Sharing my blog & other ramblings.

I'm thinking about starting to share my blog. I'm a little hesitant because I really don't think I have anything to say that is that interesting, so why would anyone want to read it? Then I think of a couple of other peoples blogs that I've read where I've gotten encouragement from, or had an ah ha! moment, where I've learned or discovered something that's helped me.

The only thing is that I do tend to ramble on & kind of jump from topic to topic, so if you're reading this, it's really just the way my mind works. I'll be talking about one thing & something may pop into my head & I'm off..............

I've just updated my weight loss trend chart today. I've added a picture of it below. Pretty impressive downward trend if I say so myself. Too bad it's almost taken 6 months though. Yeah, I am hard on myself on how long it's taken. I think that's from being a part of 3FC & seeing these people who are so motivated & lose so much quicker than I am. Heck, my sister-in-law joined Weight Watchers right around Valentine's Day & in April she had already lost 14 pounds. I was so jealous because I'd been dieting since January & had only lost less than 10 at that time. But I think she started a lot stricter than I've been. The last time we talked about our diets about 2 weeks ago she had only lost 16 so far & I was around 13 (like I still am) so I was catching up. Ha! I know it's not a competition, but if it helps inspire me........................

Oh, and my weight as of this morning is down a little more. I do weigh every day. I think it helps me to see that there's a pattern to my little spikes up & down. So that way when I see a little jump up I don't freak out & get too discouraged. That little spike down makes me think maybe it is possible to get to 170 by the 4th of July. That would be 51% of the way to my 150 pound goal! That would be awesome!

I'm adding a couple of things to the bottom of each post. My weight as of that morning, but on my spreadsheet I track it on the previous day's row, next to the calories eaten, burned & deficit. I'm also adding the total number of minutes of physical activity. This is right off of my BB. I've decided to make my goal to average 80 minutes of physical activity per day. This doesn't mean 80 minutes of exercise, because my BB picks up some things like walking up & down stairs, fast walking, etc as physical activity.

This would mean that for a month with 30 days my goal would be 2,400. As you can see from below, I didn't hit that goal this month, but since I just decided on it today I will let myself live! This time! :) I'm hoping adding that extra bit of physical activity will help me to reach my goal. Now that I've started charting this I see that last month I hit 2,285 minutes in 30 days & lost over three pounds that month. This month I'm quite a bit lower & unless I have a big drop tomorrow I'm at less than two pounds for the month. So, I'm going to try to move more & eat less by watching my calories.

Weight: 177.0 (I call this as of 5/30 since I weigh first thing in the morning)
Minutes of physical activity this month: 2,120

This week's weigh in & feeling Blah!

I'm not sure why, but I'm feeling very blah about this whole diet/exercise thing the last week or so. I really do want to hit my goal of 170 by the 4th of July, but I can't seem to get motivated to get off my butt.

I have really been looking at my numbers (I'm a spreadsheet addict & I plot & chart everything about this weight loss journey) and I've realized that the number of calories I'm eating per day has been creeping up. The first month I was averaging 1750, the second 1770, the third almost 1900, the fourth 1915 & this month 1930. No wonder my weight loss is slowing down so much.

I weighed in today at 177.6, which is up .2 from last week. I was actually pretty happy with it since we did a little mini vacation & had a four day weekend where I was totally off plan & unable to get in my exercise. So now I'm a bit behind where I wanted to be in order to reach my goal. I'm really trying to stay positive but it gets hard when the scale isn't cooperating.

I don't expect to see it move down when I'm off plan like I was last week, but darn it, when I've been good I would really like to see some decent numbers. Is two pounds too much to ask for? Obviously for me it is. Maybe I need to do a little quick strict diet for a couple of days to see if I can jump start my enthusiasm again. Last time I did the three day diet before my wedding I did manage to lose a couple of pounds. I know it's not something I can do for any longer that the three days because it really isn't enough calories to support the bodies basic functions, but hmmmmm. Let me think about it.

I'm going to stay under 1800 calories every day this week & see where my WI lands next week. If I don't see at least a pound loss then maybe that's what I will do. Oh, and I will exercise at least 4 times this week too. I know I can't expect to do it on just eating alone.

Well, off to the dentist.

What is this Body Bugg thing?

I'm not exactly sure how to describe all of the science behind how it works, I know there's some type of motion measurement, heat dissipation & skin temperature sensor thingies, but if you want to know how it works see the link below.

http://www.bodybugg.com/science_behind_bodybugg.php

All I know is that I wear it on my arm, plug it into the computer a couple of times per day to upload my stats to the BB website & enter my food eaten for the day. I try to keep my calories burned about 750 more than my calories eaten & then I usually will lose about a pound per week. I'm pretty good at weighing my food that I make at home, but it's hard to estimate things when we go out to eat. I try to estimate high, but with a lot of restaurants not putting their nutritional information online it's hard to guesstimate how many calories are in this restaurants version over another that does post their information.

Which is a big part of why I would rather eat in than out lately. It's kind of funny because I'm starting to think of a lot of things by the amount of calories in them. For example, I almost never have a cocktail with dinner anymore. I think about it this way:  a couple of different shots of flavored rums/vodkas at 80 or so calories each, splash of fruit juice or soda will give me 300 or more calories for a drink. Heck, a serving of my light ice cream only has about 120 calories. That's a double dose of desert for one drink? Give me the ice cream any day!

I've discovered so many "diet" or lower calorie foods that actually taste good & I will share my favorites in other posts, but back to my Bugg.

I believe that for the calories burned it's pretty accurate, so the downfall is all on the person imputing their information correctly. I obviously must suck at this. According to the information I've entered, I should have lost about 20 pounds at this point, but I've only lost about 13-14. I know from reading that people tend to underestimate their portion size, but I'm weighing most of my foods, so how do I have such a big discrepancy?

When I purchased my Bugg it came with a six month subscription to their web service, which expires in the middle of June. I'm planning to renew for at least another six months. I'm pretty sure it will take me that long to get to where I want to be. It would be cheaper if I were to renew for a year, but I really would like to push to get this weight off quicker. So this means reapplying myself & working a little harder.

My current goal is to be 170 by the 4th of July & it's looking a little tight at what I'm currently losing, so I'm going to step it up this next month and a half. I'm looking forward to recommitting myself to this journey & write about it in this blog.

Current stats and goals

Well, I weigh myself everyday, but I have an "official" weigh in date of Wednesday. Originally my weigh in day was Monday, but after tracking my weight for a while I realized that my weight tends to be the highest on Mondays (probably from misbehaving over the weekend) and the lowest on Fridays (from being good all week) so I decided that Wednesday's weight would probably be the most accurate of the week. Is it true? Who knows, but it made sense to me.

My weight on Wednesday was 177.8, which is up .6 from the previous week. But I'm supposed to start this weekend & I think it's up due to water weight. Or at least that's what I'm hoping. I guess we will see next weigh in. TOM should be over by then. Thankfully for me that's usually only a 2 day thing.

My current goal that I'm working towards is I would love to be 170 by the 4th of July. That gives me about 7 weeks to lose 7 pounds. A pound a week. I haven't been hitting that much, but for some reason I think that this is doable for me.

I've been reading some posts on the 3FC forum where people don't think you should put time frames on goals because it can lead to people giving up. I've joined about 5 challenges now & haven't hit a single goal in the time allotted on the challenge, but I haven't given up, I just hit it a little later.

My first challenge was the Valentine's Day Challenge, which I think I ended up joining two different ones. I think my goal was to hit 180 lbs. A little over 10 pounds lost. Well, it took me until mid-April to get there. Two months longer than I thought, but I didn't give up. I don't think that not meeting a goal will lead to you giving up. Not being motivated enough will make you not give up.

I had 4 weeks in a row where my weight loss was less than half a pound. I was either seeing losses of .2 or .4, but I didn't give up. I knew I was doing what I needed to be doing. I stuck with it and saw a whopping 2.6 pound loss in one week. Of course that was after a 1 pound gain from the week before when it was TOM, but it was still a big loss for me.

So if you want to lose weight, quit making excuses and do it. It's hard. I know. It takes time, a lot of time. But it took me 20 years to put on these extra pounds, so a year to take it off doesn't seem to bad. If I can do this you can too. You're worth it. I know I am.

Intro Part Two

To carry on where I left off yesterday:

From the time I bought my wedding dress to the day I was actually married I did manage to lose a little bit of weight. I was down to 187 on my wedding day. Of course the way I went about it was totally wrong. I did the "3 day diet" and lost a couple of pounds and then a week later did it again. I don't know if you are familiar with the three day diet, but it's about 1,000 calories a day & you can lose up to 10 pounds on it. I did lose 2 pounds the first time & 3 pounds the second, but I think I knew I wouldn't keep it off. After the wedding came the honeymoon cruise, holidays etc. Of course, all the weight I had lost was put right back on.

Meanwhile, I had discovered this great site 3 Fat Chicks on a Diet. It was full of people who were struggling with their weight & quite a few that had been successful at losing it. I lurked in the forums reading all kinds of threads & taking in information. Finally, I found a tool that I thought could help me with my weight loss since I had no idea of where to begin. The Body Bugg.

I spent the money to purchase it & received a six month subscription to their website with purchase. This neat little gadget reads my movement, temperature and who knows what else & tells me how many calories I burn per day. Great! This should be a snap. Move more & eat less right? Well, so far it's been working. Not as quickly as I may hope, but it's working.

I received my BB January 9th & here it is May 16th & I'm down about 14 pounds. 14 pounds in 18 weeks! Not great numbers, but then again I'm not hugely restricting my calories.

I still belong to 3FC & joing all types of the challenges. I sometimes get jealous about the people who lose 2-3 pounds a week on regular basis. Well, pretty often, lol. But I really believe that previously when I "dieted" I would end up putting my body into starvation mode. Currently without exercise I burn roughly 2,000 calories per day, some days more, it usually depends on how much I sit on my butt at work. When I add exercise that bumps that number up to 2,400 ish. When I dieted I would usually keep my calories around 1,200. That's a 1,200 calorie or more deficit. Do that for a couple of days in a row = starvation mode, body freaks out & metabolism shuts down. Which is why I would always lose weight the first week of a diet & then gain or nothing the second, causing me to give up.

So, my plan to make this weight loss happen is aim for a deficit every day. A 500 calorie deficit per day = 1 pound per week. That's my goal, which is doable for me. Of course, I haven't quite achieved that, but I'm happy with my progress for the most part.

Well, enough for today. I am at work & should actually do some.

Me blogging? Yeah right!

Well, I can't believe that I'm starting a blog. I really don't feel like I have anything that is THAT interesting where someone would actually want to read it. But at this point I'm mainly writing this for myself and I'm not quite ready to share.

The basics about me:

I'm 41 years old & I've been kinda chunky/chubby most of my adult life. Not really fat, just kind of thick since I was an adult. Maybe as a teenager too, but that may just be my warped current perception of myself.

I was just married for the first time in November to a wonderful man. He is truly the love of my life. I never thought I would say that about anyone else after my ex, but yeah, he is. I'll probably go into the relationship stuff at a later date as I will probably use this blog as a type of therapy. Sorry.

Anyway, back to the chubby...... I'm 5'4 and I was about 120 pounds before I got pregnant with my daughter, Now I don't think that qualifies as chubby, but I do remember being called "Thunder Thighs" by a boy in junior high. Plus my sister was always very thin and I was always compared to her, even by myself.

I never really considered my self chubby & always thought I looked good, but the weight slowly piled on. I remember when 150 was the most I would weigh before I would say that I would diet, then 160, 170, 180, etc. But I never really dieted. Oh sure I might "diet" or exercise for a couple of days, but that was the extent of it.

I still didn't consider myself fat. I carried my weight well. Even though it seemed like I started taking horrible pictures, it was the angle etc. anything except the fact that I had put on weight. When I was trying on wedding dresses, I was shocked at the sizes that fit. I knew they run a little smaller, but I wear a size 12, so I thought 16. Nope, my wedding dress ended up being a size 20. I weighed 193 pounds. How could I let myself get to this?

I guess that was my light bulb moment. My husband is a very attractive man & I truly want to look good for him, but I also want to feel good about myself. And at that moment that every girl dreams about,  I didn't feel beautiful, I felt fat. I've attached one of my favorites of all the wedding pictures.