Progress Pics – November Compared to March 2009
Here is a set of comparison pictures. When I took these pictures last night, I couldn’t see a difference from the March photos….. just from memory. Then I pulled them all up today and made these slides, and now I can see a difference. Even though I still look overweight (and am overweight), I do look better. This has helped me put into perspective what I’ve accomplished already. I’ve been getting kind of down on myself because I’ve been bouncing between 40 and 45 pounds lost for a few months, but losing 40 pounds and keeping it off is an accomplishment even if I never lost another pound.
The right two pictures are from the same night, different suits.
Feeling Frustrated
I can’t decide if this is one of those “I’m frustrated with my plan because it isn’t working anymore (because I’m not applying it as religiously as I was” or if its a “I’m frustrated because my plan just isn’t working anymore” moments. Either way, I’m frustrated and discouraged. I’m stuck between 195 and 198 and I can’t seem to find it in me to 1) cut out all treats, 2) count calories again, 3) exercise more than an hour and 15 minutes 6 days a week.
So, I’m left daydreaming about diet pills. Having read about 8 Oxygen magazines in the past couple weeks, I’ve seen a lot of ads for them. And I just have no idea if I believe the hype. Though part of me wants to, of course. I KNOW I don’t want to take some of them, because I’ve tried them in the past. And others I’m just left wondering if they could give me an extra edge to overcome some of my issues. I don’t know, and I have no answers for this post.
I’ve had too much sugar today. I’ve also had some very healthy food today. If I work out hard tonight (which I intend to do as much as my tweaked back will let me), I’ll probably come out at about 196 tomorrow morning. I’m keeping up with my end of the family competition and am still only 1 night’s binge into the pot (=$10). The competition has made me walk for at least 30 minutes on a couple of nights when I wouldn’t have otherwise moved a muscle other than to work the remote control. So that’s good. Its also kept me out of the kitchen on a few nights when all I wanted to do was eat.
But the day time is still a challenge. Especially on my office days. I just wish I could ask the chocolate jar people to put the jars away on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons!! Would that be totally uncool? I think I’m actually going to consider it…..I’ll let you know if I work up the guts and what I would say. “Hey, I’m on a diet, and I’m a weak-willed wuss that can’t leave your jar of chocolate alone when I’m here twice a week. Can you put it on your calendar to put away your jar of chocolate on Tues and Thurs afternoons? Or I could remind you as soon as I get here each day?” I can see this conversation in my head and I feel like an idiot even considering it.
I have three months left until I’ve told my husband we can start trying for another baby. I want another child in our family. That’s roughly 90 days. If I kicked it up a notch and did a huge program for that long, how much could I lose? To put me in safe territory for gaining 30 pounds with a pregnancy and not hitting 200 again? I was going to have my SIL put me on a program, but if I got the guts to call her (I’m such a wimp for phones I even have to work myself up to call relatives) it would have to be next week because she’s celebrating her 5-year anniversary in Hawaii this week. Yay for her.
Today was ok. Got a couple things done this morning before work, including taking P to swimming lessons. She has two more days of those. Managed to make a good dinner and get some zuchinni in the kids by using the crock pot. Will work out tonight though my whole body is aching with fatigue.
Is it possible to NOT lose weight because of TOO MUCH sleep? I have been getting about 8-9 hours typically. Is that too much? Because I don’t feel rested when I wake up.
Well, I think I’ve managed to complain about most everything. Guess I’ll shut up. This is not going to be the day when I’m one of those inspirational and uplifting bloggers. 
Tracking
Upon emailing my brother about the stall of my progress, I realized that my plateauing roughly coordinates with the time I stopped recording what I eat. I was putting it all into a spreadsheet when I started the Joy Bauer LIFE diet, then I started using sparkpeople. Those two lasted for about 2.5 months. When I stopped recording it, my progress slowed. I still made some, and then over the past couple weeks I’ve almost completely derailed (again). Accident, sickness, vacation all have helped me to slump into old habits of eating anything anytime.
So today I’ve started recording it again in my spreadsheet. I’m not ready to go to sparkpeople level of recording again yet. I might get there. For now I’m just going to record amounts and meals in my spreadsheet. Feels good to have it be a little more structured.
BMI
I read a post yesterday written by someone that has lowered their BMI to the normal weight range, and they were very excited (rightly so). It had been a while since I’d looked at my BMI, so I thought I’d check it out. Right now, I’m sitting at 26 pounds lost (it was 28 until I had a couple days of struggle over the weekend, which I’m determined not to justify with enough attention as to post about it).
After plugging my information into a BMI calculator, it shows that my current BMI is still obese: 32.9. I have to get it down 3 more points to be in the simply overweight range. That will be when I reach 185 lbs, 19 more pounds. Since that was slightly discouraging, I thought I’d see how far I’ve come. My BMI 2 short months ago was 37.1 at 230 lbs. That made me feel better. I’ve lowered my BMI by 4.2 points in 2 months and I’ve done it through intense exercise and a lot of healthy eating. Go me!
My mother took me clothes shopping for Mother’s Day (you don’t know how much I wish I could afford to do the same for her) on Saturday. I didn’t have a clear idea in mind of what I’d be looking for, and I had no idea what size I’d be. After trying on a bunch of stuff at Dress Barn, we discovered that I’m in a size 16 pants and either an XL or 1X shirt. It was very exciting, though I have to admit I think my mom was more excited for me to get into those pants than I was. My distraction was twofold – 1) K2 was with us and was kind of hard to contain – he kept trying to open the dressing room door from the inside while I was changing. Now that he can reach door handles he is more dangerous. He also wasn’t feeling very well so he was a little more fussy than usual. 2) Like I mentioned, I struggled over the weekend and from my lowest weight Thursday morning of 202, I actually peaked at 206.5 Sunday morning. Calories were back down to desired levels on Sunday, but Thurs, Fri, and Sat were troublesome. I take it as a learning experience and I’m moving forward, but it put a slight dent in my non-scale-victory of new, smaller clothes to be slightly worried about my lapse from my dieting “zone”. And I am dieting, there is no doubt about it. I think I’m making changes that will stand me in good stead for the rest of my life, but I am eating lower amounts of calories than I hope to be able to eat when I’m maintaining. Being on the lower end of 1200-1500 most days is sometimes hard, sometimes easy. Since I was slightly worried about my mini-gain, I didn’t enjoy the new sizes like I should have.
Some of the things I am trying to ingrain as habits to use the rest of my life:
1) Lots of fresh vegetables. Having some vegetable serving(s) at both lunch and dinner and possibly a snack EVERY DAY. Part of the reason I think I’ve never really loved vegetables is that I’ve settled for canned, frozen, and processed.
2) Lots of fruit. Sweet tooth. Hello. If I don’t have a vegetable with breakfast, I make it (and WILL make it) a point to have fruit. And if I don’t have a vegetable with at least one of my snacks, it must contain fruit instead. I allow one snack a day that doesn’t include a fresh fruit or veggie. That might loosen up in maintenance, but for the most part, each time I eat I need to include fresh produce of some sort (or frozen if fresh is unavailable, preferably not canned).
3) Protein is important, but there are more ways to get it than chicken. Measure or at least eye out meat portions to stick with 3-5 ounces (for big meals), and learn to include other sources like beans and limited dairy.
4) Stop eating after the after-dinner snack. I assume this will continue to be one of the hardest things for me; I love to eat after the kids go to bed. But exercising then helps a lot, and on the days I don’t exercise at night I just need to learn to have my snack a little later so it can take the place of my movie or showtime munchies.
5) Usually, pass on the starch at dinner and replace it with a salad. Not to say I’m not going to have pasta, rice, or potatoes ever again, but typically at home it is easy enough to pass up. On nights when I have a starch with dinner, measure it and keep it to about 1/2 cup in order to maintain portion size.
6) Learn about new ways to prepare food that are healthy and tasty.
7) Continue to drink water. This habit is pretty well-established in my life, though I’m still perfecting my methods now that I’m at home and not sitting at a desk all day.
Plan for indulgences, enjoy them, and move on guilt-free.
Duh… there will be food!
Since I started the LIFE diet almost 3 weeks ago, I haven’t had any social occasions. Okay, there’s been one sort of, and that was the meeting for P’s kindergarten where they had cookies in the foyer along with CapriSuns. I took a CapriSun home to P and ignored the cookies. But that was after 4 days of my diet, not like I was sick of it yet. I’ve been eating healthily nonstop for 19 days including today. I haven’t had things that I used to consider normal for a day. Just a few of those things being potatoes, noodles, or rice with dinner. Chocolate. Candy or goldfish with the kids. Now without eating those things I’ve lost 14.5 pounds in a little less than 3 weeks, and that’s great.
Anyway, the point of all this is that when I wrote that post earlier today, it hadn’t yet occurred to me that there will be food at this baby shower tomorrow. Yummy food. Food that is definitely not part of my diet. So, what to do? Not eating anything? Choose one thing that I really want to taste and have ONE of them as my afternoon snack? The shower is from 2-4, so it covers my usual snack time. Or do I take a portable snack with me? Chances are, there will be something I’m supposed to have for a snack, like some fruit. But will I logically be able to continue resisting all the really decadent foods? Let’s say for instance that there are some yummy brownies or cookies. What if I have one instead of my snack food? Can I trust myself to have that and then get right back on board with only Step 2 approved foods? And to stop at one? These are things that didn’t start to worry me until this afternoon when the light went on in my brain, and I’ve been nervous ever since. Honestly, I’m leaning toward assessing the food options when I first arrive, picking one of what I REALLY want, and trying to eat it as slowly as physically possible to enjoy it as much as I can and make it last a while so I’m not as tempted to hop up and get another and another and another. Color me nervous. This is good, though, because it can be a short trial run of how the entire weekend is going to be in 2 weeks when we go to Utah – temptation everywhere, and I’m going to have to have a plan to overcome without coming back having gained all my weight back.
Two Full Days of diet – down 5.5 lbs
When I stepped on the scale this morning, I was expecting/hoping for another pound down. 226 or so. So I was pretty shocked when it said 224.5. I only reached that low once when I was following my own program before last summer, and it only lasted a day.
I’m trying to be realistic – actually, almost pessimistic. Just to guard against disappointment. And I’m telling myself to expect to go back up tomorrow, by at least a little. But I’m secretly (not so secretly if I’m typing it out) hopeful that this will stay off. Slow down, but stay off.
Last night I was hungry. I’m going to have to do something about eating dinner so early and then dealing with a growling stomach for hours before I go to bed and all night long. That’s how last night went. I’m in the beginning, exciting stages of this diet, so a little hunger feels like a righteous sacrifice, but that’s not going to hold water for long. Its going to get annoying. So, what to do? I think I’m going to have to push my dinner back to at least 6 PM. Right now, we typically eat dinner around 4:45, 5:00, so that we can eat with K before he leaves for work at 5:15. So by the time I go to bed at 11 I haven’t eaten in 6 hours. That’s kind of ridiculous – no wonder I’m down 2.5 pounds since yesterday. I think I’m going to have to make dinner, let K and perhaps K2 eat, and then I’ll eat later with P since she always objects to whatever I make and has to get really hungry before she realizes I’m not going to give in and give her something else. If I eat at 6 and go to bed at 11, that’s only 5 hours. Perhaps I could add a couple almonds or pistachios around 8 PM (literally like a couple tablespoons) just to ease the aching hunger. Or maybe the hunger will get better? Not sure, really. We’ll see how tonight goes. But I don’t think its going to be either worth it for long, or healthy for long, to go that long without food during waking hours over too many days.
In other thoughts, my breakfast was great this morning, and even better because it was easing the hunger ache that woke up with me. Vanilla Pumpkin Pudding is what she calls it in her book and its basically some non-fat vanilla yogurt layered or mixed with pumpkin puree with a dash of slivered almonds and cinnamon. Pretty darn good and satisfying, a full bowl of that.
Last night I walked for 30 minutes since I really didn’t feel like doing T-Tapp. No offense to T-Tapp, but I don’t think I’m going to be doing it for a while. I’d just much rather walk or run on the treadmill and do some leg or arm exercises with some weights. Its what I’ve done in the past that has worked, and (embarrassing) I can watch TV while I’m doing all that. For some reason lately, I just really want to be entertained while I’m exercising. At least it gets me to do it, whereas if I make myself stick to T-Tapp I end up doing nothing because I don’t want to watch her for that long instead of an entertaining show. Again, nothing against T-Tapp – it works, it is SO good for you, and it is comprehensive. For now, though, I’m going to stick with what I know I’ll make myself do every night.
I think I’ve been bugging my mom. We started this diet together; it was actually her idea. She knows a lady at work that has been doing it for a while and dropping weight like crazy while singing the praises of the doability of the diet. Anyway, we both tried to start on Monday with what we had in the house. I went shopping Monday afternoon, Mom went Monday night before she even got a copy of the book (we were going to share one, but she let me use it first and then when we decided to do it she decided to just go get another copy – she paid for both). Anyway, we talked Monday and last night about how it was going, and I think I’m giving her way more detail than she wants or needs. And honestly, I don’t know if she’ll have great results because I don’t know if she’ll stick to it or if she’ll ‘modify’ it here or there to suit what she has available and what she wants to eat. I want her to lose weight, but I don’t think she believes she can, and this is the first actual diet that I know she’s tried in a few years. I hope she has success with it, as I hope I do. But I’m going to wait for her to call me today, and if I don’t hear from her I’ll assume she doesn’t want to discuss today’s results/thoughts.
One last thing – I’m going to wait until tomorrow to see if I stay under 225. If I do, I’ve already qualified for one of my 5-lb-increment rewards!!! After 2 days! I’ll probably have to wait until Friday to go to the store and reward myself, but this time it will be a pair of earrings. And at this rate, I better decide on the reward for 220 as well since it is fast approaching! Yay!
