Overdid it.

Why do I not listen to my body?  On Wednesday, I was already feeling worn out from working out that morning.  Oh, did I mention that?  You know that total body rush super-exercisers talk about?  The one that makes them feel crappy if they miss a run?  I don't have that.  Nope. If I work out, I'm exhausted.  All day.  And most of the next day.

Well, instead of taking a break and alternating days, as a normal person would, I decided I was going to work again yesterday.  I did.  Even though I'd had a long work week, was already exhausted, and felt like poo.  I thought, Surely I'll feel better after I work out.  Nope.  I felt like crap.  Super crap.

So yesterday I took the day off and recuperated.  I slept and read and took lots of warm baths.  I am not working out today, since I already feel creaky and my back hurts, but I'll get some exercise tomorrow.  Gabe is down in Ardmore this weekend, and I was thinking if the weather cooperates, it might be a fun time to go run around and eat a picnic lunch at Regional Park.  Plenty of walking and scrambling on playground equipment to be had there!

Getting back on track

It's been a while, blogoshpere!  I'm finally getting into the swing of a new year and back to blogging about the weight loss journey.   Over the holidays I, predictably, gained weight.  In fact, I gained more than I had lost. The new year started and I had to fight the urge to quit.  I thought about saying, "screw it," deleting the blog, and pretending I had never made this commitment. But...people kept asking, "Hey, when are you going to update? I miss your posts."  For some reason, this was the impetus I needed to get my shit together and keep going.   I also started doing the FlyLady system of housekeeping. All of a sudden my house was no longer an excuse for sitting in the apartment pretending that I was going to clean it up. So today, the house is clean, breakfast is ready, and I have forty minutes scheduled into my day for sweating my ass off in the gym.   Here we go!!

Thanksgiving

Current weight: 222.4
Total weight change: -2.6


Not a lot of weight loss over the past month, but I had a couple of rough weeks were I wasn't working very hard.  Last week I made it to the gym three times and did some pretty intense (for me) jogging, biking, and weight lifting.  


I'm noticing more changes in the way my clothes fit; namely more room around my waist.  I have been working veggies into lunch and dinner portions regularly and need to up those, likely.  


My Fitness Pal is still working out well, as long as I use it consistently.  


The holidays are a tough time for me, since I happen to LOVE holiday food.  I literally dreamed about fudge the other day.  Dreamed about making it and eating it.  I also have regular dreams set in restaurants and at the dinner table.  Typically I'm eating roast chicken.  So there you go, now you know how deep my food pathology goes. 


So, here's the plan.  For the rest of this week, I'm going to work out, eat well, and be sensible.  Then, on Thursday, I'm going crazy.  Be warned. 

Weekly Check In: Week Seven

Current weight: 222.6
Weight change since last week: -5
Total weight change: -2.4

Woo hoo!  Weight changes! In the right direction!  Yay!

So what did I do this week?  I started using My Fitness Pal.  The website is a little clunky and awkward looking, but the app is a lifesaver.

So what do I like about it?

• It's easy to use (and free).  Unlike the Weight Watchers app (which I paid 17 dollars a month to use), the food selections are huge, since it's information compiled from the users.  Pretty much any food you could ever want to eat has been input by someone, sometime.  If it hasn't, you can enter it yourself.
• The progress page shows me drops in my weight in a pretty little graph.  I like being able to see that line go down, and hate to see it go up.  I weighed myself every day this week, and it was awesome to see a pound drop here, two pounds there.  Additionally, if you have a ken to measure yourself in a specific area, you can do that.  The app has tracking of weight, neck, waist, and hips. 
• I can enter recipes.  I cook at home.  A lot.  It's cheap.  And with this app, you can choose the ingredients you added, tell how much of it you used, how many the recipe feeds, and save it for future use.  This is a great feature for me, because I circulate some of my favorite recipes into my meal plan over and over. 
• I love the friends function. My brother uses this app too.  I can see how much exercise he's doing, how much he's lost, and we can comment on each other's progress.  It's good to have him showing me up and challenging me to do well. 
• The Home page shows me how well I'm meeting my Recommended Daily Values.  This is one place where Weight Watchers was seriously lacking.  It ignores things like vitamin and mineral intake, figuring that if you meet the healthy checks, then you're good.  That may be true, but looking at the fact that I only got 20% of my Vitamin A for the day makes me wonder what foods have it and how to improve that area.  This curiosity leads me to learn more about nutrition and knowledge is power, if you weren't apprised of that already.
• Last but not least, the weight predictor.  The app has a button at the bottom of the page that says "Complete this Entry."  When you click it at night, it tells you "If every day were like today...  You'd weigh ______ lbs. in 5 weeks."  Man is this great motivation to use it the next day!  When my weight jumps up two or three pounds in water weight and I think I overate or I suck at life, clicking "Complete this Entry" keeps me going and reminds me that I'm still on the right track.  

And thus concludes my fangirl love of this app.  What weight loss tools and tricks have you guys found so far?  Julie's comment on "What week is this again?"  had some great motivational tips, so give them a look-see. 

JK Rowling's thoughts on thinness

I stumbled across this quote today: "Is 'fat' worse than 'vindictive', 'jealous', 'shallow', 'vain', 'boring' or 'cruel'? Not to me"  and did some research (read: googled it) to find out where it came from.

And all I have to say is, "Three cheers.  Let's remember how many good things we are before we label ourselves as 'fat.'"

What week is this again?

Whoo, awesome.  I'm at 227.6, which is a weight gain of like four pounds or something?   Guess how many times I've worked out since last post.  Just guess.

0

A big whopping 0 times.  I need motivation again.  I need constant motivation.

Weekly Check-In: Week Three

Current Weight: 224.8
Weight change since last week: -3
Total weight change: 0


Back to zero, but at least I didn't gain this week!  


This week has been pretty stressful with my workload exploding, but I have eaten pretty healthily with a treat thrown in here or there.   Matthew and I decided (for the second or third time) to eat at least one vegetarian meal a week.  


Here's why: 

• Meat is expensive (this might be the only reason that Matthew went along with this). 
• A light vegetarian meal can still be filling (for example, veggie spaghetti on whole wheat pasta). 
• I love Black Bean Soup. 

Panera's Black Bean Soup is DELICIOUS, vegetarian, 240 calories for a 1 1/2 cup serving, and filling. It's a winner in my book, and justifies eating a slice of baguette rather than the healthier option of an apple.  And man do I love Panera baguettes. 

This week's vegetarian meal was oven roasted root vegetables with a green salad.  The vegetables were served hot, to simulate roasted meat.  This didn't work.  I missed my meats!  However, I'm told there are some good ways to make a veggie meal feel like a meat meal, like Eggplant Parmesan, Basil Pesto Fafalle, etc.  

Plus, sometimes there's nothing better than beans and cornbread. :) 

P. S. -- Sorry for the late check-in.  I'm shooting for Monday next week.