I've been saying for a while now that I needed to get myself back on track - and I've been blaming a lot of things. The truth is, yes, those things make weight loss more challenging, but in the end I have had nothing to blame but myself.
I am not trying to be unnecessarily hard on myself - I count the last two challening months as successes, actually. For the challenges that I faced, and the choices that I made sometimes, I count my blessings that I was able to at least maintain my weight loss.
With that said, I knew that I needed to get my train back on its track. The water weight scare of the last two weeks was kind of the ticket I needed to ride! (See what I did there?? Train/ticket/ride...) I am not shy about admitting that I suck at tracking my food - so that was my first trick. I didn't track every day...or even half the days...but I did get a solid TWO days of major tracking! And you know what?? Two days is better than none! It made me a bit more aware of what foods I was putting in my mouth.
The weekend was a bit harder to track - a bit more eating out, tailgating, a visit from brother #3, his birthday...all made my tracking a little more difficult. But, I'm still proud of my choices! We went to a brewery with some of my friends for dinner on Friday - I probably should have gotten the salad, but I really wanted the pulled pork sandwich. So, I got the pulled pork sandwich...and only ate half of it. I left full and satisfied and able to feel good about myself. Saturday at the tailgate was a little harder, but I stayed away from the burgers - I ate chili, some tortilla chips, and the baked chips that I took myself! Now, I wasn't completely innocent at the tailgate, but it could have been soooooooo much worse.
Then Monday we had dinner club at a coworkers place and his whole menu was based around sugar...and I think I owned that menu! It wasn't super easy, but I ate more of the veggie dishes and a small amount of the meat/pasta/dessert dishes. And even though it was the day before weigh-in, I actually allowed myself to have dessert...a very small slice of pumpkin pie. It was enough to give me a good taste and not enough to do a whole lot of damage.
Initial weight: 257.2
Week 37: -1.4
Total weight loss: -54.0
Current weight: 203.2
That elusive 200 is so close, yet so far away...
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
How Lovely To Be A Woman
Blog Disclaimer: I will be discussing girl issues in this post - I will try to not go into too much detail
I've been toying with the idea of writing this post for months now. Obviously, it mostly comes to me around the time that I am PMSing, but then I question myself...do I really want people to know THAT much about my life?? So then I think I'll write it on a week that I'm not affected so it will throw people off and they won't necessarily know when I am/am not PMSing...but, it's not something I really think about if it's not currently happening. But, over the last two weeks it has had a significant impact on me - more so than usual. So, I thought that it was well past time for me to broach this sensitive topic.
It's widely known and understood that men lose weight faster than women. Sometimes it can be a struggle for me - comparing my weight loss to those of my male co-workers sometimes makes me feel like I'm not doing as well as I should be. I know that it isn't a fair comparison, that it shouldn't get me down, and that I am doing quite well for myself. I know all of these things, but that doesn't stop me from getting frustrated sometimes. Some of you may have noticed that I didn't post last week - I promise that that was more out of lack of time than it was because my week didn't go well (though it didn't).
For any of my male readers who don't know, every woman's PMS is different...in fact, every month is different! For me, it's usually that I'm excessively tired, I want to be by myself, sometimes there's cramping, I want to eat just about everything in sight, and the worst of all (in my book) is that my boobs hurt...way bad. Like I said, each month is different so I don't experience all of those things every month. I would say that the two most common for me are the tiredness and the sore boobs. And I'm sure that you can understand why those two things can be quite detrimental to my weight loss. Being tired, it's obviously more difficult to motivate myself to exercise...and even if I do, it makes it more difficult to accomplish! The tender boobs is much worse than it sounds. Not only does it just make you uncomfortable most of the time, can you imagine running or dancing when it hurts to even touch them?? I mean, I think just about any woman would agree that one of the best feelings in the world is taking off your bra at the end of the day - but even THAT hurts! And, most of symptoms of PMS can be helped by taking something along the lines of Midol or Pamprin - but tiredness and sore boobs are not covered.
One of the other symptoms, that I USUALLY don't have a major problem with, is water weight. Note, I said major. You can probably track most of my minor weight gains to being in the vicinity of my week of PMS. But, I've been fortunate that since I started in January, I've not really had much of a gain more than a pound at a time...so it clearly hasn't been a major problem...until now. This is probably TMI, but I don't care, I think it's important that people understand - last week I started my period on Monday...I weigh in on Tuesday...and the first two days are usually the worst. I knew that it wasn't going to be a great week so when I stepped on the scale and she told me I gained, I wasn't surprised - and I told her "yeah...I'm having a girl week". I was, however, not prepared for watching her write +3.2 in my tracker. When I expressed my shock at the number, she told me that the average weight gain for a woman during PMS is 2-4 pounds. That's an average of a 2-4 pound gain EVERY MONTH for some women!
Even though I knew that the primary reason was because of the PMS, it was still pretty disheartening. I knew that I needed to do better to get back on track - and I did do better, but still probably not as well as I should have.
On the positive side, I realized that it's been a couple of weeks since my foot hurt AND my awesome friend asked me to do the 2014 Disney marathon with her and two other women! It's in January 2014 so I have a little over a year to get myself in top running shape! After I realized that my foot hadn't hurt in quite a while, and that I hadn't been working out nearly as much as I should, I decided to go for another run. This time, I was a little smarter. I did another four miles, but instead of run/walk/run/walk I did walk/run/walk/run. After I walked the first mile, I stopped and stretched (paying good attention to my feet), then I ran mile number two. Mile three was another walk, but it was split in half by my trip inside CVS (ironically, I went to CVS to renew my allergy meds lol). Mile four was probably the hardest of all...it was almost entirely uphill. There was one point that I needed to stop and walk - but I allowed myself and didn't feel bad for it. I walked about .15 mile, but once I got on level ground again, I started running again and made sure that I actually ran a whole mile despite my stop. Then I was sure to stretch again...also making sure to take care of my feet. And good news - they didn't hurt today!! Now, my legs were a bit sore - but that's to be expected when you consider that yesterday was exactly one month from my last run (which I didn't know until after I'd done it, but was pretty serendipitous).
The good news is that when I weighed in today, I'd lost my water weight from last week...quite the weight off of my shoulders! (no pun intended) But, it was quite the scare that I needed to get myself back on track. I know that I need to start recording my food again, I need to make sure that I'm getting in my exercise, and I need to start making myself a priority again. Especially at the beginning of the year, it's so easy to get wrapped up in work and lost track of what's important to ME. As selfish as it may feel, I have to make me a priority again.
Initial weight: 257.2
Week 35: +3.2
Week 36: -3.4
Total weight loss: -52.6
Current weight: 204.6
I've been toying with the idea of writing this post for months now. Obviously, it mostly comes to me around the time that I am PMSing, but then I question myself...do I really want people to know THAT much about my life?? So then I think I'll write it on a week that I'm not affected so it will throw people off and they won't necessarily know when I am/am not PMSing...but, it's not something I really think about if it's not currently happening. But, over the last two weeks it has had a significant impact on me - more so than usual. So, I thought that it was well past time for me to broach this sensitive topic.
It's widely known and understood that men lose weight faster than women. Sometimes it can be a struggle for me - comparing my weight loss to those of my male co-workers sometimes makes me feel like I'm not doing as well as I should be. I know that it isn't a fair comparison, that it shouldn't get me down, and that I am doing quite well for myself. I know all of these things, but that doesn't stop me from getting frustrated sometimes. Some of you may have noticed that I didn't post last week - I promise that that was more out of lack of time than it was because my week didn't go well (though it didn't).
For any of my male readers who don't know, every woman's PMS is different...in fact, every month is different! For me, it's usually that I'm excessively tired, I want to be by myself, sometimes there's cramping, I want to eat just about everything in sight, and the worst of all (in my book) is that my boobs hurt...way bad. Like I said, each month is different so I don't experience all of those things every month. I would say that the two most common for me are the tiredness and the sore boobs. And I'm sure that you can understand why those two things can be quite detrimental to my weight loss. Being tired, it's obviously more difficult to motivate myself to exercise...and even if I do, it makes it more difficult to accomplish! The tender boobs is much worse than it sounds. Not only does it just make you uncomfortable most of the time, can you imagine running or dancing when it hurts to even touch them?? I mean, I think just about any woman would agree that one of the best feelings in the world is taking off your bra at the end of the day - but even THAT hurts! And, most of symptoms of PMS can be helped by taking something along the lines of Midol or Pamprin - but tiredness and sore boobs are not covered.
One of the other symptoms, that I USUALLY don't have a major problem with, is water weight. Note, I said major. You can probably track most of my minor weight gains to being in the vicinity of my week of PMS. But, I've been fortunate that since I started in January, I've not really had much of a gain more than a pound at a time...so it clearly hasn't been a major problem...until now. This is probably TMI, but I don't care, I think it's important that people understand - last week I started my period on Monday...I weigh in on Tuesday...and the first two days are usually the worst. I knew that it wasn't going to be a great week so when I stepped on the scale and she told me I gained, I wasn't surprised - and I told her "yeah...I'm having a girl week". I was, however, not prepared for watching her write +3.2 in my tracker. When I expressed my shock at the number, she told me that the average weight gain for a woman during PMS is 2-4 pounds. That's an average of a 2-4 pound gain EVERY MONTH for some women!
Even though I knew that the primary reason was because of the PMS, it was still pretty disheartening. I knew that I needed to do better to get back on track - and I did do better, but still probably not as well as I should have.
On the positive side, I realized that it's been a couple of weeks since my foot hurt AND my awesome friend asked me to do the 2014 Disney marathon with her and two other women! It's in January 2014 so I have a little over a year to get myself in top running shape! After I realized that my foot hadn't hurt in quite a while, and that I hadn't been working out nearly as much as I should, I decided to go for another run. This time, I was a little smarter. I did another four miles, but instead of run/walk/run/walk I did walk/run/walk/run. After I walked the first mile, I stopped and stretched (paying good attention to my feet), then I ran mile number two. Mile three was another walk, but it was split in half by my trip inside CVS (ironically, I went to CVS to renew my allergy meds lol). Mile four was probably the hardest of all...it was almost entirely uphill. There was one point that I needed to stop and walk - but I allowed myself and didn't feel bad for it. I walked about .15 mile, but once I got on level ground again, I started running again and made sure that I actually ran a whole mile despite my stop. Then I was sure to stretch again...also making sure to take care of my feet. And good news - they didn't hurt today!! Now, my legs were a bit sore - but that's to be expected when you consider that yesterday was exactly one month from my last run (which I didn't know until after I'd done it, but was pretty serendipitous).
The good news is that when I weighed in today, I'd lost my water weight from last week...quite the weight off of my shoulders! (no pun intended) But, it was quite the scare that I needed to get myself back on track. I know that I need to start recording my food again, I need to make sure that I'm getting in my exercise, and I need to start making myself a priority again. Especially at the beginning of the year, it's so easy to get wrapped up in work and lost track of what's important to ME. As selfish as it may feel, I have to make me a priority again.
Initial weight: 257.2
Week 35: +3.2
Week 36: -3.4
Total weight loss: -52.6
Current weight: 204.6
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Trying Times
I have worked every day since August 13 - Every. Day.
I posted last week about my busy August with move-in and Welcome Week programs and the like. Which is all very true and very tiring...but when I talked about getting myself back on track, I forgot that I made a dumb move and also scheduled duty for the first weekend. I was quite lucky, actually, that I didn't have any "big" issues. I was not so lucky that I had a whole lot of "little" issues....a lot. Sometimes I'm not sure which I'd rather have. I mean nobody really likes to have to deal with the big issues, but getting constant calls for little ones is exhausting!
I had the best intentions of getting myself back on a normal schedule, but duty can throw off the most established schedule and then turn around and laugh at it! You never know when you're going to be needed, so you can't really do much. You can't really cook because you might be in the middle of making something when you need to go. You can't go out to eat because you could get called before your food even gets there. You can't get in a workout because it isn't really professional to show up to help a student when you're all sweaty in workout clothes. So, basically, I sat on the couch watching tv when I wasn't answering phone calls or going to meet the police somewhere, and eating mostly sandwiches and snacks.
By Tuesday I figured I didn't have a very successful week. I had gotten in walking where I could - actually opting to walk to some of my calls over in one of the other areas instead of driving over. Made the best food choices I could - although most of the weekend I felt like eating pretty much everything in sight. All in all, I knew it was just an okay week. I didn't go totally overboard on unhealthy stuff, but I also struggled to keep my spirits up.
I am just so tired. I am still very motivated to keep up my new lifestyle - still very motivated to keep losing weight - still feeling great about myself. But I am physically and mentally exhausted. I am so excited to actually have this weekend off to get myself back in a good place. Last Friday I was able to take the afternoon off of work and I walked downtown and had a delicious Indian lunch (prob not great on the points, but I was so full I didn't really eat much of a dinner so it balanced out!), walked through the Farmers Market and bought some awesome local veggies and honey, then walked back home. It was just what I needed at the time to get my head right for the weekend. So, I'm hoping that having Saturday and Sunday off to get away from campus a little, and not having to worry about getting woken up at any hour of the night, will be just the ticket to get back to myself...and back on the road to success.
I was surprised that my weigh-in wasn't that bad - though pleasantly surprised, and it probably helped keep me from going too far to the dark side this week. And, trust me, it could have been bad...
Initial weight: 257.2
Week 34: -1.2
Total weight loss: -52.4
Current weight: 204.8
I posted last week about my busy August with move-in and Welcome Week programs and the like. Which is all very true and very tiring...but when I talked about getting myself back on track, I forgot that I made a dumb move and also scheduled duty for the first weekend. I was quite lucky, actually, that I didn't have any "big" issues. I was not so lucky that I had a whole lot of "little" issues....a lot. Sometimes I'm not sure which I'd rather have. I mean nobody really likes to have to deal with the big issues, but getting constant calls for little ones is exhausting!
I had the best intentions of getting myself back on a normal schedule, but duty can throw off the most established schedule and then turn around and laugh at it! You never know when you're going to be needed, so you can't really do much. You can't really cook because you might be in the middle of making something when you need to go. You can't go out to eat because you could get called before your food even gets there. You can't get in a workout because it isn't really professional to show up to help a student when you're all sweaty in workout clothes. So, basically, I sat on the couch watching tv when I wasn't answering phone calls or going to meet the police somewhere, and eating mostly sandwiches and snacks.
By Tuesday I figured I didn't have a very successful week. I had gotten in walking where I could - actually opting to walk to some of my calls over in one of the other areas instead of driving over. Made the best food choices I could - although most of the weekend I felt like eating pretty much everything in sight. All in all, I knew it was just an okay week. I didn't go totally overboard on unhealthy stuff, but I also struggled to keep my spirits up.
I am just so tired. I am still very motivated to keep up my new lifestyle - still very motivated to keep losing weight - still feeling great about myself. But I am physically and mentally exhausted. I am so excited to actually have this weekend off to get myself back in a good place. Last Friday I was able to take the afternoon off of work and I walked downtown and had a delicious Indian lunch (prob not great on the points, but I was so full I didn't really eat much of a dinner so it balanced out!), walked through the Farmers Market and bought some awesome local veggies and honey, then walked back home. It was just what I needed at the time to get my head right for the weekend. So, I'm hoping that having Saturday and Sunday off to get away from campus a little, and not having to worry about getting woken up at any hour of the night, will be just the ticket to get back to myself...and back on the road to success.
I was surprised that my weigh-in wasn't that bad - though pleasantly surprised, and it probably helped keep me from going too far to the dark side this week. And, trust me, it could have been bad...
Initial weight: 257.2
Week 34: -1.2
Total weight loss: -52.4
Current weight: 204.8
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