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!

Not getting anywhere yet

I have not lost any weight since my last post. As a matter of fact, my weight has been around 182-183 mark for the last month. I tried going on a high protein diet, but felt sick and crabby while on it. My job responsibilities changed about a month ago, so I'm in a new building with new people. So instead of having 2 shorter breaks and eating twice a day, I've been having a larger meal once a day at work. I thought maybe that would help me lose weight, but it hasn't made a difference either. I know what I need to do. I know I need to track my calories and eat below my maintain weight calories, but I still want a short cut. I don't want to be hungry at my job because I have had a hard enough time not being crabby as it is. If I'm hungry I'll have a really short fuse. As soon as I get home I usually am hungry and I want to emotionally eat. This weekend I've managed to keep my calories very low, but my husband is gone for the weekend, and I don't have to work, so I don't have the outside stress. Without the stress of every day life, I have the will power to go on a low calorie diet. I just wish I had that motivation when I have to actually deal with life.

Need to lose 30 pounds in 56 weeks

My sister has set her wedding date for October 6, 2012.  That means I have just over a year to lose about 25 to 30 pounds. I've been hovering around the high 170's for the past month.  A few days I even hit the 180 mark:(  So, I'm going to set my goal of weighing 150, which would mean losing about 30 pounds.  I keep thinking that the wedding is go far away that if I lose any weight now, I'll just gain it back, but then I realized that if I want to lose 30 pounds by next October, I'll need to lose slightly more than a half pound a week.  It would take 60 weeks to lose 30 pounds at the half pound a week rate and the wedding is only a little over 56 weeks away.  So, I better get going!

Uh Oh, I was asked to be the matron of honor...

I've really let myself go.  I have gained ALL the weight back.  As a matter of fact, I had deja vu last weekend while at my husband's uncle's funeral. I was wearing the black pants that I mentioned in my Spark People post in August 2009, and they were once again way too tight to be comfortable in. So the first thing I did when I got home was weigh myself.  I weighed in at 180.5.  Two years later and all my work I did to lose 35 pounds is gone!  I'm so disappointed in myself.

I have not started counting calories again, but I have been purposely trying to eat a little less. I weighed in at 174.5 this morning, so I'm making some progress already.  Also, when ever we go to visit my husband's family I tend to gain some water weight.  We usually spend a few days there since it's over a 4 hour drive.  But that usually means we stop for salty fast food on the way there and back. Also, we usually eat out sometime during the weekend.  This might be a little TMI, but I usually am a little constipated whenever I visit, maybe because my subconscious is not as comfortable with me doing number 2 in someone else's house. So after just getting back to my routine for a couple days, I was at 174.5 by Tuesday and have been around that number each day since.

So I was already trying to motivate myself to eat less this week and then on Wednesday I was asked to be the matron of honor at my sister's wedding!  Now I have something to really get me motivated to lose weight again. The only problem is the wedding isn't until October 2012, so I don't feel a sense of urgency yet.  I feel like I'll just gain back any weight I lose now.