Working on a Work in Progress

Week 3 - Thursday

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 15:09:38 -0400

Ran for an hour this morning! Or most of an hour at least. I went about 4 miles, and while I know that’s not a ton, it’s good for me and I’m pretty pleased with myself.

I had yogurt for breakfast, a bubble tea for a snack, and a Moe’s salad (with some chips) and some girl scout cookies for lunch. So not too too bad. I’ll probably have some more yogurt later. My weight was about 217 this morning, and while it’s still a bit of a gain from my smallest (214.5), I think I’m being a little more realistic this time. So here’s hoping it starts going down again.

Lastly — obviously this has very little to do with my diet, but it IS me. I got my bangs cut this afternoon, and I really like how they turned out. One of the women at the salon braided my hair after I got them done, and I hope when I take it out tonight my hair will be all cute and wavy when I go out for the Hunger Games midnight show :)

Week 3 - Wednesday

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 18:53:05 -0400

Still sort of figuring things out, last time was way too strict, but obviously letting myself go doesn’t work either. So today here’s what I’ve had so far:

Greek yogurt - 150 calories

Salad with grilled chicken - 150ish calories

Egg drop soup cup - 60 calories

Starbucks soy latte - 170 calories

Aaaaaand, if I’m being honest

Moon Pie - 220 calories

Gummie bears at the movies - 150 calories

That puts me at 900 calories so far, but I still have to eat some dinner. So I just need to be good, but that won’t be too hard. Tomorrow I’m doing an hour run, too. So that’ll be good, especially since I missed Monday due to period harassment. I just have to get to bed at a reasonable hour and be ready to get up at 5am to run.

Week 3

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:54:32 -0400

After almost a week of falling off the wagon, I’m back to taking things seriously. Just in time for my period, of course, so that won’t do anything good for the scale for the next few days, but at least I’m back to trying. My weight went back up a couple pounds, but that could also be due to bloating. It’s hard to tell one way or another.

Breakfast:

Yogurt - 80 calories

Cottage Cheese - 40 calories

Peeps (don’t judge me. it’s Peeps) 140 calories

Total: 260 calories

Going out to lunch with friends, but I’ll probably just do soup or salad or something and then eat more of my own food here at home so I can control it a little more. I’m not doing no-carb again this round, but I still want to be pretty strict about what I eat.

Day 9 - Morning

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 10:55:10 -0400

I ate less yesterday, around 800 calories, basically to no effect. I think this tells me overall that I have to eat more than I have been on days when I work. I think my body is just storing the calories in a way that’s totally counter-productive.

So last night when a co-worked offered to box me up some of the chicken they made for us for dinner, I let her. Then I ate it this morning. I think I need to take a day or two and maybe drop the diet (still eating reasonably, or course) and then go back to a version of it where I add in whole wheat, and go up to maybe 1300 calories on days I work.

I just need to take a few days to tweek things and find out what works. At least I’ve maintained my weight over the last few days, as long as that continues I think I can afford to experiment.

Day 8 - Morning

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:30:16 -0400

As expected my weight today was back up a little, but as suggested to me by the friend who talked me into ordering food, I’m not going to count it. Instead I’m going to use it as a plateau breaker. Basically you take a day where you eat above your limit, and then the next day go way under, then the next day go back to normal. So today I’m going to try to stay pretty close to my calorie count, but do it with liquids. It should not only make up for all the crap I ate yesterday, but should job my body out of the plateau I assume is forming.

Breakfast:

Yogurt - 190 calories

Starbucks grande soy latte - 170

Jello - 10 calories

Total: 370 calories

Day 7 - Night

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 20:52:18 -0400

I was feeling really light headed earlier and decided that I really didn’t eat enough yesterday or today. So I ordered a bread-less turkey and ham sandwich from Jimmy John’s along with a dill pickle, and while I know this’ll throw off my weigh in tomorrow, I think it was a good idea. I’m still under 1500 calories for the day, so I didn’t totally ruin things, but I do think I needed a little extra food. The last thing I want is for this to become an unhealthy crash diet.

Day 7 - Afternoon

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 15:51:54 -0400

Snack/Lunch:

Yogurt - 190 calories

Mixed veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, green beans) - 70 calories

String cheese - 50 calories

Dark Chocolate - 150 calories

Lunch Total: 460 calories

I’ll go over today, I’m sure. It’s only 4 and I’m already almost at my daily limit. I won’t eat another meal, and I won’t eat late, but I know I’ll have another snack before the day is over. I’m glad I’m doing this cleanse and shrinking my stomach, but some habits, like snacking when I’m just sitting around die hard. Best I can do is keep good food around for when I get the craving.

Day 7 - Morning

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 10:58:32 -0400

Well, for the first day this week my weight goes unchanged. I really do think it’s partly to do with not eating enough yesterday given how active I was. I’ll do better tomorrow! I say tomorrow, because today is my day off and I plan on engaging in no physical activity at all :)

Snack (before my class):

Mozzarella stick - 70 calories

Handful of wasabi almonds - 50 calories

Breakfast:

Cottage cheese (90 calories), jello (10 calories) - 100 calories

3 eggs (210 calories), soy milk (30 calories), spaghetti sause (20 calories) - 260 calories

Morning Total: 480 calories

Day 6 - Night

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 21:39:00 -0400

Breakfast:

4 eggs (280 calories), mozzarella (70 calories), soy milk (30 calories) - 380 calories

Soy milk (glass) - 70 calories

Snack:

1/2 Dark Chocolate Bar (gave a piece away) - 125 calories

Lunch/Dinner:

PF Chang’s Salmon Lunch (no rice or soup) - 225 calories

1/2 Dark Chocolate Bar - 150 calories

Jello - 10 calories

Handful of wasabi almonds - 50 calories

Daily Total: 1000 calories!

I was at work ALL DAY and am just eating enough now to get to my daily limit. I should maybe eat more given how much physical activity I did today, but honestly it’s almost 10pm and I’m not hungry enough to eat more than what I’m planning on. We’ll see if that negatively effects me tomorrow of the next day… I hope not. I don’t want to hit a weird plateau because I’m not eating enough.

Day 6 - Morning

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 10:50:09 -0400

I was up at 5 this morning to get to my 5:30-6:30am boot camp, and after a week off it was BRUTAL. We started off the morning by running up and down the length of a 5 story parking garage twice, then if I remember correctly; we did abs, jump-roped around one level of the garage, did jogging suicides, weights, and suicide spints in 3 circuits. So yeah, pretty tough. Thursday I think we’re doing an hour run. I need to buy a flashlight for jogging in the dark.

I haven’t eaten anything yet today, but I think I’m going to go make eggs and yoguert before heading in to a long shift at work. So I’ll post a full meal log for the day when I get home.

Lastly, I’m 214.5 today! And that’s on my heavy scale, so man, maybe those starter pounds aren’t quite off me yet. It would be amazing if I could get to 13.5 by Wednesday, but 10 pounds in a week would also be a LOT, so I’m not going to expect it.

Day 5 - Night

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 19:45:18 -0400

Dinner:

3 eggs (210 calories), mozzarella (70 calories), soy milk (20 calories) - 300 calories

Dark chocolate: (150 calories)

Daily Total: 1110 calories

I know I went over, but I did work for 5 hours today, so I’m sure I worked off the extra 100. Tomorrow I workout AND work for probably 9 hours. So I’ll probably aim for more like 1200-1300. We’ll see.

Day 5 - Afternoon

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 17:19:40 -0400

Snacks:

Starbucks grande soy latte - 170 calories

PF Chang’s Shanghai Cucumbers - 30 calories

PF Chang’s Tomato/Cucumber salad - 60 calories

Afternoon Snack Total: 260 calories

I worked through lunch then decided to hit Trader Joe’s and do a little grocery shopping. It sort of sucks spending money on food again…. for a while while I was maintaining and not trying to lose I was just boxing up the food they make for us at work and eating that most of the time, which meant that I was spending almost nothing a week on food. Now that I’m watching what I eat, most of what they make for us in the kitchen is totally out of the question. Thankfully Trader Joe’s is pretty cheap and on my way home. Look! I even took a picture. Now if only I could get semi-decent quality resolution with the light in my bathroom where the mirror is…

Now to use some of this to make a little dinner!

Day 5 - Morning

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 11:08:36 -0400

Oops, so turns out I’m almost out of food. Granted, I didn’t buy much, but still. No more eggs.

Breakfst:

Fat free cottage cheese (90 calories), jello (10 calores) mix - 100 calories

Planters Heart Healthy mixed nuts - 250 calories

String cheese - 50 calories

Breakfast Total: 400 calories

As expected, the scale weighed heavier than it did yesterday, but that was on a lighter scale, and I still weight less than I did the last time I used MY scale, so I’m calling 216.5 a success.

Day 4 - Night

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 23:04:00 -0500

So I ended up taking a couple string cheeses to work for snacks (50 calories each) which brings the day up to a near perfect 995 calories.

TECHNICALLY I had a bite of red velvet cake at work that a table gave me, but as I was amazingly good and only ate that tiny bite (I gave the rest away to my co-workers) I’m not going to count it. I was only a bite after all.

I’m not looking forward to stepping on the scale tomorrow. Not only did I weight on a lighter scale this morning, but I’m about to hit the inevitable water weight plateau. Only so much weight can just drop off of you like it did on me this week. So I’m sort of bracing myself for that. Thankfully I’ll be working out again starting Monday morning.

I know I said I’d post a before picture today, and I sort of will. I still don’t have a decent one taken this week, but what I will show you is me in 2006 when I was at my heaviest (around 300 pounds). Goodness I was a train wreck in 2006… what you can’t see is I’m wearing partially reflective parachute pants. I can make no excuses for this.

Day 4 - Afternoon

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 15:29:51 -0500

Back home and making myself some lunch before work. I did have a snack earlier though, so that helped.

Snack:

Sugar free pudding cup - 60 calories

World’s Market dark chocolate/sea salt bar - 220 calories

Total: 280 calories

Lunch/Dinner:

Broccoli/cauliflower steamed: 75 calories

Cottage cheese (90 calories), jello (10 calories) mix: 100 calories

Total: 175 calories

I should mention here that while I’m doing 1000 calories, this might not be right for everyone. When I add whole wheat products back in in a couple weeks, I’ll go up to probably 1400, but while I’m doing no carb, 1000 is plenty, as it’s all healthy, real food (aside from the chocolate…). Also, I never go far below that number, since it would totally throw off my total diet, as eating too little can be as bad as eating too much if you’re not careful. I just felt like I should say that, given that I know 1000 calories looks like it’s not very much, and I wouldn’t recommend that to everyone. It works for me, so I do it. Simple as that. You just have to find what works for you.

Day 4 - Breakfast

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 10:18:00 -0500

I stayed the night with a friend yesterday and her parents made us breakfast this morning, so looking around online I’ve sort of put together what the calorie count probably was. Thankfully they’re doing low carb too, so it didn’t totally put me off my diet. Plus it was delicious.

Breakfast:

2 eggs (140 calories), cheese (50 calories), mushrooms, peppers and onions (30 calories) - 220 calories

Turkey bacon (2 pieces) - 70 calories

Sausage (1 piece) - 60 calories

Coffee with creamer - 40 calories

Small handful of mixed nuts - 50 calories

Breakfast Total: 440 calories

Wow, okay. So not NEARLY as bad as I was worried it was. I’m just not used to eating meats and stuff for breakfast, so in my head this was a 600 calorie ordeal, but looking things up online I found that in moderation it really wasn’t. So yay! Starting off the weekend better than I expected, especially since I work at 4. I’ll have a small meal before I go in around 3, and maybe a snack this afternoon, so for the first time in a few days I think I’ll definitely be under my calorie limit for the day.

I also scored and awesome snack here at my friends place when they gave me a big beautiful bag of pecans to take home, so now I have something other than string cheese that I can grab on the way to work. Most excellent.

And I was serious about posting pictures, I just have to get home and get them uploaded. Though I think if I’m going to be serious about this blog, I probably need to just buy a camera of my own. Even a cheap one would be better than what I’m using now…

Oh, I almost forgot my weight! Well, my scale tends to weight heavy, which is fine, I mean it still shows change properly… but I always feel awesome when I weight myself on the nice scale at my friend’s place. So today I was 215.4, which is both water weight and a lighter scale, but still makes me feel AWESOME.

Day 3 - Dinner

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 21:37:02 -0500

Snack:

Hershey’s Dark Chocolate Bar - 180 calories

Dinner:

Ruby Tuesday’s white fish (don’t remember the name) (330 calories), spaghetti squash (50 calories) - 380 calories

Yogurt Fruz (fat free sweet cream yogurt, 4oz) (100 calories), peanuts, almonds, strawberry and kiwi topping - 130ish calories

Other: 64 ounces of water

Daily Total: 1290 calories

So not bad really, but eating out two nights in a row is not ideal. Oh, well. Things should be better over the next few days!

Day 3 - Afternoon

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 12:43:00 -0500

Lunch:

4 scrambled eggs (280 calories), soy milk (20 calories), spaghetti sauce (20 calories) - 320 calories

Mixed veggies (broccoli, mushroom, green bean) - 60 calories

Soy milk - 70 calories

Lunch Total: 450 calories

I’m going over to my friend’s place tonight and we’ll be seeing a movie and grabbing dinner. On the one hand, I have 400 calories left for the day, but on the other hand I am a sucker for movie theater popcorn.

Also, while I did take some before pictures, my roommate had already left for work before I realized that I forgot to ask her for the computer cable. So those’ll be up tomorrow.

Day 3 - Morning

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 10:10:30 -0500

Unexpectedly after going over on my calories last night, I apparently still have water weight to shed since I’m down to 217 today. I know this massive quick weight shed loss won’t last much longer, but I’m enjoying it while it does.

I had a midnight snack last night, and ate the other half of my dark chocolate bar. So my daily total was actually more like 1210. Dark chocolate is pretty good though, as sweets go. So I’m not all that surprised it didn’t hurt me.

Now I’m off to teach an adult ed class at the literacy association I volunteer with, but not before grabbing a quick breakfast.

Breakfast:

Fat free cottage cheese (90 calories), sugar free jello cup (10 calories) - 100 calories

String cheese - 50 calories

Breakfast Total: 150 calories

I know I’m still going to be hungry after a meal this small, but my class is only an hour and a half and I’ll be home just in time for lunch. Also, I’m going to see if I can snag my roommate’s camera today and take a before photo or two. I took a few on my camera phone, but they look just awful. So hopefully I’ll be posting better ones later today.

Day 2 - Dinner

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 21:22:06 -0500

After already being up to 820 calories for the day, I knew getting dinner with my dad was going to put me over. So I went to the Cheddar’s website, where we planned to eat, only to find that they don’t have nutrition info up yet. So I did the best I could once I got there.

Dinner:

Cheddar’s Grilled Salmon (lunch portion) with steamed broccoli and sweet carrots - 300ish calories (I did some checking around online, and this seems close)

Other:

96 ounces of water, jasmine green tea

Daily Total: 1120 calories

I’m pretty happy with this. Generally I try to not eat after 7pm, but I think I did as well as I could given the circumstances. Tomorrow’s my day off, so I have to make especially sure not to just sit around and eat, which tends to be what historically I do. I’m absolutely a boredom eater, and tomorrow will be my first day on my diet to fight that.