Weigh-In: BirthDAY, not week

Alright, let’s dive right into this.

This week’s weigh-in:

	Starting	6/8	8/19	9/30	10/29	11/19	12/31	1/14	1/28	2/4	2/11
Weight	200	191.2	182.6	181	181.4	177.6	177.2	175.8	174.6	175.8	174.2
Lbs. Fat		82.7	72.5	70.3	70.8	68.1	67.1	67.6	65.3	66.8	64.7
Lbs. Muscle		67.3	66.8	65.2	67.3	63.3	63.9	65	64.4	65.2	63.5

Well, I’m glad last’s week gain is gone, along with another half pound - and the fat numbers match the net weight numbers, so at least that half a pound was fat lost and not muscle or water. I was hoping for more, of course, since this means I’ve lost just half a pound in two weeks of eating well and working out. It’s been a good few weeks of consistent workouts, actually bringing lunch to work, and staying within my calorie range.

This means that I will definitely not make my goal of getting into the 160’s by my birthday. I knew it was a tall order based on my history, but I really thought it was doable and I’m extremely disappointed that I didn’t make it. New goal: I’m going to try and do it by the end of February, but that might be a long shot as well.

The upside is that I’m not going to do anything about it; I realize that I have no choice. I can keep trying and know it will eventually catch up, or - what? Give up and gain back 25 pounds? Can’t, nope. So onward we ride. Weight loss is definitely like riding a bike at a really low gear - you pedal and pedal, so quickly, but move so slowly.

Because confidence is key.

Upcoming challenges:

Birthday - My plan for my birthday on Tueday is to have a maintenance day and treat it as its own one-day week. I know it’s probably not worth eating so much that the calories spill over onto another day, so I’ll try my best. Bottom line: As long as I keep it to birthDAY, there’s only so bad it can be.

Wedding - we have a wedding of a family friend next weekend (yay!), which will also involve a weekend at my parent’s house. It should be too challenging, but I’ve learned that I don’t do great out of my comfort zones of work, home, and occasional outings. It won’t be hard to eat healthy with my parents, as they eat very well, I just have to watch portion sizes and do my best at the wedding.

Things that are not challenges: Valentine's Day, because I don't really care about it. Our wedding anniversary is my Valentine's Day. The upside is that everything is discounted on my actual birthday because it's on the 17th. Woot!

Weigh-In: Sometimes It's Just Annoying

Last week I was disappointed that the my weight was essentially the same despite a good week, so this morning, after another on-plan week, I was expecting to be close to my birthday goal of getting out of the 170s.

The weigh-in:

	Starting	6/8	8/19	9/30	10/29	11/19	12/31	1/14	1/21	1/28	2/4
Weight	200	191.2	182.6	181	181.4	177.6	177.2	175.8	174.8	174.6	175.8
Lbs. Fat		82.7	72.5	70.3	70.8	68.1	67.1	67.6	66.5	65.3	66.8
Lbs. Muscle		67.3	66.8	65.2	67.3	63.3	63.9	65	65.1	64.4	65.2

This

And this. 

What is this sorcery? This is one of those times when I think I just have to accept that, sometimes, the scale really just doesn't reflect the last week (or two) of hard work. Still annoyed, but have to trust that my body keeps track and it will catch up. I feel like I'm riding a bike at a really high gear - pedaling so fast and hard, but barely moving.

The stats for this week: 

Workouts: 

I went to the gym six times this week, and burned a total of 3650 calories. I did one session of strength training, so will try to do another tomorrow since that's one of my February goals

Workouts included two classes - my beloved Sunday Zumba, and a step class. Holy crap, step classes are hard. They don't explain any of the moves, they just start and newbs like me try not to fall off or be too awkward when we realized we've been facing the wrong way for the last twenty seconds. 

Calories: 

I had a couple of higher calorie days, especially on the harder workouts, but it averaged out well with my "flex" calories and I ended the week with a deficit of about 3200, or close to a pound. Not that you'd see it on the scale though. (Bitter? Me?)

We went to a friend's Super Bowl party on Sunday and I told John that it would be easier not to eat any of the snack foods than to just have one chip or one pretzel or one pizza. I'm so much more about the sweet, so it would just be picking and mindless eating if I ate it. And I succeeded! Our lovely host also made a huge tray of cut up veggies, and we brought some baby carrots and hummus as well. It was a fun party, and my pride was such that you'd have thought I'd just aced the LSATs. 

Upcoming challenges this week: Nothing too challenging coming up, thankfully. However, my birthday is in a couple of weeks, and we have a wedding the weekend after that.

I'm stuck between "This is one of two days a year, literally, that I will not worry about calories and enjoy some food" and "Why lessen the week's accomplishments? Will your birthday really be so much less special if you don't eat a ton of junk food?" We'll see, I guess - though whatever happens, I WILL track it. 

Onto the next week. Really hoping my efforts show on the scale next week. I feel like I could squeak out my goal if that happens. 

Birthdays - Junk-fest-free-for-all or a chance to take a special birthday edition SoulCycle class? 

Goals for February

A blogger I like used to post monthy goals for herself, and I like the idea of that. I’ve made plenty of short term goals, like my original “Weight loss reboot” or when I stopped eating sugar for a month. It’s good to focus on the short term because my goal weight is likely a year away at least.

February Goals:

• Get to a New Weight Decade
• My original goal was to get into the 160’s by my 26th birthday, but I’m not sure I’ll make that. So while I’d still love to make that, my next “deadline” is to get to this place by the end of the month, two weeks later. Just 4.6 pounds...
• Increase Strength Training
• I’ve been going to the gym, and even pushing myself, consistently 4-5 times a week. However, I only strength train once a week, sometimes only a few times a month. For this month, I’m aiming to do weights 6 times at least, and hopefully 8 or 10.
• Probably not 10, since this is a short month.
• Get a New Weekend Strategy
• Or, something. Every week I overdo it on Friday and Saturday, and it turns my pound loss into two-thirds or half a pound. Still progress and great and all that, but I need to be better at this.
• Possible strategy: stop making desserts for potlucks, dammit Leah. People will still like you when you don’t bring them sugar.

• Get Creative with Breakfast
• I literally eat oatmeal or Greek yogurt for breakfast every day. I want to try at least one new work-friendly breakfast (so probably no eggs).
• One option: I’ve always liked that if it’s food and you have it for breakfast, then it’s breakfast food. Stew, beans, chicken, why not?
• Bring Lunch
• Bring lunch at least 4 days a week. Laziness if the only thing stopping me. Even if it’s an Amy’s meal, it’s still cheaper than buying, and still better because it takes away the necessity of a decision.
• Remember that it’s a birthDAY, not a birthWEEK
• My mother was not in labor for a week; in fact, she was barely in labor for an afternoon. Celebrate/eat accordingly.
• Call my mother on my birthday, to thank her. She did all the work that day.
• Cook on Sundays
• It helps so much for the week. I cooked a couple of dishes over the last two Sundays that were good for lunch - mainly fish chowder and balsamic chicken with fajita vegetables - and I need to keep this up. Today will be a challenge since we’re going to a Superbowl party so I shouldn't procrastinate like I usually do.

Alright, February. Here we go.

Who else has goals, weight-related or other, for this month?

What are they?

Weigh In: Fat vs. Muscle Edition

Another week gone. I love that the scale is out of sight and reach during the week. It forces me to focus on doing well, that day, because I can’t know if the scale is reflecting it.

This week’s numbers:

	Starting	6/8	8/19	9/30	10/29	11/19	12/31	1/7	1/14	1/21	1/28
Weight	200	191.2	182.6	181	181.4	177.6	177.2	176.6	175.8	174.8	174.6
Lbs. Fat		82.7	72.5	70.3	70.8	68.1	67.1	66.9	67.6	66.5	65.3
Lbs. Muscle		67.3	66.8	65.2	67.3	63.3	63.9	63.9	65	65.1	64.4

Well, look at that fat number back down! I’m so, so close to having more muscle weight than fat weight. That feels like a huge milestone. Net weight is about the same, but (as should be obvious from my previous post) that’s not shocking. Another funny thing is that my fat loss is higher than the total loss on the scale!

Now that it's just three weeks till my 26th birthday, I think my goal of getting to the 160s might not be in reach. I'm going to keep trying, of course, but my second goal/deadline is to get there by the end of February.

This has been a good week overall, despite the PMSing (see previous post for how that was). I worked out five times, with some strength training, brought my lunch in every day, and have been a faithful food tracker since June. 

However, I repeated my tired pattern of going overboard on Friday and Saturday and having to reel it in the rest of the week. Because it’s been a while, here is the calorie breakdown for this week (first number is gross calories, second number is net calories, so if there’s one number it means I didn’t work out):

Wednesday: 1530, 1100

Thursday: 1625, 1245

Friday: 2520, 2175

Saturday: 2200

Sunday: 1600, 940

Monday: 1585

Tuesday: 1350, 1100

So four low calorie days, two high calorie days, and one in the middle, for a net deficit about about 2260, or a little over half a pound. Obviously not ideal, since I’m aiming for a pound a week, but honestly? I’m okay with it. I really think that what I’m doing now, how I’m doing this, is a way that will stick. .6 pounds a week adds up to 30 pounds in a year. That means that if I do all the weeks exactly as I did this one, I would be at 145 next year - a weight I’ve NEVER been at as an adult.

Does it sound like I’m rationalizing a not-great week? Maybe I am, but I’m okay with that. So every week, I’m going to aim for a pound deficit - a great, sometimes lofty goal. But I’ll know that even if I can do half that, I’ll make incredible progress.

Do you have trouble going overboard on weekends?

How do you make the best of it?

A Milestone Hit, and Why Weight Loss is Not Black and White

This week didn’t start out great, and didn’t end wonderfully, but overall it was a good one because I worked to work within the flexibility of my eating plan, and I think it was good practice for weight loss under (almost) all circumstances.

My plan is simple: eat a minimum of 1000 calories per day, plus any calories burned while working out. Those calories, plus another 2000 “weekly” calories that can be split up however I want allows me to average 1300 calories per day. That adds up (er, down) to a pound loss every week - but with a lot more flexibility than a standard 1300 calories/day plan.

The only issue with this is that if I eat a lot on Wednesday, the first day of my week, I spend the rest of the week playing catch up. That’s what happened this week, so by Saturday, I was out of weekly calories and would have needed to net 1000 calories every day until it reset on Wednesday. Not easy, and probably not going to happen without a lot of planning, and workouts.

Here's where the flexible part came in most, and it applies to any weight loss plan. So I've said this before, but it should be said over and over again: weight loss is so not black and white. There are many areas between “lose a pound this week” and “gain a pound this week.” Yes, ideally I’ll follow my plan and have an average 500 calorie deficit each day, for a weekly calorie deficit of 3,500, which is a pound. But if I end up with a 3,000 calorie deficit, or even a 2,500 calories deficit, that’s still a loss.

So as much as I really, really, want to try and get that 3,500 calorie deficit each week, it’s not always going to happen. On the last day of my food week, Tuesday, I was at a deficit of 2,200. But I realized that just wasn’t feasible to eat at the calorie level that my plan dictated, so I decided to let myself eat up to a full 1,800 calories for the day - maintenance level. That way I could eat a decent amount, but not have it spill over onto other days and still end up with that 2,200 calorie balance. I could even theoretically have eaten 4,000 calories that day and broken even for the week because of the previous deficit.

The results of yesterday’s weigh in:

	Starting	6/8	8/19	9/30	10/29	11/19	12/24	12/31	1/7	1/14	1/21
Weight	200	191.2	182.6	181	181.4	177.6	179.6	177.2	176.6	175.8	174.8
Lbs. Fat		82.7	72.5	70.3	70.8	68.1	69.5	67.1	66.9	67.6	66.5
Lbs. Muscle		67.3	66.8	65.2	67.3	63.3	68	63.9	63.9	65	65.1

Awesome, another pound down! It's more than I was expecting, because I did not have a pound's worth of calorie deficit this week, but since when does the scale perfectly reflect the last seven days? Still a win. This means that I have officially lost 25 pounds from my highest weight. (Hopefully the next 25 won't take as long.) Fat isn’t cooperating as much, but it’s back down from last week, and I’m really happy.

In other news, I realized that between drafts and published posts, I have 99 posts. So I got 99 posts, but… actually I have no idea how to finish that. Help?

Weekly Weight & High School Nostalgia

Here's the weekly number: 

	Starting	6/8	8/19	9/30	10/29	11/19	12/24	12/31	1/7	1/14
Weight	200	191.2	182.6	181	181.4	177.6	179.6	177.2	176.6	175.8
Lbs. Fat		82.7	72.5	70.3	70.8	68.1	69.5	67.1	66.9	67.6
Lbs. Muscle		67.3	66.8	65.2	67.3	63.3	68	63.9	63.9	65

Of course, the week after I decide to focus on the fat number and less on the net weight, my fat is up and weight is down. Maybe I’ll switch for the week? So yay, I'm down almost a full pound!

This was a pretty good week, though I think now I'm getting into that fun monthly time where I want to eat everything. I've been going to the gym consistently 4-5 times a week, even when my husband doesn't join me.

Pictured: COMMITMENT.

Our friend who joined a CSA let us take it over for a couple of weeks while she was away, which let to our having a ton of parsnips, eggs, and pears. Awesome! I made a blended parsnip soup with a couple of potatoes, light coconut milk, and Indian spices (based on this recipe). It was sweeter than expected, but still good and only 120 calories per cup. Overall though, I need to get consistently better about cooking. The main reason is that lunches out are expensive. 

In other news, I think going to the gym has officially become ingrained in me. I don’t dread it, and sometimes I even enjoy it. Working out is just something I do now, apparently. It helps that the machines at the gym all have televisions attached, so when I go in the morning I get to look forward to watching an old episode of Charmed. Approximately 27% of my high school years were spent watching this show.

That’s not to say that I wouldn’t easily revert back to old habits. I’ve done that before. But this time actually feels different. When I get up early so I can go to the gym before work, it feels like “Okay, this is something I should do for the rest of my life. Okay, I can do that.”

Five more weeks until my goal time of getting into the 170s.

Weekly Weight: Down Again!

Here's the weekly number:

	Starting	6/8	8/19	9/30	10/29	11/19	12/17	12/24	12/31	1/7
Weight	200	191.2	182.6	181	181.4	177.6	179.2	179.6	177.2	176.6
Lbs. Fat		82.7	72.5	70.3	70.8	68.1	68.4	69.5	67.1	66.9
Lbs. Muscle		67.3	66.8	65.2	67.3	63.3	67.3	68	63.9	63.9

Excellent, down by another half pound! My expectations were low since I was sick for half the week and didn't move at all, let alone exercise, so I'm especially happy.

A few random bullet points: 

• Today, I wore another pair of pants that a year ago I couldn't even zip up. I think they were maybe borderline too tight in some places, but the waistline fit great and I was too excited not to wear them. "Why, these old thing that look like generic black slacks? Yes, they are part of this magical day!"
• I've been putting the scale away during the week and just checking in on Wednesdays. I think it's much better for now. It forces me to not focus on the number because you can't focus on what you don't know. I do still like to check in weekly, but those daily reminders were helping more than hurting. 
• I have six weeks left until my time goal to hit the 160s. Maybe I can actually do this!
• I was crazy sore yesterday. Is that what happens when you don't walk farther than the distance between your bedroom and the kitchen for four days, and then do some strength training and cardio? 
• We've starting watching Star Trek (though Jay has already seen most of them) and it's awesome. 
• I'm glad everyone is obsessed with Serial because there's many fascinating analyses to read. 
• I just realized I have 69 posts from 2014. Totally an accident - even my unconscious mind is in the gutter.
• Winter is here. Everything is cold. I hate it. 
• My father-in-law lives in LA, and he likes to mock us by sending photos of his wife and himself on warm sunny bike rides on the beach.