Somebody kick me into gear!

As I mentioned in my last post, physically I feel terrible.

• I’ve dropped my oral birth control
• Emotions are across-the-board-crazy
• Bloating
• Eating poorly
• Not exercising
• Not getting enough sleep
• Gaining weight

I’ve been diagnosed with a prolapse, which is causing all bits of discomfort – but which cannot be repaired by means other than kegel exercises until I’m done having kids because it’s not “severe” and having children will reverse any repairs done.

I’m trying to find that “oomph”, that push, that drive, that I had last year – but I’m still looking. I’m hoping with the weather turning it’ll soon get easier. Funny, that. I was sure once the weather got cooler I’d be all over regular exercise – when in fact I find I HATE exercising when it’s cold and gray. Need to get back to eating healthy, and exercising during my lunch. What’s sad is that when I’m exercising, I’m not reading as much I do most of my reading during my lunch time so I have to pick one over the other…

Game plan is to get back on track – diet wise. I need to start eating the right stuff more often. I find I’m hungry ALL the time and yet still tired and without energy after eating. Not good. Need to get back to eating a good serving of protein and fiber at every meal. With a better diet, I know the rest will fall into place.

I found this interesting simulator that will predict, based on a reduced calorie diet and exercise plan, how long it’ll take to lose a specific amount of weight. This is not a “new” idea or anything, but the simulator is tremendously customizable and provides an abundant amount of information. I was able to tweak it according to what I wanted to change – and I did a bit of give and take to make it realistic. It says that at my current weight I can reach my goal in six months by walking on my two work breaks, jogging during my lunch, and eating a little more than 1400 calories a day – seems do-able. However, even though it assumes your body fat percentage and predicts it in the future, due to the fact that it doesn’t have any specific inputs for diet (how much of each caloric type you’re consuming,) you cannot tweak the diet to work on your body fat percentage.

Yes. Blame it on the boys.

You know why I stopped being active around 8th grade?

I hit puberty and was physically assaulted with breasts & hips – both of which do not play nicely with physical activity such as running or jumping.

Amplify’d from www.npr.org

For Black Girls, Lack Of Exercise Heightens Obesity Risk

About half of African-American women in the U.S. are obese, compared to 30 percent of white women. Black women not only carry more weight, but they start piling on extra pounds years before their white counterparts.

But research suggests that even those girls who do engage in sports and other forms of regular physical activity tend to abandon it in their teen years — and that’s true not just for urban girls or black girls, but all girls.

“Eighth grade — that’s where it gets to be difficult,” he says. “They are making the transition from young kids to more teenagers, and they are more interested in boys and what boys think.” Read more at www.npr.org

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1kvop

More than just numbers on a scale.

This morning I put on a shirt that I had stopped wearing a few months ago. I can’t remember exactly why I stopped wearing it, but I was sick of my other shirts this morning and pulled out the older one. It’s a sheer maroon, bubble short sleeves, vertical ruffles across bust, with two inches of elastic smocking in the small of my back.

When I wore it last, I found it fit snug across the hips and bust.

Today I put it on and it was loose, even with the elastic smocking completely contracted. This is the first time I’ve felt progress with my weight loss, and I hope it’s not the last. It was even more gratifying that it was across my hips and not just my bust or waist.

I feel as though my weight loss has been really slow. I know that some of it has to do with the fact that I’m not really intense about it – but I figured I would have still seen more than an 11 lb loss over 8-9 months. Its shocking what I used to eat regularly and how little exercise I got, but even with that changed I’m still holding onto so much of my excess weight.

I’m going to talk to my doctor about it, perhaps she can suggest something I’m missing.

MFD Wins!

Readers: I’m not going to apologize for being one of “those” dieters who can do nothing but talk about dieting. Blogging about this is helping at this point, though I’m sure one day I’ll get to a point where it wont.

I do apologize for boring you though I also fully urge you to skip past these posts and I’ll try to keep them JUST to dieting so you wont miss anything of actual importance said on my blog.

What can I say, I’m a sucker for the happy faces

But in all seriousness, MyFoodDiary gave me more incentives to improve my diet, not just cut calories.  It shows me what I am doing right, even if it’s just meeting a daily value for Vitamin A, as well as what I am doing wrong. When you’re over weight, it gets hard to constantly hear all the bad you’re doing. I know I’m doing bad – its why I’m over weight – I don’t need to be constantly berated.

Yesterday, after completing my daily record, I saw that I had a sad face because I didn’t exercise at all. You know what? That is sad. You know what I did? Took a walk. Sure, it was only a walk and it was only for a half hour but it’s still something. I wanted that happy face!

Today’s food includes…

• Shrimp & Orange Salad (2 cups Romaine Lettuce, 1/2 Cara Cara, 4oz Shrimp, 1 tsp Balsamic Vinegar)
• Ham Wrap (2 slices lean deli ham, two baby romaine leaves, 1/2 tbsp Miracle Whip)
• 1/2 Red Bell Pepper
• 1/2 Tangelo
• Ham & Bean Salad (4 Cherry Tomatoes, 2 slices of Lean Canadian Bacon, 1/2 Pinto Beans & 1.5 tbsp of Catalina FF Dressing)

MFD, coming up fast!

As I’ve been snooping around on the MyFoodDiary (MFD) site, I realize it is a STRONG competitor to DailyBurn (especially because it’s a whole DOLLAR less per month ). If it had better mobile tools (they have a mobile site, but not an app that caches anything when you’re out of coverage area), I would be dropping DailyBurn without thought.

One thing I’m really enjoying about MFD is the detailed analysis of the food I’m eating, much more than just fat and calories – but cholesterol and sodium as well, both areas I never paid attention to but I realize I should. After I entered in all my food for today (minus dinner) I had two red “sad” faces – one for sodium and one for cholesterol. Looking at the detailed reports I find that the salad dressing I’m using is REALLY salty and having an egg yoke would be all right if that was all the cholesteral in my diet – but it’s not. So, I’m going to look at some other dressings and start leaving out the yoke when having a hard boiled egg.

Any suggestions regarding salad dressing? I’m using fat-free stuff right now, which is helping me stay within my caloric goals, but as I said I’d like something less salty.

Protected: I need a vacation!

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Turkey Chili FAIL!

Well, the turkey chili wasn’t good. The acidic level was astounding, and after looking at the ingredients I could see why: Tomatoes in every way, shape & form. But I’m on the look-out for other such recipes, preferably one I can cook in the slow cooker.

I also tried the butternut squash, but did not enjoy it. I found it rather tasteless – and when I did taste something all I thought of was pumpkins. Perhaps there is a recipe I could try, so that it’s not just the squash I’m eating. Or some kind of topping? I found the more firm it was, the less I enjoyed it. The really soft tender pieces weren’t that bad. I’m also wondering if it was out of season, considering this is a winter staple.

I was thinking about joining this weight loss challenge in my area. Its a well-known challenge, modeled after The Biggest Loser, and one of our friends had a lot of success with it. It seems really hard though. First, you have to apply – including getting your doctor’s release & paying a $70 non-refundable fee. Then, if you’re chosen after the interview process, you have to commit a lot of time. Basically, every Monday night (nutritional and life coaching), Tuesday OR Wednesday night (work out), and every Saturday morning (weigh in and group challenge). You can only miss so many of each day and you still have to be losing each week in order to stay in the challenge.

It’s only 12 weeks – but I remember how busy we felt doing our 12 week Bradley Method class while I was pregnant and that was only one night a week and BEFORE the baby. Plus, this is all centered about 30 miles away from my house so commuting would take a lot of gas. Just not sure, as I feel bad leaving Paul for a good 2+ hours three times a week to play single parent.

Keep my head up.

This past week, I only lost one pound. It’s better than nothing – and MUCH better than having gained – but I’m still unhappy with it.  I can only blame myself, as I slipped a lot this past week in little ways thinking that it wasn’t that big of a deal. Well this is my wake up call, right now it’s ALL a big deal. I just need to stick to my NS plan for now – no veering off the path. I have to stay committed and focused!

Today’s a new day – and the start of a new week. I’m resetting. I’m refreshing. I’m realigning myself with my goals.

I can do this.

Week 2: Finished.

Another week gone
Another weigh-in completed
Another 2 pounds lost
Another 2 pounds DEFEATED.

I’m right on track!

Last week was a bit of a “cheater” week – in the terms that I did not stick 100% to the NS diet – but I still stayed within my calorie goals. Monday I had a slice of pizza, Wednesday I had some Hawaiian BBQ, Sunday I had breakfast with my mom & sister and lunch at the mall. Through all of this I kept an eye on how much I was eating, how full I was feeling, and what my limits were. Considering I still lost 2 pounds, I consider it a success.

This week, I don’t think I’ll be doing as much cheating – if any. I’m really molding my life around my eating habits, and I like that. I like knowing what I’m going to be eating and when. I like “scheduling” meals to ensure that I make time for prep and enjoyment.

I didn’t use the elliptical machine once last week – and I have to admit I didn’t really “try”. I wanted to start waking up early, and I asked Paul to help me because he seemed so much more motivated, but it never happened. At this point, where I’m still losing an acceptable amount of weight, I’m not going to worry about it. Once I hit my plateau I’ll be more inclined – I know it.

One thing I DID do last week is burn at least 250 calories a day with walking. I’m really proud of that because, while it’s just 30-45 minutes a day, it took a lot of commitment for me. What helped was my audiobook! I was able to keep reading my book, like I used to during lunch, and exercise

Week 1: Finished.

I weighed myself this morning! I lost approximately 2 pounds. Not nearly as much as I’d hoped, but I’ll take it. I was hoping for more because I thought to myself, “Oh, I was  eating so horribly!” – because I was. I’m not even going to list it here – just know that I was eating two servings a day of something that rhymes with “queennurger” and “prys”.

I’m not sure what to take of these results. I don’t want to over analyze them, but at the same time I’m not satisfied and I want to blame it on something.

BUT! Today is a start of a brand new week, and I’m not going to give up because it took me much longer than a week to put all this weight on and I want to keep it off for a lot longer than a week. I’m also going to look at the positives which is:

• I tracked everything I ate last week, even my “free” food
• I’m eating four servings of veggies a day
• I’m eating two servings of fruits a day
• I exercised every day I was at work last week
• I spent all of Saturday walking

So, what I’m doing a bit differently this week is I’m going to add a nice 45 minute workout on my elliptical 3 times a week – which is said to burn about 445 calories for a person my size. That’ll be another 1/3 pound burned, I just hope I can see it come next Monday.