Only 2 more months to go...

Sadly I don't have much to report other than I haven't gained any weight in the past month. Now it's only 2 months until the wedding and I'm still 190 pounds. Ugh I am so mad at myself. Why is this so difficult? I'm going to cut back on food and excercise more - hopefully I'll have some good news to report soon!

Big Fat Fail

So, it's been about three months since I last posted.  You would think by now I would have lost of bunch of weight and would be well on my way to looking awesome in my bridesmaid dress this October.  Well, I failed. I don't know what I weighed last time I mentioned it on here, but I have been in the 190's recently.  So sad.  It's hard to believe that 2 years ago around this time of the year I was in the 140's.

This Friday is the 6th, which means I have 3 months until the wedding.  I tried on my dress back in April and it fit - barely. I think I weigh even more now.  So at the very least I need to lose enough just to fit in the dress... It take like 5 months to order and we will only get them about 1 month before the wedding.  I wouldn't have time to order a size bigger. 

I need to do this! 
I need to do this! 
I need to do this! 

Started tracking calories again

I really need to lose weight by this October - when my sister is getting married. I am the matron of honor, and because my sister loves photography, I'll be in a lot of photos she is going to share. I want to lose about 25 pounds and the wedding is in roughly 25 weeks! I need to have a 500 calorie deficit every day! I started counting calories again today. I forgot how little I can eat to lose weight:( But it's good to make me think twice when I eat. For example, normally I would have 2 chicken patties which would be...

2 chicken patties: 400 calories
2 buns: 220 calories
Mayo: 100 calories (assuming I split 1 tablespoon over the two)
Total: 720 calories

What I did tonight:
1 chicken patty: 200 calories
1 bun: 110 calories
Light sour cream with seasoned salt: 40 calories
Total: 350 calories

Saved 370 calories

So, already I am making better decisions. I just have to be motivated to track.

Do high protein diets make you more thirsty?

I've noticed something a little odd the last two weekends: I have been really thirsty. At first I wondered if there was something different with the water in our city since there is a water cooler at work and I get most of my day's water from that source during the week. Or I thought maybe it's just more humid at work. But then I happened to think during the week when I'm working I go for simple carbs and don't eat as much protein. My plan a couple weeks ago was to start a high protein diet, but the only days I've been able to stick to it were on the weekends because I have more time to prepare my food and I'm not reaching for carbs just to "get through the day". So I looked it up and sure enough, a side effect of a high protein diet is dehydration. Researchers from University of Connecticut tested the hydration levels of athletes on diets containing low, medium, and high levels of protein. It was reported in an article by Web MD, that "although all the athletes drank about the same amount of fluids, their hydration level went down significantly as their protein intake went up."

I researched this a bit more and found several articles saying high protein diets, especially from animal sources, may cause kidney damage. However, most of the research was inconclusive. So I guess for now, I just need to drink extra water, maybe try to find protein sources not from animals, and proceed with caution.

Trying low carb/high protien diet

Last post I had written was a debate between whether or not I should eat meat to have optimal health. For now I am going the high protein route. My husband is dealing with his own weight issues and has been working out with a personal trainer once a week for about a year now. Unfortunately he has not gotten the results he is looking for - he's actually heavier than he was this time last year. So he finally asked his trainer for suggestions for improving his diet. Her advice was pretty much to do a low carb diet. No pasta, bread or cheese (so there goes my plan of having spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner once a week). So because he is trying to eat low carb, it would give me a good opportunity to try it too. It's only been 2 days, and I've already "cheated" quite a bit, but I have eaten fewer carbohydrates than I normally would just by eating meals with him. It's too early to weigh in and see if this is helping. But man, a big bowl of cereal sounds good right now!

Should I or should I not eat meat to lose weight?

It seems like I keep going back and forth as to whether I need to eliminate meat from my diet. Even though I have not been implementing any of their suggestions, I have been interested in what vegans have said about how their lifestyle has improved their health. I've been reading Steve Pavlina's blog and watching Dan McDonald's youtube videos for inspiration. But I've also been listening to podcasts by Jillian Michaels and the "Cut the Fat" podcast by Raymond Hinish and Blythe Alberg, and they advocate a higher protein diet that includes animal protein. So I've been wavering between thinking I need to eat a lot of protein and not having any animal products. I wish I knew who to believe and what would be best.

One thing they all have in common though is they emphasize the importance of eating more vegetables. So that is something I need to start doing again. And at this point I should be concentrating on eating less calories and then maybe revisit whether I should eat animal protein to lose weight and be healthy at a later time.

Only 10 pounds away

No, not 10 pounds away from goal but 10 pounds away from a place I don't want to be.  I just weighed in and for the first time in my life I was 190 pounds!  Damn:(  I'm really going in the wrong direction.  I have not been keeping up on my new year's resolutions (eat 2 veggies every day and track calories) so that is probably most of my problem.  I really need to get back on track and get this weight going in the right direction!  I just wish I didn't crave "bad" food so much.

I just calculated that there are 34 more weeks until my sister's wedding. I want to lose at least 30 pounds by then. So I have to lose about a pound a week. Ugh.  Sadly I don't want to deprive myself that much.  Where did my motivation go?

Check In - January 15, 2012

Well this week was better - but barely!  I did manage to track my calories every day this week. I ate out at a place without nutritional information available and ate at my parent's place but I still at least estimated my calories each day.  One thing I need to work on is tracking at the time I eat and not later in the day or even the next day.  The reason I need to track right away is I forgot about what I ate.  If I log the next day, I'll almost always forget something.  As a matter of fact, I think I forgot to add the cake and ice cream I had for my Dad's birthday on Thursday, so I now see my calories are off by at least 500.

I have not finished my eating for today, so if you look at the first 6 days I didn't do very well.  Even though I have met my goal of tracking each day (even if I did it the next day) and eating my 2 veggies a day I still have a lot of room for improvement.  As you can see, I did a terrible job of not going over my calorie allowance.  So my goal for next week I want to have no red in this bar graph for at least 3 days out of 7 next week.

I weighed in today at 185 pounds which is 2 pounds less than it was on January 1.  So maybe eating the veggies has helped a little bit because as far as I can see it isn't due to the lack of calories.

One week into the new year

Well this year is just over a week old, so I thought I'd do a quick check up on how I am doing on my new year's resolutions. Sadly, I can't say I've done a good job. Here is how I've done...

1. Track calories every day.
Fail. I haven't tracked since January 3rd.
2. Eat 2 servings of vegetables every day.
Success! Haven't missed a day.
3. Exercise just 5 minutes each morning.
Fail. I've forgotten to do this most mornings.

So after only a week, I already need to get back on track. Since I know I went over my calories every day I didn't track, I'm pretty sure I didn't lose any weight this week, so I didn't bother weighing myself this week.  But, I will weigh in next week!

No wonder I've gained 23 pounds this year

I started this blog around this time last year, and at that time I was concerned that I had let my weight creep back up to 164. Now I wish I was 164. I'm about 187 now, so I've gained 23 pounds in 2011. I finally started tracking again today. I tried tracking my calories a few times in the past year, but it would never last more than a day. So here is how I did today...

So as you can see, I didn't do very well. Right now I have the "Lose It" program set to lose 1/2 per week. So maintain weight calories would be around 2,371 and I even was over that by 643 calories.  If I had an eating day this poor every day, I'd gain 67 pounds in one year! (643 x 365 days divided by 3,500 because each pound=3,500 calories.) So I can't afford to have too many days like today!

Today was a little unusual because we went out to lunch at Olive Garden, so that put me at a big disadvantage.  But it probably would have been worse had I not been tracking.  Even though my current goal isn't to be at losing weight calories, just tracking helped me think twice most of the times I went to eat today. But, sometimes I'd eat something and then have to remind myself to track it after I already ate. Hopefully I'll continue to be even more mindful as I get back into the habit of tracking. I don't have any plans to eat out tomorrow, so tomorrow should be a better day!

It's a little cliche but...

I'm going to make some New Year's resolutions.  My weight has creeped up to an all-time high of around 187 (gasp!), so something needs to be done. I'm not starting with anything dramatic for now because I've fallen so far off the wagon that I just need to start doing some small things that will get me on the right track. So here are three things I am planning on doing in 2012:

1. Track calories every day.  It's ok if I go over, I just need to get back in the tracking habit.
2. Eat 2 servings of vegetables every day.  It doesn't sound like much, but right now I pretty much don't have any.
3. Exercise just 5 minutes each morning.

So I probably won't have a dramatic weight loss from just these three.  I might try adding something each month to build on what I started this month.  Maybe next month I'll add 15 minutes of exercise each evening and make sure I have 2 servings of fruit as well. I hope by this time next year I'm at least 160 or lower!