Another Year, Another Time to Try Again.

I came to the realisation the other week that while I'm miserable and hate my working conditions and my family sitch, I don't need to make it worse on myself by also making myself miserable about my size and the fact that I don't fit into my clothes.  In fact, out of the big 3, this is the one I have the most control of.  So I should control it, and be responsible for it. 

I'm gonna get a hold of this eating sensibly and moving meaningfully business.  

I've started relogging in my MFP diary, and I sat down this weekend to foodplan what I was going to eat for each meal & when I was going to cook what. 
     Not gonna lie, it took a while.
   
Thinking about what I wanted when was time consuming.
     I had trouble thinking so far ahead to Thursday & Friday.  I wrote the meal plan out on a sheet of paper, with a basic idea of what I was going to eat for breakfast, morning tea, lunch & dinner.  For example, tonight for dinner I am having tortellini with a spinach based pasta sauce.  I sat down and planned out (as best I could) for a whole week in advance.  Probably took me over 60 minutes.  I got distracted or frustrated along the way too.
     Writing the specific details into my (paper) food diary wasn't too bad.  That only took about 15 minutes for the whole week, given I had to flip back and forth between pages as I realised that I would need to create a recipe for the green sauce, so I needed to list the ingredients for that.  I keep a paper food diary in a notebook so I have somewhere to write down how much everything weighs.  This is especially useful for when I am creating my own recipes and I don't measure out my quantities in something as arbitrary as 'cups' when the food I am eating isn't liquid, like a stir-fry.
     I would love to know how people know how many cups of food they've cooked without ladelling their whole dish from one container to another 1 cup at a time.  For me it's easier to create a 'recipe' listing the raw weights of the ingredients, weigh the whole thing when it's finished, and then create portions based on 100g serving sizes.  Then, when I do weigh out how much I've eaten, like 335g, I know it's 3.35 servings.    I find it a quicker process.
     It was entering everything in advance in MFP that was trying.  Nearly 1.5 hours to enter a week's worth of logging in advance.  I did it though, so that when it came time to log the weight, I could save time during the week, by already having the ingredients/foods already entered and I wouldn't have to search for everything.  It was quicker on my phone too, than the webpage.  Recipes were easier to do on the computer, but everything else went through the phone. 

On Saturday I went to a butcher to get quality mince and chicken breasts.  I shopped at a Fruit & Vege grocer first, before going to Coles to get everything else I needed.  For the first time in a while, I set myself a food budget, and I think I stuck to it.  <--- This is another much needed motivation.  I was finding myself going through Drive-throughs and spending $20-25 for a meal, sometimes three times a week.  I don't have that much free money to just throw away. 

I decided to join MFP's April 2016 Running Challenge.

I have never really paid attention to how much I walk in a month, so I set myself a fairly low goal of walking 30 km this month (~18mi).  I'm trying for consistency more than I am concentrating on distance.

I always start out with good intentions, and walk 2-3 days in a row, and then... fizzle.  I get lazy.  Or find excuses like I don't have time, or I'm tired.  I'm trying to tackle that by taking the time to evaluate: am I physically tired, or mentally tired? Because there is definitely a difference and I need to work on recognising that, and not letting it get in my way.

I'm re-evaluating my goals.  I'm currently at 110kg and I wanted my first goal weight to be 90kg because that's the BMI cutoff between being obese and merely overweight.  I've stepped it back a fair bit and am going for 105kg, because that becomes the distinction between Obese Class II and Obese Class I.  I'll look into setting myself 5kg goals after that.

I've also measured 7 points around my body to keep a track of too, because it's not really about weight for me.  I honestly couldn't care if the scales said 400kg! It's the fact that I don't fit into clothes that really gets me down.  So taking (and writing down!) those measurements and entering them into my spreadsheet is going to happen the first Monday of every month.  I won't share them publicly I think, but I will be graphing them to see what happens.

Am I making any progress? Part 3

Hmm, I hadn’t initially thought of making this a three part post, but it makes sense to share this here and now, and not later.  It makes a nice little summary to what I’ve already discussed here and here.

 So, this year, I haven’t been blogging very well.  In fact, for the last year I haven’t been blogging very well.  Nor have I been losing weight.  Last year I experienced some success in losing weight – using myfitnesspal – in June last year.  But of course, I slacked off and the weight went back up.  New Year, new chance to start again.  I really want to make getting healthier & losing weight a priority this year.  I know I eat better when I log.  So I’m going to keep logging.  I know I eat better when I exercise.  So I’m going to keep exercising.

I haven’t really noticed any correlation to my daily weighings and my eating habits.  Nor mood.  Like, I’m happy to see it go down, but if it goes up, it’s due to what I ate, or the amount of water I didn’t drink, etc, etc.  I’m thinking I’m lucky and I don’t get scale obsessive.  For me, it’s about the data and trends and numbers.  Couldn’t care less about what the actual numbers are, I just find it fascinating to see them. 

I’m still only considering my weekly weigh-in on a Monday as my “official” weight.  I could I guess use the weight on weightgrapher.com, but I’m happy just using Mondays.  Additionally, because weightloss shouldn’t be all about the scale, I’m also going to take measurements.  I figure for those I’ll only do it once a month, because I’m not really do high intensity exercise like aerobics or weight lifting, so a weekly measurement is not going to be drastic.

So to sum up:

• I’ve been exercising by walking two or three times a week.
• I’ve restarted dance classes
• I’ve been avoiding buying foods I can’t moderate
• I’ve been logging (almost) every day since the start of the year.  There have been days when I couldn’t get on, but I backtracked and filled them in as best I could.
• I’ve been weighing myself daily to see if there is a trend of me losing weight

Has it made a difference?  You be the judge.  (And I know I don’t take photos very well.  Yes, these were selfies in the bathroom mirror – sorry!)

Measurement Monday - Round 1

Okay, moment of truth time.

How has the last five six weeks of getting 'reserious' about my weightloss efforts gone?
 

 



On June 24th, I reached a new point, where I decided once again, to make a difference in the way I feel and the way I look. 

 

I weighed in at 107.6 kgs.  (237 lbs)  There on in, I started to be super careful with logging everything I was consuming.  I logged eveerything using MyFitnessPal and I was aiming for 1610 Cal a day.  I bought a notebook to write everything down and I used a digital food scale to measure everything.  I even took my digital food scale with me when I visited family for the week!  In that week, I didn't quite stay in my calorie limit, but across the week, I believe it averaged out that I was just under. 

The following Monday morning, back at home, I weighed myself and the scale flashed up 105.2kg (231lbs). 
Really?  Wow, I wasn't expecting that.   Did I really lose weight already? After just one week of trying to stick to a lower calorie level? Nah... Couldn't have!  In this week, I was much more careful about sticking to my calorie limit and I also managed to do some exercise - trying out the Couch to 5K program.

Monday 8th July, next weigh-in.  103.5kg (227.7lbs).  O_O     Hmmm... Okay, perhaps this lower calorie limit has some merit to it afterall.  This week I wasn't as careful with meal planning and logging.  I let myself get tired and hungry and then when I got home, I didn't make good food choices.  Or I picked up some fast food on the way home.  I didn't properly plan meals, lunch was a lazy affair, breakfast was skipped.  It was not good.  The next week followed much the same pattern. 

And it showed. 15th July I weighed in at 104.0kg (229lbs).  I didn't do any exercise in this week either and I had some sick days from work.  By 22 July I was sitting on 104.9kg again (231.2lbs).  

But, of course, on the 21 July I watched the Fat and Back documentary and it reinforced for me just how hard this journey is (urgh! what a cliché) and how easy it is to fall into bad habits that will not help me in my efforts to get healthy again.  

Started tracking & logging diligently again.  I've noticed that my tracking is becoming faster as I re-use many of the same foods in the database.  I'm only using the webversion, so there's no scanning of barcodes.  I just have to look everything up.  But stuff like steamed veges are usually floating around in the first three pages of recent food because I eat the same type of veges often.  And I'm getting better with portioning my food straight away, weighing those portions and putting it into the freezer straight away.  And I don't need to weigh everything out each time anymore.  My coffee for instance, I made & weighed enough times that I have a standard formula now of coffee:sugar:water:milk.  The milk varies slightly (±10ml), but I'm not quibbling over it, because a) long term I feel those wobbles balance out, and b) nearly half the time I make myself a coffee, I never finish it. 

Now, completely by accident I forgot to weigh-in last Monday.  I was really excited and looking forward to it too, because I'd just finished a week of careful tracking again.  I only remembered once I was halfway through breakfast.  I was going to weighin the next day, but I forgot then too, and by Wednesday I felt it wasn't going to be an accurate picture of the week. 

So I left it to this morning.

I weighed in at 103.0kg (226.6lbs). 

Woohoo, I think I'm losing weight. :) Finally. After 15 months of this blog and not really getting anywhere or doing anything. This calorie counting thing seems to be the way to go. I've lost this weight just by weighing and logging food. I've not done any real meaningful exercise in the past four weeks either. Just one walk of 40 minutes. It seems it's going to be possible and I can do this. I can lose weight and get healthy.

Excellent! :)

Another week done

So, here are my numbers for this week. 
 

WEEK 3 - (New) 13th August

Summary:

Weight	97 kg
Waist	85 cm
Hips	116 cm
Bust	104 cm
Thighs	114 cm
Thigh (R)	74 cm
Belly	116 cm
Upper Arm (L)	37 cm
Neck	36 cm

To be honest, I know they are still large, but at least, I was kind of expecting them to be.  Last week, when I didn't go to the gym on Thursday, it threw me off balance.  Where I had been treading so well, I slid down pretty quickly.

You may know that when the you are tired, your body craves junk food.  Fat, salt, sugar, all the stuff that is a quick boost of energy.  I am definitely one of those people who it noticeable happens too.  On Thursday, I did miss the gym, but I didn't go for a walk like on Tuesday.  I had to do grocery shopping.  By the time  I got home, it was after 8 and I did not feel like cooking any good food.  Instead, I succumbed to not one, but TWO microwaveable pasta packs.  To which I added cheese.  That was all the trigger I needed to continue eating foods that were highly processed or high in salt or sugar.  As a result, I think my measurements are a true reflection of the amount of salt and sugar I ate on Thursday night, Friday and Saturday.  By Saturday night, I realised I hadn't eaten anything good in two days, and I was able to turn myself back on track. 

I think I need to keep up the exercise.  When I exercise regularly, I eat well.  I don't know if it's a conscious thing, where I because I'm exercising, I don't want to undo all my hard work, or a subconscious reaction where my body is craving good, clean, healthy food to keep up the energy stores.  It's something I've noticed in the past.  I just need to make sure I keep moving and keep exercising. 

I have a late night at work today and tomorrow, meetings running until 5.30pm, but I'm keeping my gym bag ready and packed and in the car so that I can go after work.  Tonight, Kelly and I are going to go to Circuit for Life.  I hate it, but it's good at the same time.  A mix of strength exercises (medicine ball lifts, kettlebell swings, tricep dips, chin-ups, etc) and cardio (rower machine, burpees, shuttle run, starjumps, and so on).  When I was going in April-May, I really enjoyed seeing how much I improved, just over three to four weeks - to the point where I could actually start to do burpees!  I'm by all means, the slowest, unfittest person there, but most everyone is encouraging.  And there's always something that I find easy and can do multiple of, like squats, or something that I challenge myself to do the most of.

Well, I'd better eat breakfast and dash off to work, or else I won't get everything done in time by this afternoon.

-SunnyDuckling

Week 1 - Not according to plan

Hmm, well, I have said that I want to get back into the swing of being fit and losing weight, and yet, I haven't committed to it as well as I could have.  I've been the chicken in the bacon and eggs analogy - involved, but not committed. 

I only realised tonight that I said that I would start again last week.  I had the plan of daily exercise and everything.

Brutal honesty time:

Did I follow it? No

Did I make any effort to eat better?  Only a little

Did I meet the daily exercise target? No

Did I do things that helped or hindered my effort?  Hindered. 
I went to bed late, didn't stay adequately hydrated, forgot to take any iron supplements, ate badly - no where near enough greens. 

Did I weigh-in or take measurements so I could get a better idea of where I am at and where I need to get to?  No

Did I do things that sabotaged my efforts? Yes

So, I don't even know where my official Week 1 (new) should go, because I had planned for it to be last week, a nice start being the beginning of August, but somehow I let all that slip.  Maybe having my weigh-in time during the middle of the week wasn't working?  So I decided to try it out for Monday morning.  Monday morning will be before two gym days, and after my weekend.  Accounting whether I had a good weekend or not.  So, that's done.  Monday for weigh-in and Measurements.  There we go, catchy title: Measurement Monday.  Starting now, I will have Measurement Monday, and this morning's will be week 2.  I still think I'll take both my weight and measurements each week.  You can see my this week's results in the table below - and also in 'results' tab up top.

Additionally, yesterday morning I did some other exercise! I didn't even think about it until just now.  When I got up yesterday, I rolled straight out of bed and onto the floor so I could do some sit-ups.  I managed about 30.  I probably should have pushed myself to do 40, because if I had done 40 sit-ups once, I know I can convince myself to do 40 again.  And when I was on holidays, I managed to do 40 of them.  So, going to keep on trying and keep on working on that too.

This afternoon, Imogen and I went for a walk again, but I'm really disappointed I went because it was a really short walk.  Only 2.8km.  And it seemed that Imogen was dawdling.  We started off strong, but after 1 km, Imogen just slowed right down.  Maybe during the week doesn't work for her, and we should stick to it being a weekend activity.  I only went for a walk today because I hadn't packed for the gym and had nothing prepared for dinner when I got back.  So I made the decision of food first, exercise second.  But now, I'll have food that I can bring with me to work to eat in the afternoon to energise me before going to the gym with Kelly.  Good food too, like steamed broccoli.  So, in lieu of a good long walk, I instead did some squats, to make my legs feel like I had worked them out.  I managed to get to 20 squats.  My legs are a sore now, but in a good way.  I hope they don't feel too sore tomorrow!

So, now, week 2 results.  Have to be honest.  I'm not sure what to make of them.  When I weighed myself 2 weeks ago, the scale was sitting at 96kg.  Not so this morning.  I'm really debating whether I should get digital scales just to have some better accuracy.  My other measurements aren’t all that bad however.  Certainly not as large as the numbers were when I first started back in April.  I don't know what's going on.  I take my measurements first thing in the morning and I'm in front of the bathroom mirror, to make sure I'm measuring at the same spot each time.

WEEK 2 - (New) 6th August

Summary:

Weight	99 kg
Waist	84.5cm
Hips	116 cm
Bust	101 cm
Thighs	116 cm
Thigh (R)	71.5 cm
Belly	115 cm
Upper Arm (L)	37 cm
Neck	36 cm

Oh well.  I'll just use these numbers as motivation while at the gym tomorrow!  Feel the burn baby.  Speaking of which, I suppose I had better pack my gym bag so I have no way of getting out of going. 

-SunnyDuckling.

Week 7 round-up

Whoops!  I've had helluva busy week this week.  Not keen on next week's results based on this and other excuses. 

RESULTS!

Well at the end of this week, this how the results look. 

Another kilogram down! Wahoo!  Also, some numbers have gone down, namely the waist.  Not 100% sure if this is accurate though.

Summary:

Weight	94 kg
Waist	83.5 cm
Hips	111.5 cm
Bust	101.5 cm
Thighs	113 cm
Thigh (R)	71.5 cm
Belly	113 cm
Upper Arm (L)	37 cm
Neck	35 cm

Oh! I should also point out I actually had to weigh myself at 4.30 in the morning for this.  Wednesday I had a meeting in the city - which is 2 1/2 hours away.  So I had to get up early to drive myself there.  What fun….. :(  This is after I had to drive 2.5 hours to another city in the other direction on Tuesday for a convention.  Two mornings in a row I had to get up early for work purposes.  Crazy times. 

I also had to leave detailed instructions on how to deal with my clients on both these days, so I missed Monday's gym class.  I missed Tuesday's because I needed to go to bed early to sleep.  I got back home too late to go to Wednesday's gym and by Thursday I was absolutely pooped so I skipped the gym on Thursday (and slept for almost 12 hours - lovely and refreshing, glad I did!)

I think I also slacked this week with good food choices because of this.  I packed my lunch for both trips into the city which I was pleased about.  However, I do admit going to Hungry Jacks to get a (vegetarian) burger for dinner Wednesday night before driving home.  I debated about Subway, but we have Subway at home, and Hungry Jacks is a treat I only afford myself when in the city.  I felt good though about my choice because I didn't get any fries or soft drink to go with it. 

Another excuse, and I do admit quite freely to using the word excuse, because that's what it is, is "I was sick".  I was pretty unwell Monday & Tuesday.  Snotty nose, sneezing, chills and every now and then a wave of nausea.  I think on Monday all I had during the day was a number of cups of lemon tea.  I didn't even eat the tomato soup I brought - loaded up with garlic and leek and other vegetables.  I just didn't feel I could keep it down. 

So I need to work better on recognising when I'm getting run-down and counter-act that.  I know that with a head cold like I had, exercising is still fine.  In fact, I managed to go for a bike ride with Imogen on Saturday.  9 km.  I had to stop often because I couldn't breathe, but Imogen is also new to getting fit.  She admits her self she doesn't ride very fast. 

No excuses next week.  Have already packed my gym bag for Monday.

-SunnyDuckling

Week 4 Weigh-in

Oops!  Thanks to having a show holiday this week, I've forgotten to post.
I went to the Gym on both Monday and Tuesday again this week.  It's funny, I wasn't feeling that positive about it on Monday, but Tuesday felt good.  Given how much arms work we did in class, I was really worried that my arms would be really sore.  But Wednesday was really good, my arms and shoulders weren't stiff at all.

Now, my results for week four were...

	Week 4
Weight	95 kg
Waist	85 cm
Hips	114 cm
Bust	101 cm
Thighs	114 cm
Thigh (R)	72.5 cm
Belly	114.5 cm
Upper Arm (L)	35 cm
Neck	35.5 cm

I went down another kilo!! Hooray!! And I'm feeling pretty good about my other measurements too.  I did actually remember to measure and weigh myself before I ate breakfast too, so I should keep going with that too.

2 kilos down - I'm on my way!

-SunnyDuckling

What a wasted week

Well, it's been 1 week since I've returned to work after holidays.  As I suspected, my exercise and diet plans, went out the window!

This week was hard.  I didn't lose any weight and I only exercised the once, and that was a quick 1/2 hour walk on Tuesday, because I was short on time.  And, obviously, I didn't even blog until today!  I didn't weigh and measure myself on Wednesday either.  This week was a step backwards.

A number of things I think contributed to a poor result this week. 

For starters, every evening this week, I got home, sat down and basically just crashed.  I fell asleep on the couch by 8pm.   And spent the entire night on the couch.   I only woke up at around quarter to 8, leaving me just fifteen minutes to shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, pack lunch,  and drive to work! 

So my energy levels were incredibly poor and if I wasn't at work, I was asleep it seemed!  And the food I was eating, and the quantities, were not the same as what I was eating on my holidays.  Sunday night when I got back, I had some fresh filled pasta - spinach ricotta angniolotti - and a creamy tomato ricotta sauce from a jar. I probably ate a serving and a half of that. I took the left overs to work Monday and Tuesday, and I felt I ate sensible portions of it, around 200-250g worth.  Monday night I cooked up some wholemeal pasta, cous-cous and leftover tomato & basil pasta sauce.   The total quantity amounted to probably three servings, if you check proper serving sizes.  I ate it all that night.  Vegetable soup Tuesday night that I ate Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights.  Wednesday I also ate a heap of Anzac biscuits.  Over a dozen.  Even today, I ate too much food, double dose of breakfast, then a really late lunch so I stuffed myself with four cheese sandwiches, two beers, two packets of popcorn and a microwavable pasta pack.  Can you see a trend in my eating and food habits yet?  LOTS of carbs (pasta in particular). 

However, over the last day I have been relatively more active than I was in the beginning of the week.  When I came home yesterday, I set to work cleaning my floordrobe in order to move out an armoire that I had no more use for.  And in my living room, I set to work clearing out the furniture in there, so I could give the couch back to my neighbour, who I had been borrowing it from.   In the process of cleaning and moving stuff, I also came across my pedometer, so I'm super happy about that.  For ages now, I've had to guess the distance I've travelled when on my walks, but I won't have to now.

I also think I'm low on iron.  If I have been crashing like I have been it's usually a sign that I'm down on my iron.  Time to start dosing up again! Bonus side effect is increasing my vitamin C levels in order to help absorb iron supplements and plant iron will hopefully boost my immune system.  Helpful as we're heading into cooler weather and in about three weeks we'll reach winter.

I have decided that on Monday, I will look into joining the gym in my area.  As much as I whinge about it, I think I need to get my butt into gear and really start exercising.  Diet alone will only go so far.  And as I've discovered this week, if I'm caught up and busy with work, by the time I get home, I have limited time to exercise (walk) before it gets dark.  So I need to somehow pick up activity levels somewhere else in my day.  I was thinking/hoping if I can get myself organised properly, I might also see if I can get myself to the gym in the morning before work. 

So, things I am going work on this week:  Portion sizing of my food.  Packing lunch the night before.  Exercising at least three times this week - Gym class Monday, walk on Wednesday, and gym again on Thursday or Friday.  Weighing myself on Wednesday.  Cooking appropriate amounts of food.

Lots to work on! Better get to it, including more housework  :-)

-SunnyDuckling