I think it is quite obvious that I have not been entirely dedicated to losing weight. I can keep super focused for about 2 weeks and then I slack. It has kept me losing weight very slowly. I really don't mind losing weight so slowly because I do feel that I have a better chance of keeping it off, plus maybe I won't have as much loose skin.
However, it is frustrating to think that at the end of last summer I weighed somewhere in the low 170s. Yesterday I weighed 160.7. I have lost about 10 pounds since summer. It frustrates me that I could be at goal weight right now, but at the same time I am trying to be positive that I am 10 pounds smaller than last summer.
I am starting to be very tired of counting calories (even if it's only half assed attempts). I usually do great at counting calories for breakfast and lunch and then it slips away from me. I have noticed that if/once I track dinner calories if I want any snacks or wine I don't even track it and start to assume that I am over my calorie range for the day. Usually wine or snack just put me over the low range of my calorie goal, but in my head once I eat more than the minimum I might as well throw in the towel for the day. I stop counting and start eating. It makes no sense but that is how my mind works. I have decided to try something different.
I will not be counting calories at all for the month of May. This could be disastrous!
I do feel like I have a great idea of what I should be eating and my ultimate goal would be to not count calories every day for the rest of my life. I want to eat like a "normal" person. I will be trying to eat intuitively. At times knowing my calories count and my calorie range can throw me off. I will eat snack even if I am not hungry because there are extra calories left over. I think it would be better (or at least worth trying) to try to really pay attention to my hunger and really try to base my eating off of that. If it doesn't work out at all it won't seem much different than what I have been doing for the past 8 months or so. I am hoping that just the release of not counting calories will help me relax and only eat if I am hungry.
I weighed myself yesterday, May 1 and I was 160.7lbs. I will only weigh myself May 15 and June 1. I would hope to be back under 160 by May 15th. If I am not I may call it quits and start my attempts at calorie counting again. Otherwise I will continue to slowly lose weight without focusing on calorie counting.
I feel like I should also mention that I am not planning on just eating whatever junk I feel like it. I have been sticking to mostly clean foods and that will still be happening. I will be eating my regular meals, just not counting. This is not a free for all.
Here is to a stress free month of eating (healthily)!
Showing posts with label dieting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dieting. Show all posts
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
The little things
I am on day 5 of my own personal February challenge. I am happy to say that it's going quite well. I have completed two of my half marathon training runs, both on the treadmill. We finally got a decent amount of snow and I am terrified of falling on the snow. I am having to get over my treadmill issues since I am not ready to face the snow. I have had to run both runs for 3 miles. I am slowly adding longer runs before my walking breaks. I know the lack of ability to run on the treadmill is all in my head.
I keep thinking back to the virtual 5k and remembering how "miserable" I was. It was totally in my head and I didn't need to walk nearly as much as I did. I made myself do a full 2 mile run on the treadmill this weekend to get ready for half marathon treadmill training and I did 2 miles straight. I have been slowly adding distance before I let myself stop to walk for a minute. My first 3 mile run, I ran 2.25 miles, then walked for a minute and then finished the 3 miles. The next run I did 2.5 miles before stopping to walk. I figure by next week I should be able to run 3 solid miles on the treadmill. It seems so ridiculous to me that I am having such a mental hurdle with the treadmill, but I am so proud of myself for making myself push through what feels like torture. (Torture may be a bit extreme to use here.)
I did figure out one thing that has helped with my treadmill running. I am not fast. I know this, but for some reason I had it in my head that I should be running a 10 minute mile on the treadmill. Why would I do that to myself? Last summer I was always training at a 12 minute mile and have recently gotten most of my runs around an 11 minute mile, but never 10 minute miles. I do usually run faster at races and can do 10:30/10:40 minute miles. I realized I was setting my treadmill at 6.0 mph (10 minute mile) and then constantly failing. I decided to just let myself run slow(er). I have been setting it between 5.0 and 5.3mph. I can actually run at those paces. Duh. I guess I couldn't face the slow speeds looking me in the eye the whole time, but I have overcome that. Also, it's much more enjoyable to run further then shorter fast distances for me right now. (I will be working on speed this summer after my half marathon. For now my running energy will be spent on distance.)
Along with my running, I have been tracking every single thing I eat. It has been interesting for me. I usually track all of my meals and then just "assume" I have enough calories left if I want a snack. I wasn't necessarily going overboard every day (although some days, I definitely went way overboard) I just didn't track things. Most of the time my snacks are just yogurt or fruit, but I also do some 'handful of crackers' here, 'chunk of cheese' there.
Along with the whole mindless snacking thing...
We have a few decorations up for Valentine's Day and one is the cutesy vase with holiday candy centerpieces. I found Valentine's candy corn and thought that would be adorable. It looks cute and I am not overly interested in candy corn, but I still do enjoy it. Last night I ate 5 of them. The difference is that I tracked the 5 candy corns. Usually I just assume I have enough calories left or that I probably burned them off on my walk to the kitchen. I discovered I went over my calories by 4 calories for the day. I obviously wasn't to worried about 4 calories (I ran 3 miles earlier in the day and burned over 300 calories there that I didn't track), but it made me think. Normally I would have had a few more throughout the night, but knowing I was already over my limit kept my hand from dipping back in there. Maybe there is something to the whole "track every bite" thing. (I know, how have I not realized that before?)
I also had another overly obvious observation this weekend. I tend to struggle more on the weekends with hubby around. Hubs is not into the whole eating healthy "thing." He will usually eat what I make him for dinner, but he prefers to eat things that I don't eat. I think that occasionally he just can't take another healthy meal and he takes control and makes his own dinner. This weekend was one of those times.
He had been craving shrimp scampi since he had some at his birthday brunch and he really wanted to make them. He bought some shrimp for Sunday's dinner and some extra because who doesn't like shrimp. He decided to make a trial run of the shrimp scampi on Saturday night. After dinner. I was sitting on the couch smelling the butter melting with the garlic and it smelled like heaven. I was thinking things over in my head about how I could justify eating one of those delicious shrimps. I kept telling myself I could eat it and track it if I wanted to, but I knew that it wouldn't end with one shrimp. It would end with a bowl full of shrimp and me licking the bowl and figuring that I might as well top it off with some cookies. I glared at him while he enjoyed his shrimp scampi. I couldn't believe that he dare eat that delicious bowl of shrimp in the same house as me after we already ate dinner. Then, within ten minutes it was all over. Shrimp had been cooked. Shrimp had been eaten. I had not been involved.
I realized that while those ten minutes felt like torture, it was easier to handle than feeling bad about myself for the rest of the night/weekend. I only had to "struggle" for ten minutes and then I felt proud of myself for ten hours. It made me realize that it's easier to skip the "extra" food than to feel bad about myself for eating and letting those feelings take control of the night/weekend/week.
I felt accomplished and am feeling amazing! (On a side note, I did have shrimp scampi for dinner on Sunday. I figured out the calories for them and planned accordingly. They were worth the wait.) I actually feel really in control again. I haven't felt this powerful since the summer.
I keep thinking back to the virtual 5k and remembering how "miserable" I was. It was totally in my head and I didn't need to walk nearly as much as I did. I made myself do a full 2 mile run on the treadmill this weekend to get ready for half marathon treadmill training and I did 2 miles straight. I have been slowly adding distance before I let myself stop to walk for a minute. My first 3 mile run, I ran 2.25 miles, then walked for a minute and then finished the 3 miles. The next run I did 2.5 miles before stopping to walk. I figure by next week I should be able to run 3 solid miles on the treadmill. It seems so ridiculous to me that I am having such a mental hurdle with the treadmill, but I am so proud of myself for making myself push through what feels like torture. (Torture may be a bit extreme to use here.)
I did figure out one thing that has helped with my treadmill running. I am not fast. I know this, but for some reason I had it in my head that I should be running a 10 minute mile on the treadmill. Why would I do that to myself? Last summer I was always training at a 12 minute mile and have recently gotten most of my runs around an 11 minute mile, but never 10 minute miles. I do usually run faster at races and can do 10:30/10:40 minute miles. I realized I was setting my treadmill at 6.0 mph (10 minute mile) and then constantly failing. I decided to just let myself run slow(er). I have been setting it between 5.0 and 5.3mph. I can actually run at those paces. Duh. I guess I couldn't face the slow speeds looking me in the eye the whole time, but I have overcome that. Also, it's much more enjoyable to run further then shorter fast distances for me right now. (I will be working on speed this summer after my half marathon. For now my running energy will be spent on distance.)
Along with my running, I have been tracking every single thing I eat. It has been interesting for me. I usually track all of my meals and then just "assume" I have enough calories left if I want a snack. I wasn't necessarily going overboard every day (although some days, I definitely went way overboard) I just didn't track things. Most of the time my snacks are just yogurt or fruit, but I also do some 'handful of crackers' here, 'chunk of cheese' there.
Along with the whole mindless snacking thing...
We have a few decorations up for Valentine's Day and one is the cutesy vase with holiday candy centerpieces. I found Valentine's candy corn and thought that would be adorable. It looks cute and I am not overly interested in candy corn, but I still do enjoy it. Last night I ate 5 of them. The difference is that I tracked the 5 candy corns. Usually I just assume I have enough calories left or that I probably burned them off on my walk to the kitchen. I discovered I went over my calories by 4 calories for the day. I obviously wasn't to worried about 4 calories (I ran 3 miles earlier in the day and burned over 300 calories there that I didn't track), but it made me think. Normally I would have had a few more throughout the night, but knowing I was already over my limit kept my hand from dipping back in there. Maybe there is something to the whole "track every bite" thing. (I know, how have I not realized that before?)
I also had another overly obvious observation this weekend. I tend to struggle more on the weekends with hubby around. Hubs is not into the whole eating healthy "thing." He will usually eat what I make him for dinner, but he prefers to eat things that I don't eat. I think that occasionally he just can't take another healthy meal and he takes control and makes his own dinner. This weekend was one of those times.
He had been craving shrimp scampi since he had some at his birthday brunch and he really wanted to make them. He bought some shrimp for Sunday's dinner and some extra because who doesn't like shrimp. He decided to make a trial run of the shrimp scampi on Saturday night. After dinner. I was sitting on the couch smelling the butter melting with the garlic and it smelled like heaven. I was thinking things over in my head about how I could justify eating one of those delicious shrimps. I kept telling myself I could eat it and track it if I wanted to, but I knew that it wouldn't end with one shrimp. It would end with a bowl full of shrimp and me licking the bowl and figuring that I might as well top it off with some cookies. I glared at him while he enjoyed his shrimp scampi. I couldn't believe that he dare eat that delicious bowl of shrimp in the same house as me after we already ate dinner. Then, within ten minutes it was all over. Shrimp had been cooked. Shrimp had been eaten. I had not been involved.
I realized that while those ten minutes felt like torture, it was easier to handle than feeling bad about myself for the rest of the night/weekend. I only had to "struggle" for ten minutes and then I felt proud of myself for ten hours. It made me realize that it's easier to skip the "extra" food than to feel bad about myself for eating and letting those feelings take control of the night/weekend/week.
I felt accomplished and am feeling amazing! (On a side note, I did have shrimp scampi for dinner on Sunday. I figured out the calories for them and planned accordingly. They were worth the wait.) I actually feel really in control again. I haven't felt this powerful since the summer.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
honesty
So lately I have realizing that I am not being very honest with myself. I constantly tell myself that I am actively losing weight. However, that is not entirely true. I have been thinking about my brother lately and the fact the he and his family will be stationed near Chicago by the end of February. I already started getting excited about the possibility of seeing them more often. This lead me to think about the last time we all got together. It was the end of August on our camping trip in Pennsylvania. I thought about my weight on that trip. I was proud to be in the low 170s. Before that trip my brother hadn't seen me since little lady was about 3 months old. I was in the low 200s at that time. I felt good being in a better place on our camping trip.
This made me think about the next time I will see them. It could be the end of February or at least by the end of March. I realized that in the 5 months that have passed since I last saw my brother I lost about 5 pounds. That made me realize that although I have considered myself to be losing weight, I have indeed not been losing weight as much as I have been gaining and losing the same few pounds over and over. Granted I am glad that I have actually lost weight and not gained weight, but I am admitting here and now to myself that I have basically been in maintenance mode.
I also believe that I may have let myself get a bit to comfortable here in the high 160s. I feel comfortable and if I stand the right way and "suck everything in," I think I look okay. The ugly side comes out though when I do a workout video in my room. There is a large full mirror near the open space and when I am doing certain moves I am horrified by certain areas of my body. I do not want to remain this weight much longer. I am close to my goal weight and have no excuses to not be more actively trying to get there.
I am setting a challenge for myself for the month of February. Since it's the shortest month of the year doing something for the month just seems easiest. I feel that I have stayed active but my eating can be out of control. I stay on track for a few days and then spend an evening gorging myself on the couch. I repeat that cycle over and over and wonder how I am not losing weight. It seems painfully obvious to me. I want to be a healthy weight so bad, but I have lost focus. I am finding my focus and my way back down the scale in February!
Goals for February:
This made me think about the next time I will see them. It could be the end of February or at least by the end of March. I realized that in the 5 months that have passed since I last saw my brother I lost about 5 pounds. That made me realize that although I have considered myself to be losing weight, I have indeed not been losing weight as much as I have been gaining and losing the same few pounds over and over. Granted I am glad that I have actually lost weight and not gained weight, but I am admitting here and now to myself that I have basically been in maintenance mode.
I also believe that I may have let myself get a bit to comfortable here in the high 160s. I feel comfortable and if I stand the right way and "suck everything in," I think I look okay. The ugly side comes out though when I do a workout video in my room. There is a large full mirror near the open space and when I am doing certain moves I am horrified by certain areas of my body. I do not want to remain this weight much longer. I am close to my goal weight and have no excuses to not be more actively trying to get there.
I am setting a challenge for myself for the month of February. Since it's the shortest month of the year doing something for the month just seems easiest. I feel that I have stayed active but my eating can be out of control. I stay on track for a few days and then spend an evening gorging myself on the couch. I repeat that cycle over and over and wonder how I am not losing weight. It seems painfully obvious to me. I want to be a healthy weight so bad, but I have lost focus. I am finding my focus and my way back down the scale in February!
Goals for February:
- Continue with my exercise- Marathon training officially starts February 3rd. I picked a bit of a harder schedule to follow because it worked me up to 12 miles before race day instead of 10. I felt like I needed to know I could run 12 before I attempted 13.1. However, if the training is to intense I will let myself step down to an "easier" schedule. I do have to attempt each scheduled run and not just decide that a distance seems to far and "step down" without attempting my schedule.
- Track everything I eat- This will be the huge challenge. I track on the days that I eat well. On the days I decide to binge, all hell breaks loose! I would like to challenge myself to stay within a healthy caloric intake each day, but I don't want to set myself up for failure. I will attempt to stay on track everyday, but if I go overboard I have to stay accountable and track everything I eat. I am hoping this will help me in two ways. First, there have been times that I eat more than planned and feel like I totally blew the day and continue to eat to explosion. When if I had just counted the calories from the first food that sent me overboard there would have been a chance at saving the day. Secondly, perhaps possibly seeing how many unnecessary calories I consume on a bad day may help me keep myself in control.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
lazy week
I have decided to give myself a week to relax before figuring out what to do next with my running schedule. I really liked having a running schedule so I want to have something to follow and stick with. I also don't want to burn myself out with running so I decided to let myself slack for a week and just run if/when I feel like it.
I really want to focus on my diet this week. I have not truly gotten my eating back in control in a few weeks. I have off and on days which is what my whole summer was and I hated just bouncing back and forth with a few pounds. I really don't want to do that all fall as well. I also really worry on my bad days because it reminds me that I have lost weight before AND gained it all back. I will not let that happen again! I know this time is different because I am loving my running and am not as focused on losing weight and I for sure don't have deadlines for when I would like to have the weight gone. I am more than okay with taking the slow road, especially if it leads to keeping the weight off.
I am feeling good today. I went to bed early last night and am on track for the day. My food is figured out for the day and I feel like I can handle it. I think one of my challenges is lunch. I eat the same breakfast pretty much every day (English muffin with peanut butter) and I plan out a weekly dinner menu, but lunch is just sort of there for me. I realized that when I am on track with my health I am in a good lunch rut. I was in love with my salmon a few weeks ago and that was one of the last times I was really on track. I enjoyed my lunch and then felt satisfied until dinner. These past few weeks I have been throwing together lunch ideas quickly at the last moment. Sometimes they just aren't satisfying and I end up grazing all day long.
I found an interesting coconut chicken recipe that sounds really good to me, but hubby hates coconut. I decided to make a batch tomorrow for lunch and then just portion out servings for each day for my lunch. I think it would be a great idea to make one meal each week that the hubby doesn't/wouldn't like and just eat that each day for lunch. It seems like a win/win for us both. I can enjoy my odd foods and hubby doesn't even have to look at them.
I really want to focus on my diet this week. I have not truly gotten my eating back in control in a few weeks. I have off and on days which is what my whole summer was and I hated just bouncing back and forth with a few pounds. I really don't want to do that all fall as well. I also really worry on my bad days because it reminds me that I have lost weight before AND gained it all back. I will not let that happen again! I know this time is different because I am loving my running and am not as focused on losing weight and I for sure don't have deadlines for when I would like to have the weight gone. I am more than okay with taking the slow road, especially if it leads to keeping the weight off.
I am feeling good today. I went to bed early last night and am on track for the day. My food is figured out for the day and I feel like I can handle it. I think one of my challenges is lunch. I eat the same breakfast pretty much every day (English muffin with peanut butter) and I plan out a weekly dinner menu, but lunch is just sort of there for me. I realized that when I am on track with my health I am in a good lunch rut. I was in love with my salmon a few weeks ago and that was one of the last times I was really on track. I enjoyed my lunch and then felt satisfied until dinner. These past few weeks I have been throwing together lunch ideas quickly at the last moment. Sometimes they just aren't satisfying and I end up grazing all day long.
I found an interesting coconut chicken recipe that sounds really good to me, but hubby hates coconut. I decided to make a batch tomorrow for lunch and then just portion out servings for each day for my lunch. I think it would be a great idea to make one meal each week that the hubby doesn't/wouldn't like and just eat that each day for lunch. It seems like a win/win for us both. I can enjoy my odd foods and hubby doesn't even have to look at them.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Fears
So having been down this weight loss road before I keep having the same thought run through my head over and over, "When am I going to give up on myself again?" I think about it all the time. I am so afraid that I will just stop eating well and running and inevitably gain all the weight back again. I am constantly reminding myself that this time around is like nothing I have ever done before. Here is why: (Who doesn't love lists about me?)
Even just with the weather cooling down to the 60s this week, running has gotten harder. I am fine running in 60* weather, but the mornings are way to cold to make little lady run with me. By the time it heats up outside, it is little lady's nap time and when she wakes up it's almost time to make dinner. Today I was going to get my 3 miles in right before her nap, but our errands took longer than expected so by the time we got home there wasn't enough time to run. Thankfully the hubs said he would watch her this evening while I run.
I am fine with running later in the day when hubby is home with little lady, but once it's winter it starts to get dark around 5pm and just don't feel safe running in the dark. I was starting to stress about what I would do for running in the winter and am hopeful this treadmill will work out for us.
- I took up running before even trying to change much about my eating habits.
- I have managed to make myself run about 3 times per week for almost 6 months now. They say creating a new habit takes 21 days, so it is a solid habit by now. I hope.
- I have made truly livable changes to my eating habits.
- I honestly don't believe that I am dieting. I know everyone always says all the crazy stuff about it's not a diet, it's a life change. I have always known that, but never really understood and I honestly didn't put it into practice. The only other time I have lost substantial weight I ate really light meals and snacked on diet snacks. I think I thought I could honestly eat light meals and crappy snacks forever. This time I some how found myself eating real meals and in turn not really wanting snacks. When I do snack I am fine with yogurt or tea. I do have an occasional unhealthy snack, but I am fine with one serving, otherwise that snack is taken out of our house.
- I am loving the challenge of running and the thought of increasing miles and potentially running a marathon one day. I have never thought I would run, but I enjoy it some times and love that I can challenge myself each time.
- When I have a relapse into old me, I can jump right back into healthy living. There have been so many times previous to this that we would go away for the weekend and I would just let myself eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to. Then I would not be able to get back into "dieting" again when we got home or even worse I would realize we were going away the following weekend too 'so why even try now.' This summer we traveled/had family visit us every. single. weekend. from Memorial Day to Labor Day. I usually at least tried to keep 2 meals lighter and
sometimesusually went overboard on one meal. I ran on most of the weekends as well. When we came home I would easily jump right back into my healthy lifestyle. I remember one portion of the summer we went camping for a long weekend and had maybe 2 days before we left again. Even though I had not eaten very wisely while camping I still ate well for the 2 days at home. I know that before this I would have used those 2 days to eat everything and just try to get back into "dieting" after the next trip. In those 2 days I felt changed.
Even just with the weather cooling down to the 60s this week, running has gotten harder. I am fine running in 60* weather, but the mornings are way to cold to make little lady run with me. By the time it heats up outside, it is little lady's nap time and when she wakes up it's almost time to make dinner. Today I was going to get my 3 miles in right before her nap, but our errands took longer than expected so by the time we got home there wasn't enough time to run. Thankfully the hubs said he would watch her this evening while I run.
I am fine with running later in the day when hubby is home with little lady, but once it's winter it starts to get dark around 5pm and just don't feel safe running in the dark. I was starting to stress about what I would do for running in the winter and am hopeful this treadmill will work out for us.
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