When you do everything right...

Just a quick post to remind myself that even when you do everything right, life doesn't always cooperate.

I have been weighing myself just about daily, of course the only one that counts is Sunday mornings. But despite the warnings not to, I weigh myself every day. Here is a lesson in support of the the naysayers of weighing yourself every day:

I am up 3 lbs for no apparent reason at all.

I've done fine food-wise this week with the exception of indulging in a Slutty Brownie yesterday. Though, my food intake was still under my BMR. Monday and Tuesday my calories were actually 1600-1700, which is under my 1800 goal.

I rode my bike Sunday, giving an extra workout to the start of the week, and with my run Tuesday my calorie deficit should be around 2,000 at this point in the week.

I also have been drowning myself in water.

I write this not to complain (OK, not entirely at least), but to prove a point that sometimes you do everything right and your body doesn't cooperate.

I know the week is only half over so I can only hope that my body will get with the program over the next few days.

Fat Trap - Going Home

The whole time I've been losing weight I've always struggled with trips "home" - back to St. Louis where ALL of my family is. I am the only one out of my immediate and extended family that now lives outside of the St. Louis area.

Nashville isn't a very far car trip to St. Louis so I get back quite often - usually every 2-3 months. And usually the trip is a weight gain waiting to happen. Every fat bomb that is possible happens while I'm there. Eating out with friends or family, nights of binge drinking with friends (or family), mom's homecooking, and my mom's endless supply of junk food she keeps in her house. I still haven't figured out how to survive.

Also, does anyone else associate long car trips with fast food and junk food? I blame this on childhood trips to the Lake house. Every time we made the 3 hour trip up to the Lake of the Ozarks we would beg my mom to stop at the half-way point to get McDonald or some other fast food. Sometimes, it wouldn't even be a meal time, but it wasn't a family trip to the Lake without some McDonalds fries. That's probably for a whole other blog post...

So back to the point, I can avoid fast food when I want to. Even on long car rides I can plan to bring my own meals and snacks. But for some reason as soon as I step into my mom's house I fall into a puddle mess of no-willpower and raid her fridge and pantry of every junk food item in her house. This time she had Entenmann's donuts, swiss cake rolls, Doritos, Cheez-its, ice cream (she always has Haagen-dazs or Ben & Jerry's pints), and the list goes on. And every time, I feel like I have to sample EVERYTHING.

Her house must be a vortex where all my willpower is sucked out of my brain because I often have things in my cabinets that I could binge on and I don't (usually). Like right now I have some leftover Oreos from a dessert I made. I thought about them last night, but I did not touch them. Now, if that was at my mom's house I would have eaten a whole sleeve of Oreos as soon as I started thinking about them.

I've been trying to come up with an answer for how to avoid this pitfall when I visit home, but after almost 2 years of trying, I just haven't come up with a solution. Thoughts? Ideas?

I'm determined to make a trip home this summer without falling into the junk food pit of doom.

Owning up to it

So THIS happened yesterday:

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In case you are too lazy to click or need me to spell it out for you: that's yesterday's calorie total ~1,000 calories over my normal limit. Let's discuss what happened...

A slice of cheese and mushroom pizza at 3pm - approx 285 calories
2 packets of Nestle hot chocolate at 4pm - 160 calories
1 black and white cookie at dinner - 130 calories
Baked Potato with cheese and sour cream at 9pm - approx 440 calories

This was all eaten over and beyond my 3 meals and 2 snacks for the day. What is wrong with me!?!

And I ate half a homemade pizza for dinner (570 calories). But even with that, had I not eaten the above my day would have been fine.

WTF?!

Clearly it's come to my attention that my demons of overeating have reared their ugly heads. This is how I used to eat. All. the. time. I would eat Oreos by the sleeve full and not even think twice about eating half a pepperoni pizza. It appears I've been too confident about overcoming these demons over the last year and a half and deep down inside they are still there ready to take me down.

This has to end now. I've come too far and I'm way too close to what I think to be a comfortable weight for me to let those demons win this time around.

Midweek Ramblings

So, I may have given up daily posting of my food log (to protect you from boredom, dear readers), but I am still tracking over at Sparkpeople.

I'm still struggling with my food choices. Yesterday I was really snacky, so I ended up at Starbucks at 3 pm for a Peppermint Mocha. I got the skinny version, but that was still 290 calories un-needed.

Sometimes it's just easier to go back to basics and with the holidays coming up, that's where I'm going to head. Back to eating my staples: whole grains, complex carbs, tons of fruits/veggies, low fat dairy and lean meats. This basically means I eat a variety of whole wheat bread, potatoes (white & sweet), whole wheat pastas, brown rice, lentils, Oats, beans, eggs, 2% cheese, 1% milk, shrimp, fish and chicken, apple, bananas, berries, brussels sprouts, broccoli, spinach and carrots. Oh, and the occasional nut butter!

It's boring, but this worked for me for the first 88 pounds, so why steer away from it?

The story of the 3-day binge

I'm fully expecting a 3-4 lb gain tomorrow.

Sigh, I just had to put that out there. I've done 2 of my 3 training runs (3rd is scheduled for Sunday) and I even did weights last night after my run. I'm trying to incorporate weight training 2x a week.

But my food choices, oh boy my food choices are horrendous. Coming off the flu last weekend, I was craving white, processed carbs. So that's what I ate. And now, even though my body is back to normal, I haven't gone back to healthy eating. Here's just a selection of what I've eaten over the last few days - and I'm sure I'm forgetting some of it!

Today: 2 pumpkin pancakes with a banana and butter and syrup (unmeasured)

Friday: Banana; 4 mini quiches. 2 mini cinnamon rolls, 1 mini muffin and fruit salad; Green salad with ranch dressing, yeast roll with butter, smashed potatoes, 1/2 pan fried chicken breast, 2 bites of turkey with gravy, brownie and peach cobbler; 1 snack bag chex mix, tootsie roll and another mini cinnamon roll; 2 bowls french onion soup with Swiss cheese and croutons, veggie corn dog, 2 mini chocolate candies; 1 snack bag chex mix

Thursday: Peanut butter and pumpkin butter sandwich; banana; cup of clam chowder and half turkey brie cranberry sandwich; black cherry Chobani; 4% cottage cheese with Triscuts; 2 bowls french onion soup with Swiss cheese and croutons; 1 oreo ball; 2 slices bread with pumpkin butter

Wednesday: Peanut butter and pumpkin butter sandwich; banana; cup of french onion soup with half a baguet and Swiss cheese, slice of cheese pizza with black olives; Honeycrisp apple; 4% cottage cheese with Triscuits; 2 veggie corn dogs and sweet potato fries; 1/2 cup chocolate chip ice cream in "waning" peanut butter jar (1T peanut butter?)

If you want to play Where's Waldo, try to find any veggies in my list up there. Although Wed and Thurs are bad, but Friday is by far the worst. We had an event at work and I pretty much put whatever was in front of me in my mouth.

I know I shouldn't do this, but I've already written today off. I'm heading to a Beer, Bourbon and BBQ fest downtown and I fully intend to enjoy it.

Next week. I am back on it and I am committing for the next 4 weeks to be as close to perfect as possible with both food and exercise. By committing to 4 weeks, it breaks what can be big and overwhelming into a small, manageable thing.

Weigh in - Hitting the 240s

Last week's weight: 250.0

This week's weight: 249.6

0.4 lbs LOST

79.8 pounds lost since June 2010

Considering the week I had at work and the fact that I ate pizza and fast food in the same day on Tuesday, I deserve the minuscule loss.

However, I'm also continuing to wreck the work I do during the week on Friday nights and Saturdays. I know what I need to do. I need to plan better. I need to be stricter on what I eat when I go out and I need to stop the snacking on the weekends. I've done this all before, I just need to remember how to do it.

So, I suck...

I really suck at this blog thing. To have a successful blog, you have to write in it, right?!? Regular updates are not something I have mastered.

I'm a woman of random thoughts and then quickly forgetting them. This is possibly why I like Twitter. I can share my random thoughts and although oftentimes no one is really paying attention it feels cathartic to share.

This hasn't been a great week. Not a bad week overall, just a bad week food wise and I'm feeling a bit bloated and guilty.

It started Sunday at a belated Cinco de Mayo gathering (Ocho de Mayo?). What went from resolving to try the 100 calorie Skinnygirl Margaritas, to not drinking at all and back again to the Skinnygirl variety turned into me drinking 5 or 6 regular, full calorie and sugar laden pre-mix variety. Add on a massive bowl of guacamole, more tortilla chips than thought possible and two, yes TWO, keylime cupcakes and I did not start my week off well (or celebrate my 5 lb loss in any sort of emotionally healthy way).

Tuesday I went to the gym AFTER having 2 margaritas at a happy hour and finished off my dinner leftovers when I got home.

These are the habits that got me where I was 4 years ago.

I'm really good at identifying the problems. Not so great at coming up with a solution I'll stick too. Regular grocery shopping and meal planning must be a part of my life again. Less eating out, even at the sacrifice of social engagements has to happen.

On a good note, I've completed 3 days of Couch to 5K. I started on Week 2 since I could already run 90 seconds at a time. I'm hoping to do two more days of Week 2 and then move onto Week 3.

Another gain...

Last week's weight - 270.0

This week's weight - 270.6

0.6 pounds GAINED

58.8 pounds lost since June 2010

Well, well, well...I'm doing pretty good chipping down that 60 lb weight loss. I'm not sure why I've been hovering around the 270s, but this had GOT to stop.

I'm torn between cutting myself slack for last week and beating myself up for not being able to get it together.

Actually I didn't do *too* bad last week considering I spent 2.5 days out of town at a work conference, eating away from home AND I went to a wedding in St. Louis. I'd say ONLY a 0.6 gain is pretty much a miracle.

Sat and Sun were a little rough. I mean, there was PIE at the wedding PIE! And then there was the alcohol part...

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I also got in 2 days of exercise despite the fact I only spent 2 nights in my own bed. I walked/jogged 2 miles at the hotel gym and 3.75 miles Saturday in St. Louis.

Saturday was my first time jogging outside since I pulled by back last August. At the time I was on week 2 or 3 of Couch to 5K. I'm slowly starting to incorporate jogging into my workouts by doing intervals of 2 minutes jogging and 1 minute walking. Hopefully soon I'll have the confidence to try Couch to 5K again. 8 months and counting to shave 15 minutes off my half-marathon time. Can I do it? We will see....

Weigh in: just call me yo-yo

Last week's weight - 277.4

This week's weight - 278.8

1.4 pounds GAINED

50.6 pounds lost since June 2010

So apparently we're in a yo-yo stage here. Gain, lose, gain, lose, gain. It's getting to be quite frustrating. Don't you wish the human body was like a car and came with warning lights and display panels to tell you when it needs a tune up?

Excuses? Oh yes, I have them. I ate too many calories yesterday (around 3,000). I had 3 margaritas and although I controlled my chip and salsa portion, I ate the entire portion of my order of fajitas (sans tortillas) that was drenched in oil. Want more? I'm sore from Powerlift (I increased my weight amounts yesterday) and I spent two hours raking leaves so my muscles are probably retaining water. Even more? It's that sneaky time of the month that makes you feel like a bloated version of your once shrinking self.

See, excuses? I have them. But none of them matter. I could talk for hours about all the perfect (or imperfect) I've done, but for whatever reason the scale isn't moving in the right direction lately and leaves me frustrated.

I have to own up that I'm not doing something right and correct it. I just need to figure out what that is. Because, I do have a goal to hit. Back in November I set a goal to lose 50 lbs by July 1. There are 16 weeks to go and hitting this goal is still within reach, I just need to stop the yo-yo.

Weigh in - an unexplained gain

Last week's weight - 278.6

This week's weight - 280.0

1.4 pounds GAINED

49.4 pounds lost since June 2010

As I watched the scale stay firmly in the 278-279 range and then suddenly creep up late this week, I knew I'd likely see a small gain this morning. I did not expect this large of a gain, however.

The week after large losses (last week was 5.4 lbs) aren't going to be followed by another huge loss, but I expect to at least maintain that loss.

Yes this is frustrating.

As I have solidly for the last 5 months, I tracked every bite and was well within my calorie range every day (1600-1900).

I exercised 6 out of 7 days this week. Yoga, water aerobics (x3), walking (3 miles), upper body strength training, powerlift. I'm considering going back to my 3x a week walking schedule I had for half-marathon training. My body seems to respond well to walking.

So food in check and burned 2,400+ calories this week. Isn't calories out > calories in supposed to be what this weight loss thing is all about? From what I found, not always.

The human body likes to be a stubborn b*tch.

The only thing keeping me sane and preventing me from stomping my foot and breaking down in tears is that over the previous 3 weeks I had lost 11.4 pounds, so I'm still down 10 for the month and right on track to hit my goal of 250 by July 1st.

All I can do is press on. After a gain, it doesn't help to get depressed or give up. Where will that get you? Only a series of gains and before you know it you've gained back everything you've worked hard to lose. I'm a firm believer there are no excuses as to why I am not losing weight each week. If I gain, then there is something to improve. So this is what I am doing to improve this week.

I will float myself with water. 64+ ounces a day minimum. I haven't been drinking enough water.

I will start major walking again. Below will be my workout schedule this week. I'm putting it here so I do it - none of this loosey goosey workout stuff.

Mon - yoga
Tues - walk 3 miles
Wed - yoga (this may be an off day - I have a friend visiting for the night from out of town)
Thurs - walk 3 miles
Fri - water aerobics
Sat - Powerlift
(next) Sun - walk 6 miles

Don't worry about me, I got this.

Fitness Anxiety

Sincerely thank you to everyone for their comments, tweets, texts and calls on the last post and my major let down of a weigh in. I really appreciate the encouragement and suggestions!

I've gotten past my crappy weigh in from this weekend and MOVED ON. Sure, I'm still disappointed that it seems like all my hard work last week was for not, but I have more hard work to look forward to this week.

Last week, I was dealing with a bit of fitness anxiety. I was anxious about the upcoming spin class last Friday and half-marathon in February.

I like trying new things. I'm pretty good about "putting myself out there" but that doesn't come without reservations. When I decided to go to the spin class, I had so many anxious thoughts. Would I be able to keep up? Would I fit comfortably on the bike? What if it's crowded? What if I'm the fattest person there? In the end none of that mattered and I enjoyed the class. It was just my my mind over thinking every thing.

I've been stressing about the half-marathon since I registered. I have done one other half-marathon. It was the Country Music Nashville event from the popular Rock n Roll race series. This race is huge. There are something like over 30,000 participants? Huge! They aren't strict about the 4 hour time limit (my time was 4:18 in 2009) and when you register they ask you your pace and pre-assign you to corrals. Then, at the start of the race, they do wave starts, where every few minutes they release another corral.

Well, unbeknownst to me, the Mercedes event is very small. Tiny. Minuscule. Get it? Only 3,500-4,000 do the half. That's 90% smaller then the size of my last half! And when they didn't ask my pace on the registration I freaked out a bit since I had no idea what to expect at the start line. I ended up calling. It's just one big start (cue: fear of being trampled). They do have corrals for the different pace times (thank God), but still my irrational fear of being trampled is still there. Have I ever told you I was trampled once? Oh, yeah I was. At a concert. Back in the day we lined up all day long to be the first one into general admission rock shows and be front row. Well, at this one venue you had to RUN, up a flight of stairs to get to the mainstage area. Being the clumsy person I am, I fell and people freaking trampled me. Yeah. So fear of being trampled is alive and well in my mind.

My other anxiety ridden thought? Not finishing - or being the last one to finish. I have nothing from my training that would indicate I won't finish within the prescribed 4 hour time limit (my 10 mile walk was a 17:45 pace), but when I constantly read things like, "the half marathon finish line will close promptly at 11:03 am" it puts a lot of pressure on me mentally. It's not even the fact of not getting the medal or whatever other swag they give to official finishers. I just don't want them to deny me crossing that finish line and saying I completed 13.1 miles. Then, looking at the finisher's times last year for the half doesn't help one bit. The slowest person last year in my age group finished in 3:51:20. See? Anxiety.

I know in the end, none of this will matter. However, for the next several weeks it will. Only 4 more "long" walks to go. I'll do 12 miles this week. Then 8 as a recovery and the last two weeks will just be 6 to give my body time to rest (I got off schedule from Christmas, so there should be another 12 miler in there, but I'll be fine).

So, does anyone else suffer from "fitness" anxiety? Or other anxiety in relation to other aspects of your weight or weight loss?

Struggling this week

The week has not gone well.

I am up 1.4 pounds from my Sunday weigh in. But luckily I do these mid-week check ins so I can turn my week around if needed.

The good thing is I can identify the problems, oh and there are a lot of them.

>I brought home 4 pieces of baklava from the Greek Fest on Saturday. And I ate ALL of them myself over the last 4 days (my roommate has been out of town).

> I binged on chocolate chip cookies Sunday night. I was craving chocolate and ate 6 without even thinking about it, costing me 390 calories.

> I haven't been getting enough rest at night. I've been staying up way too late and have only been sleeping 5.5 - 6 hours a night. That is not enough for this girl who needs 8-9 hours of sleep to be content.

> Last night I had an appointment after work. My plan was to eat some 100 calorie popcorn as a late afternoon snack to get me through to 7pm (when I would be able to have dinner at home), but I wasn't hungry so I didn't have the snack. I was fine until I got out of my appointment at 6:30 and was STARVING so I made the horrible decision to drive through a fast food restaurant. I knew it was wrong at the time and I didn't change my mind. My dinner of fried chicken tenders and french fries cost me almost 1,000 calories. Not cool.

> Skinny Cow ice cream cups. Enough said.

What I'm doing to change how my week is going:

>I will stick to my calorie goal of 1750-1900 for the rest of the week and will continue to track everything I eat on Spark People. No more sweets or fried foods for awhile.

>Drink at least 64 ounces of water each day

>Walk for 20 minutes at lunch today, walk 1 mile after work tomorrow, go to water aerobics Friday and walk 1 mile on Saturday. My back pain is slowly going away, but I still have pain from time to time so I do not want to over exert myself and go back to where I was 3 weeks ago. But I can take short walks each day with no problem.

>Go to sleep at 10pm each night to wake up at 6:30am to get to work on time.

>I will NOT buy any more Skinny Cow ice cream products. They are "low cal" but if I have them in the house, I just end up eating them every day. I do much better when I don't have any sweets in the house at all. Then when I crave something, I go out and get a single serving and I am done with it.

Let's see if I can turn this week around and at least hold onto my 4.8 pound weight loss from last week. Even if I have no gain, no loss on Sunday I will be happy.