Weekly Weigh-In and Strength Training Update

This was another good week, though I repeated my pattern of eating too much one weekend evening and therefore having a lot fewer of those weekly flexible calories during Sunday-Wednesday. I went to the gym five times so those extra calories helped me succeed in having a 1300/day average. However, I’d like to work on not getting like that in the first place. The most annoying thing about it, funnily enough, is that I don’t know how many calories I ate. I know I ate too much of the amazing chocolate chunk challah, but how much too much? 500 calories? 800 calories? I rounded it off as best I could and moved on, but I need to pay more attention in these situations.

On Tuesday, my Zumba friend and I tried out a different class at another of our gym’s locations. It was fun, but had a lot more emphasis on hips/gyrating movement. And I thought I looked uncoordinated doing dance steps...ah well. I’ve improved at my regular Zumba class, so I’d improve here too.

Guess which one I am?

This week’s weigh-in:

	6/8/2014	8/19/2014	9/30/2014	10/29/2014	11/6/2014	11/12/2014
Weight	191.2	182.6	181	181.4	179.6	179.6
Pounds Fat	82.7	72.5	70.3	70.8	70.3	68.8
Pounds Muscle	67.3	66.8	65.2	67.3	65	67.7

Weight is the same, which is actually great because I was worried that the previous week was just a fluctuation. Also, look at the fat! I’m now down fourteen full pounds of fat from when I started in June, and haven’t lost any muscle in the process, which is hard to avoid with weight loss. That kicks ass. Or more accurately, I kick ass.

I will probably lose some muscle eventually since I don't think I'd end up with 70 pounds of muscle on a 135-pound frame, but it's great to have lost purely fat till now. 

I think part of that is because of my workouts, but more specifically the strength training. Since July, I’ve been trying to do it at least once or twice a week. I keep track of the weight and reps I do on my phone, and try to up the weight when it gets too easy - for me, that means I can do at least 15 repetitions. When I first started, I put all the machines on the lightest setting (at least I intended to), and I'm making my way up the weights.

Here’s a before and now for the amount of weight I use, in pounds - I use my made-up names for the machines, but put the real names in parentheses.

	July	November
Reverse Pull-Ups (Lateral Pull Down)	55	80
Raise the Roof (Overhead Press)	30	65
Slow Crumping (Vertical Chest)	35	50
Show off Your Pecs (Preacher Curl)	30	40
Defy Gravity (Seated Dip, just started on this one last month)	70	75
My Arms! (Dual Axis Row )	50	85

Most of the time, I don't use every machine every time, but I do as many reps and possible - slow and steady - until I've exhausted the muscle. It's pretty much the method I learned when I did strength training with an actual trainer, and since I'm getting stronger (and trainers cost more than God), I'm sticking with it for now.

Anyone else strength train? I want to hear about it!

First Week On Flexible Plan - A Great Weigh-In

This was a really good week, and I think a large part of that is due to the changes I made to my eating plan. I’ve said in the past that I think one of the keys to weight loss is to forgive the inevitable errors because guilt is pointless, and I still think that. However, in this revamped plan of counting calories weekly as well as daily, I can actually make up for my mistakes a bit instead of just letting them go.

The final plan was simple: eat a minimum of 1000 net daily calories, with 2000 weekly calories that could be used however I wanted, restarting every Wednesday. Still averages out to 1300/day, but much more flexible. For the record books, I’m not counting the calories in non-starchy vegetables because, let’s get real, I didn’t get fat eating too much lettuce and I figure it’s highly unlikely that I could consume enough broccoli to impede my weight loss.

I got a little snacky on Saturday (Snacky On Saturday - romcom coming February 2015). We ate lunch with some friends and there was just a lot of food around. But what got me, calorie-wise, was the picking at leftovers once back home. “Picking” is definitely one of the things I struggle with, especially at home, and I am working on it (kind of). But the great thing is that my estimated 2100 calorie Saturday - a full three hundred above even the regular maintenance level and an impressive 1100 above my minimum - actually fit healthfully into a week in which I had a 3500-calorie deficit. Balance!

On that topic, for now I’m still only eating back exercise calories on the same day that I burn them, but maybe in the future I’ll throw that into the pot.

This is the net calorie breakdown by day:

Wednesday - 1200

Thursday - 1300

Friday -  1500

Saturday - 2100

Sunday - 920**

Monday - 925**

Tuesday -1500

It was quite great, and not as annoying to keep track of as I thought. I felt more in control of my weight than ever because I was confident that whatever challenges presented themselves, I could figure them out and fit them into the week.

My positive feelings were reinforced when I got on the scale this morning.

Weigh-in:

	6/8/2014	8/19/2014	9/3/2014	9/30/2014	10/15/2014	10/29/2014	11/6/2014
Weight	191.2	182.6	182.8	181	181.6	181.4	179.6
Pounds Fat	82.7	72.5	73	70.3	70.8	70.8	70.3
Pounds Muscle	67.3	66.8	67.2	65.2	67	67.3	65

Remember when September was going to be the month I got into the 170s, and how I thought it would be so easy? And then October was going to be the month? Well it turns out it’s November. I don’t even care, I’m just glad to be here.

Now that I have finally (finally) hit the goal that I’ve been after for months, it’s time for a new one. I’m going to aim further this time, and set a deadline. I joined the gym last February, right at my 25th birthday, with the dream of losing a significant amount of weight by my 26th. While I won’t be 50 pounds lighter on my 26th birthday, I am going to try to be below 170. In order to make this goal, I need to lose ten pounds in the next 14 weeks - totally doable, with room for a plateaus or a few bad days. From now on I’ll weigh in with this particular goal in mind.

One-seventy would be a great accomplishment since this was the highest weight I looked okay i.e. my weight might not be the first thing you notice when you look at me. If this weight loss is like the previous time around, these ten pounds will come out of my face and hips.

Just because I love these.

**Please don’t freak out, Internet. These are net calorie counts, not gross. On each of these days, I ended up burning 500-600 calories at the gym and just didn’t feel the need to eat them all back.

Weigh-In, New Challenges and Changes

Good evening! 

First, here’s the weekly weigh-in:

	6/8/2014	8/19/2014	9/3/2014	9/30/2014	10/15/2014	10/22/2014	10/29/2014
Weight	191.2	182.6	182.8	181	181.6	181.6	181.4
Pounds Fat	82.7	72.5	73	70.3	70.8	71.3	70.8
Pounds Muscle	67.3	66.8	67.2	65.2	67	65.4	67.3

Essentially the same number as the previous three weeks - a bit annoying since this was the first week “back” after all the Jewish holidays, and I was hoping to lose a bit.  Overall I’m considering October a maintenance month - not ideal, but pretty good considering the challenges.

Speaking of challenges, while I’m not a huge fan of the aforementioned weight-loss related ones that life craps out, I do like making little challenges or goals for myself. In fact, I’m so committed that I’ve been trying to break into the 170s since August.

Challenges keep me accountable, keep me focused, and make things interesting. When I did the low/no sugar month, I stopped eating office food, something that had definitely been stalling my weight or at the very least, slowing it. 

I was able to do it for the month because I knew it was temporary, and then I was able to keep it going after the time ended because I realized it was a good idea, and not as impossible as I’d assumed it would be. Just today our boss brought in delicious apple fritters for everyone and put them on my desk since that was the central location at the moment, and I didn’t eat any. And it was fine, and nobody cared. So I’m going to consider October not as the month I maintained, but rather the month in which I broke a bad habit.

New challenge: starting today and through November, I want to try and stop picking at food in other setting - that piece of pasta out of the strainer, that bite of leftovers, you know what I mean. I track it, but it’s really mindless, pointless calories that I barely remember and definitely are not satisfying. Maybe there are food issues at hand, but part of the reason I do this is plain old habit. And habits can be broken.

If I can work on issues one at a time, I think I could make real long-term progress.

I’m also going to change up how I count calories so that it works better for my style and can help incorporate those “picking at food” slip-ups into the week instead of wrecking the day. 

Since March, when I started diligently tracking my food, I’ve had a daily calorie goal. It’s on the lower end of the expected range, but I ended up averaging a bit higher because of occasional high-calorie days. Sunday through Thursday, I can usually hit that target number without too much effort. I slip up some days, of course, and go over my calorie goals, but for the most part these days have routines and I often “earn” more calories by working out.

However, I didn't give myself any flexibility. This Sunday I burned 700 calories from Zumba and walking to/from the gym, and felt like I had more calories available than I really needed or wanted. And then on Tuesday, I was weirdly hungry, even after my normal breakfast. So why not take the calories I don’t need from Sunday, within reason, and save them for the rest of the week? Why not count calories weekly instead of daily? I think as long as I’m eating a healthy amount each day and have an weekly average deficit of, say, 4000-4500 calories, the daily breakdowns don’t matter as much and my weight will go down.

I’m going to copy part of the Weight Watchers plan, specifically the idea of having both daily and weekly calorie goals. Weight Watchers managed to be be flexible but stringent, if that even makes sense. Essentially there were flexible rules, and flexibility built into the plan, and if you were careful to stay (rigidly) within those flexibilities, you’d lose weight. There was a daily minimum of “food points,” and a weekly allowance that could be used at any time - all in one day or split over different days. 

So I will start giving myself weekly calories, two thousand of them, available anytime from Wednesday through Tuesday, started today. Based on my patterns, I expect to use most of them on the weekend, but again, it’s all about flexibility.

I’ll keep this up for the next four weeks, and see how I feel. I’m thinking of October as the month I stopped eating office junk, instead of the month where I struggled through holidays and barely maintained. So maybe November could be the month that I get a handle on nibbling at foods and having unplanned higher calorie days.

On an unrelated note, you might have noticed that goodnightcheese.blogspot.com is now redirecting to goodnightcheese.com, of which I am now the proud owner. Did you know they'll let anybody buy a domain?

How I Stopped Eating Office Junk Food

About a month ago, I set out to have a low-sugar week. For breakfast, I traded in my sweetened yogurt for homemade oatmeal; I turned down evening treats and just said no to the delicious office sweets. My only slip up was that Friday night, where I had some meringues that one of our friends brought over.

I plan to continue limiting my sugar intake - cutting it out at work and limiting it at home. I don’t think sugar is evil or want to say goodbye to it, no doubt in a drawn-out farewell scene where I cry and the sugar strokes my cheek before sadly turning away and going off to war, but cutting it out for just a week really pinpointed the weaknesses in my food plans. I was doing pretty well, I was making progress, but not as quickly as I could have.

I’ve realized that (part of) the answer is in those little treats that I would end up eating during the day - a little chocolate from the candy bowl, a quarter of a bagel from the office breakfast, a couple of bites of something offered by a generous co-worker... They take a great day and turn it into an okay one, or they leave me with only 300 calories for dinner, so I end up going over my intended calorie allotment in order to eat a reasonable dinner. Not ideal.

Since that week, I have not had a single office treat. Not when there were chocolate croissants at breakfast, not when a colleague brought in cookies from the best place in town, still warm, not when the candy bowl was overflowing with mini Three Musketeers. There has never been a month-long period where I didn’t eat any office food - probably not even a single week where I didn’t partake in some way. (And I wonder why I gained twenty-five pounds after I started working.) 

That's... a tough one.

Before now it never seriously occurred to me that cutting out office food - all office food - was a possibility. I mean, what if there was a really good cake? What about balancing treats with eating healthy? Turns out that was bullshit - I'm not cutting out all sugar, just what's at work. Sometimes it's easier to always say no. I'm taking those automatic "no, thanks" answers to a new super-level, office edition, available in stores right now.

This is one of those things where I’m so proud I want to tell people on the subway about my accomplishment, and high school students are surprisingly good listeners.

And those dumb cliches about how "It gets easier" and "You don't even want it after a while" are completely true. That first week of my personal low-sugar party, I was heating up my oatmeal in the office kitchen and someone had put the leftovers from a “welcome to the company” breakfast in there - a plate or two of pastries, wafting up their intoxicating buttery scent. Almost every other time, even the weeks I lose weight and generally consider to be successful, I’ve had a bite or even a quarter of a muffin. But this time I ignored them until the microwave beeped. And it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. It was just something I do, and I didn’t even feel like I missed out on anything. 

It’s easier to go off previous momentum, to think “I never have those. I can, but they’re not worth it so I don’t bother” than agonize over whether I should spend one or two hundred calories on it. It turns out it’s easier to just never have it than to decide if I should.

The lesson I’ve taken from this is that it’s not worth it 99.9% of the time. Anything offered at work, I can either buy or make. So if I wouldn’t buy it or make it, why should I eat it just because it’s free and in front of me? Once an awesome colleague stood in line for three hours to bring us cronuts, those super-trendy donut/croissant hybrids, only sold at one location and limited to two per customer. That’s the only time it’s ever been worth it for me to have any of the sweets at work, because then I got to try something unique that I’ll most likely never have again. But catered chocolate croissants? Bagels? Even, I dare say it, fresh-made apple cider donuts? Still not worth it. I love that my coworkers and my company can be so generous, and it definitely contributes to our generally pleasant work environment, but I no longer want to participate.

Nobody is going to notice or care, just like they haven’t so far. If I really, really, want something, then I need to want it enough to at least go out and buy it. “Free” and “being offered to me” are not reasons to eat it.

Complimenting Weight Loss and Weekly Weigh-In

This has been a pretty good week - I went to the gym almost every day, and pushed myself in the workouts. My Zumba friend and I had a blast at our class, and I’m thinking of trying another one during the week. I’ll say for the last time - I am so happy to be back to regularly schedule programming. The holidays were hard, and I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped, but they’re over now so I’m focusing on what I can actually influence.

This week’s weight, and last week's that I didn't get around to posting:

	6/8/2014	8/19/2014	9/3/2014	9/17/2014	9/30/2014	10/15/2014	10/22/2014
Weight	191.2	182.6	182.8	180.4	181	181.6	181.6
Pounds Fat	82.7	72.5	73	72.1	70.3	70.8	71.3
Pounds Muscle	67.3	66.8	67.2	64.4	65.2	67	65.4

Quite frankly, I’m thrilled. I think the not-so-good holidays managed to be balanced out by really successful in-between days. Normally I would have said “screw it, why bother to get back on track for four days when it’s just going to be another holiday?” This time, though, I realized it was worth it. Weight loss is really all about the long term, so if in the long term I gain a pound or two over a holiday period (because really, that’s all it is) and then back on track the rest of the time, it doesn’t have to have such an effect. Maybe October will be 170s month? Probably not, but considering that it was about 1/3 holiday, I think it's good.

Speaking of weight loss (which in this space, is most of the time) - a while back, when I was heating up my breakfast in the office kitchen, one of the managers politely asked me if I had lost weight. I may have hugged her. She is the first person who doesn’t know that I’m trying to lose weight to notice. I still don’t see a huge difference, but this shows that something is changing.

Complimenting weight loss can be a tricky business. For a while there in 2012, I was steadily losing weight. Thus for people who only saw me every so often, like my gap year abroad friends, I was smaller each time we would get together. They would usually notice and make a comment about it. Some people do not like to be complimented on their weight loss, but I’m not one of them. I like when my hard work is noticed, and it validates that I’m actually accomplishing something tangible, a good reminder for harder days.

I got a little uncomfortable when I started gaining weight, and not just because my pants were too tight. Rather, I would see the same people, and it would be clear to all that I had definitely not lost weight since we’d last seen each other. One memorable time, I saw some friends and when we were greeting each other, one of them said how great I looked, almost in a habitual way. This was unfortunately at a point where I had regained about twenty pounds since the last time I saw them, and was rocking out at about 175. It was a little awkward because I said “Thanks,” but was thinking “No, I don’t, and we both know it."

Despite that, I’m still for weight loss compliments. Almost any accomplishment can be undone, so to speak - weight can be gained, jobs can be lost, medals can be rescinded, governments can fall - either by the person who accomplished it or outside forces. Maybe I'll gain back the weight, but I still enjoy someone noticing on the way down.