Week in Review: 3/9-3/15

I thought I would do a week in review to help keep myself accountable in my weight loss journey. I know this is probably not going to be the most excited post to read, but I feel like if I put it out there for the world to see, it might give me another reason to stay mindful of this stuff. I also picked Mondays to do the week in review because that is when I weigh myself - I find that also (sometimes) helps me reign it in a little on the weekends. And speaking of weighing in, I was up 0.6 pounds this week. Not the direction I want to go, but I'm not too upset about this being that I only tracked my food for 3 days.

So last week, I started off Monday with a baby goal of drinking at least 64 ounces of water a day. I'm usually not great about drinking water - I would much rather have coffee or a Diet Dr. Pepper - but I've found that drinking 64 ounces isn't really that hard if I am actually thinking about doing it. I did awesome at this this week, and only missed hitting this goal on Wednesday and Saturday when I only drank about 40 ounces.

My step goal each day is 5,000 - I sit most of the day at my job, and this one is hard because I hardly get close to this most days. The majority of days I get about 3,000 steps. I've been a little bit more mindful about this this week and have tried to get up once in a while and walk around our showroom to get some extra steps in.

My food's not great. I just started tracking all my food on Friday and for the last three days that I've tracked it, I've been over my calorie allotment. The weekends are when I typically go overboard and eat out a lot, so I'm not surprised by that. My goal this upcoming week is to continue to track EVERYTHING. I'm not super concerned right now about really staying within my calories, I just want to get in the habit of tracking everything I eat - that in and of itself will help a bit and make me more aware of what I'm eating and how much of it.

EJ and I were having a conversation about this last night - we've lost weight before, we know we are physically capable of it, but I think it is mostly a mental thing. It is so hard to break out of those habits and not rely on food when we have relied so much on food in the past. I told him that I am doing this in super baby steps. When I start graduate school in the fall (yay, me! I'm super excited) I will, no doubt, be incredibly stressed and tired, and if I can have these new habits in place, maybe I won't gain 60 more pounds in the next 2 years!

So in this upcoming week, I'm still drinking the water, I'm going to track all of my food everyday, and I am going to try to work on getting more steps in during the day.

What are some of the goals you're working on this week? Let's keep each other accountable!

My Promise to Myself

When it comes to weight loss and fitness, I have been known to say that I not only fell off the wagon, but that it also backed up and ran over me. Seriously! I have a major addiction to food. If I've had a bad day - I want to eat, if I've had a wonderful day - I want to eat, if I'm tired - I want to eat. It's a real problem when trying to lose weight.

Last July I wrote a post explaining why I wasn't going to weigh myself anymore. You can read that here, or the basic run down is that I would weigh myself and feel pretty depressed and then do really well for a week or two, and once I would lose some weight (even just 4 or 5 pounds) I would totally allow myself to be terrible and then I would gain that weight back and start right back over. What I've learned in the past 8 months of not weighing myself (granted I had a wedding and a honeymoon in there) is that instead of at least maintaining, I gained a LOT of weight - almost 20 pounds. At the beginning of February I was at my heaviest - 242 pounds. This past Monday I was at 236.6 (headed in the right direction!), but I definitely have a lot more work to do to get where I would like to be - my first short term goal getting to about 212 which would be about 10% weight loss.

 So I've decided to claw and climb my way back on the wagon - I'm not doing great, but I'm trying. This week I've started again tracking my food - again, not great but better than not doing it! I purchased a Fitbit a couple of months ago and it's kind of fun to see how many steps you take in a day, and miles you walk, and I'm really trying to pay a little bit more attention to it throughout my day. When I first got it, I would just check it at the end of the day, and see that I was like 2,000 steps short of my goal, whereas the last couple of weeks I'm checking it multiple times during the day and trying to get up and walk around a bit if I know I've been sitting for a while. I also just got back on My Fitness Pal app and started tracking my food. You can find me HERE if you would like to be my friend and support me! I like that app because I can also link it up to my fitbit so it gives me an extra place to keep track of how I'm doing each day.

So in conclusion to the rambling - I promise to TRY. I promise to be mindful of what I eat, and even though it might not be great (like the pizza I had for lunch - which was delicious and totally worth it), but I will track it. I promise to drink AT LEAST 64 ounces of water a day (which, by the way, I'm totally killing this one!). I promise not to give up and give in because I've gained some weight back. This has become a real struggle for me, and it might always be a struggle for me from now on, and I might not always have it figured it out, but I will continue to try baby step by baby step!

 

*photo from Snoopy's facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Snoopy

Why I Will Not Weigh Myself Anymore...

Originally Posted 7/20/14

I've decided I'm not going to weigh myself for the time being.I'm trying to get my head tin the right place to really do this weight loss thing, and I think the scale is playing too big a part in how I feel about myself, rather than looking at all the good things I did during the week.

Part of the problem for this particular last week is we have gotten down to the 2 month mark for the wedding, and even though it is a fun and exciting time, it's been a little stressful, and I've been feeling really sad and depressed not having my parents here. I knew I was starting to fall into depression, because I would just sit all night and think 'I should go do this' (whatever "this" is), but it felt like such a drain to get up and do anything, so I would continue to sit and do nothing. As my therapist would say, I'm shoulding on myself, and I need to stop it. :) Also, while I was sitting, no doing anything, I proceeded to eat out of a bag of Oreos. Typically I would grab 2 or 3 cookies for a quick treat and go on about my day, but I got a glass a milk and brought the whole package to my desk.

Wednesday I had a major break down. I was so mad at myself for letting myself get like this. I was mad at myself for making excuses and just not getting my butt up and moving. I'm trying to figure out what I can do that is going to work best for me, and I feel like that is going to be focusing on the good things, trying to track my food more consistently, and trying to get some sort of exercise during the day.

So what did I do after I had my emotional breakdown on Wednesday night? I went to the gym three damn days in a row!! No, my eating wasn't great, but I feel good because I DID go exercise. There is something about going to the gym in the morning - I just feel so productive, even if I don't do much of anything during the rest of the day, and even though I might be tired during the day, I still feel energized (if that makes sense).

Yes, weight loss is calories in calories out, but everyone has different motivation, and so I have to find what will keep me going. I'm not committing to anything at this moment, but I think I may have found something to motivate me:

Monday Musings

Originally posted 5/26/14

First off, Happy Memorial Day everyone!

Soooo....a lot has been going on - too much to write about in one post. Mainly want I want to talk about today is weight loss. I have more than struggled with my weight for the last 12 years. Now with the wedding, I'm back to focusing on it. I feel that since the wedding is an actual event happening in the near future (3 months and 18 days!) it's help me be a bit more accountable than in the past.

I began Weight Watchers back in 2009, and did VERY well on it! I lost about 35 pounds on just changing my eating habits. Then things got stressful (i.e. life stuff happened) and I kind of gave up on it. I have gone back to WW on and off for the last 5 years, but I started again right at the beginning of the year. Then in the middle of January, my dad past away unexpectedly. We ate out so much just because we were on the run, finalizing plans and spending time with the family that were in town, and we had what me and EJ deemed the pity food. Not that we did not appreciate all the food we got from friends and family - it made things so simple for us in a very crazy time - it's just that there was soooooo much. And, it took some time to feel like we were back to "normal" after such a sudden tragedy.

So at the beginning of the month, we decided that we both needed to buckle down and help each other, and be accountable. We started doing regular weigh-ins, measured out and tracked our food, and we both started up our Body Bugg subscription again. (For those of you who don't know what a Body Bugg is - it's a little device that you wear around your upper arm, and it tells you how many calories you burn and how many steps you take.)

My weight at the beginning of May was 224 - I kind of hate posting that number for everyone to see, but I feel like I need to be an open book and be completely honest to help myself stay accountable. Today when I weighed in I was at 221.8 (which is up 0.2 pounds from last Monday). I was actually surprised that I did not gain more weight seeing as how I ate way too much food this weekend.

So there is a little background on my previous weight loss journey, and where I'm starting now. I'm hoping to chronicle my struggles and victories, so I can learn from them and continue to do a little bit better each day.

Me & EJ's engagement photo taken early April.