, this can just be scraped away, but when baking, it just sits there. Taunting you. On top of the filet.

As for the glaze, I thought I'd save myself some calories and use a bit of water to thin out the honey instead. It did not stick to the salmon very well at all. That is no surprise now, considering how thin it was. An oily mixture would have been more viscous. Duh. HOWEVER. It did really get a chance to flavor the salmon. Both the honey and sriracha were delightfully apparent without overwheming the delicious salmon taste. Just not nice and glaze-y like I had wanted.

The green beans were simply steamed. I thought about making them fancy, but D and I just so love the taste of garden fresh green beans. I didn't want to spoil that sort of natural perfection.

I took my friend's advice and used jasmine rice as my starch. However, with the slightly asian-ified salmon, I decided to give the rice some subtle flavors, too. Sriracha is a garlic and hot chile paste, so I used about 2 cloves of garlic, minced fine, and about 1tbsp grated ginger for 2 cups of rice (uncooked, 4 cups cooked). I made a lot of extra rice because I have PLANS for it later in the week. Nothing fancy. Just leftovers. I sauteed the garlic and ginger in just a touch of oil. I cooked up the jasmine rice with the garlic/ginger stirred into it. It's just a TOUCH of the aromatic components in that sea of rice (hence the "scented" rice). It went really nicely with the rest of the food.

But LO AND BEHOLD. Salmon has a crap-ton of calories per oz. It's a fatty fish. Fat calories add up. If you go by the recommended serving size (3oz, about the size of a deck of cards), it is 175 calories. I portioned out 5oz filets, so thats more like 290 calories. JUST FOR THE SALMON.

With about 1/2 cup cooked rice and the green beans (and all the extra seasonings), the total is 504 fucking calories! Which is a lot! Fortunately for me (and for D), we had room for this kind of calorie consumption at the end of the day. So it wasn't the worst thing ever, but just surprising.

AND DELICIOUS.

Ha. Stupid scales.

So this weekend, I was a good girl. On Saturday, I decided that I could give myself my "reward" for losing 5% of my body weight. It was initially supposed to be a pedicure, but I need new clothes (due to weight loss, upcoming summer, and the routine replacement of the clothes that are destroyed in my lab). So my reward was a shopping day!

I had also set up the goal to be on my feet a lot more than is typical for my weekends. My daily step goals are 12,000 steps (the default on my fitbit is 10,000, but that was too easy). I usually hit or beat this goal on the weekdays, and fall short on the weekends. But NOT THIS WEEKEND. I was determined to hit the goals on Sat and Sun. I still fell about 800 steps short on Saturday, but on Sunday, I was over 13,000, so I made up for it. I also managed to eat pretty well. However, I wasn't super careful about my sodium intake at the end of last week.

On Sunday, I walked to the gym (about 2 miles). I got there, did a good hard cardio session on the elliptical, and then walked back. I thought I might do weights, since the cardio seemed redundant with all the walking, but sometimes, weights leaves me feeling REALLY tired and weak, and I didn't want to face walking home two miles feeling like that. I found myself REALLY wanting to jog on the walk there and back, but I was carrying my gym bag, and that was just too unwieldy for jogging. So instead, I walked back a sort of serpentine path rather than directly home. It was nice. And like I mentioned before, the houses on the way are just gorgeous, so it's a really nice walk. The trees are blooming and everything is really fragrant. I love it.

174. What the fuck, yawl?

So I weighed in today at 174. I confirmed this on two different scales.

Holy crap? Or wholly crap?

This means several things:
1) I'm no longer obese.
2) I have absolutely met my 5% goal
3) I have lost 11 pounds.

I did so many various things that it's hard to say what "worked" for me. I REALLY watched the amount of salt that I ate. If I noticed that I ate more salt than usual in a day (my fitbit thingie helps me keep track), I would drink a lot of extra water. I have not eaten fried food in a while. I am eating more at home than out. I eat a carb-heavyish breakfast (either a bagel with light cream cheese or cereal with 2% milk). Last week, I ate about 200 more calories a day than usual. I dropped it back down this week.

In other news, I am having my "moon flow" (as it's so elegantly called in the book I'm reading--Temple of the Winds by Terry Goodkind. I love this book series). I've been more tired the last few days, but I'm pushing through it and sticking with my workouts. I don't honestly know if I'm the type of woman that retains water at this time of my cycle.

And for food/eating at home. My good friend, Katy, asked me if I plan out my meals for a week. No, I don't. I go shopping at a grocery store with an INCREDIBLE fruit/vegetable selection. I buy the things that are on sale and make a meal of them. So I bought two heads of cauliflower, cooked it with spatchcocked game hens and squash. I do what I always do--I made about 6 times more than I can eat and immediately portioned it out. That way, I can calculate the calories on this website. I'm not the kind of person that craves daily variety in my food. Of course, I love variety, but I also love convenience with my busy life.

If I make a huge amount of food about 1 or 2 times a week, I can eat it for lunch and dinner several days in the week. I keep canned soups and salad ingredients on hand for an alternative if I want.

Last night, I made a BIG batch of farfalle with a roasted red pepper sauce. I made the sauce from about a cup of the peppers (from a jar) with a can of diced tomatoes, a little can of tomato paste, a sauteed onion, about 1/2 cup skim milk, about 3 tablespoons of plain yogurt, and a few herbs (oregano, basil) blended up until smooth. This was served as a pasta-with-meat-sauce using browned ground turkey as the protein and about a cup of (frozen) peas in with it for sweetness to counter the acidic tang of the sauce. This was served with oven roasted asparagus. According to how I portioned it out, it ended up at 309 calories (342 with the asparagus).

Next up? I have several sweet potatoes to use. I have salmon. I might consider another protein besides salmon. I also need a vegetable to go with it.

SKEPTICISM

So weight loss is a funny thing. When I weigh in at 2 pounds heavier than I did before (I did this earlier this week. I weighed in at 179.25), I think "meh, that's probably just water/food in my belly/humidity/El Nino." I dismiss it as a sort of "false positive" as we say in the schientific community. I don't think I'm entirely wrong in doing this because often on the next day, I'll be back to "normal."

As long as the OVERALL trend is a decreasing weight, and the spike of an increase is just occasional (which it is), I don't really mind it.

But yesterday, I weighed in at 175.25lbs. That puts me at a 1.75 loss for the week? Srsly? I weighed in at 8pm. I had a lot of water to drink that day. I ate normally. I didn't really do anything out of the ordinary that might have given such a low weight (like liposuction or a lobotomy). Part of me is all giddy and excited about seeing that number. However---I don't TRUST IT. I feel like seeing the scale is just making fun of me or something (very scientific, right?). It will taunt me with this low number, and then I'll weigh in at 182 or something tomorrow.

So the good news about this number (if it's real) is that this means I have lost 5% of my body weight (9.25lbs) in 9 weeks. About a pound a week is reasonable. If I lose just a BIT more (that is, putting me in the 174 range) I will officially be "overweight" instead of "obese."

It's kind of funny to say "YAY!! I'm OVERWEIGHT!! WOOHOO!!!"

And here's another weird thing about my weight loss. By using my fitbit profile thingie, I have been keeping track of my body measurements along the way. When I first measured myself, I used the cord on my headphones and this one particular red ruler. I did this at work, with my clothes on. I figured, since that's how I did my starting measurements, that's how I would have to do it from now on. Clothed, cord, red ruler.

(sidenote: It's really depressing when I take the cord from around my hips and can physically see how fucking long the measurement is. LAME.)

My neck measurement has gone down by 0.5in.
Bicep: Down 0.5in
Forearm: Down 0.5in
Chest: Down 1.5 in
Waist: Same
Hips: Down 1.0in
Thigh: Down 1.3in (I measure at upper thigh, but they recommend down around the quad. I would rather track upper thigh flub, thanks).
Calf: Down 0.8in

And when I started writing about measurements, I had in mind to complain about how I'm not really losing inches. And that even though I'm not losing inches, my pants are looser.

But once I wrote down the measurements, I realized that I AM losing inches. Just a bit more than 7 so far. It's not much, but it's 7 inches! I'll bet that if you were having a discussion about 7 inches of something, you didn't think it would be the flab on my body, eh?

Regarding my pants, I am currently in between sizes. The pants that fit well when I started this are loose. But the pants that I have that are a size smaller are still too tight. So I'll be a belt-wearing lady for a while.

Yay weight loss! But I'm still skeptical of the 175.25. We'll see how that goes.

Hhaarrrggghhh

I'm tired today.

I took Saturday off from working out, but I went for a 30 minute run/walk with my dog on Sunday. The primary goal of this was to wear him out so I could give him a haircut. It was a success. I then gave him a bath. Post bath, I went to go check out the goings-on on the internets, when I discovered that my computer wouldn't turn on. Shit. I'll leave it alone, let it think about how great I am for a day, and how it doesn't want to give out on me because it loves me.

The next day, I found out I had a fried motherboard. :( New computer time. So I shelled out the moolah for a new computer. Feeling sorry for myself, I did not go to the gym Monday. In order to fulfill my 5 day a week goal, this meant that I would have to double up on either Tuesday or Wednesday. On Tues., D an I had a belated birthday breakfast at my favorite breakfast place in Denver, Snooze AM Eatery. It was DELICIOUS. I had their vanilla almond brulee oatmeal with fresh berries/bananas. D and I shared a pineapple upside down pancake and I had just a few bites. We finished breakfast early enough for me to be able to sneak in a trip to the gym.

40 minutes of cardio later, I rinsed off, and started my day. At lunch, I had a bowl of soup and then went for a brisk 45 minute walk with my dog, to constitute my "double up" workout. Since that wasn't quite enough in my own mind, today (Weds) will be a HARD day of cardio. :) Should be fun.

I AM A WALKING MACHINE

Doesn't sound so sexy, I know.

So yesterday, after work, D and I decided to go to Chili's for dinner before we would be meeting up with some friends for a birthday extravaganza later in the evening.

Temptations galore.

In order to explain things to you, I need to tell you about my dog, Boots. Boots is a crazy fucker. He's a 25lb cocker spaniel that has separation anxiety, stranger anxiety, other-dog anxiety, and anxiety anxiety. And he's delightful despite all this. But! This makes nights like this a bit complicated. D and I would be meeting for dinner at about 7:45. I was done at work at about...7?? So it's hard for me and for my dog when I come home for just a sec and then leave right away. Especially since the best way that I have dealt with Boots' separation anxiety is this sort of calm "leaving the apartment" routine. He has come to accept that this routine means that I'm coming back and he'll be okay. But if the departure routine occurs while he's really high energy, it just DOES. NOT. WORK. And when I first come home, the first...hour...he's just super excited to see me and jumping around and being cute.

So! Instead of heading home for that 45 minutes, I decided three things:
1) I have a library audio book thing that I need to return to the library.
2) The library is 2 miles away.
3) I'm going to walk there!

So I started marching my ass down there. Let me tell you--the houses that are on my walk along the way are GORGEOUS. They aren't (all) mansions. There are homes of all sizes and so many of them are just lovely to look at.

I got almost to the library when the BF called me saying that he was leaving the hair cut place and that he'd be at the library soon. Well, I didn't just want to STAND THERE. And Chili's is just a couple miles north on the road that I was already on. So I told the BF that I would just keep walking and that he should call me when he was on a certain cross street and I'd tell him where I was. I made it another mile before he caught up to me.
According to my fitbit (pedometer), I took 23,278 step in total yesterday and 10.45 miles. Every day, I have the goal of walking 12,000 steps and 6 miles. I usually can't quite hit this goal without a nice long walk or without a cardio day at the gym. 23,000 steps?!?! I am MONSTER.

Oh, and the temptations.

D got chips and salsa at dinner (mmm...my favorite snack). I didn't even have a CRUMB.
I ate a half rack of ribs and steamed veggies (only 560 calories. I had not eaten much during the day, and I needed to eat about 600 calories to meet my daily intake goal).
Later at the bar, I didn't drink ANY beer. I love beer. And I resisted.

I was super proud.

Delicious Food and 177, Bitches!

177lbs. Ba-dow. BMI is 30.4 and I am two pounds away from being at the high end of "overweight" and out of the "obesity range." Additionally, this marks 8lbs of loss! ADDITIONALLY! I am 1.25lbs away from by 5% goal. WOO!!

Okay. So I didn't go to Wendy's. I just didn't have time. Instead I ate a Kashi GoLean bar that I found in my purse (no idea how old it was, haha). And later, a pumpernickel bagel.

Mmmm.....carbs. As a result of my crazy day, I had only eaten ~730 calories by dinner time. The previous night, I had decided that I would cook some cornish game hens that I had in my freezer. I was dreadfully short on vegetation in the apartment, so I ventured over to the Sunflower Market. I came home with two gorgeous cauliflowers, two bunches of asparagus, some potatoes, a butternut squash (forgetting that I already had a squash at home), and sweet potatoes.

Here's how I always cook:
1) Meat
2) Vegetable
3) Starch
4) Sauce (optional, depending on the nature of the other ingredients)

There it is folks. It's that simple, haha.
So the hens were spatchcocked, lightly salted, and sprinkled with smoked paprika (seasoning was worked under the skin). They were placed directly into a hot (med-high) cast iron skillet (breast side down, but with the legs folded underneath so that they had the brunt of the heat) and weighted down with a large cooking pot full of hot water.

THURSDAYS

Fuckcrap.

So, I've promised. No fried food for a month. I told the boyfriend (I often call him "D" on here) about it, so he'll help keep me accountable.

Today is Thursday. It's our group meeting day, and there's this general mad rush to finish a lot of research data so that it can be presented to the big boss by 2pm. This often means no lunch on Thursdays. It also often means a quick walk down to Wendy's for something that able to eat while walking (that is, fries, or chicken nuggets of shame). I brought some snacks with me to work today (an apple and an orange). I didn't eat breakfast, though. So I've eaten both the apple and orange, and I'm STARVING.

So there are problems with hunger and "dieting." It often leads to binging on indulgent foods. It can lead to overeating. I'll be fighting this by the time I can finally eat later. We'll see how this hellstorm goes.

Mini-Goals, 177.5 pounds, and PUNISHMENT.

So obviously, the major goal here is to be healthier and to lose weight. I have this image of what I hope my body might look like once I'm at my goal weight. I can wear sleeveless shirts without huge embarrassment. I can go running without worrying so much about my jiggly parts. I don't have to worry so much about muffin top and dimply parts. However!! I have a pretty dense little frame. I will never be one of those tiny petite size 2 people, I'm pretty sure. I think that my goal size would be a size 6. I love being a curvy little brick house. So my original goal weight was 145. That puts me right in the middle of the "healthy" category for someone my size. I don't want to teeter at the edge of healthy and overweight. I want to be well within the "healthy" range.

But! I weighed in last night at 177.5 (WOOO!!!), more than 30 pounds away from this target. It just seems like quite an unsurmountable goal. As it stands, each pound is a serious struggle, and from what I have heard, the last 15 pounds is a fuckshit.

So I have adopted a setup of mini goals to keep me motivated along the way. This was inspired by my weigh-in group on my friend's blog.
Quick side-note: Everyone who trying to lose weight should sign up! It's not exclusive to any group of people and she doesn't publish your weight. On there, she has the weekly losses/gains of everyone, weight lost so far, and two goals. In addition to the little community of support available to you on the weight loss journey, she is a wonderful cook. She posts all sorts of creative recipes that are weight-smart and DELICIOUS.
So back on track. My two current mini-goals are this:
1) To lose 5% (by the end of April). Since my starting weight was 185, a 5% loss amounts to 9.25lbs. So far, I've lost 7.5lbs! Looking back, this doesn't seem like a lot since I started this whole shebang on Feb 14. But! I'm in my 8th week of this journey, and a reasonable target is about 1lb a week. So! I'm sort of on schedule.
2) To go to the gym 5 days a week for 12 weeks. When I started on Feb 14, I went to the gym 4 days a week for 4 weeks. Once I had done that, I started going 5 days a week (starting on Thurs, March 17). So I'm in week 3 of this (provided I go to the gym today, which I will). I can totally do it. The reward is a concert with D.

Logging Food...and Lies. LIES!!!

Okay. So Sunday was my Birthday. Saturday was the Boyfriend's mom's birthday. We went to her place and there was grilling and sausages and veggies and fruit. I sort of grazed on the fruit/veggies the whole time before the grilling was done. It's hard to estimate the calories you ate in something someone ELSE cooks for you. I did my best, though. Grilled sausages, grilled zucchini, and a variety of sides. Looking back on it now, I know that I didn't log all of my food eaten. Ah well.

Later that night was a "group birthday party" for all the people that have birthdays in April. All of these friends are good cooks. Deviled eggs, mac and cheese (I just had a bite), and a variety of other munchies that I generally avoided. However. Beer. BEEERR. I DRANK A LOT OF BEER. I didn't count how many. I didn't log the calories. I just decided to ignore it and give myself a "birthday pass" on my calorie counter.

But here's the other thing. I wear my fitbit on the center of my bra. My fitbit estimates the calories I burn based on the accelerometer inside of it. I don't "falsify" movement by shaking it or anything. In fact, there are lots of activities that my fitbit misses when I'm not wearing it. I forgot to wear the fitbit on most of Sunday, so it didn't estimate all of the calories I burned. Also...there are other...extracurriculars...that I'm sure burn some calories when, you know...I'm not wearing my bra. Fortunately for me, you can manually enter an....ahem....activity (such as the one I'm being oh-so-demure about) onto the fitbit site. I just can't bring myself to publicize such an activity from 11:40pm-12:30am. I also don't like evaluating if it was "moderate effort" or "vigorous effort." I entered it once. It was hilarious to see that blip of activity in my graph of "calories burned."

So this weekend I didn't log everything I ate/drank. I figure that this little...omission is compensated for by the activities that my fitbit doesn't know about. I vowed to myself once I started logging calories that I would be totally honest. Mostly because once I start giving myself "exceptions" here and there, I end up with a mountain of exceptions and 400 calories logged for the day. So in this instance, it's a birthday exception. Only to be used on this weekend in April.

Ha-HA! 178.25.

Boosh. Now to stay soundly in the 170s. For real this time.

Oh, nevermind the leftover pizza that I HAVE to eat. Do any of you do this with leftovers? I order something really unhealthy (the enormous carne asada "Burrito Loco" from 3 margaritas, a pizza, some other shitty food) and then I eat it in tiny, approximately 200-300 calorie portions. I know that sounds like a lot of calories, but because shitty food is so high in fat, it's very calorie-dense. So yes, one slice of pizza is about 270 calories. And I'll eat that (and maybe a piece of fruit) for lunch.

I can't just THROW IT AWAY!!! The real solution is that I shouldn't have bought it in the first place. Duh. So this is, in a way, reminiscent of the Twinkie diet professor. Remember my post about a calorie is a calorie is a calorie, regardless of its source? This is what I was thinking of when I wrote it. The professor ate nothing but junk crap Hostess food for 10 weeks. But, he made sure that his actual calorie count that he ate was less than what he burned.

BOTTOM LINE. IF YOU BURN MORE THAN YOU EAT, YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT.
you know, provided that you don't gain muscle or water weight or are pregnant or growing an enormous tumor or something.

So. You'd think (and health "experts" would have you think) that sure, he's losing weight, but his cholesterol/heart pressure/galbladder will suffer from a "diet" like this. Well, his cholesterol levels IMPROVED. His body fat percentage went down. His blood pressure was not negatively affected.

Bottom line? Losing weight is good for you. Doing it the healthy way is probably even better for you (I guess).

So I feel bad about eating things like pizza. However, I feel less bad about it when I just acknowledge the shitty thing I ate, and make sure the rest of my day keeps me in a calorie deficit.

BUT! I'm still new at this. I could be making a huge mistake on this front. I don't want you to go on thinking that I'm eating 1500 calories of bacon fat all day. For the most part (that is, more than 80% of my calories eaten), the food I eat is very healthy, fresh food. And I started this post saying I wanted to stay in the 170s. I do. I will continue to cook more at home and eat better food. But when I make a decision to be indulgent (like ordering a pizza), I've not been gorging on the pizza like I had done before, leaving me with a week's worth of pizza to eat in small portions. And eventually, it feels shameful to have "pizza, 270 calories" on my calorie counter 3 days in a row. But to me, that's better than a dinner lineup of "pizza, 890 calories."

Back on Schedule. 178.75

Okay. It appears that I either was carrying water weight, or I just need to stop weighing so often. Fluctuations of several pounds is a weird phenomenon. Unfortunately, because I'm hovering so close to around 180, that anything in the 170s feels like a big success. Such a success, in fact, that it makes me feel like dancing (side note: Boots, my dog, gets very confused when I dance. He sees me moving around and wants to be involved, but he doesn't understand what I am apparently expecting him to do). Anything in the 180s feels a lot like failure.

Today, I weighed in at 178.75. I worked out hard, I sweat a lot. I felt good. I'm sticking to my mini-commitment of drinking more water. I'm still iffy on sticking to my commitment to not eat so late. Especially since late night eating is often super shitty food. I currently do weekly weigh-ins along with my friend on her blog. She and I were in The Vagina Monologues together in college. YAYYY VAGINAS!!!
Anyway, I weighed in at 178.75 on Thursday, March 17. I then kind of jumped around on the scale the next week, but weighed in at 178.75 on the following Thursday. After that, I was seeing steady increases until today! Back to the 178.75. Now to go LOWER!

I was feeling really discouraged by the increases on the scale as well as by my job/lifestyle being so greatly incompatible with healthy eating habits. I'm feeling better now, making small changes. But I often feel great right in the middle of the week. Enthusiasm: ENGAGE!

I apparently like ending paragraphs in ALL CAPS.

Weekends and Fruit

I did an okay-ish job of not fucking everything up this weekend. Of course, I could have been better. I was moderately active. I didn't go to the gym on either Sat or Sun, though.

On Friday, I felt super motivated to cook a healthy meal. I cooked a pork loin in the crock pot that turned out WAYYY more tender than I had intended. I cooked it with Dijon and white wine. I steamed up some broccoli, and as the starch, I made "skinny" crispy potatoes. I parboiled the cubed potatoes before straining them, spreading them on a baking sheet with salt, pepper, paprika, herbs de provence, and a LITTLE bit of oil and roasted them in the oven at 450 to crisp them up. The whole meal came in at less than 400 calories and was very tastey (misspelling intentional).

I went to the gym today on my lunch break for 25 minutes of hard cardio on the Arc Trainer. I was sweating it up. But it wasn't as hard as it usually is. I don't know if that's because I wasn't pushing myself or if I'm getting better at it. Dunno. Also, I weighed in at lunch just for fun. Now, my normal weigh-in time is in the evenings, so I don't know how this compares. 181.75 lbs. Mmooooooo.

So that's a 1.5lb gain? Ugh. Water. Calories. Exercise.
 What to do?
1) SODIUM IS THE DEBBUL. Drink more water, you heifer.
2) Try to change when I eat. Night-time eating is also the debbul.

In food-related news, the Sunflower Market had a lot of gorgeous strawberries and blueberries on sale. If you aren't lucky enough to live around here, the Sunflower Market is a sort of local Whole Foods. They have piles and piles of various vitamin shelves and a whole section of the store smells like patchouli. However, they have one of the most abundant and beautiful produce sections I've ever seen. Their weekly sales are incredible, they acquire a LOT of their produce locally, and their sales really encourage eating the things which are in season (rather than the things that must be shipped from Chile or whatever. Who needs mangos in December, anyway?).
So I went in the store because their berries were on sale. I came out with about 10 pounds of apples, oranges, tangelos, tangerines, berries, and dried figs. It's kind of fun to have a fruit-only shopping spree. All the bright colors made me think how I'm going to be vitamin-ed and antioxidant-ed to high heaven in the next week.

Fruit in oatmeal. Fruit in greek yogurt. Fruit-only lunches. YAY FRUIT. Fruit is a funny word.

Faux Plateau. Still at 179.25

So I'm nearing the point where I usually quit the weight-loss attempt. I've lost some weight, I'm seeing little changes in my body, and I'm encouraged by it. I'm simultaneously discouraged by the fact that I will not see significant changes for, oh, I don't know, 3 months or so. As such, my excitement and impatience makes me think: fuck it! I can eat that. I'll work it off in the gym.

Right now, the calorie deficits aren't what they were in the beginning on my FitBit tracker. Additionally, I've not been sticking to the weight training that I had initially wanted to do. I've just been churning away on cardio.

So this isn't a real plateau. It's a self-induced plateau in which I'm not eating like I should, I'm not weight training like I had wanted to, and my enthusiasm for the whole process is waning.

HOWEVER! I hadn't really noticed this trend actively. I've been honestly logging my calories on the FitBit site, and (today) looking back at my last week of intake vs. burn (something I hadn't done in a while due to my shame over the weekend eating disaster), I noticed that I'm not doing as well as I should have been doing. And there was a spark. That sort of competitive jolt that makes me want to do better. I will.

Here's my commitment for today:
1) Gym at lunch AND after work. I'm feeling high in energy and I want to really challenge my body today. (ETA: I did! 25 minutes of hard cardio at lunch, a warm-up cardio along with biceps and chest in the evening)
2) DO NOT have a lazy couch Saturday like I did last week. (ETA: It was still a pretty lazy couch Saturday)
3) Go for a long walk with the dog on Sunday. Maybe to the dog park? Maybe a jog? (I hate running on the roads. Hated? It's been almost a year since I've been out running, so maybe give it another shot?).
(ETA: I went to the dog park and did a lot of walking on Sunday)

Oh. And here's another dumb thing. My body's...umm...digestive system does better when I eat better. FINE intestines, whatever YOU want.

Day 1 of late lunching and a shitty disposition.

I'm experimenting with the "late lunch" thing today. It's now 16:55, I'm at the very end of my 1hr lunch break, and I'm about to head back to work. I feel exhausted. I got plenty of sleep last night. I did drink a lot of caffeine this morning, so maybe it's a crash. I just feel like I could lay down right now and sleep until work tomorrow morning.

So here's the problem. I plan to go to the gym tonight. Hell or high water, right? Fuck. I mentally commit to going to the gym when I'm bright and chipper at 10:00, and by 17:30 or so, I sometimes try to talk myself out of it. Maybe now after 6 weeks of this, I'm getting close to the "burnout" phase.

But fortunately, my 17:30-isn't very convincing yet. I haven't managed to skip out once I've committed, and I don't think I will today.

Another motivator is the weigh-in for the reluctantwwfoodie group. I have two friends with weight loss blogs. One is at fatopera.blogspot.com and another is at reluctantwwfoodie.wordpress.com . Both are fun to follow. On the RWWF blog, she has a group of her buddies weighing in with her on Thursdays. I have joined in there. I do weigh myself in between Thursdays, too. I have access to several different scales: A shitty one at home (rarely used, I don't think it's very accurate), a nice digital one at the Boyfriend's, one of those Dr's office types with the weights and notches at the gym. I only use the one at the gym.

So weigh in at the gym tonight? If I can manage to improve my attitude, I guess. (ETA: I did improve my attitude. 25 minutes of churning away HARD on the elliptical).

When to eat?

I've had this conversation before with my friend, Katie.

Here's the thing:
I work lots of hours. The only times I can work out are early mornings (yeah, right), lunch time, and after work. I will NOT be the type to get to the gym at 7am. I do, however, occasionally pop into the gym for 20-30 minutes of cardio during my lunch break (I did this today, in fact. 20 minutes on the arc trainer and a 5 minute cool down walking on the treadmill).

So most of my work outs are in the evenings. I usually finish work at about 7 or 7:30. I don't want to eat right before working out because it makes me feel sick. I don't really want to eat at 7:30ish and wait an hour, because that is just too late to get to the gym for me. What I typically do is eat a late "lunch" and that holds me over until after the gym, when I eat dinner (usually 8:45 or later).

Low Energy for Workouts and 179.25lbs

Ugh. I had big plans for my evening workout yesterday. However, I ended up doing less than planned.
10 min on the Arc Trainer at a pretty high resistance and incline
10 min on a treadmill walking and running.

I was sweating and exhausted. I was really REALLY tired before I even got to the gym. I almost considered not going, but couldn't talk myself out of it. Rather than that, I managed to talk myself into half-assing it apparently. I'm glad I went, though.

Today, I'm feeling REALLY low energy. I didn't get much sleep, I woke up with what feels like allergies, and I also woke up in a rush due to hitting snooze--and then turning my alarm off. Made it to work on time, though. Huge cup of coffee in hand, bleary-eyed, and half-listening to my audio book.

Speaking of audio books, how's this for weird:
I always always listen to my little Zune player at the gym. What's playing in it? Whatever book I'm "reading" at the time. Not exactly good for pumping someone up. But here's the thing. When I'm listening to music while exercising, I tend to feel like the time passes really slowly. With the book, I sort of get lost in the story for a bit and then whoa, 10 minutes have passed. I'm an strange bird.

Oh! And as an update, I still weigh 179.25lbs. The big greasy slob disaster wasn't so bad.

And Boyfriend's sister is having a BOY!!!!

Cardio and BABIES

Elliptical machines. I love them. I love seeing that little "calories burned" category tick upwards at a steady clip while the sweat on my body trickles downward.

Does anyone else feel like it is a LOT easier to be on an elliptical than...say...ANY other piece of cardio equipment? Jogging on a treadmill wears me the hell out. Perhaps I'm going too fast too soon, but I feel like a few minutes of a run on the treadmill and I'm COUNTING the seconds until I'm done. Stairmaster? Same thing. Arc trainer? Oof.

So I like the elliptical. 20 minutes goes by in a snap. I sweat, I breathe hard, but it's EASIER somehow. And now, when I'm planning what to do in the gym tonight, I think
Cardio--elliptical, duh.

But I think it's time for me to do the things that are harder. So I'm committing to it. Tonight, 15 minutes on the Arc Trainer. Abs exercises. 15 minutes on...the treadmill? The stairmaster? Those two are the hardest for me. I'll give it a go.

Post-Guilt Plan

So after a weekend of greasy indulgence and Saturday and Sunday without real exercise (about 7 miles of walking on Sunday, but I don't count that), it feels like I've undone my good hard work. Weight loss (the healthy way) is invariably about diligence with intake and hard work. It's slow, it can be painful, and it requires a LOT of sweat.

And after weeks of this hard work, it feels shameful that I could "undo" it in just a few hours. I know that the amount of calories I ate does not amount to more than a pound of fat (that is, 3500 calories). I have not undone THAT much work. But, I negated one or two days of exercise. I also probably ate 400% of my recommended amount of sodium for the day. Sodium leads to water retention. The ever elusive "water weight" monster is a dreadful thing to fight.

So what is the solution:

1) Water. Water. Water. Today, tomorrow, and the next day, I will drink a lot of water. With any luck, it will help my kidneys excrete all this excess sodium and I'll come back to an even keel.

2) Gym. I went to the gym at lunch for 30 minutes of hard cardio yesteray. That felt good. Hit the cardio hard this week.

3) PROMISE myself not to starve the next few days. I don't want to overcompensate by severe deprivation or fasting.

So far, so good. We'll see when I weigh in on Thursday (the day I consider my "real" weigh in for the week).

Where does this guilt even come from?

Here's something I learned after the weekend of doom:

1) Eating shitty food after a week (weeks?) of healthy food makes me feel emotionally bad.
2) Feeling like I've undone a lot of my hard work makes me feel like I want to give up. Or rather, that trying so hard is not worth it when it's so easy and fast to fuck things up.

3) Shitty food after weeks of healthy food makes me feel physically bad.
    -my body feels sluggish and gross despite plenty of sleep
    -my body feels like it's...umm...trying to get rid of this food asap.
Ew.

Weekend Eating Fuck-ups.

Okay. Despite the tone of this post, I had a really fun time at the zoo yesterday. It's when I went to log the day's calories that I began to despair.
Boyfriend and I went to the zoo with his sister, brother-in-law, niece, mom, and two family friends. I ate a bagel with light cream cheese for breakfast. That put me at ~350 calories consumed for the day. With about 1200 calories left to consume, you'd think I'd be okay, right?

No, goddamnit. At the zoo, my choices were pizza, fries, ham/cheeseburgers, and hot dogs. They all sucked, and I went for a hot dog (The line lady asked: "sauerkraut, peppers, and onions?" And I mumbled "yes." WHAT THE FUCK, TERESA!?!?). Boyfriend got french fries and I ate half of them absentmindedly. (?!?). I was still hungry. Brother-in-law had gotten an extra cheeseburger, so he offered it to boyfriend, who offered half of it to me (still hungry), and I ate it.

Is a calorie just a calorie?

I've been concerned about intake a lot throughout this process.

First of all, the most important part for weight loss is that I should burn more than I eat. Okay, fine.

But how much does it matter if I'm eating too much fat? Or too many carbs? I rarely get enough protein. Recommended amount of protein a day for me is anywhere from 50-150g a day. I'm often lucky to hit 50 because I just don't eat a lot of meat. I've been selecting protein-laden yogurt for snacks and I've toyed with whey protein.

So how important is it, anyway? I take vitamins. I eat lots of fruits and vegetables (lots and lots). And I'm pretty sure (since I'm not sick) that my body isn't starving for any particular macronutrient.

The reason why I ask is because I don't think I could live a life on egg white tortilla rolls and chicken breast on salad. Sometimes, I want something greasy. Like Chick Fil-A nuggets. If I'm eating something pretty unhealthy, but I'm still under my calorie count for the day (that is, somewhere between 1500-1700), is that all that matters?

Starting Photos

I took these photos on a day that I weighed in at 180. I'm sure I'm making funny faces, but I promised myself that I'd only take one photo per "angle" once I got the distance from the camera and the self timer right. I didn't want to pick photos that were the most attractive. One shot and done. So here they are. Forgive any funny faces. 

Gym Routine

Today, I weighed in at 178.75 lbs. BMI: 30.7.

This puts my current total weight loss at 6.25lbs.

I'm very skeptical of this weight. I know that weight fluctuates day to day, so maybe this was just a weird "low" day.

Anyway! On to the real topic of this post. When incorporating resistance/weight training into a gym routine, I needed to decide how many days a week that I wanted to do weights. I go to the gym 4-5 days a week, so I decided that I would lift 4 days a week. I then needed to decide if my weights routine would be a total body or isolated muscle groups plan. I decided on muscle groups. This is because it makes planning what exercises to do on each day much easier. If I find significant evidence that it's better to do total body, I might reconsider.

Fat Girl at the Gym

So joining a gym in February is a weird thing. Lots of people that made their new year's resolutions are already dropping off. As such, they will often offer a new lowered rate in February (about $15/month lower) and waive the introductory fees. Also, if you include a second/third/nth person with your signup, they get a lowered fee. I did this as a Valentine's day gift for myself and for the boyfriend.

Fortunately, he's a wonderful person and was excited about it. He didn't interpret it as: "Happy Valentine's day, love. You're fat."

So here's what sucks about joining a gym:

1) There are lots of skinny people. The skinny women wear tiny shorts and little tops. If you join after the new year's drop off, there aren't as many people that are...you know...fluffy. It feels discouraging to see people that are already so thin and fit working WAY harder than me. It makes me worry if I can really work as hard as I need to to reach my goals. Also, because I feel like the fat girl at the gym, it seems like people are looking at me, thinking: "Aww, good for the fat girl." or "About time, chubby."

180.75lbs.

I weigh 180.75lbs. BMI is 31.0

Last post was about where I started and how I got there. This one is about how I got started when I decided I wanted to lose weight.

I started "being careful" with what I ate. I lost a couple of pounds (about 3). But, I wanted to be FIT, not just thin. So I got a gym membership, and I've been working HARD in the gym for a month. I spent the first three weeks of that month "being careful" with my intake. I refused to count calories. I lost a little weight. About a pound.

After the third week, I decided to keep a log of everything that I eat versus how much I burn. But, I wanted to know how many calories I was burning without having to "check in" on a website and input my every activity. What's the solution?

A BODYBUGG! Yes! It is a heart rate monitor that keeps track of your movement, skin temp, skin conductivity, and it rearranges your furniture and tells you when you smell nice. It's expensive and requires a paid subscription to their online whatever-the-hell. Never mind.

A quick Google search of "cheaper alternative to bodybugg" left me with a few scattered heart rate monitors (complete with a required chest band that only squeezes your back fat into lumps half as badly as their competitors! or a watch that resembles a calculator watch--no chest band and at least 60% accurate!), none of which I found appealing.

Should I? Could I? Have a blog?

Inspired by my good friend, I have decided to try having a blog. So, if you are currently reading this, that means that I finally told someone about my top secret blog and this entry is probably old. My initial inspiration to resurrect this blog is to keep track of my weight loss. I might discuss/share my other hobbies and ponderings but I don't yet have plans for anything other than getting fit.

Here's my story: I always struggled with weight. And by "struggled with" I mean "was unhappy with but not enough to put any real effort into changing it." I have no idea what I weighed when I left for college, but my weight throughout college fluctuated anywhere from 160-ish to 180ish. At 5'4" this made me a decidedly overweight person. Some would call me "curvy" by looking at me, but I was dreadfully aware that according to my BMI (an antiquated standard, I know) I was obese. I just shelved that thought. I'm sure you understand.