Fat folk shalt not wear cute leggings? (2011 Week 31 Update)

Summary of Last week:

Lost 1.8 pounds
2,758 calories under budget
35% fat, 53% carb, 12% protein consumed

Water aerobics, walking and gardening were my forms of exercise, for a total of 4,222 estimated calories of effort.

My mom, who I am quite sure at this point got lap band surgery around new year's and has lied repeatedly to me about it (saying it was a hernia repair), has slimmed down considerably over the last couple of months. Or maybe I just didn't notice it as much before. Because recently she has begun wearing skin-tight leggings, every day. I'm not talking about under a skirt, or to the gym to work out (she doesn't do that), or anything like that. Just out and about in her daily activities. A 60+ year old woman who was probably 300 or more pounds at her largest and maybe 200 now, she's very lumpy and bumpy and jiggly. I would be embarrassed to walk around in such form-fitting reveal-it-all clothing in that body.

On the flip side, I, who am still tipping the scales around 345, was drawn to some fun patterned/colored leggings at Target today but was worried that they wouldn't fit me, to be worn under a skirt. Sigh.

I am writing this a few days late and haven't been doing a good job with food this week, I hope for my next weekly check in I don't have to report a gain.

Moving (slowly) in the right direction (2011 Week 30 Update)

Here are my stats for last week:

314 calories under budget for the week
Lost 0.8 pounds this week
Fat 38.1%
Carbohydrates 50.7%
Protein 11.3%

Exercise Summary
Gardening 30 Min
Yardwork 25 Min
Water Aerobics 45 Min
House Cleaning 30 Min
Walking 3 Hours 45 Min
Total 2064 calories

I feel like I have been doing pretty well. My diet was right where I wanted it to be, calorie-wise. I can still work on upping my protein intake (and lowering fat in exchange) but I feel like that is a pretty good accomplishment to come out so close to my calorie goal for the week. I should be doing more exercise for the sake of exercise. I only went to aqua aerobics once and didn't do any biking or anything. The walking I have listed there is from jetting around a hospital where I volunteer, and walking around the entire grounds at work as part of my job.

For the coming week, I've got 5 workout sessions on my calendar (if I make 4 of them, I'm going to give myself a metaphorical big gold star), plus whatever exercise I get at work or volunteering. And I need to fit in my physical therapy strength training too.

I decided to try one other new thing. I really, really love to get massages. I haven't had one in a few years, but I'd love to again. I don't feel like I'm in a place financially where I can shell out for that right now, but I made a deal with myself. For each day that I don't buy any food or drink that is prepared outside my house, I'm putting $3 in my massage fund. If I can get that number up to 50, I'm getting a massage. That should significantly lower my monthly food bill as well as improve my diet, and get me a special treat that I wouldn't have given myself otherwise. I should still come out ahead financially, because if I go out to lunch form work I'd spend at least 6 dollars.

Cat's home safe but gained 2 pounds. (2011 Week 23 Update)

Here are my stats for the last week:

1295 calories over budget
3601 estimated calories of exercise done
10% protein consumed (oops)
+1.7 pounds

I have been doing a little better mood wise, and doing alright on exercise, but my diet has been crap. Have to get all the pieces working together again.

I was at the park with my niece last week and a little boy who was playing on the equipment asked what was in my belly, why it was so big. Argh. I know he's just an innocent kid and probably was curious if there was a baby in there or something but comments like that are so disheartening. And I think he said it loud enough that my parents, sitting over on a park bench nearby, could hear.

Speaking of parents, my mom has mentioned a couple times on the phone that she's just about to eat a salad, and it comes out that all she puts in that salad is iceberg lettuce and salad dressing. My dad was talking to her about it in front of me yesterday afternoon, pointing out that she wasn't eating the tomatoes she bought. "What do you put in your salad, M, he said? Just lettuce, cheese, croutons and dressing?"

When I was younger and still lived at home, and I would beg my mom to get some actually fresh produce at the store for me (a fledgling vegetarian) to eat, she'd go, get a head of iceberg lettuce, some tomatoes, croutons, and baco-bits, set aside a small amount for me, then make a huge, literally gallon sized salad for herself, drowned in thousand island dressing, and there would be no more vegetables of any sort left in the house. She felt virtuous when she ate those things; I could see it in her face. Ugh.

Anyway.

I just got a message on my phone this afternoon about an application I turned in *3* months ago. Ridiculous, but hopefully something will come of it. I think getting back on my feet with a stable job to support me would help my mood, and in turn, my weight loss efforts.

But I'm feeling optimistic. I'm going to do my physical therapy exercises tonight, and plan on doing some laps at the pool or maybe a cycling class tomorrow afternoon. It's going to be okay.

Time to take the reins again (2011 Week 12)

I have gotten really off track in the last few weeks. My calories have been ever-increasing, my mood has been down, I haven't been getting any real exercise. And the scale has been showing it. I'm up to 338.8 today, not the direction I intended to be moving in.

But I am determined to get back on track now. I managed to stay under my calorie budget today for the first time in at least a week. I'm back using the whey protein supplement again. And I'm drinking lots of water. I'm going to start hitting the gym more regularly again, and aim for variety, not just doing treadmill all the time, maybe even try a few classes.

I geeked it up a little bit yesterday, trying to figure out what was going on with my body; I figure, I have amassed a decent amount of data now, why not take a look. I only looked at the 10 most recent weeks from my loseit data, partly because it was taking a long time to get the data in the right format, and partly because I wanted the graph below to reflect about the same weight (+/- 10 lbs). Here's what I found:

There is no obvious pattern between avg net (after exercise) calories for a given week and my change in weight for that week:

I also looked at number of calories burned exercising, grams of sugar consumed that week, grams of carbs consumed that week, and grams of protein consumed that week. The only variable that had any hint of a relationship with my weekly change in weight was protein consumed:

So I'm going to try to refocus my efforts on protein. And it looks like 800 grams of protein per week is a good goal to aim toward. I realize that I'm only looking at 10 data points, there are lot of other factors I'm not looking at, my data may be inaccurate, etc, etc. But this is all I have to go on right now, so I'm going with it.

Sinking back into bed (2011 week 11 update)

This whole week, all I have wanted to do was sink back into bed. It has been chilly, and rainy. My mood is low. This afternoon when I got home from doing errands I was feeling a low energy and like I wanted to lie down for a minute, so I thought I'd listen to a podcast that I had fallen asleep during last night while lying on my floofy pillow chair in the living room. I fell asleep once again, about mid-podcast. And when I woke up, I was so cold, I decided I really needed to crawl back under the covers upstairs in my bedroom to warm up again. I thought I'd just read for a bit. Hah. I know better.

Now it's 8pm, my ridiculously long weekend is over, and I really do have to buckle down and get a few things done before tomorrow.

And I need to check in here, because it is going to help keep me on track, I hope. I'm down to 335.6, which is back about where I was two weeks ago. I don't know where that came from because I have been seriously overshooting my calorie budget all week, but it could just be water weight coming off I guess. I have been getting some exercise, mostly around the house, moving boxes, painting walls, cleaning, carrying things up and down the stairs. I'll put on a kitchen timer for 45 minutes or an hour and tell myself to keep moving until the timer goes off, to keep getting things done. I always work up a sweat that way, but I know I really should be going to the gym as well.

I got fitted for orthotics today (they took plaster casts of my feet), so I should have those in a couple weeks. Hopefully they will help with the exercise vs foot pain issue.

I have been watching a lot of movies, reading a lot of books. Sort of checking out of reality. I did make an appointment with a counselor for next week to talk about, among other things, stuffing my emotions down with food.

Frustrated, hormonal and sad (2010 Week 6 Update)

My weekly weigh-in this morning was 340 lbs. That's only up 0.2 pounds from last Sunday at this time, so basically I held constant. and I'm now 1.5 pounds *behind* my gradual 2011 year goal, which is frustrating the heck out of me. But, I have to remind myself that it is that time of the month and I bet this week the numbers will start behaving again. Also, I did really well by going on that hike last week (even if I was in agony afterward due to my foot). And I did well with staying under my calorie budget generally... by the end of the week loseit said a had a 1370 calorie deficit.

I really felt like crap most of yesterday. Slept in late, did some painting (home repair type, not artistic type), a little gardening, watched some t.v. At night I drove over to the pet store to buy a deshedding tool for my cats (I'm hoping it will help prevent mats). Then went over to my parents' house because I was feeling lonely and blah but I didn't have the attention span for the movie my dad was watching. I went to the drugstore then and made retail therapy impulse buys of new makeup and some hair products, and wandered around for a bit more considering buying random crap I didn't need... among them, a counter top herb garden. I really don't need that if I have an outdoor garden, dammit. I didn't succumb, thankfully.

Oh, by the way, I didn't meet my 100g protein daily goal this week either:

Feb 7: 116.8 g
Feb 8: 89.5 g
Feb 9: 90.5 g
Feb 10: 74.5 g
Feb 11: 105.8 g
Feb 12: 76.8 g
Feb 13: t.b.d.

So looking at that, the two days I got over 100g were days that I had a very flexible schedule and was mostly at home. I can have a protein smoothie for breakfast (I generally didn't though...) but it's hard to bring one to campus for lunch.

I'm still kind of dragging, mood-wise. Hopefully this week it will turn around again.

100g per day protein challenge

I saw that one of my friends on loseit tried eating at least 100g per day of protein last week and had good results, so I'm going to try the same this week.

In order to help me reach this goal, I found a big tub of whey protein powder mix that my mom bought, probably a couple years ago, and never used. Each scoop has 22 g of protein. So I'll have 1 or 2 scoops of that per day mixed with low fat milk to make up any protein deficiency at the end of the day, while still staying under my calorie goal.

Let's see how my body responds to this change.

Off the Wagon (2011 Week 5 Update)

I'm up to 339.8 again, and that's after weighing myself 3 times in succession and taking the lowest number. That's up 2 pounds from last Sunday. Argh.

Excuses, excuses:
I have been sick this week with a cold. Exhausted sick. So very little physical activity (but my appetite has also been down, so I thought it wouldn't matter).
I'm in pre-cycle week so I could be retaining some water.

Another likely culprit:
My tutoring job started back up last week so I've been spending more hours on campus, and I didn't do a good job of packing a lunch to bring with me, so I was doing cafeteria food. I tracked everything I put in my mouth, and it wasn't above the calorie limit I set for myself, but it still could have set me back compared with eating mostly home cooked for the last couple weeks.

So that's frustrating. I've lost my lead on my 2 pounds per week goal. For the next week I'm going to return my colorie goal to the lose-it default for my weight, around 2300 calories. And as soon as I'm feeling 100% health-wise again I'm going to try to bump up the exercise. Also, on my last grocery trip I brought home more fruits and vegetables and salad makings so maybe that will help. I've been craving oranges so I got a huge bag of them.

Keeping up on a Hike (2011 Week 4 Update)

My weight took an upswing at the beginning of last week, up to 341.2 again, but by the end of the week I am back down again and another pound lighter. That's not keeping up with my weekly goal but I am still ahead of my year goal by about 4 pounds, which is doing well for the end of January.

So I'm at 337.8 now. I'll update my loss graph below.

I did a hike on Friday with a group of people. I did pretty well keeping up with the crowd, but had some GI crampiness part way through that made it really uncomfortable. A couple of days ago I adjusted my daily calorie goal up to 2800, which is about what the fat2fit BMR calculator says I should be eating, and is on average about where I was eating during the week I lost over 5 pounds.

I've been having some issues with my mood in the last couple days taking a dip. I am hoping it's just a matter of my sleep schedule being off (I slept in until noon yesterday and today)..which could be either a cause or a symptom I guess. Last night I started feeling energetic again around 9:30 but was pretty low when I got up again today.

Today I bought a new workout dvd to try. It's the biggest loser one with Bob and Jillian. My walking buddy has been talking about doing the Wii fit version... and I have a wii but I think buying additional games for it is pretty expensive. Plus, thought I am getting closer, I'm still over the weight limit to use the balance board. So I just got the workout dvd version. I will probably give it a try tomorrow.

I still haven't been back to the gym. I keep putting it on my calendar. With my financial situation right now it might make better sense to just cancel the membership and try to do more at home or outside. I really haven't been using the gym enough to justify the monthly payment.

Next week my tutoring job starts back up again. I am going to try to use the breaks when students don't show up to either study and really get schoolwork done (rather than goofing online) or go for walks if it is nice out.