July 23, 244.5

Hello. Ok.

MY WEIGHT

I haven't really been able to get a legitimate reading lately because I haven't had a clearly full night's sleep, and the only readings that count are the ones first thing in the morning, after a full night's sleep, and for the past two days I've gotten out of bed after only a couple hours. Still, it appears I'm hanging around 244.5 or dropped maybe to 244. Tomorrow I should be able to get a reading.

DAILY LIFE

I went to work today with some more people who hadn't seen me in a while - one of whom I was particularly interested in. Nobody appeared to notice anything different about me. Which, again, is fine. Possibly they notice and didn't want to say anything, and I say that's sensitive of them.

CLOTHES SHOPPING AND BODY ANALYSIS

On the other hand, after work I went shopping to get size 20 jeans. What a nightmare. Everything's boot-cut, and I was just too annoyed with the whole process of shopping to drive all over town looking for a pair of jeans that wouldn't offend the shape of my legs and flap around my ankles with every step. So I just broke down and bought two pair. They're spandexy, too, so who knows what'll happen to them in the wash. Maybe by the time I'm a size 18 clothing retailers will have some decent jeans at least available in the shops.

I also bought some t-shirts that I saw, and a dress (size petite! and I am tall - it's a little babydolly on me but still a classy royal purple fancy dress) so I need to wear a dress somewhere sometime now. Trying on the t-shirts and blouses, and the dress, I realized my body still has the same problem that drive me to start this diet in the first place 80 pounds ago... on oversized upper belly jutting out in the front. Apart from that, I could tolerate everything, even my fat arms don't really bother me. I keep hoping if I just stick with it, that fat will finally start to burn away and I can restore to a more typical version of me, but it is very stubborn! If I have to get down to 130 pounds, I WILL lose the fat from my belly and hopefully my cheeks will pull in some, too. Anyway, the t-shirts that I bought were really pretty cute and I just have to live with the body I have for as long as I have it. I considered that I would shrink into the t-shirts. Hopefully, I will shrink more proportionately.

DISCREPANCY

I just joined myfitnesspal.com just to see what it was about. I entered that I wanted to aim to lose 2 pounds per week, and they budgeted a diet of under 1400 calories for me. Ediets, on the other hand, has me on 1850! And projects weight loss of 2 pounds per week. That's quite a discrepancy!! Of course, I've been losing on ediets, and it's possible they have been adjusting my intake already based on my weekly weight loss, which was a big jump of 4 pounds last week, which the computer may have interpreted as being too much, although it was the tail end of a plateau.

EXERCISE

I meant to get exercise, but having had not enough sleep makes real physical exertion unsuitable. Maybe tomorrow.

MEAL PICTURES

Pictures are fun. Here's tonight's dinner - that silly crab quesadilla. Tonight, instead of attempting to fold the tortilla over all that stuffing, I just put all the stuff on one tortilla, put the other tortilla on top of all the stuff, used a little more cheese on the top and bottom. There was also less stuffing than yesterday because I forgot to include the onion. I have also got twice as much as cantaloupe as I'm supposed to - that looks more like 2 cups than 1 but I ate it anyway, silly me.

Of course, I post this not because I particularly liked this meal, but just to document my diet a little more illustratively.

CRAB QUESADILLA

2 whole wheat tortillas

3 1/2 oz canned crab meat

3 tbsp salsa

1 oz cheese

1/4 green bell pepper

1/4 red bell pepper

1/4 c. chopped onion

1 Roma tomato

chives and coriander

2 tbsp reduced-fat sour cream

TOMATO & AVOCADO SALAD

2 Roma tomatoes

1/3 c chopped avocado

1/4 small red onion, chopped

squeeze of lemon juice

1 CUP CANTALOUPE

July 11, 249.5

Okay, I did it. Weekly weigh-in and I'm back down to 249.5 like last week. I gained 5 pounds and lost it before ediets had a chance to notice. Plateau OVER am I right? I hope. Work is overwhelming now. I hoped to be done with a project by 3:30 a.m. last night (no sweat, plenty of time, if I just stick to it!) and it took me until 8:00 a.m. and I wasn't finished when I left. This doesn't bode well for the rest of the job to come. A few things don't bode well about it - I think I might run out of time - I can't seem to get anything done on time!!

Ok, my anticipated goal date for 220 has been pushed back to October 24, which is where it was originally, but I was excited about pushing it into early October.

This week's exercise:

Saturday - none
Sunday - none
Monday - weights
Tuesday - none
Wednesday - yoga
Thursday - 30 minutes exercise bike
Friday - none (unless you count climbing ladders for 8 hours)

30 minutes on the exercise bike claims to yield 300+ calories burned. The small room is cool when I walk in, but too warm after 10 minutes into it, so I'm sure I'm creating heat. It's convenient because there's one in the condo clubhouse and I have access to it at any hour, plus I can get some reading done. Yet, last time I was on the exercise bike, I felt guilt. I thought "I can do more." I feel like I should step up, do the elliptical more often. Which may not happen this week because I may not have time for the gym, and I'd be surprised if I get any exercise in.

So today, for the diet, I have to plan this week's meal plan, buy the groceries, and possibly even prepare it all for the whole week today, with all the repetitiveness and convenience I can handle.

July 4, 249.5

I'm a little disgruntled about this week's 1-pound loss.

For one thing, I hit 248.5 one day early this week and got excited about getting *significantly* below 250 (below enough that a little gain wouldn't get me above 250) and also to get closer to being able to say I'd lost 40 pounds. I decided to work all week to lose even more weight before weigh-in. Normally I don't do this so much, normally I just take what comes to me, and lose 2-3 pounds. This time, I'd get on an exercise machine specifically to boost my weight loss down another half or full pound here and there. And of course, I stuck to my meal plan (although I occasionally found myself making substitutions, and am still not actually measuring my amounts for the most part). After only one day at 248.5, it bounced back to 249.5, which I accepted easily at first, but all week I kept hoping to bump back down and all week I stayed at 249.5 and did not budge. Frustrating.

Now I plan to have a "cheat day" but I don't have a lot of playroom on the scale.

My belly seems larger and heavier than ever, and I just took my measurements and it does seem like I gained everywhere except my chest. According to today's measurements, my chest is now smaller around than my waist, which is NOT what I'm going for, and my hips are reducing faster than my waist too. Once an apple always an apple I guess.

It seems possible i'm retaining water. I feel and look kinda puffy. I don't know enough to guess why I'd be retaining water - pre-menstrual?

And maybe today's cheat day will shock my metabolism?

Well - 1 pound lost since last week, and still on track for October 17th goal, but not getting safely ahead of schedule like I'd hoped. Frustration has brought me a little crisis of faith, but I am still sticking to the plan, so I obviously haven't given up all hope.

This week's exercise:
Saturday - weights
Sunday - none
Monday - 20 minutes yoga
Tuesday - none
Wednesday - 20 minutes yoga + 30 minutes elliptical
Thursday - 30 minutes exercise bike
Friday - none

meeting exercise goals at the expense of getting anything else done

Ok, well, I didn't do much else today but I did get some exercise in. I did 20 minutes of yoga (approx.) again, and was able to get to the end of section 2 by skipping some of the section 1. I really wanted to get to the end of section 2, and it was definitely hard. I really need to get further along in those poses before moving on to section 3, so I think for the longest time now I can just focus on getting through sections 1 & 2 1-2 times per week to maintain and improve my progress in the yoga.

And then I did go to the gym because it was important to me, to hopefully push the numbers on the scale down. 30 minutes on the elliptical - not bad. (I remember days I've been more dynamic on that thing, but I'm building up from the recumbent bike these days.) My heart rate stayed a little above the recommended rate most of the time, going into the 160s and 170s (probably - when it got the 170s it was off their chart and so the HR reading got a bit off.) However, it felt fine, pretty typical - felt like exercise, you know. I know I'm getting older and should expect to exert my heart rate a little less, but I felt good.

And I did it without asthma medication. Although I will say when it was over the inside of my mouth was uncomfortably phlegmmy, especially uncomfortable around the throat. I generally assume this is my lungs clearing out with my exhalations.

So I am hoping for pleasantness on the scale tomorrow! :-D

After my workout, I was pretty sure that I wanted to have a cheat day on Saturday (which is the 4th - oo, that sucks) because I realized I really wanted those Russell Stover Roman nougats and molasses chews. Mmmmmmm. Used to love those Russell Stover boxes.

June 27, 250.5

I'm nervous about weigh-in. Yesterday I waited until so long to eat lunch (around 9 or 10:00) and then we had a party and I ate second snack and dinner all last night within a few hours of each other. Seems like a wrong choice to eat 3 meals late into the night before you weigh-in.

Okay, I just did it and didn't need to worry. Whew! Am I putting too much emphasis on the numbers on the scale? Tough! Lol. I know where my motivation comes from each day.

The first time I stood on the scale it was 250 - even. That would have been awesome because I could brag I'd lost 35 pounds. (35 pounds? Only 35 pounds? - it doesn't even sound like much now. Hope it feels like an accomplishment when I've lost 50.) As it stands, I've still only lost 34.5 pounds.

Still, it's 2 pounds down from last week and I'm still on course.

Today I have to check-in at ediets, create a new meal plan for next week, and go grocery shopping. And I need to go lift weights, sooner rather than later. Last night at the gym proved my upper belly is still protruding out against my t-shirt - ugh!

Next week I go into the 240s. This pleases me greatly.

SW: 285
LW: 252.5
CW: 250.5
GW: 220

Last Week's Exercise

saturday - lift weights
sunday - none
monday - 20 minutes yoga
tuesday - none
wednesday - a moderate-easy hike, about 40 minutes
thursday - none
friday - 30 minutes elliptical trainer

First Entry

Hello! I'm uncharacteristically excited about this new blog. I'm new to Blogger, so bear with me, maybe.

Ok, so, to get right to the point I've started losing weight. On March 28, my frustration with my body's shape and various little miseries got excessive enough that I joined ediets again. On that day my starting weight was 285 pounds. Looking through my diary, I can tell you I had gotten up into the 290s at some point, so 285 was actually down, somehow, from some time before.

In about 10 weeks I've lost 30 pounds, and my first long-term goal is to lose 65 pounds and get down to 220.

I expect I'll go more into details about my personal history and my experience with this program. For right now, I'm sure readers are really more interested to know what works for me, and what doesn't. I've been blogging at ediets.com, but they're not really well set-up for it, and I wondered if I mightn't have a better blogging experience at a site like blogger and collect Googlers.

Since I've had some degree of success this time, I thought maybe others might be inspired by my success, as I was inspired by some of the other blogs I found on the internet. I'm sorry that I didn't get this thing started sooner in the process, when the pounds were dripping off me like butter in the sun. Of course, I realize now is when it gets a little harder, the weight comes off more slowly, bringing less daily motivation from the scale, and requiring me to put in even more effort in terms of exercise, and learning how to maintain this lifestyle with out an externally-derived regimen so that one day I can keep myself thin on my own. THAT will be the hard part.

So this'll do for a first entry. Believe it or not, I actually am all set now to got get on the exercise bike for 20-30 minutes. Maybe it's bad to do before bedtime, but that's when it's getting done, what can I say. It just sucks that the A/C goes off at night down at the clubhouse.