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.


Pedometers interested me, though. Google never fails. In all it's stylish bluetooth-headset-sized glory, arose the FitBit. I bought it. I love its web interfacing. I love how it keeps track of my movement and estimates calorie burn by adding my movement to my resting metabolic rate. It's reported to be pretty accurate. I feel very rewarded when I see that I got 15,000 steps and 7.35 miles today.

It uploads its contents to the stylish and user-friendly FitBit website. Here, I can enter my calorie intake and compare it to how much I burned. Obviously, a calorie deficit is necessary to lose weight, so it's nice to see if I'm on track. Other things can be tracked like weight, body measurements, mood, and sleep.

It even makes GRAPHS FOR YOU. Nerd-approval engage.

I've been keeping up with approximately an 800 calorie deficit every day. If 3500 calories is a pound, and 7 days in a week I should lose more than a pound a week, right? RIGHT?!?

:(

Nope. I don't know if it's that I'm building muscle. I doubt it. I'm doing weights 4-5 days a week along with cardio at the beginning and end of every session. Some sessions are just cardio and abs. But, I think it's too early to attribute this stall to muscle mass. In any case, I guess I should be glad that I lost a little more weight for a total of 4.25lbs lost. And there was much rejoicing. Maybe.

Maybe it's sodium? I try to stay within the recommended amounts of sodium, but it's so hard! I do drink a LOT of water. I also am only able to weigh in at the end of the day since that's when I go to the gym. Apparently, you weigh your "least" in the mornings (while naked and making sure to go to the bathroom). But, "they" (who the fuck is this "they?") say that you should be consistent with when you weigh yourself. For example, I can't weigh myself in the morning and then directly compare it to my weight in the evenings. Fine. Evenings it is.

Boyfriend and I both got memberships to this gym. We really enjoy it. We've been encouraging each other to go even when we're tired. But for both of us, it's not quite a "we" thing.

So, since I'm not yet feeling encouraged by my weight going down (fucking get into the 170s already damnit!), I'll be encouraged by this:
1) I'm stronger. I'm already lifting more weight. I rarely get as cripplingly sore as I did that first week. I get a little sore, but not much.
2) I'm faster? I don't know the right word, but what I mean is that I'm better at cardio. I can go for longer without thinking that I'll need to be carted out of the gym in a wheel barrow. I like to switch things up from the elliptical to the treadmill (a new thing recently for me) to the arc trainer to the stairs of death. I'm not so enthused about the bikes, but I'll give them a go soon.
3) My lower abdomen pooch is smaller! Woo! This one's my favorite.

Current areas that plague me the most:
1) Upper arms. Flab city. I have very little upper arm strength. My biceps are okay-ish, but my triceps? I'm becoming convinced that I don't have them at all. I have big strong shoulders (HELLO I AM YOUR TRAPS AND I WILL ALWAYS BE HUGE), but my deltoids could use some serious work. I think I need to start working them harder. I've started incorporating more push-ups (my nemesis) into my circuits to help keep my heart rate up. I wanted to consider pull-ups (my uber-nemesis), but I'm just too embarrassed to have the pull-up weight-assisted machine set to nearly my entire body weight in resistance. I want to get stronger before I get up there again, I think.
2) Thighs. I hate having dimply thighs. It's all fat and I know it. But underneath it I have strong legs. I can move a LOT of weight with them. However, I really need to just hit the cardio HARD and burn off the fat. I love lifting weights. I love the burn and the tired muscles. I have heard (from a personal trainer at my gym) that anaerobic exercise (weights) burns calories for longer than cardio will. He wasn't advocating one over the other. I just suspect he was trying to indoctrinate me with how important resistance AND cardio are (since so many women fear "bulking up" from weights). However, I LOVE weight training. I don't know what the balance SHOULD be, but I'm doing them both.

So what to do? Hit cardio harder and mix it in with aerobic resistance training? Include jumping jacks, squat-thrust-push-ups? Lunges? We'll see. I'm going to start writing about my gym routines a little bit.

So here I am. 180.75lbs. Hitting the gym tonight. The plan for is cardio/back/triceps.