This morning I hopped on the scale (like I still do most mornings) and saw.........
140.0
Ya'll, it was really weird. I mean, really really STRANGE. Ever since hitting 150 I have been operating under the condition that I would be happy if I lost another 10 pounds. 140 was my low weight... something that I didn't want to go below. And now Im here. I'm kind of unclear on shat to do next. I have been eating more, but I guess I need to add even more calories to maintain since I have been slowly losing to this point.
More calories.
People, do you know how much food you have to eat to get enough calories when you are sticking with healthy, whole foods?! A-LOT. I think its time to add a slice of whole grain bread and natural PB, or something similar, even though I have resisted doing so up until now. Maybe some whole grain crakers, or other grains that are more calorie dense.... I already have a serving of nuts every day, and usually some "real" cheese, or 2%... Any suggestions on higher calorie whole/healthy foods to add?
Also, RE: The lattes. For the record, I had one on Suday morning and one yesterday morning... and I think I had one on Thursday....or Friday... either way it was 3 in the span of 5 days, which is a lot for me lately. I didn't have one this morning, and I am going to try to keep it to 1 or 2 a week. I don't want Starbucks to become a habit... it used to be, and it hurt not only my waist line but my wallet as well! Thanks for all the imput ladies, it made me re-evaluate the situation!
If I have a Grande non fat, no whip, two pump gingerbread latte every morning, but stay away from all other refined sugars, it that considered "limiting refined sugar" Or am I cheating myself? What if I only have one every OTHER day? They seem to be my vice lately, and a huge part of me thinks that two pumps of syrup is not THAT much sugar (they usually put about 4-6 pumps in a latte), and that there is nothing wrong with my habit... but a small part is saying STOP!!! NO SUGAR!!!!!!!!! Your thoughts?
In other news, I got up and went to the gym this morning, even though I REALLY didn't want to. So YAY me there!
It's been a really weird week 'round these parts. We've had snow, which is not at all normal, and causes everyone to freak out and go a littl bit nutso... DH only worked 2 days this week, and I really didn't get much of anything done either, with all the changes in plans and my boss out sick most of the week.
I also didn't work out as much as I would have liked, and after tomorow will have only gotten in 4 and a half days (I only count pilates and no real cardio as a half day---sorry yall) of exercise *GASP* May not sound like a big deal, but for me it is. I strive for 2400 calories and 270 minutes of exercise a week... and unless I kill myself tommorow it isn't going to happen this time around (although if I count my deep house cleaning tom. I might just get there!) Not the end of the world by any means, but leads me to a couple of things that I do to "keep it real" with myself from time to time... Recognize and focus on what I did right, and make goals to improve in areas where I have been lax, or want to become new areas of focus.
What I did right this week:
Stayed within my calorie range every day
Limited my refined sugar intake (only got one 2 pump gingerbread NF latte this week when I have been wanting them constantly)
Limited Alchohol intake (One beer at lunch today, and it was worth it!)
Worked out even though it was very cold and icy on Tuesday.
Added a morning snack today... and at just the right time. It helped a lot
Made decent choices at lunch and avoided the fried foods, bread basket, and cup of corn chowder I didn't need today.
Goals for the upcoming week:
Continue to limit alchohol and refined sugar (I began to slip a little here over thanksgiving and with christmas coming and lots of social functions I want to stay "clean" during my down times as much as possible as to be able to enjoy the social experiences without any guilt or weight gain)
Workout 5 days this week and meet or exceed calorie and time goals, and focus on running. (I ran in my first 5k on Thanksgiving, and I would like to improve my time and train for longer events... but I have been lax about running because it is not the calorie burning powerhouse that is the Arc Trainer.)
Cut back on the Caffine (I have noticed myself drinking more and more coffee lately, and there is no need for more than a cup or two a day.)
Focus on adding new, dark and leafy greens to my daily salads (saw a story on the new about this, and need some new variety there anyway).
Continue to eat a morning snack if needed. (It worked out well today!)
I would like to do this at the close of every work week, as I think it helps keep me on track. It's a great way to make things new and different rather than falling into a rut.
So tell me, What did you do right rhis week, and what are your goals for the week ahead? How can you improve yourself even more than you already have to this point?
The Post where everyone Rolls their eyes until it hurts
A year ago if someone would have told me that I would be sitting around after dinner TRYING to figure out something more to eat in order to meet my minimum calorie needs. Yeah, I know wah wah wah. Poor Sara... I am fully aware of how full circle things have come for me in the last 11 months, and I am equally aware of how ridiculous it sounds to 98% of the population, including my husband, when I complain that I am not eating enough.
**Short derailment here--I have been counting calories for several months now. In the beginning it was to supplement my Core plan eating, and to make sure I wasn't starving myself, but it has turned into the ideas of the core plan supplementing my calorie counting. For the most part, I eat Core foods, but I don't keep track of points for the non-Core foods I am eating---but my feelings on all of that is a whole other post, I think.**
It should be an easy problem to fix, right? Just eat more. Problem solved. But for me at least, it is a tough balance to make... I feel like all I do all day is eat. From the time I get up I eat every 2 to 3 hours... small meals or snacks, but no matter what I do, I end up short of what I should be getting. I end up eating a piece of cheese, an apple AND a homemade oatmeal bar after dinner many nights just to hit that magic number. Not that I'm complaining... because I'm really not, mostly.... I just need to get to the point where after dinner there is room for a snack if I want one, but that I don't have to eat a bunch of random stuff at night right before bed.
Here's the thing. I am kind of afraid to eat a lot during the day. I feel like I need to save calories for the evening "just in case". What if DH wants to go out for Ice cream? What if we end up going out to dinner with friends? It COULD happen you know! Usually it doesn't though, and I end up kinda sorta hungry most of the day... What I need to do is add a mid-morning snack, but that would mean eating 4 times at work everyday, which is just, well, it seem excessive, no? Bigger meals wont help because I get full fast these days... but hungry quick again too. I have added nuts to my pre-lunch salad, and switched from soup to something more substantial (leftovers which include a whole grain, lean protein, and veggies) for my lunch. Really, what it boils down to is that I really don't like going over my minimum daily intake suggestion AT ALL. I want to be right at that minimum number, which is all in my head, because the range is like, almost 400 calories, and if some days I am closer to the upper end of it, that's ok---I just have this fear that it's not ok. That may seem really bizarre, but in reality, its actually progress. It has taken me 3 months to be able to even eat TO my minimum calorie level without fear of gaining everything right back.... so I am further than I was at the beginning, right? :)
Getting over that fear has been a weird process, because rationally I know that I need a certain number of calories in order to contiune to fulfill my quest for total and utter fierceness (My muscle eats more calories for breakfast than fat does all day, yo) but somewhere along the way I have still picked up this fear of calories, and that just needs to stop... My body knows what it needs and if I need to eat more, I need to trust myself when the hunger pangs start, so I don't go into starvation mode---My other biggest fear of the moment. I am working on it, but I'm not quite there yet.... almost, but not quite.
Now, for some salad.... or a snack? Who knows anymore!!!
~Sara
PS: Thanks so much for the warm welcomes. I won't deny there was a part of me that thought that you-all would just ignore me! LOL What can I say, the self confidence is better than it once was, just not totally awesome. ;)
I flaked. I totally flaked. At first I just needed some time to come to terms with reaching goal... but then I felt so guilty for disappearing, for not supporting everyone that supported me, that I felt I couldn't come back. I still feel bad, even though it seems by my quick fly through of blogs that many of my old friends are still around and doing great. I wish I would have been less selfish and lazy with my time to be there for everyone, I know I have missed so much.
Statistically speaking, I should be here telling you all how I fell and fell hard, how I gained a bunch of weight, and that I need to get back on track. Thankfully, that is not the case. In fact, in the last three months I have lost about 8 more pounds and am within 2 pounds of my personal low weight number. It hasn't been all sunshine and roses though. Maintenance/losing past goal is a whole new world, and had presented some new challenges I didn't expect.
So I'm back. I feel like I need a place to hash out the challenges I am facing that come along with the new world of maintenance/losing past goal. Maybe no one else knows/cares/understands, maybe they will. Mostly I want to be there for other people working on becoming more healthy... so that's what I'm going to try to do.
So, you all know I hit my goal weight last week (YAY!!!) It was all very exciting, except for the fact that for the rest of the week I was up on the scale. This morning at my "official" WI I am at an even150. That's fine. I have been really struggling with not eating enough (crazy concept, I know!) and I know it is going to come down again now that I have a better handle on that.
The thing is that I am feeling a little lost right now. For 8 months my life has revolved around becoming healthy and losing weight. Well, now I am healthy and I have lost weight, and there is a bit of postpartum going on. I have more goals, other things I am working towards, but they all seem kinda fuzzy and vague right now. And I am so so scared of gaining this weight back. Even though nothing has really changed in the food department, and I am still kicking ass at my morning workouts, I am so scared that the weight is going to come back. I have measured my waist 4 times in the last week to make sure it isn't getting bigger. It's becoming almost an obsession, and it needs to stop.
I thought that once I got to my goal weight that the scale wouldn't matter as much, but now it seems to matter more than ever. It's time to give myself a good talking to and figure out just whats going on, where I'm at, and where I want to go. Time to set new goals that are more solid and not let the post weight loss cloud stay over me any longer. Time to get my act together. I am going to work on this, and post some goals and plans soon, so I can get back into the swing of things.
It has been 33 weeks since I began my journey, and in that time I have made so many healthy changes to my body and my mind. Because of the healthy changes I have made I have taken off 70 pounds---more than 30% of my starting weight. I have gone from a BMI of 33.4--well into obese, to 22.8, firmly "normal". I have gone down 6 pants sizes to a size 6, and have lost more inches off my body than I can count. I can run a mile and a half without stopping, lift weights 3 times a week, do sit ups like crazy without flinching, and touch my toes. I can wear sleeveless tops and shorts without being self conscious. There is room between my thighs, and I have visible collar bones. I have set and accomplished so many goals...I feel amazing.
But with all these accomplishments, I know that my journey is not over. Really it's just the beginning of another bend in the road. As I have achieved my goals I have made new ones, and I am looking forward to working towards those. I know there is always more work to be done. I also know that no matter what I will never be perfect---and I don't want to be! I love myself, and am proud of everything I have done.
Thank you guys for all of your support... I am so sorry that I haven't been around as much... but I really appreciate you checking up on me! Thank you! AndI will try to do better with checking in!
I have done a lot of thinking about what changed for me when I finally got my act together and changed my life (sounds corny, I know, but how else do you explain it, really?). I think that I have a pretty good idea of what happened for me now, although at the time I just knew that I felt different, and couldn't put it into words.
Ever since I moved to Washington, the holidays have been hard for me. I guess since I grew up with cold winters and white Christmases, it was hard for me to get into the Christmas spirit when it was just grey grey grey and damp, and 45 degrees. Money was always tight, and I missed my family. Every year at Christmas I would get depressed, and this past year it was even worse because I was fatter than ever. Chad and I had gotten married earlier in the year, and it seemed like there was nothing to look forward to, nothing that we were working towards. I felt like I was in a huge rut at work, and a new guy had just started and seemed to have it all, a baby, and another one on the way, and a huge sense of design--something I felt like I had lost completely. I felt tired and yucky all the time, and I couldn't help but thinking that life sucked. Basically, I felt like shit, I looked like shit and I treated myself and Chad like shit. I felt very alone, because my life wasn't everything I thought it was going to be. I was so negative about everything. EVERYTHING. I remember thinking to myself that I needed to get my act together before Chad realised how nasty I was, both inside and out, and left me. But how? When you are that sad and desperate it seems so hard to make a change.
For me, it boiled down to control. I am a bit of a control freak, and really that was part of the problem. I was trying to control Chad and his feelings, and just about everything and everyone else--mostly because I was totally out of control. I realised that I wasn't getting anywhere by trying to control the people and things that there was no way I could control, and that I needed to focus on the things I could control. And I can control what goes into my body. I can control the food I eat. I read Fred's book around this time, and it really made sense to me. I never blamed anyone else for being overweight out loud, but I did cop out on things with "it's too hard" and "I can't" and "That McDonald's was right there" and "I had a rough day, I deserve it" stuff. Once I focused on being in control of myself and nothing else, I realised that I had a choice in EVERYTHING. Nothing *I* do is beyond my control. I started to own every choice I made. Before I ate anything I made sure I was hungry. If I wasn't physically hungry, I asked myself why I wanted to eat, what that food was going to do for me. I separated my feelings from food. I guess I can't really say HOW I did that, other than to say that I realised I am BIGGER BETTER AND SMARTER than anything I put in my mouth. I have control over it, it has no control over me. Basically I got really cocky about my position over food. I made it mean NOTHING other than fuel.
And I got pissed. The more I learned about nutrition, the more I got pissed that we as a nation gave up control to fast food companies, to companies that processes the crap out of food and made it seem as though it wasn't going to kill us. I got pissed that when I was growing up, people (or at least my family) didn't have the knowledge to make informed decisions about over processed crap. We trusted the food companies and the other powers that be to not kill us slowly with refined sugars, enriched white flours, and high fructose corn syrups---and they (maybe unknowingly) just keep churning the stuff out. I got even more pissed when I realised that the GOOD FOR ME food tastes better than the BAD FOR ME food. And when I realised just how huge our portions are, and how we have adapted to them. The more pissed I got, the more control I had over refusing to play along, and eat what commercials and boxes tell me I should. Having the power to say NO, I am worth more than this crap you are telling me is good is a gratifying thing. It feels good to be better than that garbage.
But I didn't say never again to anything. Having power over the junk made it OK to have it once in awhile. The way, IMO that kind of food SHOULD be eaten. I refused to feel deprived. I refused to give up "real" cheese, for example. Cheese didn't make me fat, and I'm not going to live my life with fat free nasty cheese because someone said I should. Instead, I compromised with 2% milk cheese at home, and I cut back on the amount I use and eat. I re-taught my stomach what a serving was, and LISTENED to myself more. When I was hungry I ate, when I ate I did so mindfully---slowly--at when I didn't feel hungry anymore I stopped for several minutes... then started eating again only if I wasn't satisfied. I had/still have a clean plate issue, so I started eating out of a smaller bowl. I put MYSELF in the drivers seat, and took control. I learned a lot about myself in the process, and the more I learned---LET MYSELF LEARN, the easier it became.
Oh, and the kicker: I realised that I wasn't and never will be anything close to perfect. And I don't want to be. Perfect is a hard thing to achieve, and about a million times harder to maintain. I acknowledge my flaws, and appreciate them because they are what makes me unique. I want to be ME and not everyone else... because what fun would be the same as everyone else be? And I realise my mistakes... but I learn from them and move on, rather than dwelling in them and wearing the bad stuff like a weight, I make them positive by growing from them, and knowing what I can and can't handle. Realising what my lmitations are is another key I think.... because once you know what your boundaries are, you can work to change some or all of them, and having goals is very important for me... working towards something is much easier than just floundering.
So here I am, 31 weeks and more than 65 pounds later. I am a different person. I love myself. I am proud of myself. I tell myself these things everyday. I am a success because I said I would be, not because I wanted to be.
Down 1.2 this week... and it's ToM. so I am very happy with that! Really closing in on goal, so I need to decide what I want as my reward! Due to some unforseen financial issues, a trainer is out for the moment, but I do need new clothes...badly. So maybe I will just do some shopping for fall.
Hope everyone is doing well! I will try to make the rounds today!
