Back to last Tuesday's weight?!?

This is strange...I'm back down to 220.5 which is my weight from last Tuesday!  WEIRD!  I know others are used to fluctuating like this but I am not...very bizarre but I'll take it.  I still want to be down to 210 by June 1st!!! 

It is bizarre how much we rely on our cell phones...I've been without one (long story) all week and it is starting to make me a little crazy!  I thought that "unplugging" would be liberating for me (b/c I'm obsessed with my phone) but it is not liberating it is unnerving.  I probably need to see a therapist about this, LOL!

I hope everyone has a good Wednesday!

My weight today

... was 138.5, a half pound up from last week, a pound up from Easter morning, and the same as yesterday. Yesterday I didn't have trouble restraining myself until after dinner. Today I have been on the all-jellybean diet all day. (But at least the milk with breakfast sat just fine. Maybe I needed more jellybeans yesterday.) I'm about to hit the gym this afternoon. I wonder how many hours at the gym it takes to work off a gallon of jellybeans?

I am down

I am back to where I was before I went up to where I ended up. So - now I am BELOW the dreaded mark. I was 248.8 today. So that is almost two pounds down from last week. I can't say I did much differently last week than I did previous weeks. I was still on my no excuses for Lent exercise plan, but, as I told April, my exercise had been half hearted. We didn't have clogging last week. OTOH, I sweat like crazy when I do exercise - which I had never done in the past. BUT - that was a change from earlier in the year. I don't know. It certainly can't be the time of the month, because I am crampy and bloated leading me to believe that my period is about to start. It can't be my food. Well, now, maybe it is. I have noticed in the past that I have an odd tendency to lose weight after I have hosted a party. I have joked before (I wanted to say quipped, but that sounded pretentious) that when I eat a diet of all junk food all the time I actually LOSE weight. I don't know. But I won't complain if I continue to lose weight.


OH! I did have Shea do a treatment for me for weight loss. I feel like that is vaguely cheating - but she and I have talked extensively about my lack of weight loss. Shea has been very much of the mind set that I need to be comfortable in the body I have since I am otherwise very healthy- but my argument is my body doesn't feel like the body I am supposed to have. Anyway, most acupuncture treatments for weight loss focus on appetite suppressing. I don't need that - having no appetite to begin with. So she did a treatment that was more focused on continuous movement - referring to the energy in your body, which is a metabolism boost. It was a very strange sensation. The points were mostly in my legs and I could feel the energy moving. It was like little licks of fire were running up and down my shins and calves under my skin. Maybe that did actually help.


Anyway - I have switched to frozen spinach in my monsters, and I am officially switching back as of today. I prefer the fresh spinach on so many levels!

BUST!

So I gained weight this week!  BOO!!!  and I was really well behaved at Easter, oh well!  I will not be deterred...I will keep on truckin.  I am adding an extra walk to my day (with my loving co-workers).  The path we use is almost exactly a mile, so this will make my daily trek a total of 3 miles.  I'm also going to limit my carbs, this always gives me a boost in the right direction.  Unfortunately I've only lost a total of 1lb this whole month.  Down, same, down, then up :( 

Goal:  I will be down to 210 by June 1st.  Hold me to this ladies (although documenting this here is enough :)) 

I still love my Monster!  I started monstering around February 1st and I've only missed 2 days.  I'm going to take my measurements on June 1st also and see what the results are.  Time to bust a move!!!  :)

Milk is evil and wrong

After a month and a half dairy-free, I cheerfully poured my cereal with skim milk for breakfast this morning and downed it. Less than a half hour later I felt horrible -- my stomach was very distressed. I made the mistake of trying to go for a 30-minute run anyway; often when I have indigestion that helps, because it kind of wakes up my system and moves everything through. Instead it got worse. My legs were fine, my lungs were fine, so I ought to have been able to run 5k beautifully well. But after about 8 minutes my entire upper digestive system was cramping up, so I kept having to stop and walk until the spasms subsided. Ugh. It took me 32 minutes to do 3 miles, when my gym pace on the treadmill (usually tougher than the road for me) is more like 29.

I think my body quit producing lactase when it realized I didn't need it. I am HOPING this is temporary -- after a day or two of trying to give it dairy products again it might re-open the production line. I like dairy too much to have to give it up permanently.

Of course I ate junk food all day yesterday, but the actual dairy content of Reese's eggs is probably fairly small. And we had a vegan friend as a dinner guest, so anywhere I would normally use butter or milk I used vegan "buttery sticks" and almond milk. And I was so busy I had no more than a nibble of cheese all evening. So this is really the first chance I've had to test this. Bleah.

I didn't try to count calories yesterday but today I am back to it. I haven't had any candy and it's already lunch time -- this would be more of a triumph if I hadn't felt so gross all morning. I am bound and determined not to have my annual post-Easter weight gain, though!

Our Internet is acting up here at work. I just wrote a fairly lengthy comment saying why negative reinforcement - the threat of punishment - works better for me than positive - the promise of reward - does for accomplishing goals. Making me accountable to someone other than myself is, I think, mandatory. That being said, April and I just came up with a plan where I have to report to her daily what exercise I did the day before. I will no longer be able to tell her that she is not the boss of me - because in this she will be.

Maybe, we will be able to eventually have me reportable to her for my food too.

I also think I will call the bariatic center at Johns Hopkins. Even if my weight loss problems are only psychological, maybe they can help me out.

Uneventful week

My weight went back up to 141 over the week but came back down to 138 today. I was definitely bloated, but I started feeling better yesterday. I'm content just to be at last week's weight -- as I said, it will take a while to move any lower (and now Easter is almost here, so lots of chocolate is coming!). At this time of year I'm just trying to keep up with everyday life.

I did have a highly active day yesterday -- I had a gym appointment and did 45 minutes on the elliptical, and then when I got home I found I needed to go to Kroger, so I walked there (I'm trying to make it a rule that if the weather is even vaguely reasonable I will not drive -- it's only a half mile!). Actually, I jogged there -- Cecilia came along and she knew we were in a hurry, so she took my hand and SHE ran the whole half mile without stopping!! I walked back, but she ran back home, at least for the first half, until we met up with Daniel and walked with him -- and it's uphill for that whole first quarter mile. I was pretty impressed. Anyway, after dinner I needed to get to Target, and then I ended up walking the whole store a couple of times in search of lighters -- normally they have the long ones by the checkout, but they only had the little ones there, so I had to hunt and only found them in the outdoor section waaayyyy at the back. 15,000+ steps for the day.

I was active on the weekend, too, with a Kroger walk and with sorting through two years of kids' clothes that were piling up in every corner of the bedrooms. I sorted them in my room, but the kids' room was where the boxes were stored, so I walked back and forth for hours. And on Sunday we also walked to a friend's house for supper, and that was a half mile each way. I love the nicer weather because going on foot or by bike is a realistic option!

This week I have a gym appointment today, but nothing more possible for the rest of the week. So I'll keep on walking to Kroger, and I'll keep watching what I eat. Exciting, I know.

Day of reckoning

Today's the day--I had to be 140.4 or less this morning or else Sarah Palin would get my money. I have to admit that I wasn't really worried. I was 140.2 on Sunday and 139.8 yesterday, so I wasn't exactly sweating this. Turns out my weight was 140.4 precisely this morning, which is both frustrating since I've been lower the past two days (serves me right--we had chicken stir fry for dinner and popcorn later, so both the extra food and the extra salt I think played into this) and kind of funny since I've been slightly above and slightly below that weight all the past week but never exactly at the target weight.

To celebrate I had a brownie for breakfast, but now I'm going back to my regularly scheduled food, at least until Sunday when Easter indulgence starts!

What a week?!?!

Last Tuesday after I posted I got a call from DJ that he was headed to the ER.  WHAT>!?!  He was fine when I'd talked to him at 7am.  He was having pain in his left side/back so severe that he couldn't drive.  Well it turned out to be a kidney stone (his first) and a whopper!  Poor guy was in the most pain I've ever witnessed.  He finally passed the stone on Saturday and named it Michael since everyone told him he now knew what it was like to be in labor.  Labor maybe, but 10 months of enormity, aches, swelling, and c-section recovery?!?!  I don't think so!!! 

As a result of his illness my routines were severely affected.  I didn't get to go to aerobics or even run on Tuesday (long story).  Then on Friday, he was in so much pain and the little ones didn't go down until after it was dark so that blasted Friday out of the water.  Not to mention without DJ to eat dinner, I wasn't motivated to cook and we ate a bunch of crap!  BLECK!  I still GMed every morning and for the most part I'm pretty sure I was under my calorie counts each day.  Sunday, life returned to normal and I was able to regain some semblance of normalcy.  We did indulge on chocolate dipped fruit (pineapple, strawberries, bananas) my mom made for us.  It was delicious and after I'd eaten almost an entire pineapple I was SICK to my stomach.  I knew when I got home the only thing that would make me feel better would be a run...so I did and it did! LOL

All that said, I was panicked to step on the demon scale this morning.  I did really well yesterday and even went an extra half mile on my run.  I was shocked...SHOCKED to discover that I'm down to 220.5!!!!!   HOLY MOLY was I excited?!?!  I almost did a little happy scale dance :)  That means I am down 3 lbs from last week where I remained the same from the week before.  I'm heartily on track to my Ireland goal. 

I hope everyone has a great Tuesday!

Aversion Therapy

I have been thinking about what Sarah did - committing to give money to Sarah Palin if she didn't lose 10 pounds in 12 weeks (or whatever it was). I am trying to think of something that I can do that would be enough of an aversion that I would also be willing to put on trashbags and run around the block to lose the weight. The money thing isn't enough of a motivator to me. I mean - would my $25 impact Sarah Palin at all? No. Would I miss the $25? Probably not. So - not a huge issue for me. I thought about doing something I REALLY hate - like signing up to be a lector at chuch. Public speaking fills me with terror. Even whispering to the decon while I was on stage this week that father had dropped a host on the floor left me stunned and trembling for quite some time afterwards. That would be an effective committment, but I still have this fear that I CAN'T lose weight no matter what I try - and that would be really adding insult to injury. I could do something like give away my yarns. That makes me feel a little sick inside to think about it. But the people I would give them to would be Katie or Emily - so it isn't like I would be really GIVING them away. OTOH - now that I am thinking about this... I could use that as a motivation tool. I could give one skein a week away each time I don't lose weight. I could make it receivers choice - which would mean that I would have no say in what Katie or Emily picks. They could take my favorites!! But I think there needs to be a carrot to this stick. Maybe at the end of each month I could earn some of them back somehow. I need help on the details... What do you think?

Shock therapy

No, I don't mean the kind of plugged-into-the-wall-knock-me across-the room kind ... I mean the trying-on-a-pair-of-pants-I-know-won't-fit kind to remind myself that, while I'm making early progress, I've got a long way to go on my latest fitness journey.

So I've got my benchmark pants -- I've used them before -- to determine if I'm losing weight. I prefer this method to a scale because I want to see the inches just melting off and ... I don't like scales.

This is a great way for me to motivate myself to stick with my program. I don't take it as a depressing move -- I can't get into shape overnight -- and it's a reminder that I need to keep plugging away.

Feeling good after a couple of weeks

After two weeks of focusing on fitness and food I'm seeing and feeling the results. I put on some jeans last night and they were definitely looser. Nice.

I'm taking advantage of my one-month gym membership -- I took a boxing class this week -- it had a nice division between men and women. It was fun, hard and even took me a couple of days to really feel it. I did pick up some tips for my home workout -- I actually can do lunges and burpees -- they kill but that's the idea.

I still want to try a spin class but haven't quite made it there in time.

I also did another gym tri with some cool equipment -- a bike with some tough programs, an elliptical that was on an incline (hard) and a treadmill that's incline that goes so high you have to hang on to the handles. I had seen people using it but never tried it. Very cool and a good workout.

I've been hitting the gym about 7:30 p.m. and have found that it's not very crowded and I pretty much have the hot tub, steam room and sauna all to myself, which is nice, especially considering the number of members at this club.

My food has been good -- salads, lean proteins, yogurt and good fruits and veggies - and my only *issue* is eating after the gym. I'm not getting home until about 10 p.m. and, so far, haven't been very hungry but usually need something. I've been aiming for a yogurt.

Otherwise I've gotten myself into a decent routine giving me the ability to improvise when needed.

Congress is out of session for the next two weeks meaning my schedule should be a little less hectic, providing ample opportunity get in workouts and hopefully, get into DC and to the gym.

Keep up the good work everyone!

This week in review

This week has been a fairly good week. I had lots of left over fruit and veggies from the party on Friday - so I have been good about eating them. We have been consistantly monstering and I have got to tell you that I am AMAZED at how my hair and skin have softened up. My coloring seems better too. The only thing - and I am not sure if this is related at all - but my "bonus period" this month was much heavier and lasted longer than in the past. Usually I have light spotting for about two days. This time it lasted five days and was pretty heavy. I thought that the extra iron in my diet would help that to IMPROVE - not get worse. Katie and I had our second clogging class last night. It is so much fun!! I was pouring sweat again - but I don't think it is entirely from the exercise. Ummmmm... I don't think I have anything else to report. OH! My weight was down just half a pound from the week before. Better than up...

Report from North Bay

No idea what my weight is since there's no way to tell, but I CAN say that it'll be difficult to lose weight this week. Eating here is nothing like eating at home. You get three meals a day, and that's it--no snacks in between. I'm used to three small meals and two small snacks, with lots of fruits and veggies. That's been impossible. They have fruit or vegetables available at meals, but not in the quantity I'm used to, and not prepared in a way I'm used to (mostly I'm eating raw--baby carrots, spinach, cucumbers, pepper slices, and snow peas are are my staples for snacks and meals. Here it's more like steamed green beans with butter or orange juice.). Salads are only available at lunch. No more yogurt and fruit for breakfast, either. Yesterday I got oatmeal, which was nice, but today was eggs and potatoes. Knowing I wouldn't get anything else until lunch, I just ate it. So I'm worried that I won't be losing any weight this week.

And on that note, I think I'll go take a walk before lunch (few opportunities for exercise either--it's been cold and rainy and I'm with the kids most of the time).

Moving in the right direction

So far so good on the food and workout front. I'm sticking to a tight regimen on both and I finally have a workout routine in place.

Personally, I need to have menus and fitness routines written down -- I'm a list person and I think they go hand-in-hand. Mentally the schedules provide me with a clear roadmap so I don't have to think about what's next -- I just read the schedule. It also allows me to change things up and with my work schedule that's sometimes necessary.

After just more than a week I'm noticing big differences -- my body likes routine -- my skin looks better, my hair is shinier, my nails are growing faster and are stronger along with various other hints that I'm on the right track.

I've got a good weights routine in place and am past all of the initial soreness -- in last night's workout I really pushed myself and I feel great today. I've got a couple of fitness books I use -- written by Cindy Whitmarsh -- they provide 6-week routines. I recently realized how much following her guidelines helped me trim down in the past. Even though I'm not following them to the letter this time they provide a great framework. I even got the jump rope back out -- jumping rope is tough and I break a sweat in about 5 seconds. haha

I'm not sure if I lost weight last week -- Auntie Flow arrived five days early, most likely because of my change in routine. She's so rude sometimes. Her arrival has caused the usual issues of bloat etc. I hope she leaves soon.

Happy to see everyone else is making progress. Sounds like Easter candy may affect some weight loss later in the month but just think about it -- Easter is at the end of April -- giving everyone more than two weeks to prepare for the deluge of sugar. I say push hard until then, enjoy a break then refocus your efforts!

Blah

This week has been crappy and it is only Tuesday.  I hope it turns around.

My weight is down another pound this week, and we go for our Bod Pod appointments this afternoon.  I am really hoping to see even a slight shift in my numbers.

We've been making variations on the green monster.  Peter bought us a nifty new blender that has these travel cups that hook right into it.  I learned an annoying lesson yesterday regarding the order of the ingredients in the cup. Heavy stuff in first, light stuff in last, not vice versa. I like the blender because we can just pop a lid on the cup the monster is blended in and head out the door. It halso doesn't have that tiny metal shaft for all the spinning; it seems to have more power.  He also bought a bunch of frozen fruit from BJs that makes it really easy to put smoothies together.  I was happy our BJ's carries the frozen wild blueberries too.  To me they taste better than frozen regular blueberries. A little frozen pineapple make a monster REALLY tasty.  And we found out that almond milk at BJ's is WAY cheaper than at the grocery store.  You get more than 2x the amount for 20 cents less in price.

I'm eating lunch a little early today because of our appointments; we made salads and they are super tasty.  Iceberg & romaine, carrots, mushrooms, red onion, tomato, red beets, and chick peas with some Newman's honey mustard dressing.

I'm listening to show tunes on pandora, hoping to cheer myself up.  Hopefully Colin Firth singing ABBA does the trick.  I am pretty down right now.

Official weigh-in

It was 138.0 -- so even better than yesterday. I am of course pleased by this, and I know I shouldn't be a pessimist, but I also know full well that this means my weight won't budge for two weeks now. I'd kind of rather have the half-pound-a-week sort of progress, because at least it's not a plateau and it's motivating enough to keep me at the diet and exercise (well, mostly diet -- this week I am getting three days of exercise, but they are all in a row, and Sunday hardly counts because I walked to the grocery store, which is only 0.6 miles). But the 2- or 3-pound plunge is fun when it happens, and it at least kept me motivated through yesterday.

I am trying to convince myself that when Easter arrives I do NOT have to eat every piece of chocolate and every jellybean as quickly as possible. I do not have to graze on 1000 calories of sugar (and fat, in the case of chocolate) each day. Because all this work just to lose 7 pounds should not be discarded in two weeks. But I also know I have absolutely no willpower when it comes to sugar unless I give it up entirely. And I'm not willing to have an Easter basket full of yarn and knitting notions or something like that -- I WANT jellybeans and chocolate, dammit! My weight chart for every year shows an up-swing after Easter, worse than any other holiday. Probably because of the denial right before -- I can resist overeating on Halloween candy (at least somewhat better than Easter) because it's only a month after my birthday, when I usually get some very gourmet chocolate, and with gourmet chocolate I'm usually willing to space it out, just a piece here or there, which gets me in a good habit.

Officially, my plan is to indulge like crazy on Easter, but then try to get right back into restraint the day after, having just a little candy after meals, within my calorie limits. Maybe I'll allow myself an extra 100 calories a day to give some extra candy room without going overboard. We'll see if I can manage!

Bloat

Bleck...I am not happy.  I am exactly the same as last week.  I guess it is good I didn't gain but I'm ticked!  I know it is because of my little visitor which will be over shortly but it is still annoying!

I hate being a woman sometimes.

On the other hand, I am doing great still with C25k and the nice weather is making my little work out much more enjoyable.  I have aerobics tonight, woot!  I'm really proud of my progress in the world of working out alone.  I NEVER exercised until recently.  I mean, I exercised when I was in sports/dancing when I was a kid, but never solely for the purpose of fitness.  I work out EVERY day for 30 minutes minimum.  I have only missed one day in 2 months and that was because I had a VERY HEAVY flow that day and I knew running would be a disaster!  I've got to find a flatter path though...right now anyway.  I will work hills into my workout but I really want to build up my distance endurance first.  I have to run up like 3 big hills on my current path but I like it b/c it is exactly 2 miles.  I don't like to run down hills either (hurts my knees).  I'll continue to search for a flat path in my neighborhood...

I hope everyone has a better Tuesday than I :) 

Holy cow, can I weigh in early, too?

Because my weight this morning was the lowest I've seen in almost 3 years! I was thinking it was just the lowest since before Christmas, but then I looked more closely and saw that I hadn't seen 138.5 all year last year... or the year before that. July of 2008 was the last time, and then I was on the way up. Woo hoo!

AND this weekend I was measuring myself to order some jeans and I found out that my waist-to-hip ratio is not bad right now -- 0.79 when it was 0.81 before. So I'm not just losing pounds; I'm losing inches.

Vistor

It's that time again...Auntie Flow is visiting and I'm sure she will have a negative impact on my weigh in on Tuesday.  Plus stress...Friday was a horrible day for me between work and life all I could do at the end of the day is laugh and buy a lottery ticket (which was a loser btw).  I'm feeling auntie with cramps and fatigue.  Sometimes I REALLY hate being a woman!  I had a horrible eating weekend with eating at restaurants 3 times during the weekend, much more than normal for me.  I did have a very productive weekend so that is a positive.  I C25ked all weekend and GMed so I'm still pretty well on track :)  I didn't weigh myself b/c I didn't want to be depressed so we'll just see what the demon scale says Tuesday morning.

I'll check in Tuesday :)