Weigh-In Day-Week 1 (Nervous)

I'm incredibly nervous this morning. I've been eating clean and averaging a 1500 calorie deficit each day, but still I fear the scale will take the wind out of my sails. In order to meet my goal, the scale needs to read 199. I really need to discuss a few things before I weigh-in. In the past, the scale has had the power to ruin my mood and perfectly good diets. I'm trying to really grasp a few things so that no matter what, I feel strong and positive no matter what the scale says.

Why this week is a success no matter what...

• I started at the gym
• I ate clean all week and cooked healthy meals for my family.
• I drank only 10% of the alcoholic beverages I would have had I not been trying
• I did weight lifting this week, so it is possible that gained muscle could cancel out weight loss on the scale.
• My skin feels better.
• My cravings for sweets have disappeared for the most part.
• My mom and husband say they notice a change in my physical appearance, primarily the area I like to call "back fat"
• A buddy of mine on the SparkPeople.com community site adopted this lifestyle and didn't notice big deal changes for about 2 months, after which time she said she couldn't stop the changes. Right now I'm building a strong body under fat. It will take a while to reveal the hard work put in at the gym.

OK...so I'm about to go do the deed. I honestly feel sick. Drumroll please....

199.8. I feel ok about this. It's not the 3 lbs I was shooting for, but 2.2 is something. I've also been lifting, so I may have lost more body fat and gained muscle. Phew!..I made it past the weigh-in. I was not looking forward to that.

Honestly, I'm pleased. I think this 2.2 loss is body fat and I probably gained a little muscle, which is the ultimate goal no matter what the numbers say.

Wish me luck for week 2!

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Sick of Sweats

I suppose I could wear something else, but nothing really fits right. I'm wearing size 16 GAP jeans (and some 14's), but the button won't snap in any size. It's hard to say just how much of my tummy is remaining preggo pooch, but honestly, who cares...

I'll officially end week 1 tomorrow and hope to meet my 3lb goal for the week, but even at 3 lbs per week, it will be months before I feel OK in regular clothes. It's times like these when you have to take deep breaths and keep your eye on the prize. I know that sticking with the plan is the only way to reclaim my life and body, but it's difficult when you start each and every day trying on cloths that are too tight and resorting to sweatpants. These feelings of desperation and self-loathing begin first thing in the morning, but now there is no consoling myself with food. It's this self-loathing/emotional eating cycle that got me here in the first place. I've found a few things to think about when the thought crosses my mind to give up.

• If it takes me 6 months to a year, so what! I will either be fat or skinny at the end of this time, and one thing is for sure, the time will pass.
• This is a lifestyle change and not a diet. If I continue to do so well, my body will have no choice but to respond.
• I'm happy and enjoying life now. I'm not waiting to be thinner to start living.
• Each pound is like 4 sticks of butter. I would do just about anything to get 4 sticks of butter off my body, even if I really need to drop 280 sticks of butter.

To everyone reading this wearing sweatpants or jeans that are too uncomfortable to bend over in, take a deep breath and keep your eye on the prize. You could be 4 - 12 sticks of butter shy by the end of this week!

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Week 1 - Setting a 12 Week Weight Loss Goal

The BodyBugg system asks you to set a short term, 12 week goal. When you first get the system, you go through a series of tutorials that help you figure out the amount of calories you should be taking in, as well as the amount you should be burning per day to hit your goal.

While they suggest a loss of 2lbs per week, I'm shooting for 3. This means I'll need to have a 1500 calorie deficit each day. Over time, my progress will be charted on this page on the BodyBugg software. My first weigh in day in on Tuesday, 1/20. I need to weigh in at 199 to be on track. Bleh... 199 seems so horrible, but I have to think of it in terms of weekly goals and not look at the actual number. Sometime it helps to think of the fact that each pound of fat would look sort of like a package of 4 butter sticks. When I think of being 12 butter sticks smaller, that makes me feel pretty good.

If I actually stay on track, I will weigh in at 166 lbs on 4/7. I'm actually not that terrible looking at 166lbs. I will feel ok about "being with" my husband and not worrying too much about how grossed out he must be. After 12 weeks, I'll set a new goal, which is likely to be another 3lbs per week if it goes well.

This is a snap shot of my Thursday. You can see how it sort of plots out the calories burned over the course of the day. You have to go in and enter your food eaten for each meal. I try to plan ahead and enter in all at once. You can see here that I burned 3209 cals and consumed only 1695, creating the needed 1500 deficit to stay on track. We'll see how this well this works when weigh in day comes. The BodyBugg has really helped in 2 ways so far. It really helps me be more mindful of what I'm putting in my mouth, and it also helps by showing the caloric burn rate for normal things you do anyway. For example, I burned nearly 500 more calories on the day that I did a lot of house work and walking up and down the stairs to put laundry away one day. On most days I've been showing around an 1800 calorie deficit. Not too shabby! The real challenge is not drinking....

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Week 1 - Starting the Gym

Like a billion other people, I purchased my gym membership during a "New Year's Resolution" promotion. It isn't that I have a resolution to lose weight, in fact, it goes way beyond that. I have resolved myself to transforming my body inside and out. The timing just happened to coincide with the new year.

The real challenge I face right now is time and child care. I'm still on maternity leave. I have 3 kids; 9, 3, and 6 weeks. I'm getting about 5 hours of sleep at night at this point, and my entire day is devoted to taking care of one child or another. Honestly, I'm totally stressed. My time is not my own. The only possible time to exercise at the gym would be from about 10pm to 12am. Not great for my sleep problem, but I've done this several times now and feel good about it. It's nice to get a few hours to myself. Things at my house are totally crazy from 6am to 10pm.

So I bought my gym membership thinking I would start immediately, but it actually took me about a week before I got the guts to go. I was nervous about going somewhere new. I wasn't too sure of the crowd that would be there. I also didn't know where the locker room was and how busy it would be, etc. I was worried about looking like a whale in my workout clothes as well. Here's a brief summary of what I learned my first week at the gym...

1. I am WAY more out of shape that I originally thought.

2. Gym mirrors are very unforgiving. I've learned where in the gym to avoid looking.

3. Despite being 200lbs, I can actually run at 2 minute intervals and my joints feel ok.

4. I burn more calories and have a better workout if I plan ahead.

5. Lastly, eating clean causes gasiness at first, so if you accidentaly, um..you know, while working out, just pretend it didn't happen and keep going....

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Week 1 - Let's Get Real

So here I am tipping this scales at just over 200lbs. I never thought I would see the day, but here I am and it's time to face the facts. I delivered my 3rd (and last) child exactly 6 weeks ago today. I thought surely by now I would be somewhere around 180, but the harsh reality is that I've lost only 6lbs from the day I delivered to now.

Over these last 6 weeks, I've gone back and forth on which approach to take with this weight loss. I've gained and lost a million pounds over my 29 years. I've done it every different way you can imagine, but the most successful way for me has been starvation. That worked really well when I had about 30 lbs to lose, but I have 78 lbs to lose now and I'm totally out of shape. About 2 weeks after having the baby, I stopped eating in hopes of dropping a quick 20 lbs by now, but it isn't working and it's not doing my healing body any favors. So...

This time I'm doing it right! We're talking workouts, vegetables, vitamins, the whole enchilada! This probably sounds pretty silly. I mean, why wouldn't I do it right, right? Well, this is actually a very big deal because I feel desperate. I feel awful NOW and I want relief NOW. In fact, I have a date with my husband that we have been planning for a LONG time in about 2 weeks, and honestly, working out and eating well won't help me to feel more comfortable in 2 weeks. I'm probably not going to feel more comfortable for several months. When feeling fat, every minute of every day feeling fat is miserable. So miserable, in fact, that it causes compulsive behavior, like buying diet pills at the grocery store when you know they aren't going to work, or vowing to stop eating until you get "skinny". Ultimately, for me desperation leads to more bad eating. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of being out of control and tired of spending 90% of my thought process on self loathing and thoughts about my body. I'm done.

I've done a lot of research and have decided to tackle this problem 3 ways.

#1 - 24Hour Fitness - I've got to get strong and burn more calories. Sitting on my butt at home (doing blog entries ;-)) is making me fat!

#2 - BodyBugg Calorie Management System - I found out about this through my gym. Basically you wear a device that helps you figure out how many calories you burn throughout the day. It's not a heart rate monitor, but an actual gizmo that measures your metabolic rate based on 4 factors. If you haven't heard about this thing, you must check out their website. I've been using this for about a week now and love it.
(http://www.bodybugg.com/)

#3 - Clean Eating - This is the big one. I've committed to adopt a new way of eating for life. The way I've viewed food and nutrition in the past is totally messed up. I've spent my adult years going between eating nothing or eating too much. I don't know how to eat normally. I'm either losing or gaining weight. I cook for my family and then pop a Lean Cuisine in the microwave for myself instead of just making the correct portion of dinner for myself. I could lose weight on Lean Cuisines again, but if I don't learn to eat normally, I will be fighting this thing for the rest of my life. I'm ready to enjoy life again. I'm sick of the games. Clean Eating is simply eating food in it's natural form. There are a few rules, but they are really simple. This is the way bodybuilders and fitness competitors eat. I figure they know a little something about getting lean. For more info, check out http://eatcleandiet.com/.

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