Requested Update

It's true, I haven't blogged in a while.  It turns out a new classroom job means lots of prep and grading.  I haven't been on an official exercisey type walk since I started.  It turns out, though, that I don't often eat lunch at work, because, you know, crap needs doing, and I went from sitting in an office chair 9 hours or more a day to constantly walking around my classroom.  This lack of calories and constant, if not deliberate, exercise has made me lose about 8 pounds so far.

Surely, I need to eat three times a day, which means my goal for this week is to eat three balanced meals.  I also want to spend some time deliberately exercising.  However, I will take the loss and run with it.

Weight: 223
Exercise: every day (super slow walking around the room) and no deliberate exercise.
According to MFP, this is an 8.4 lb loss since the last time I checked in.
Goals: 2 deliberate walks this week, eat three well-balanced meals per day

Note: Today we find out Matthew's bar results, so I'm going to be either celebrating with him or consoling him with large amounts of food and alcohol.  I predict a three pound gain from just TODAY's calorie intake.

Sunday Weigh Down

Hey, y'all!  I lost some weight this week.  Yippee!

Unfortunately, I can't say that was because I did a really good job of meeting my goals.   It's been rainy this week and I didn't get a single walk in.  I think I tracked my foods two days this week, or some such thing.  Mostly, I've been home all week, and have been eating pretty small meals.  That's the only thing I can point to as a reason for this week's success.  Pretty sure I countered all those small meals last night though, because I had two glasses of wine at the Wine and Palette class I hit with Summer, then went to dinner with Matthew and had a Ducky's Pimiento Cheese Burger.  What is that?, you ask.  Well, it's heaven on a bun.  It's also like three days of calories on a bun.  It's a burger patty, two slices of bacon, melted pimiento cheese, and regular burger toppings.  It's pretty fricking delicious.  And totally worth a week's worth of walks every once in a while.

So, I'm sure you want the stats.  Here they are:

Weight: 228.2
Change from last week: -5.2 lbs
Change from highest weight: -6.8 lbs
Exercise this week: 0 minutes (:( )

Goals for this week are track my goddamn food!  Exercise!  Come on!

Weekly Weigh In

This week has been really weird.  I had some bad news about a couple of jobs I was applying for and am getting used to a new, later shift at work (because what I needed was to stay at work longer).  It's just been weird.   I didn't exercise as much (only two times), and I didn't track about three or four days this week.  It was, overall, a pretty sucky week.

So anyway, the stats:

Weight: 233.4
Change from last week: +.8 lbs.
Change from highest weight: -1.6 lbs.
Exercise this week:  2 walks of 30 minutes each

So the moral of this story is to track foods and exercise.  Big surprise.  Goals for this week: 1.) in bed by 11:00 PM (this is often hard because my shift doesn't end at work until 10), 2.) track every day's intake, 3.) at least three 30 minute walks, and 4.) 1.8 lb weight loss. See you next Sunday.

Bad me! Bad, bad me.

So, I was 768 calories over my goal today.  That is, like, a lot of calories to be over my goal!  I had a slice of Neiman Marcus cake and a 12 oz coke, which is a lot of sugar and fat.  And, of course, I felt hungry very soon after eating because there was no fiber to fill me up or protein to keep me full. 

After dinner, I still felt like I wanted to eat more.  I knew, logically, that I shouldn't be hungry, but I felt like I wanted a little something more.  That nagging feeling is a big detractor for me, and it's hard to distract myself.  In the end, though, if I get doing something else for a while, I forget that I was still peckish. 

I also haven't exercised in a couple of days because of the rain. It's been raining off and on, and it should be a good time to exercise (nice and cool, shower built right in!), but I've been using it as an excuse not to walk.   Need to get on that tomorrow morning.  I would walk tonight, but I don't get off of work until ten. 

Next week, I think dessert will be an Angel Food cake with fresh berries.  Sounds a lot healthier than Neiman Marcus cake, but would still satisfy my sweet tooth. 

Sunday Weigh In

Hey, y'all!

It's been a pretty successful week.  I had five thirty to forty-five minute walks, going three miles per hour, and stayed within my calorie goals (according to myfitnesspal) every day except yesterday (which saw one too many glasses of milk).

All of this good behavior added up to a 2.4 pound weight loss this week!

Here are the stats:

Weight last Sunday: 235
Weight this Sunday: 232.6
Net loss: 2.4 lbs
Workouts: Five walks

I'm going to work for as successful a week next week!

Guess who didn't walk yesterday!

That'd be me.  I set my alarm for 6:30, knowing that I needed to get up and walk, then when it rolled around, so dark and early, I snuggled back up to Matthew and went to sleep.  I also didn't track yesterday.  I am pretty sure I was within the calorie goals, but I can't know because I didn't keep up with it all day.

One good fitness thing that happened though: Summer, the friend I met for coffee, also walks.  We decided to meet up on Mondays and Wednesdays and walk together.  I have a walking buddy!  It was nice to have coffee with her and catch up a little. We're also doing one of those wine and canvas things, so that'll be fun too!  So, while I didn't do well on the tracking, and I didn't go for my walk, yesterday wasn't a total draw.  Small wins, people.

This morning, I did get out of bed (yay me!) and I'm now eating breakfast before I head out to walk.  Today will be more on track than yesterday. :)

Early Mornings

Ugh. I did not want to get out of bed this morning.  It was supremely tempting to just curl up next to Matthew and say, screw you, exercise.  But I didn't.  I got out of bed, despite staying up late the night before, put on my workout stuff and hit the ol' dusty trail.  Which was quite literally very dusty because of some road work going on right now.

After my walk, I was getting ready to take a shower and looked at myself in the mirror.  Wow, I thought, I think my stomach is flatter already!  I must be doing really well!  Then I realized I was sucking in.  I mean, I honestly didn't know it until that moment.  I wonder if this is why I think I look good in the morning, then see my reflection in a building or something and realize I look blobby.  I let my tummy go and thought, Yeah, not as good.  Need to make sure I keep that tucked in all the time.

Tomorrow morning, I have a feeling it will take all of my will to get out of bed and go exercise, because a.) I'm already sleepy from very little sleep last night, 2.) it's already past 11, and c.) I have a coffee date in the morning.  But I lost another .6 of a pound today, so I guess I need to just keep on eating healthy and exercising.

I can do it.  Even if it's the ass-crack of dawn.  It can be arranged.

Day two of the Great Awakening. Or Great Transformation. Or whatever.

Woke up around 6:30 and thought, Damn, it's early. But that's okay.  I got up, put on my sweaty exercise clothes from yesterday (no sense in getting another set sweaty, right?) and went to get coffee and breakfast.

I don't know about you guys, but if I don't eat in the morning, I'm not going to make it very far into my walk. Like, five minutes, then I'm huffing and puffing and tired.  Not that I didn't do that anyway, it just took longer.    I did a thirty-two minute walk and went almost exactly two miles.  Now, if I double my time, I'll be running a ten minute mile! I should be up for that in about a year or something (if ever).

I weighed myself this morning and have lost 1.4 pounds since Saturday.  My body does this.  It's like a freaking roller coaster.  Or waves at least.  I'll steadily drop weight through the week, then for some indiscernible reason, my weight will jump up by three pounds or so.  I also have a tendency to gain like five pounds the week of my period, but drop it pretty much immediately.

Why are these minute changes (one pound, three pounds, even five pounds) such a big deal?  They make up a tiny percentage of what I weigh, but it is so frustrating to see a pound (or three or five) creep back onto the scale.  I understand that weight fluctuations are totally normal and I should expect them, but they are not welcome.

So anyway, the success of losing a pound and almost a half is tempered by the knowledge it probably had nothing to do with what I've done in the last two days.  But I'll take the drop.  And the next time I see the number creep up for one reason or another, I'll remember to try again tomorrow and that what I do every day matters more than what I do once in a while.

Hello, again, my workout peeps

So guess what.  I weighed myself yesterday and I was the fattest I have ever been by one pound.  235.  I was wearing a dress yesterday and noticed I looked particularly blobby and decided to check it out.  Turns out I am particularly blobby.  It seems it is time to get serious about this shit.  I've been yo-yoing, publicly, for about two years now.

I've tried the massive exercise schemes (BeFitin90, Intensity, and Cto5K) and they haven't worked very well for me.  I've also tried to track my diet, and found that I'm not very reliable in writing down/entering my intake.  What do I lack? Commitment.

I could say time, but that would be a lie.  I definitely waste at least 30 minutes a day and could carve out that time to exercise.  Tracking the food I eat takes only minutes, and I don't do it because I don't—or didn't—care.  But here's where not caring got me: fat(ter).

Apathy doesn't just affect fitness.  When I'm apathetic about the budget, we spend too much money.  When I'm apathetic about work, my product quality and quantity slips.  When I'm apathetic about relationships, they decay.  Apathy is the slow death and reversal of progress.

So, it looks like it's time to care again.  And this time, with your help, I want to keep on caring. Indefinitely.  Infinitely.

This morning, I did a thirty minute power walk.  You would not believe how out of shape I am.  I was huffing and puffing (not blowing any houses down, though) and was so overheated by the time I got home, a cool shower couldn't cool me down.  Of course, I went for this walk at 10 AM in July, so I'm sure an earlier start would help.  I started using My Fitness Pal to track my foods again, too.  It's day one, all over again.

While I know that alcoholics and drug addicts certainly face much bigger challenges than I do, their "one day at a time" motto is pretty much how I'm going to have to do this. I have lots of quotes.  A quick tour of pinterest could provide enough fitness inspiration to get anyone thinking about running marathons. "No matter how slow you go, you're lapping the ones on the couch." "Don't give up because of what someone said or did.  Use that as motivation to give it all you've got." "Sweat is fat crying."  My personal favorite, "Get the fuck out of bed." Yep.  That's what I need to do.

Or another favorite, "Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow." That's the goal.  Try again tomorrow.  And the next day.  And so on.  Until it's no longer trying, it's just doing.

Track before the food is ingested

Yesterday, I didn't track my dinner until after I'd already eaten it. I ate a large burger, some sweet potato fries, and two apple jacks (not the cereal, a delicious concoction of a hard cider with honey reserve whiskey added).  I thought for sure I would be well over my calories with just the burger, but it wasn't as calorie-heavy as I thought.  I added in the sweet potato fries and I was still under.  One apple jack, still under!  15 calories were left.  At this point...I could fib and say, no I didn't have a second apple jack.  Totally stayed under my calorie goal.  Yep.

Now, for the past three days, I've been over my calorie goal.  It was a lot to do with eating out and eating more than I should, but I am surprised at how tempting it is to fib.  Like really tempting.  Which is weird, because no one sees my food log but me. It's password protected and is only for my own records, but I really want to see "under her calorie goal" for some reason.

Ideally, I would be tracking food before it's in my face, but I was eating while working on something and thought, I'll have time to track it later. I assumed I'd be over my goal because, duh, cheeseburger.  So might as well eat whatever I want.  If I had stopped and tracked the food before I ate it, I guarantee you I would not have had  a second apple jack.  I would have been delighted to be under my calorie goal and would have happily had water.

Moral of this story: Track before the food is ingested.

Tracking foods

I've been doing pretty well at tracking my foods in myfitnesspal.com, and I've made some progress.  I've lost five pounds over the last two weeks, even without counting calories last weekend.  I'm pretty glad with that.  If I can keep my weight going steadily downward, that would be great.

So what have I learned since my last post?  I can have a cheat day.  I can even have a cheat weekend, if I want, as long as I don't go crazy.  If I make it the new regular to track my calories, and not-tracking is odd, I think I'll see my weight continue to go down.

I am much more accountable for what I put in my mouth if I put it down on paper (so to speak) first.  I know this.  Everyone knows this. It's, like, elementary dieting.  But it still surprises me how much of a difference it makes over a couple of weeks. Now, if I can commit myself to doing it long term, that would be just awesome.

It's easy to do when I'm at home, but it's harder when I'm on vacation, or out with friends, or whatever.  But even if I don't track for a day or a meal, that's okay.  I'm not perfect, try as I might.  Dropping the ball gives me the chance to pick it up again.

Love,

Rachel

It's a new year.

It's a new year, and I'm seven pounds down from last year.  It's not much, and my weight has fluctuated all year, but it's a downward trend I'd like to keep up.  Anytime I weigh myself, I am disappointed, but when I look at where I came from, I know that I am making improvements.  My weight is going down.  Slowly, surely. 

Again, this year, I am committing to myself to reach for healthier foods and work my body more.  I am adding to this by committing to also get up each morning, get dressed in flattering clothes, put on my makeup, and fix my hair.  I don't know why this makes a difference, but for me, it certainly does.  I get more done, feel better about myself, and I feel like I'm better prepared for emergencies.  If Matthew calls me at 11:45 to meet him for lunch at 12, I'm ready.  If I need to go to the grocery store, I'm not worried that I look like a slob the whole time I'm shopping. 

This year, I want to lose 13 pounds.  I want to lose at least a pound a month and at the end of the year I want to look back and say I'm down 20 pounds from two years ago.  Slow and steady.