Weight: 239.8
BMI: 41.16
First of all, YAY. Okay, I know it's actually not that great. It's a 1.2 pound loss week to week. That's far from fabulous. But, at the same time, YAY.
I'd been having a really rough time of late. I just wasn't all that motivated, and as a result, I wasn't putting the effort in to make me get big losses. And as I kept seeing the small losses, I kept getting more and more discouraged.
I spent 42 days in the 240s. That's a lot. In comparison, I spent only 30 days in the 250s and 25 days in the 260s. It means I was losing an average of only 1.67 pounds/week, which is okay, but not where I want the number to be.
It feels so, so nice to be in a new decade on the scale. In this decade, I will finally drop my morbid label. Right now, I feel motivated and inspired. I had a great day yesterday, burning 3000 calories, eating only 1200, and doing an Arabic class to boot. Today, I'll do the same. (Sans, you know, three hours of arabic.)
I've made great progress, and I can make more. Just watch, the 230s are going to fly by. I can feel it.
Showing posts with label motivation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label motivation. Show all posts
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Thursday, 1 October 2009
The Boredom and the Excitement
As I sat this morning thinking of post topics, I found myself circling back to something Mommy2Joe brought up a few days ago. Namely, that losing weight is incredibly, incredibly boring. She aptly described it as a "huge, slow, pain in the ass." And, honestly, she's right. Losing weight is one of the most boring things I've ever done. I've conquered the basics, the eating less and the moving more. I'm consistently dropping pounds. I've got it down. But, when you consider how fat I am, how far I've got to go, we're looking at almost a year just to get down to a normal weight range. And that's if I keep dropping 2 pounds a week. I've just got week in, week out of denying myself treats, pushing myself to the gym, and just slowly, slowly, slowly building up calorie deficits. My Tuesday weigh in was 243.5. That means I have 98.5 pounds to go till a normal weight. That means I need to build up a 344,750 calories deficit. Like, holy shit. That's a LOT. This is going to take a long time. A long, very boring, very same, very challenging time.
Sigh.
The flip side to this, of course, is that losing weight can be so amazingly awesome at times. Going to the scale in the morning and seeing the drops? Seriously, there are few feelings as good as a well deserved bigger than expected loss. The concept, itself, is epic. We're battling metaphorical demons and literally saving our own lives.
And everywhere you go, there are milestones, gigantic monuments to your accomplishments. Each pound, each point of BMI, each percent of body weight. The smaller pants, the smaller shirts, the smaller everything. The not getting winded walking up stairs, and walking and running and moving faster than you ever have before. Honestly, at this point if you told my rather critical mind that I'd be able to fly by the end of this journey, part of me would half believe you. I'm doing things I'd never thought I'd be able to do so much sooner than I thought I'd be able to do them. Where else do you get to accomplish so much?
Losing weight is a fabulous, exhilarating, exciting and awe inspiring journey. It's also one of the most boring things I've ever done.
Sigh.
The flip side to this, of course, is that losing weight can be so amazingly awesome at times. Going to the scale in the morning and seeing the drops? Seriously, there are few feelings as good as a well deserved bigger than expected loss. The concept, itself, is epic. We're battling metaphorical demons and literally saving our own lives.
And everywhere you go, there are milestones, gigantic monuments to your accomplishments. Each pound, each point of BMI, each percent of body weight. The smaller pants, the smaller shirts, the smaller everything. The not getting winded walking up stairs, and walking and running and moving faster than you ever have before. Honestly, at this point if you told my rather critical mind that I'd be able to fly by the end of this journey, part of me would half believe you. I'm doing things I'd never thought I'd be able to do so much sooner than I thought I'd be able to do them. Where else do you get to accomplish so much?
Losing weight is a fabulous, exhilarating, exciting and awe inspiring journey. It's also one of the most boring things I've ever done.
Tuesday, 22 September 2009
Tuesday Weigh In
Weight: 245.9
BMI: 42.20
Well, it could be worse. Losing 2.1 pounds in a week isn't all that bad. I know that. I should be happy. And yet . . .
I won't lie, I'm pissed. I lost .2 pounds last week, and all I could pull this week was a 2.1? A plain 2.1 isn't enough for my stretch goal. I need to clock weekly losses of 2.2+.
Honestly, if it was any old week, I wouldn't be discouraged by a 2.1 pound loss. It's just that I had such a bad week last week, so this week should've been a good week, and it just wasn't. Grrr.
And I know I shouldn't be discouraged or upset. 2.1 pounds is big. But I just feel like it's not big enough.
Edited to add: I've calmed down a bit and realize that 2.1 pounds is a good week and that I should be happy with it. I won't lie, part of me is still a little GRRR, but that's life. I did well this week, and I'll do better next week. I can do this.
BMI: 42.20
Well, it could be worse. Losing 2.1 pounds in a week isn't all that bad. I know that. I should be happy. And yet . . .
I won't lie, I'm pissed. I lost .2 pounds last week, and all I could pull this week was a 2.1? A plain 2.1 isn't enough for my stretch goal. I need to clock weekly losses of 2.2+.
Honestly, if it was any old week, I wouldn't be discouraged by a 2.1 pound loss. It's just that I had such a bad week last week, so this week should've been a good week, and it just wasn't. Grrr.
And I know I shouldn't be discouraged or upset. 2.1 pounds is big. But I just feel like it's not big enough.
Edited to add: I've calmed down a bit and realize that 2.1 pounds is a good week and that I should be happy with it. I won't lie, part of me is still a little GRRR, but that's life. I did well this week, and I'll do better next week. I can do this.
Thursday, 3 September 2009
I hit my first goal!
Okay, I know I might have kind of given it away in the title, but check out this weigh in:
Weight: 250.0
BMI: 42.91
Ahhh! YAY! Okay. I should not just write random screamy things as they do nothing to illuminate the post, but by god I just cannot stop smiling.
I started this journey on July 7th. Using that as day 1, today is day 59. When I started, I declared a mini goal of getting to 250 pounds by September 15th. This is the equivalent of 28 pounds and just an eensy bit over 10% of my starting weight. Hitting it required dropping an average of 2.8 pounds/week. Today, September 3rd, 12 days early, I finished my first mini goal.
What now? Well, it's time for a new mini goal!
So, I've got two long term goals, which I call my long term goal and my long term stretch goal. My long term goal is to not be obese at my brother's wedding, which would mean getting my weight down to 175 by August 14th, 2010. My long term stretch goal is to not be overweight at my brother's wedding, which means hitting 145 by that same 8/14/2010. When I started, that meant losing a little under 1.8 pounds/week for my normal goal, and losing a little over 2.3 pounds/week for my stretch goal. Because I've been going above pace, the sustained loss needed to hit those milestones is now a bit over 1.5 pounds/week and a bit over 2.1 pounds/week respectively.
Once I set my first mini goal, I knew the weight I was going to attach to my second mini goal: 233 pounds. At 233 pounds, for the first time in too long, I will no longer be morbidly obese. Morbid is such a wretched word, such a wretched concept, one label I just can't wait to be rid of. My next goal is to not be morbid.
But I need a deadline. Some people don't like deadlines (weight loss isn't a race, after all), but for me they're helpful. It gives me a discreet point to work towards, and an expectation of pace. By attaching a deadline to my goal, I'm more likely to work harder and lose the weight faster.
So, 17 pounds. Back when I thought I'd be hitting 250 on the 15th, I sort of assumed that I'd make Halloween the deadline. Plugging that into calculators this morning (thank you fitday!) that meant a pace of 2.05 pounds/week. That's slower than my stretch goal, and thus way too slow for a mini goal. Mini goals are meant to push me.
The next meaningful date I could think of was Saint Crispin's Day, which is October 25th. An October 25th deadline would mean a loss of 2.29 pounds/week. This is above the pace needed for my stretch goal. The main benefit is that doing things around Saint Crispin's day is just totally badass. I could be all "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers we" and whatnot.
But, I asked myself, is 2.29 enough of a stretch while you're still this high? I weigh quite a bit right now. This, in many ways, sucks. But having so much to lose gives me one substantive benefit: moving myself around burns a heck of a lot more calories than it would for a person of reasonable size. Because I still weigh so much, dropping a given pound is comparatively easier than it will be down the road.
So I tried pushing it up a bit more to the 15th, the ides of October. (Did you know the ides only take place on the 15th during October, March, May and July? In all other months they're on the 13th. In other news, I am a gigantic nerd.) Fitday says this means losing 2.83 pounds/week. This is a slight bit more than my last mini goal (which started at 2.80 pounds/week) but is slower than the actual pace I've had thus far of 3.32 pounds/week.
My new goal is to lose 17 pounds by October 15th.
It's going to be tough. That's a high number. I'll need to push workouts and keep mistakes few and far between. But it's also eminently doable. If I want to, there's not a doubt in my mind that I can make it.
The comments you guys left yesterday were just incredibly insightful. Several of you brought up that "easy" isn't quite the right word, and thinking about it more I realized that's true. The pain of recovery and long term restrictions are not to be underestimated. I started drafting a bit more of a response to all the good points you guys brought up last night, but that got preempted by my WOOHOO 10% post. So look for that in the near future.
In the mean time, I'm still smiling. I've lost 10% of my bodyweight. I've improved how I look, lowered my risk of disease, and quite a few other things. I'm happy I stuck through, and I'm proud of myself for doing so. I hope the rest of you guys get to have just as fabulous a day as I'm having.
Weight: 250.0
BMI: 42.91
Ahhh! YAY! Okay. I should not just write random screamy things as they do nothing to illuminate the post, but by god I just cannot stop smiling.
I started this journey on July 7th. Using that as day 1, today is day 59. When I started, I declared a mini goal of getting to 250 pounds by September 15th. This is the equivalent of 28 pounds and just an eensy bit over 10% of my starting weight. Hitting it required dropping an average of 2.8 pounds/week. Today, September 3rd, 12 days early, I finished my first mini goal.
What now? Well, it's time for a new mini goal!
So, I've got two long term goals, which I call my long term goal and my long term stretch goal. My long term goal is to not be obese at my brother's wedding, which would mean getting my weight down to 175 by August 14th, 2010. My long term stretch goal is to not be overweight at my brother's wedding, which means hitting 145 by that same 8/14/2010. When I started, that meant losing a little under 1.8 pounds/week for my normal goal, and losing a little over 2.3 pounds/week for my stretch goal. Because I've been going above pace, the sustained loss needed to hit those milestones is now a bit over 1.5 pounds/week and a bit over 2.1 pounds/week respectively.
Once I set my first mini goal, I knew the weight I was going to attach to my second mini goal: 233 pounds. At 233 pounds, for the first time in too long, I will no longer be morbidly obese. Morbid is such a wretched word, such a wretched concept, one label I just can't wait to be rid of. My next goal is to not be morbid.
But I need a deadline. Some people don't like deadlines (weight loss isn't a race, after all), but for me they're helpful. It gives me a discreet point to work towards, and an expectation of pace. By attaching a deadline to my goal, I'm more likely to work harder and lose the weight faster.
So, 17 pounds. Back when I thought I'd be hitting 250 on the 15th, I sort of assumed that I'd make Halloween the deadline. Plugging that into calculators this morning (thank you fitday!) that meant a pace of 2.05 pounds/week. That's slower than my stretch goal, and thus way too slow for a mini goal. Mini goals are meant to push me.
The next meaningful date I could think of was Saint Crispin's Day, which is October 25th. An October 25th deadline would mean a loss of 2.29 pounds/week. This is above the pace needed for my stretch goal. The main benefit is that doing things around Saint Crispin's day is just totally badass. I could be all "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers we" and whatnot.
But, I asked myself, is 2.29 enough of a stretch while you're still this high? I weigh quite a bit right now. This, in many ways, sucks. But having so much to lose gives me one substantive benefit: moving myself around burns a heck of a lot more calories than it would for a person of reasonable size. Because I still weigh so much, dropping a given pound is comparatively easier than it will be down the road.
So I tried pushing it up a bit more to the 15th, the ides of October. (Did you know the ides only take place on the 15th during October, March, May and July? In all other months they're on the 13th. In other news, I am a gigantic nerd.) Fitday says this means losing 2.83 pounds/week. This is a slight bit more than my last mini goal (which started at 2.80 pounds/week) but is slower than the actual pace I've had thus far of 3.32 pounds/week.
My new goal is to lose 17 pounds by October 15th.
It's going to be tough. That's a high number. I'll need to push workouts and keep mistakes few and far between. But it's also eminently doable. If I want to, there's not a doubt in my mind that I can make it.
The comments you guys left yesterday were just incredibly insightful. Several of you brought up that "easy" isn't quite the right word, and thinking about it more I realized that's true. The pain of recovery and long term restrictions are not to be underestimated. I started drafting a bit more of a response to all the good points you guys brought up last night, but that got preempted by my WOOHOO 10% post. So look for that in the near future.
In the mean time, I'm still smiling. I've lost 10% of my bodyweight. I've improved how I look, lowered my risk of disease, and quite a few other things. I'm happy I stuck through, and I'm proud of myself for doing so. I hope the rest of you guys get to have just as fabulous a day as I'm having.
Saturday, 22 August 2009
Goodbye, Plateau
I had an insanely busy Friday and didn't get around to writing. Thank you very much to Mae, Amy and F. McButter for giving me lovely blog awards!
Friday, I finally got back into losing territory with the following weigh in:
Weight: 256.5
BMI: 44.02
I was pretty happy with that number. I also started having, you know, that thing with the blood, which I think is probably the cause of the past week's non-progress. It also explains this morning's ridiculously amazing weigh in:
Weight: 253.9
BMI: 43.58.
That's 2.6 pounds in a single day! 2.6! In one day! One of the statistics I keep in my spreadsheet is the day to day percentage loss relative to my weight the day before. Using that, I lost 1.01% of my weight in a single day. Of course it's not actual fat I'm losing, but still, such a pretty new scale number.
A few fun statistics:
I'm 47 days into my diet and I've now lost 24.1 pounds and 8.67% of my starting body weight. In all, I've kicked 4.14 points of BMI to the curb. I've lost an average of 3.59 pounds/week (a number still pretty heavily inflated by the 7.5 pounds I lost in week 1). To hit my mini goal of 250 by 9/15, I need to lose 3.9 pounds in 24 days, or an average of 1.13 pounds/week.
The numbers are all nice, but what I love most right now is the feeling of relief.
Because of the plateau I'd been having an incredibly frustrating week. After hitting 256.7, I went up and down for a whole seven days before I beat that number on Friday. As I've mentioned before, the upper half of the 250s is where I got stuck last time I tried to lose weight. I was really, really scared that I was going to get stuck again. Friday's number was only 256.5, and while it was nice to see a new low, I knew it wasn't by much and I was worried that I'd be back up today. To see 253.9 staring up at me today felt, well, like a weight being lifted off me.
I'd been sticking to my diet this past week, but I was scared. I was petrified my diet had somehow failed and that I'd just stop losing weight, even though I was still eating right. I didn't want to give up, but I also was incredibly worried that I might end up doing so. I didn't trust myself this week, I didn't feel as committed, as sure. It was not a place I wanted to be.
Today, I don't feel like that anymore. I know why I wasn't seeing the results this week. I know not to freak out next time it happens.
And I'm lower than I've been a long, long time. I'm going to get to 250, and I'm going to get there soon. Then I'll get to 233, and I won't be morbidly obese any more. And from there, I'm just going to keep going down down down. I've lost 24.1 pounds already: I can and will lose the rest.
Friday, I finally got back into losing territory with the following weigh in:
Weight: 256.5
BMI: 44.02
I was pretty happy with that number. I also started having, you know, that thing with the blood, which I think is probably the cause of the past week's non-progress. It also explains this morning's ridiculously amazing weigh in:
Weight: 253.9
BMI: 43.58.
That's 2.6 pounds in a single day! 2.6! In one day! One of the statistics I keep in my spreadsheet is the day to day percentage loss relative to my weight the day before. Using that, I lost 1.01% of my weight in a single day. Of course it's not actual fat I'm losing, but still, such a pretty new scale number.
A few fun statistics:
I'm 47 days into my diet and I've now lost 24.1 pounds and 8.67% of my starting body weight. In all, I've kicked 4.14 points of BMI to the curb. I've lost an average of 3.59 pounds/week (a number still pretty heavily inflated by the 7.5 pounds I lost in week 1). To hit my mini goal of 250 by 9/15, I need to lose 3.9 pounds in 24 days, or an average of 1.13 pounds/week.
The numbers are all nice, but what I love most right now is the feeling of relief.
Because of the plateau I'd been having an incredibly frustrating week. After hitting 256.7, I went up and down for a whole seven days before I beat that number on Friday. As I've mentioned before, the upper half of the 250s is where I got stuck last time I tried to lose weight. I was really, really scared that I was going to get stuck again. Friday's number was only 256.5, and while it was nice to see a new low, I knew it wasn't by much and I was worried that I'd be back up today. To see 253.9 staring up at me today felt, well, like a weight being lifted off me.
I'd been sticking to my diet this past week, but I was scared. I was petrified my diet had somehow failed and that I'd just stop losing weight, even though I was still eating right. I didn't want to give up, but I also was incredibly worried that I might end up doing so. I didn't trust myself this week, I didn't feel as committed, as sure. It was not a place I wanted to be.
Today, I don't feel like that anymore. I know why I wasn't seeing the results this week. I know not to freak out next time it happens.
And I'm lower than I've been a long, long time. I'm going to get to 250, and I'm going to get there soon. Then I'll get to 233, and I won't be morbidly obese any more. And from there, I'm just going to keep going down down down. I've lost 24.1 pounds already: I can and will lose the rest.
Thursday, 20 August 2009
Some Very Lovely Blogs (now with bonus squirrel)
So as I mentioned yesterday, Jo from 282.5 gave me the following:
The rules of the award are that you're supposed to acknowledge the giver and give it to 15 other blogs. Now, I'm not so big on "rules" per se, so to each recipient I give two options. You may take the above award, with it's rules and limitations, or you may take this:
The "One Lovely Blog Award Plus Squirrel." This version of the award need not be acknowledged, need not be passed on, but does acknowledge just how totally awesome you are. You may pass it on, but if you do so, you must pass it on to some number of blogs other than 15. You can do 12, 17, 2, or whatever you damn well please.
As a recipient of the original flavor of One Lovely Blog Award, here's my list. It's in no particular order, but includes a bit of commentary about why I like each of these blogs so very much. Maybe you'll even find a few to add to your list.
1. Monica at Confessions of a + Sized Girl: Part of what makes this blog so great is that Monica just seems so incredibly nice. She's such a sweetheart both in the comments she writes here and on other blogs. Monica has this very conversational style of writing which just draws me in: it feels like you're going through everything with her. Sometimes the posts are happy, sometimes they're funny, sometimes they're sad, and sometimes they make you think: I like that when I go over to Confessions I almost never know what's in store, but I'm always glad I read it.
2. Jo at 282.5: What, am I not supposed to give this back to the person who gave it to me? Seriously though, Jo is amazing. She's been through so much, and she's such an inspiration. Her posts tend to the long, thoughtful, and intensely interesting. Jo's blog is the first weight loss blog that I really, really, really, really liked and was one of my inspirations for starting up. I wish I could write half as well as her. She's so smart, so strong, and her blog is just one of the best ones out there.
3. Learning to be Less: When I want to think, I go to 282.5, and when I want to smile I go to Learning to be Less. Learning's over a year into her weight loss journey, and she's kicked ridiculous amounts of ass thus far. She has great happy smiley posts and just an incredible attitude. Right now she's pretty busy with work so there haven't been daily posts, so here are few omg I need to smile posts from the archives.
4. Diane from Fit to the Finish: Diane lost 150 pounds and has kept it off for 12 years. TWELVE. Just the facts are insane and inspiring. But the best part of Diane's blog isn't the overarching story, it's the posts. She writes these wonderful, always relateable, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes touching posts. I'd link you examples, but I don't need to. Just go: I bet whatever is up now you can relate to. Now check the next post. You can relate to that one too, can't you? See? My point exactly.
5. Mae Flowers at A Journey to Thin: I adore Mae's blog. She chronicles small victories and small defeats, and there's something about the way she writes it where it feels like you're right there with her. When her road's bumpy, I feel like I've been there too, when things are going well, her posts make me smile and inspire me to keep going. Added bonus: sometimes there are pretty pictures.
6. HD at Losing Weight to Gain a Healthy Heart: HD has always struck me as among the smartest bloggers out there, and she writes a wonderful blog primarily focused on the day to day. She inspires me with her super early work outs and her ability to manage what seems like an incredibly hectic life. (Shhhh, don't tell, but one of my favorite parts is cribbing meal ideas from her daily listing. I've stolen like four of her salads and each has been delicious.)
7. Katie J at Katie J Is on Her Way: One of the things I love most about Katie J's blog is how accountable she is with her bodybugg screenies. I try to come close with daily weigh ins, but it's not as good. She inspires me by battling clutter, losing weight ( she recently hit the 50 pound mark!), and taking wonderful care of her mother. (Seriously, I've started calling my mom more since I've been regularly reading Katie J's blog.) She has wonderful, frequently changing, backgrounds. For some bonus inspiration, scroll down to the very bottom of the blog: she's got a great list of reasons for why this battle is worth fighting.
8. Jenn at Watch My Butt Shrink: Jenn's blog is just a wonderful eclectic mix. She'll talk about her kids, she'll talk about cooking, she'll weigh in on news, and so on. I like that when I go I don't know quite what I'm going to get, but it always ends up being interesting. She's smart as a whip (she's going to be on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire) and makes great use of photos. If Jenn's not on your blog roll, she should be. Bonus: SUPER adorable kids.
9. Ebony Renee at Project Hot Mommy: I love Ebony's blog because of how well she discusses the trade offs of the weight loss journey, and for how realistic she is about what she is and isn't willing to give up. A lot of her blog posts touch deeply on what I debate internally along the way. She also has a too cute for words son. Seriously, if Ebony's son and Jenn's kids ever had a playdate, the combined cuteness would be blinding.
10. Lyricgirl at Fat Girl vs. Skinny Girl: Lyricgirl just started out not too long ago, but she's already got a great blog. She's one of my exercise inspirations. She does all these classes and is just incredibly brave and so very strong. If you're ever wondering "should I go for that workout or just stay home?" just stop by her site and be inspired.
11. Kimberly at The Woman Inside Me: Kimberly has lost over 130 pounds already. She's losing at an astounding and inspiring rate. Want inspiration? Check out her photos. It gets me every time. Her blog is a nice mix of statistics posts and thoughtful posts. She doesn't update every day, but when she does it's always worth stopping by.
12. Jack at Jack Sh*t, Gettin' Fit: Jack is on almost everyone's list. There's a good reason for that: his blog is amazing. Most days of the week, he'll crack you up. The other few, he'll make you think. (Occasionally, he'll even make you laugh while you're thinking.) Jack's blog is a great mixture of depth and hilarity. If for some reason you haven't found your way there yet, go now!
13. F. McButter Pants at To the Best of My Ability: I love this blog. Dana (am I allowed to call you Dana? Your posts are signed F. McButter but your blog url has Dana in it) has been through a lot. Seriously, her posts are practically dripping with wisdom. She struggles, but inspires as she does so. Her style is long thoughtful posts, and I recommend adding her to your reading list if she's not already on it.
14. Fat[Free]Me at Fat[Free]Me : She already got six of these, but I'm going to have to give her another. She runs! She bikes! She belly dances! She's lost 54 pounds since March. She's seriously such an inspiration. If you haven't seen her blog already, go check it out.
15. And in the spot of favorite blogger who I'm pretty certain has never read my blog, Fat Daddy at Fat Daddy Rants: In some ways, Fat Daddy is sort of the inverse of Jack Sh*t. Most days, he'll make you think, some days he'll crack you up. And on the days he makes you laugh, chances are pretty good he made you think too. Check out his Not So Private Hell series, if you haven't already.
There are other blogs I could think of that belong on here as well, but I wanted to stick with the limit of 15.
Oh, and if anyone's curious about today's weigh in, it was a disappointing 257.6. Between the daily ups and downs over the past week, my moving average has been ridiculously plateaued. Just take a look at the badness:
Not pretty. It could be worse, but mostly it's bad.
At least I'm still within striking distance of a new low tomorrow.
Edited to add: Wow this post ended up being long. Next time you inspire me, I'll try to be more succinct in my praise.
The rules of the award are that you're supposed to acknowledge the giver and give it to 15 other blogs. Now, I'm not so big on "rules" per se, so to each recipient I give two options. You may take the above award, with it's rules and limitations, or you may take this:
The "One Lovely Blog Award Plus Squirrel." This version of the award need not be acknowledged, need not be passed on, but does acknowledge just how totally awesome you are. You may pass it on, but if you do so, you must pass it on to some number of blogs other than 15. You can do 12, 17, 2, or whatever you damn well please.
As a recipient of the original flavor of One Lovely Blog Award, here's my list. It's in no particular order, but includes a bit of commentary about why I like each of these blogs so very much. Maybe you'll even find a few to add to your list.
1. Monica at Confessions of a + Sized Girl: Part of what makes this blog so great is that Monica just seems so incredibly nice. She's such a sweetheart both in the comments she writes here and on other blogs. Monica has this very conversational style of writing which just draws me in: it feels like you're going through everything with her. Sometimes the posts are happy, sometimes they're funny, sometimes they're sad, and sometimes they make you think: I like that when I go over to Confessions I almost never know what's in store, but I'm always glad I read it.
2. Jo at 282.5: What, am I not supposed to give this back to the person who gave it to me? Seriously though, Jo is amazing. She's been through so much, and she's such an inspiration. Her posts tend to the long, thoughtful, and intensely interesting. Jo's blog is the first weight loss blog that I really, really, really, really liked and was one of my inspirations for starting up. I wish I could write half as well as her. She's so smart, so strong, and her blog is just one of the best ones out there.
3. Learning to be Less: When I want to think, I go to 282.5, and when I want to smile I go to Learning to be Less. Learning's over a year into her weight loss journey, and she's kicked ridiculous amounts of ass thus far. She has great happy smiley posts and just an incredible attitude. Right now she's pretty busy with work so there haven't been daily posts, so here are few omg I need to smile posts from the archives.
4. Diane from Fit to the Finish: Diane lost 150 pounds and has kept it off for 12 years. TWELVE. Just the facts are insane and inspiring. But the best part of Diane's blog isn't the overarching story, it's the posts. She writes these wonderful, always relateable, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes touching posts. I'd link you examples, but I don't need to. Just go: I bet whatever is up now you can relate to. Now check the next post. You can relate to that one too, can't you? See? My point exactly.
5. Mae Flowers at A Journey to Thin: I adore Mae's blog. She chronicles small victories and small defeats, and there's something about the way she writes it where it feels like you're right there with her. When her road's bumpy, I feel like I've been there too, when things are going well, her posts make me smile and inspire me to keep going. Added bonus: sometimes there are pretty pictures.
6. HD at Losing Weight to Gain a Healthy Heart: HD has always struck me as among the smartest bloggers out there, and she writes a wonderful blog primarily focused on the day to day. She inspires me with her super early work outs and her ability to manage what seems like an incredibly hectic life. (Shhhh, don't tell, but one of my favorite parts is cribbing meal ideas from her daily listing. I've stolen like four of her salads and each has been delicious.)
7. Katie J at Katie J Is on Her Way: One of the things I love most about Katie J's blog is how accountable she is with her bodybugg screenies. I try to come close with daily weigh ins, but it's not as good. She inspires me by battling clutter, losing weight ( she recently hit the 50 pound mark!), and taking wonderful care of her mother. (Seriously, I've started calling my mom more since I've been regularly reading Katie J's blog.) She has wonderful, frequently changing, backgrounds. For some bonus inspiration, scroll down to the very bottom of the blog: she's got a great list of reasons for why this battle is worth fighting.
8. Jenn at Watch My Butt Shrink: Jenn's blog is just a wonderful eclectic mix. She'll talk about her kids, she'll talk about cooking, she'll weigh in on news, and so on. I like that when I go I don't know quite what I'm going to get, but it always ends up being interesting. She's smart as a whip (she's going to be on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire) and makes great use of photos. If Jenn's not on your blog roll, she should be. Bonus: SUPER adorable kids.
9. Ebony Renee at Project Hot Mommy: I love Ebony's blog because of how well she discusses the trade offs of the weight loss journey, and for how realistic she is about what she is and isn't willing to give up. A lot of her blog posts touch deeply on what I debate internally along the way. She also has a too cute for words son. Seriously, if Ebony's son and Jenn's kids ever had a playdate, the combined cuteness would be blinding.
10. Lyricgirl at Fat Girl vs. Skinny Girl: Lyricgirl just started out not too long ago, but she's already got a great blog. She's one of my exercise inspirations. She does all these classes and is just incredibly brave and so very strong. If you're ever wondering "should I go for that workout or just stay home?" just stop by her site and be inspired.
11. Kimberly at The Woman Inside Me: Kimberly has lost over 130 pounds already. She's losing at an astounding and inspiring rate. Want inspiration? Check out her photos. It gets me every time. Her blog is a nice mix of statistics posts and thoughtful posts. She doesn't update every day, but when she does it's always worth stopping by.
12. Jack at Jack Sh*t, Gettin' Fit: Jack is on almost everyone's list. There's a good reason for that: his blog is amazing. Most days of the week, he'll crack you up. The other few, he'll make you think. (Occasionally, he'll even make you laugh while you're thinking.) Jack's blog is a great mixture of depth and hilarity. If for some reason you haven't found your way there yet, go now!
13. F. McButter Pants at To the Best of My Ability: I love this blog. Dana (am I allowed to call you Dana? Your posts are signed F. McButter but your blog url has Dana in it) has been through a lot. Seriously, her posts are practically dripping with wisdom. She struggles, but inspires as she does so. Her style is long thoughtful posts, and I recommend adding her to your reading list if she's not already on it.
14. Fat[Free]Me at Fat[Free]Me : She already got six of these, but I'm going to have to give her another. She runs! She bikes! She belly dances! She's lost 54 pounds since March. She's seriously such an inspiration. If you haven't seen her blog already, go check it out.
15. And in the spot of favorite blogger who I'm pretty certain has never read my blog, Fat Daddy at Fat Daddy Rants: In some ways, Fat Daddy is sort of the inverse of Jack Sh*t. Most days, he'll make you think, some days he'll crack you up. And on the days he makes you laugh, chances are pretty good he made you think too. Check out his Not So Private Hell series, if you haven't already.
There are other blogs I could think of that belong on here as well, but I wanted to stick with the limit of 15.
Oh, and if anyone's curious about today's weigh in, it was a disappointing 257.6. Between the daily ups and downs over the past week, my moving average has been ridiculously plateaued. Just take a look at the badness:
Not pretty. It could be worse, but mostly it's bad.
At least I'm still within striking distance of a new low tomorrow.
Edited to add: Wow this post ended up being long. Next time you inspire me, I'll try to be more succinct in my praise.
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
Tuesday Weigh In
Weight: 258.2
BMI: 44.32
Well, it is what it is.
The good: I'm down 1.1 pounds from last week. I'm down 1.2 pounds day to day.
The bad: I'm up 1.5 pounds from a few days ago. I'm also up back over my 20lb mark. And 1.1 pounds is the lowest weekly loss I've had yet. It's also not acceptable in terms of pace for any of my goals.
Still, a loss is a loss is a loss is a victory. Right?
I'm sort of scared to be in this general neighborhood on the scale. A little over a year ago, I attempted to lose weight using Spark People. I stalled in the upper 250s (257.8 was my old low, with 275 as the starting weight) and eventually gave up. I'm not pleased with how much I ate on Saturday and Sunday, and how little working out I've been doing of late. (Only 30 minutes of cardio last night, when I'd been planning 45 + weights.) I'm very, very worried I'm going to go off track and screw this up.
I need to be committed. I need to have an iron will. I need to get through these next weeks and get out of this upper 250s death zone. I don't want this to be for naught. Now, more than ever, I need to stay the course. I can do this.
BMI: 44.32
Well, it is what it is.
The good: I'm down 1.1 pounds from last week. I'm down 1.2 pounds day to day.
The bad: I'm up 1.5 pounds from a few days ago. I'm also up back over my 20lb mark. And 1.1 pounds is the lowest weekly loss I've had yet. It's also not acceptable in terms of pace for any of my goals.
Still, a loss is a loss is a loss is a victory. Right?
I'm sort of scared to be in this general neighborhood on the scale. A little over a year ago, I attempted to lose weight using Spark People. I stalled in the upper 250s (257.8 was my old low, with 275 as the starting weight) and eventually gave up. I'm not pleased with how much I ate on Saturday and Sunday, and how little working out I've been doing of late. (Only 30 minutes of cardio last night, when I'd been planning 45 + weights.) I'm very, very worried I'm going to go off track and screw this up.
I need to be committed. I need to have an iron will. I need to get through these next weeks and get out of this upper 250s death zone. I don't want this to be for naught. Now, more than ever, I need to stay the course. I can do this.
Sunday, 9 August 2009
A Rough Few Days
Weight: 259.8
BMI: 44.59
Yesterday:
Weight: 261.6
BMI: 44.90
Yesterday I went up (expected considering Friday), but today I got a very nice gift from the scale: 250s!
As the title might indicate, though, I've been having a tough time.
Dinner on Friday was bad, as predicted. I ended up not going to the gym after. I could try to blame exhaustion, but really I think it was more laziness. I avoided the pastries at breakfast on Saturday, but lunch was pretty bad. I went to the gym afterward, motivated to set things right with a long workout. Although I generally stick to the elliptical machine, on my way over I decided I'd try some new machines. First, I tried a stationary bike, figuring it would be a good idea to try considering I've been contemplating the cycling classes. I did it for 5 minutes, but everything felt wrong wrong wrong, so I hopped off. Then I decided to try one of the Precor crosstrainers. I'd loved the Precor ellipticals out in Chicago (in my last weight loss attempt slightly over a year ago) but this, just like the bike, felt all wrong. I stuck with it for 10 minutes, but then hopped off. Then I went over to the LifeFitness ellipticals, which I normally use, and got on one. It felt horrible too. Everything, just off. I stuck it out for 25 minutes, but it was just absolutely miserable. Generally, I get into the music and have at least a bit of fun while I'm working out. It's not like I'm having an excellent time yet, and there are definitely still streaks where I hate it, but generally for at least a bit of a workout I can zone out and enjoy the music. It didn't happen.
Today I hit up the gym again, doing 45 minutes on one of the LifeFitness ellipticals. While it didn't feel wrong per se, it was a terrible workout. Every minute was a battle. There were no songs I zoned out for, no adrenaline rushes, no fun parts, just badness. It was, needless to say, not a very fun workout.
I'm also having a really bad time in terms of temptation. While I haven't given in to anything yet, I am suffering through some insane cravings. I want a Five Guys little bacon burger with lettuce tomato and mayo and an order of fries. I want it badly. It feels like I've been thinking about it for so long. I had to walk by Five Guys yesterday on the way to the bank and it was all I could do not to turn in and order food. And I've been dreaming about French bread, and thinking about Chipotle burritos, and pizza, and these cheese enchiladas that this little Salvadorian restaurant by my apartment makes. Oh, and white wine and caramel frappachinos, and do you see the bad road this is going down?
My mind is in trouble. I'm not where I want to be. My head is just not in the game. And as the saying goes "90% of this game is half mental."
Still, I did all right today (and yesterday post conference) while not feeling things at all. Yes, for a portion of the day I do need to get up and get myself to the gym and work hard, but most of the rest of it is just having the fortitude to not screw up. And while I might not be truly motivated at this point, I'm not motivated enough in my desire to screw things up that I'm willing to break the status quo. Right now, weight loss is the status quo. As long as I keep on keeping on, hopefully things will be okay until I can jolt myself back to realizing just how badly I want this.
BMI: 44.59
Yesterday:
Weight: 261.6
BMI: 44.90
Yesterday I went up (expected considering Friday), but today I got a very nice gift from the scale: 250s!
As the title might indicate, though, I've been having a tough time.
Dinner on Friday was bad, as predicted. I ended up not going to the gym after. I could try to blame exhaustion, but really I think it was more laziness. I avoided the pastries at breakfast on Saturday, but lunch was pretty bad. I went to the gym afterward, motivated to set things right with a long workout. Although I generally stick to the elliptical machine, on my way over I decided I'd try some new machines. First, I tried a stationary bike, figuring it would be a good idea to try considering I've been contemplating the cycling classes. I did it for 5 minutes, but everything felt wrong wrong wrong, so I hopped off. Then I decided to try one of the Precor crosstrainers. I'd loved the Precor ellipticals out in Chicago (in my last weight loss attempt slightly over a year ago) but this, just like the bike, felt all wrong. I stuck with it for 10 minutes, but then hopped off. Then I went over to the LifeFitness ellipticals, which I normally use, and got on one. It felt horrible too. Everything, just off. I stuck it out for 25 minutes, but it was just absolutely miserable. Generally, I get into the music and have at least a bit of fun while I'm working out. It's not like I'm having an excellent time yet, and there are definitely still streaks where I hate it, but generally for at least a bit of a workout I can zone out and enjoy the music. It didn't happen.
Today I hit up the gym again, doing 45 minutes on one of the LifeFitness ellipticals. While it didn't feel wrong per se, it was a terrible workout. Every minute was a battle. There were no songs I zoned out for, no adrenaline rushes, no fun parts, just badness. It was, needless to say, not a very fun workout.
I'm also having a really bad time in terms of temptation. While I haven't given in to anything yet, I am suffering through some insane cravings. I want a Five Guys little bacon burger with lettuce tomato and mayo and an order of fries. I want it badly. It feels like I've been thinking about it for so long. I had to walk by Five Guys yesterday on the way to the bank and it was all I could do not to turn in and order food. And I've been dreaming about French bread, and thinking about Chipotle burritos, and pizza, and these cheese enchiladas that this little Salvadorian restaurant by my apartment makes. Oh, and white wine and caramel frappachinos, and do you see the bad road this is going down?
My mind is in trouble. I'm not where I want to be. My head is just not in the game. And as the saying goes "90% of this game is half mental."
Still, I did all right today (and yesterday post conference) while not feeling things at all. Yes, for a portion of the day I do need to get up and get myself to the gym and work hard, but most of the rest of it is just having the fortitude to not screw up. And while I might not be truly motivated at this point, I'm not motivated enough in my desire to screw things up that I'm willing to break the status quo. Right now, weight loss is the status quo. As long as I keep on keeping on, hopefully things will be okay until I can jolt myself back to realizing just how badly I want this.
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
Onward and Downward
Weight: 261.5
BMI: 44.88
Counting both the day I started and today, I am 30 days into this whole weight loss journey. When I started, pounds dropped pretty quickly. But after that, things became tougher. I'd be coaxing my body to drop just a bit of weight each day, and some days it would. Other days it would revolt. There were quite a few days where it just said "nah, I think I'd rather go up on the scale today."
Somehow, since I've gotten home from San Diego, the pounds have been just melting off. Initially it made sense: I was bloated from eating lots on Friday but didn't actually weigh that much. But, this is beyond just bloat dropping. I've lost over a pound for 5 straight days. I'm 4 pounds below my prior low. This, really, is just wonderful.
Too good to last, yes, but for now wonderful.
I'm now down 16.5 pounds in total (1.1 day to day). That means I've lost 5.94% of my starting bodyweight and 2.83 points of BMI. In order to hit my mini goal of 250 pounds by September 15th, I need to lose 1.96 pounds a week. This is the first time ever that my mini goal has needed a sustained loss of less than 2 pounds a week.
I am smiling. And it's not just numbers that are making me smile. I walk to work every day, and I now walk fast enough to catch a light I used to miss. The suits I wear to work every day all feel a little big. I was able to increase the resistance on the elliptical machine and still blast through my workout. When I stopped by the grocery store after the gym to pick up some extra produce, I actually stuck to my shopping list. Yesterday after dinner, I wasn't all that hungry for desert, and it wasn't because I ate too much.
There's a long hard road ahead. For now, though, I'm happy to be walking it.
And in case anyone's curious, thus far the new guy seems really nice. I ate breakfast at my desk this morning without feeling embarrassed about it, and it was definitely in large part due to all of your "He probably can't hear you and wouldn't even care!" comments, so thank you. :)
BMI: 44.88
Counting both the day I started and today, I am 30 days into this whole weight loss journey. When I started, pounds dropped pretty quickly. But after that, things became tougher. I'd be coaxing my body to drop just a bit of weight each day, and some days it would. Other days it would revolt. There were quite a few days where it just said "nah, I think I'd rather go up on the scale today."
Somehow, since I've gotten home from San Diego, the pounds have been just melting off. Initially it made sense: I was bloated from eating lots on Friday but didn't actually weigh that much. But, this is beyond just bloat dropping. I've lost over a pound for 5 straight days. I'm 4 pounds below my prior low. This, really, is just wonderful.
Too good to last, yes, but for now wonderful.
I'm now down 16.5 pounds in total (1.1 day to day). That means I've lost 5.94% of my starting bodyweight and 2.83 points of BMI. In order to hit my mini goal of 250 pounds by September 15th, I need to lose 1.96 pounds a week. This is the first time ever that my mini goal has needed a sustained loss of less than 2 pounds a week.
I am smiling. And it's not just numbers that are making me smile. I walk to work every day, and I now walk fast enough to catch a light I used to miss. The suits I wear to work every day all feel a little big. I was able to increase the resistance on the elliptical machine and still blast through my workout. When I stopped by the grocery store after the gym to pick up some extra produce, I actually stuck to my shopping list. Yesterday after dinner, I wasn't all that hungry for desert, and it wasn't because I ate too much.
There's a long hard road ahead. For now, though, I'm happy to be walking it.
And in case anyone's curious, thus far the new guy seems really nice. I ate breakfast at my desk this morning without feeling embarrassed about it, and it was definitely in large part due to all of your "He probably can't hear you and wouldn't even care!" comments, so thank you. :)
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
Tuesday Weigh In
I somehow didn't hear my alarm this morning and woke up late for work, but I did hop on the scale before I dashed off:
Weight: 262.6
BMI: 45.07
In the chaos of the morning, I just made a mental note as I finished rushing to brush my teeth, pack lunch, etc. I just kept the number in my head and planned to jot it down at work.
Then, as I was on the way to the office, it hit me: I've lost 15 pounds. NICE!
So, there's a bit of a spring in my step today. I'm still worried about the issues I brought up in last night's post, but I'll deal with that tomorrow. For today, I've lost 15 pounds (15.4 to be precise), and if that's not excellent I don't know what is.
Weight: 262.6
BMI: 45.07
In the chaos of the morning, I just made a mental note as I finished rushing to brush my teeth, pack lunch, etc. I just kept the number in my head and planned to jot it down at work.
Then, as I was on the way to the office, it hit me: I've lost 15 pounds. NICE!
So, there's a bit of a spring in my step today. I'm still worried about the issues I brought up in last night's post, but I'll deal with that tomorrow. For today, I've lost 15 pounds (15.4 to be precise), and if that's not excellent I don't know what is.
Monday, 3 August 2009
A New Colleague, and New Embarrassment
So, I work in DC as a low-level economist. It's basically an entry level job, the sort of thing one has for about a year or two before moving on to grad school or something else. My office is this shared, sort of U-shaped thing--you can't see the other person unless we both roll out our chairs about 5 feet, but we can always hear each other. It's about one step up from a cubicle in terms of privacy.
Last Friday, my office-mate, easily my best friend in DC, left for another job. Her new position is in Texas: close to her family, better paying, more what she wanted to do, all around an excellent and amazing step for her. But it means this wonderful, sweet girl who I loved to bits is being replaced with a stranger. And I just found out he starts on Wednesday.
I am petrified.
One of the things that's big for me is eating in bits throughout the work day so I'm not particularly hungry at the end of the day. I'm really bad with night time eating, but I've found that having a dinner early in the evening (6:30 or 7) and then essentially closing up the kitchen works really well for me. So, on a typical work day, I'll bring:
1 banana
1 fat-free yoplait yogurt
1 chewy chocolate chip granola bar or 1 polly-o string cheese
~12 baby carrots (I guesstimate when packing in the morning and count before I eat)
1 apple or other piece of fruit (today I brought 1/2 cup of blueberries)
1 sandwich, made of: 2 pieces of light style Pepperidge Farm bread, 1 slice of cold cut (right now, I'm working on a half pound of roast beef), 1 tablespoon of miracle whip, two slices of tomato, and a bit of lettuce.
This actually only adds up to about 600 calories throughout the day. Most days I have the banana and yogurt shortly after arriving, the granola bar around 11 or so, the roast beef sandwich at 1 or 2, and snack on the fruit and baby carrots throughout the rest of the afternoon. When I go home around 5:30 or 6, I'm hungry but not ravenous, and have 600-700 calories left to make myself a relatively extravagant dinner.
There are many, many reasons I love this system. The first is, quite simply, that it works. The lack of slip ups on work days is proof of its day-to-day effectiveness. I like that it doesn't feel like deprivation: I get to pack a whole ton of food in my bag each morning, and when I get hungry at work, it's fine because I've almost always got something left to eat. When I've eaten everything, I tend to be sated--there's a lot of fiber and a lot of volume in it. I like that it leaves me enough calories to eat a big dinner. I like that when I'm hungry at night, I can tell myself "it's okay, tomorrow you'll have enough food at work and feel better" and I like that it's true. I like that on mornings when I actually am ravenous--which has happened once or twice in my 4 weeks of diet--I can actually get something that's close to a binge in terms of satisfaction by eating the sandwich, granola bar, yogurt and banana all in the morning, and that I'll still have baby carrots and another fruit to get me through the day. I can (partially) lose control, but since all the food I have is the food I've brought in with me, I don't actually mess up my diet. I like that it's healthy and delicious and feels like it has variety: there are tons of flavors of yoplait, tons of different fruits I can bring, the sandwich is different depending on which meat I use, and I even get some chocolate in the granola bar.
There are many, many things I like about my diet. Up to this point, there's been precisely one thing I've disliked: people walking in on me eating. I can almost hear them thinking, Ew, gross fat Hadley, of course she'd be eating when I stop by her office. And, for self-conscious me, that's a substantive drawback. But it's rare enough that it's only happened a few times thus far, and is easily outweighed by all the good parts. 98% of the time, the only person who could hear me eating was my dear office-mate, who was possibly the sweetest and most non-judgmental person in DC. (Yes, I know that's like saying someone's the least corrupt person in New Jersey, but I swear she'd count as nice even by normal standards.) So yeah, she could hear me eating, and while I'd still rather she didn't, I wasn't really embarrassed because it was just her.
Now, the person who's going to hear me eating is some strange boy who could easily be thinking, Ew, gross, I can hear her eating like all the friggin' time. And who could tell people, "No wonder Hadley's so fat, I can hear her eating like half the day." Scary!
So, I have until Wednesday to figure things out. I need to balance the embarrassment vs. my continued success. And I think I want to not be embarrassed about my weight in the future more than I want to not be embarrassed by eating seemingly-massive amounts right now, but right now, well, I'm just scared.
Last Friday, my office-mate, easily my best friend in DC, left for another job. Her new position is in Texas: close to her family, better paying, more what she wanted to do, all around an excellent and amazing step for her. But it means this wonderful, sweet girl who I loved to bits is being replaced with a stranger. And I just found out he starts on Wednesday.
I am petrified.
One of the things that's big for me is eating in bits throughout the work day so I'm not particularly hungry at the end of the day. I'm really bad with night time eating, but I've found that having a dinner early in the evening (6:30 or 7) and then essentially closing up the kitchen works really well for me. So, on a typical work day, I'll bring:
1 banana
1 fat-free yoplait yogurt
1 chewy chocolate chip granola bar or 1 polly-o string cheese
~12 baby carrots (I guesstimate when packing in the morning and count before I eat)
1 apple or other piece of fruit (today I brought 1/2 cup of blueberries)
1 sandwich, made of: 2 pieces of light style Pepperidge Farm bread, 1 slice of cold cut (right now, I'm working on a half pound of roast beef), 1 tablespoon of miracle whip, two slices of tomato, and a bit of lettuce.
This actually only adds up to about 600 calories throughout the day. Most days I have the banana and yogurt shortly after arriving, the granola bar around 11 or so, the roast beef sandwich at 1 or 2, and snack on the fruit and baby carrots throughout the rest of the afternoon. When I go home around 5:30 or 6, I'm hungry but not ravenous, and have 600-700 calories left to make myself a relatively extravagant dinner.
There are many, many reasons I love this system. The first is, quite simply, that it works. The lack of slip ups on work days is proof of its day-to-day effectiveness. I like that it doesn't feel like deprivation: I get to pack a whole ton of food in my bag each morning, and when I get hungry at work, it's fine because I've almost always got something left to eat. When I've eaten everything, I tend to be sated--there's a lot of fiber and a lot of volume in it. I like that it leaves me enough calories to eat a big dinner. I like that when I'm hungry at night, I can tell myself "it's okay, tomorrow you'll have enough food at work and feel better" and I like that it's true. I like that on mornings when I actually am ravenous--which has happened once or twice in my 4 weeks of diet--I can actually get something that's close to a binge in terms of satisfaction by eating the sandwich, granola bar, yogurt and banana all in the morning, and that I'll still have baby carrots and another fruit to get me through the day. I can (partially) lose control, but since all the food I have is the food I've brought in with me, I don't actually mess up my diet. I like that it's healthy and delicious and feels like it has variety: there are tons of flavors of yoplait, tons of different fruits I can bring, the sandwich is different depending on which meat I use, and I even get some chocolate in the granola bar.
There are many, many things I like about my diet. Up to this point, there's been precisely one thing I've disliked: people walking in on me eating. I can almost hear them thinking, Ew, gross fat Hadley, of course she'd be eating when I stop by her office. And, for self-conscious me, that's a substantive drawback. But it's rare enough that it's only happened a few times thus far, and is easily outweighed by all the good parts. 98% of the time, the only person who could hear me eating was my dear office-mate, who was possibly the sweetest and most non-judgmental person in DC. (Yes, I know that's like saying someone's the least corrupt person in New Jersey, but I swear she'd count as nice even by normal standards.) So yeah, she could hear me eating, and while I'd still rather she didn't, I wasn't really embarrassed because it was just her.
Now, the person who's going to hear me eating is some strange boy who could easily be thinking, Ew, gross, I can hear her eating like all the friggin' time. And who could tell people, "No wonder Hadley's so fat, I can hear her eating like half the day." Scary!
So, I have until Wednesday to figure things out. I need to balance the embarrassment vs. my continued success. And I think I want to not be embarrassed about my weight in the future more than I want to not be embarrassed by eating seemingly-massive amounts right now, but right now, well, I'm just scared.
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
We need to talk
Weight: 268.2
BMI: 46.03
Okay, scale, you don't like me and I don't like you, but this is really getting ridiculous. Three straight days of gains. Three days of below 1300 calories. THREE DAYS OF GAINS. 1.4 pounds up. What are you trying to do to me?
And so the battle continues.
I won't give in. I'm going to stick to the diet. I'm going to lose the weight. You're going to lose this one, scale. Three days of taunting won't be enough to make me give up. And guess what, sucker? Four days won't either. Just try it. (Okay, I'm sorry I said it. Don't try it! Please!)
I won't lie. My spirit feels broken right now. I'm not going to eat away my problems or go off course, but I don't feel motivated like I used to.
BMI: 46.03
Okay, scale, you don't like me and I don't like you, but this is really getting ridiculous. Three straight days of gains. Three days of below 1300 calories. THREE DAYS OF GAINS. 1.4 pounds up. What are you trying to do to me?
And so the battle continues.
I won't give in. I'm going to stick to the diet. I'm going to lose the weight. You're going to lose this one, scale. Three days of taunting won't be enough to make me give up. And guess what, sucker? Four days won't either. Just try it. (Okay, I'm sorry I said it. Don't try it! Please!)
I won't lie. My spirit feels broken right now. I'm not going to eat away my problems or go off course, but I don't feel motivated like I used to.
Tuesday, 21 July 2009
Feeling All Kinds of Icky
Blah.
Weigh in for yesterday, 7/20:
Weight: 267.2
BMI: 45.86
Weigh in for today:
Weight: 268.0
BMI: 46.00
Well, I just feel all kinds of gross.
I haven't gone off track in terms of food: 1200 calories/day. I've been doing a solid job with exercise, too. I did 30 minutes of elliptical on Saturday, 35 on Sunday, and a full 45 yesterday/Monday. And yet, the scale goes up up up. By 1.2 pounds in the past two days.
Normally, I would have to tell myself that it's all right and these things happen and that if I stick with the program the pounds will eventually come off. I try to just find the motivation, constantly reminding myself of that one thought.
Now?
I know it's true. I know the weight will come off eventually if I keep down the right path. But I don't need to tell myself it for motivation. I'm not scared any more. I know I can do this. I had my parents here this past weekend. We went out to eat. They bought me ridiculously fatty things. Delicious and amazing leftovers and treats got put in my fridge. And it didn't shake me one bit.
I want this. I want it badly. More than I've wanted anything in a long, long while. Two days ago, every inch of me hurt, and I dragged myself to the gym anyway and spent 5 more minutes working out than I had the day before. Yesterday, I felt incredibly, amazingly sore, and guess how I responded? By getting up and going to the gym, working out 10 minutes more than the last time, and going even faster than I had. I'm sore and in pain and pretty darn hungry, but it's okay.
I can do this. I want to do this. And I will do this.
The scale will come along eventually. In the mean time, I'm going to go kick ass.
Weigh in for yesterday, 7/20:
Weight: 267.2
BMI: 45.86
Weigh in for today:
Weight: 268.0
BMI: 46.00
Well, I just feel all kinds of gross.
I haven't gone off track in terms of food: 1200 calories/day. I've been doing a solid job with exercise, too. I did 30 minutes of elliptical on Saturday, 35 on Sunday, and a full 45 yesterday/Monday. And yet, the scale goes up up up. By 1.2 pounds in the past two days.
Normally, I would have to tell myself that it's all right and these things happen and that if I stick with the program the pounds will eventually come off. I try to just find the motivation, constantly reminding myself of that one thought.
Now?
I know it's true. I know the weight will come off eventually if I keep down the right path. But I don't need to tell myself it for motivation. I'm not scared any more. I know I can do this. I had my parents here this past weekend. We went out to eat. They bought me ridiculously fatty things. Delicious and amazing leftovers and treats got put in my fridge. And it didn't shake me one bit.
I want this. I want it badly. More than I've wanted anything in a long, long while. Two days ago, every inch of me hurt, and I dragged myself to the gym anyway and spent 5 more minutes working out than I had the day before. Yesterday, I felt incredibly, amazingly sore, and guess how I responded? By getting up and going to the gym, working out 10 minutes more than the last time, and going even faster than I had. I'm sore and in pain and pretty darn hungry, but it's okay.
I can do this. I want to do this. And I will do this.
The scale will come along eventually. In the mean time, I'm going to go kick ass.
Sunday, 19 July 2009
Fun with Graphs
As I've brought up a few times, I keep an Excel chart of my weight loss. I do this for several reasons:
1. I'm a nerd.
2. Recording day-to-day makes me more accountable
3. It's good to look at when I'm losing motivation
4. I have a lot of fun doing so
Today, I'm going to share some of the fun graphs I have, why I have them, what they mean, and how they help.
The most basic graph I keep is just one of my overall weight loss progress. As of today it looks like:
I've been lucky thus far in mostly having consistent losses, but that's not always the case. While the scale is a good overall judge of progress, it's a very noisy instrument. A lot of the time it'll pick up that your dinner last night was salty, or that you're bloated, or that you're dehydrated or that it's that time of the month, or a variety of other things rather than the actual truth of what's going on. This is the reason many people will just weigh themselves once a week: they just want to get an overview of the numbers, they don't want to deal with the day to day noise.
While I see the appeal of that, getting a reading once a week doesn't make your readings more accurate: it just gives you one data point to go on, and you don't know if it's actually your real weight showing up. There is, however, a solution for that: the moving average. So, I have a chart that shows my real weight, and the five day moving average. (For the first 1-4 days, I did an average of how many days I had data for.) As long as you're losing weight, even if you have days you go up and days you go down, the moving average should head consistently downward. Take a look:
Notice how on July 10th, even though I gained .8 pounds and saw a sharp spike in my day to day weight, the moving average of my weight was still falling. The moving average tends to be more valuable if you are having more up and down fluctuations than I am at the moment, but I still like having it for when I do get those--and if my previous attempts at weight loss are any indication, I eventually will.
Now, neither of those are the coolest chart I have.
One of the big things they advocate at Spark People is attaching deadlines to your weight loss goals. Some sort of "A wish + a deadline = goal!" cheese. To a certain extent, I think this isn't optimal: set your goal too low and you end up not really challenging yourself; aim too high and you're in for a sea of disappointment. If you use Spark to track your weight (or Fitday, and perhaps other weight loss software I'm not familiar with), they'll have one static line for your goal. If you're not closely racing the line, it's really not all that helpful: if you're well under or well over it, it's really not showing much about how your most recent progress is comparing to what you need to get to. (Spark will also only track one weight goal at a time, which I find relatively annoying.)
As of now, I have three goals: one short term, one long term, and one long term stretch.
My short term goal is to get to 250lbs by September 15th. The date is arbitrary, but the poundage is meaningful. 250 will mean I've lost 28 pounds, or 10% of my starting body weight. (Technically, the 10% mark will be met at 250.2, I rounded.) 250 is also just a big milestone number, and it seems to work in many ways. The 9/15 date was picked just by playing in calculators: 10/1 seemed too easy, 9/1 too harsh.
My long term goal is to no longer be obese at my brother's wedding, which will mean getting to 175 by August 14th, 2010. My long term stretch goal is to not be overweight by my brother's wedding, which would mean hitting 145 or below by the same 8/14/2010 goal. To be 100% honest, I would be overjoyed and incredibly proud of myself with either. For now, they're just giving me benchmarks.
My favorite chart makes use of all three goals. It's aim is to answer the question of "how much sustained weight would I need to lose per week to hit my goals of 250, 175, and 145?" It looks like this:
I'm also going to show you guys this as a table, since I think it's helpful to look at both:
There's a column for date, weight, days till 9/15, the average amount of weight I'd need to lose each week to get to 250 as of that day, the days till my brothers wedding, the average amount of weight I need to lose each week to get to be not obese, and the same for not overweight.
What I like so much about this chart is that I can see how well I'm doing relative to how well I need to do to hit my goal. Every day I lose .4 pounds or more (the equivalent of 2.8lbs/week), all my goals become easier. When I lose .3 pounds a day (2.1/week), my short term goal and the "not obese" goal are both easier, but the road to my stretch goal becomes slightly harder. .2 pounds day (1.4/week) and everything becomes harder.
But the best part is, those rules aren't constant. Not too long ago, a .3 pound day was bad for my short term and stretch goals. When I started my short term goal, it meant losing 2.8 pounds a week. Because I've been above pace so much, I now only need to lose a smidge more than 2 pounds a week. Progress!
There are a few reasons I like this standard so much. One of them is that it's forward-looking: all the other stats just judge progress thus far. This one is more about how each day will impact the rest of my journey. Essentially, every day I do an awesome job makes the days ahead easier.
The thing about my goals is, while they're there, and I like using them to measure progress and stay on top of myself, they're not really what I care about. Yes, it would be nice to look fabulous in my brother's wedding pictures: I'm going to have to see them for years and years to come. But, relative to how much I care about the reasons I'm actually doing this, it's meaningless. I care a bit, but it's not really what I care about.
I care about my future health: I don't want to get diabetes, or heart disease, or all those other things that being obese makes me more likely to get. Most importantly, I don't want my weight to hold me back any more.
I want to sit on airplanes without feeling bad for the person sitting next to me. I want to be able to run if I need to and not get winded. I want to go to the beach and not feel like I shouldn't be wearing a bathing suit. I want to not be scared of amusement park rides. I want to just live my day to day life without there being things I can't do because I'm too damn fat.
The goals and charts are just window dressing, they're not what matters. But they help me get through the day to day, and keep me solid when I want to stray. The charts help prove what I inherently know: each day I do a good job makes the next day easier.
1. I'm a nerd.
2. Recording day-to-day makes me more accountable
3. It's good to look at when I'm losing motivation
4. I have a lot of fun doing so
Today, I'm going to share some of the fun graphs I have, why I have them, what they mean, and how they help.
The most basic graph I keep is just one of my overall weight loss progress. As of today it looks like:
I've been lucky thus far in mostly having consistent losses, but that's not always the case. While the scale is a good overall judge of progress, it's a very noisy instrument. A lot of the time it'll pick up that your dinner last night was salty, or that you're bloated, or that you're dehydrated or that it's that time of the month, or a variety of other things rather than the actual truth of what's going on. This is the reason many people will just weigh themselves once a week: they just want to get an overview of the numbers, they don't want to deal with the day to day noise.
While I see the appeal of that, getting a reading once a week doesn't make your readings more accurate: it just gives you one data point to go on, and you don't know if it's actually your real weight showing up. There is, however, a solution for that: the moving average. So, I have a chart that shows my real weight, and the five day moving average. (For the first 1-4 days, I did an average of how many days I had data for.) As long as you're losing weight, even if you have days you go up and days you go down, the moving average should head consistently downward. Take a look:
Notice how on July 10th, even though I gained .8 pounds and saw a sharp spike in my day to day weight, the moving average of my weight was still falling. The moving average tends to be more valuable if you are having more up and down fluctuations than I am at the moment, but I still like having it for when I do get those--and if my previous attempts at weight loss are any indication, I eventually will.Now, neither of those are the coolest chart I have.
One of the big things they advocate at Spark People is attaching deadlines to your weight loss goals. Some sort of "A wish + a deadline = goal!" cheese. To a certain extent, I think this isn't optimal: set your goal too low and you end up not really challenging yourself; aim too high and you're in for a sea of disappointment. If you use Spark to track your weight (or Fitday, and perhaps other weight loss software I'm not familiar with), they'll have one static line for your goal. If you're not closely racing the line, it's really not all that helpful: if you're well under or well over it, it's really not showing much about how your most recent progress is comparing to what you need to get to. (Spark will also only track one weight goal at a time, which I find relatively annoying.)
As of now, I have three goals: one short term, one long term, and one long term stretch.
My short term goal is to get to 250lbs by September 15th. The date is arbitrary, but the poundage is meaningful. 250 will mean I've lost 28 pounds, or 10% of my starting body weight. (Technically, the 10% mark will be met at 250.2, I rounded.) 250 is also just a big milestone number, and it seems to work in many ways. The 9/15 date was picked just by playing in calculators: 10/1 seemed too easy, 9/1 too harsh.
My long term goal is to no longer be obese at my brother's wedding, which will mean getting to 175 by August 14th, 2010. My long term stretch goal is to not be overweight by my brother's wedding, which would mean hitting 145 or below by the same 8/14/2010 goal. To be 100% honest, I would be overjoyed and incredibly proud of myself with either. For now, they're just giving me benchmarks.
My favorite chart makes use of all three goals. It's aim is to answer the question of "how much sustained weight would I need to lose per week to hit my goals of 250, 175, and 145?" It looks like this:
I'm also going to show you guys this as a table, since I think it's helpful to look at both:
There's a column for date, weight, days till 9/15, the average amount of weight I'd need to lose each week to get to 250 as of that day, the days till my brothers wedding, the average amount of weight I need to lose each week to get to be not obese, and the same for not overweight.What I like so much about this chart is that I can see how well I'm doing relative to how well I need to do to hit my goal. Every day I lose .4 pounds or more (the equivalent of 2.8lbs/week), all my goals become easier. When I lose .3 pounds a day (2.1/week), my short term goal and the "not obese" goal are both easier, but the road to my stretch goal becomes slightly harder. .2 pounds day (1.4/week) and everything becomes harder.
But the best part is, those rules aren't constant. Not too long ago, a .3 pound day was bad for my short term and stretch goals. When I started my short term goal, it meant losing 2.8 pounds a week. Because I've been above pace so much, I now only need to lose a smidge more than 2 pounds a week. Progress!
There are a few reasons I like this standard so much. One of them is that it's forward-looking: all the other stats just judge progress thus far. This one is more about how each day will impact the rest of my journey. Essentially, every day I do an awesome job makes the days ahead easier.
The thing about my goals is, while they're there, and I like using them to measure progress and stay on top of myself, they're not really what I care about. Yes, it would be nice to look fabulous in my brother's wedding pictures: I'm going to have to see them for years and years to come. But, relative to how much I care about the reasons I'm actually doing this, it's meaningless. I care a bit, but it's not really what I care about.
I care about my future health: I don't want to get diabetes, or heart disease, or all those other things that being obese makes me more likely to get. Most importantly, I don't want my weight to hold me back any more.
I want to sit on airplanes without feeling bad for the person sitting next to me. I want to be able to run if I need to and not get winded. I want to go to the beach and not feel like I shouldn't be wearing a bathing suit. I want to not be scared of amusement park rides. I want to just live my day to day life without there being things I can't do because I'm too damn fat.
The goals and charts are just window dressing, they're not what matters. But they help me get through the day to day, and keep me solid when I want to stray. The charts help prove what I inherently know: each day I do a good job makes the next day easier.
Thursday, 16 July 2009
On weigh ins and motivation
Weight: 269.3
BMI: 46.22
In recent mornings when I've hopped on the scale, I've always been quite certain that the number would go back up. This morning was no different. I stared at the glass monster that lurks in my bathroom for a short bit, resigned at the bad news it had for me. I tapped it, let it zero, and hopped on. And there, staring back at me, was not bad news, not dreadful news, not even "no progress news." Looking back at me instead was .4 pounds less than yesterday: the slow, and steady march of progress.
It's just plain weird.
In my life, I've seriously attempted to lose weight precisely two other times. Each time, my morning weigh in was filled with anticipation. Each time, I was working *hard* at my weight loss. I was moving as much as I could, eating healthfully, writing prolifically, and generally putting my heart and head into losing the damn weight. The scale was my (imperfect, noise-filled) progress checker. Each day, I cared deeply about what would show up, and worried if it would be an up or a down, and how great any loss would be. The morning weigh in had mystery and excitement: a daily battle of expectations vs. reality.
My weigh ins these days are nothing of the sort. Each morning I wake up, and I'm pretty damn sure the scale is going to go up. It's not even a question. And since I started 10 days ago, every morning but one I've been wrong.
I don't really seem to believe that I'm actually losing weight.
One of the things that's weird about this "don't say diet" of mine is that, well, I'm not really on board with it. I mean, I've been very much not overeating (to the point where I have, in fact, been undereating). I'm certainly eating less than I'm burning, so by the rules of physics and logic, I should be losing weight. And, what with the world tending to follow those rules and whatnot, I am in fact losing weight. I just don't believe it.
I think the main problem is that I started this diet, essentially, on a lark. Late last Tuesday evening, I hopped on the scale in my bathroom and just thought, "hmm, 278, that's a pretty high number. Maybe I should diet." But I wasn't really being all that serious about it. I messed around and set up an excel spreadsheet�one of these days we'll discuss what a giant nerd for numbers I am�and sort of just let it be. The next day I weighed myself, I was down a bit, and sort of decided "I guess I will go ahead and diet." And I did.
There was no moment of reckoning, no spark to get started, just a blah, meh, I guess I might as well. And that's not really a good way to start a diet.
On the other hand, 10 days of sustained healthy food choices and an 8.7 pound loss are, absolutely, a way to start one. I'm moving along pretty well, I've found some goals and motivation, and I've been able to keep going even through some pretty heavy temptation. And I've just kept muddling through, slowly but surely sticking to things over the past week and a half.
I just need to believe that I am actually doing this.
BMI: 46.22
In recent mornings when I've hopped on the scale, I've always been quite certain that the number would go back up. This morning was no different. I stared at the glass monster that lurks in my bathroom for a short bit, resigned at the bad news it had for me. I tapped it, let it zero, and hopped on. And there, staring back at me, was not bad news, not dreadful news, not even "no progress news." Looking back at me instead was .4 pounds less than yesterday: the slow, and steady march of progress.
It's just plain weird.
In my life, I've seriously attempted to lose weight precisely two other times. Each time, my morning weigh in was filled with anticipation. Each time, I was working *hard* at my weight loss. I was moving as much as I could, eating healthfully, writing prolifically, and generally putting my heart and head into losing the damn weight. The scale was my (imperfect, noise-filled) progress checker. Each day, I cared deeply about what would show up, and worried if it would be an up or a down, and how great any loss would be. The morning weigh in had mystery and excitement: a daily battle of expectations vs. reality.
My weigh ins these days are nothing of the sort. Each morning I wake up, and I'm pretty damn sure the scale is going to go up. It's not even a question. And since I started 10 days ago, every morning but one I've been wrong.
I don't really seem to believe that I'm actually losing weight.
One of the things that's weird about this "don't say diet" of mine is that, well, I'm not really on board with it. I mean, I've been very much not overeating (to the point where I have, in fact, been undereating). I'm certainly eating less than I'm burning, so by the rules of physics and logic, I should be losing weight. And, what with the world tending to follow those rules and whatnot, I am in fact losing weight. I just don't believe it.
I think the main problem is that I started this diet, essentially, on a lark. Late last Tuesday evening, I hopped on the scale in my bathroom and just thought, "hmm, 278, that's a pretty high number. Maybe I should diet." But I wasn't really being all that serious about it. I messed around and set up an excel spreadsheet�one of these days we'll discuss what a giant nerd for numbers I am�and sort of just let it be. The next day I weighed myself, I was down a bit, and sort of decided "I guess I will go ahead and diet." And I did.
There was no moment of reckoning, no spark to get started, just a blah, meh, I guess I might as well. And that's not really a good way to start a diet.
On the other hand, 10 days of sustained healthy food choices and an 8.7 pound loss are, absolutely, a way to start one. I'm moving along pretty well, I've found some goals and motivation, and I've been able to keep going even through some pretty heavy temptation. And I've just kept muddling through, slowly but surely sticking to things over the past week and a half.
I just need to believe that I am actually doing this.
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