Well, folks, I haven’t achieved mugh of anything on the weightloss horizon in the last 3 months. I’m holding pretty steady. Sure, I’ve had lots of bumps in the road and a couple of major family upheavals but that’s not really an excuse. We all have those.
I just thought I’d drop in to say I’m still here and still trying. I’m hoping to pick this back up and fight the good fight. I’ve just lost some of my momentum and need to get kick started again. Anybody got any suggestions?
Another busy week, full of outings, lots of work and family drama. I haven’t exercised as much as I would have liked other than working in the yard but I have managed to maintain the 10.6 lb weight loss I recognized on Monday so that’s a very positive thing. But it got me thinking. I wondered how my measurements were doing. So, I checked.
Holy smokes! They have dropped a bit. One even edged up by half an inch but I realize taking my own measurements is subjective. After all, I could pull tighter one time over another or even be measuring in a slightly different place though I try to be careful to use the same points. However, when last I checked, my waist measurement hadn’t budged. This time I saw a 2 ½ inch decrease! For me, that’s HUGE!
And yes I can feel a small change in how some of my clothes fit…finally. I can’t begin to describe how good that feels.
Another sign of improvement – this week my stints in the yard last 90 minutes before I gave in to fatigue instead of my usual hour. A 50% increase in duration. My stamina and energy are getting better every week.
It is difficult not to become impatient, to not seek a miracle way to drop more pounds faster. When I can see the fruits of my labors though, it is rewarding beyond belief. It gives me hope that I can maintain what I’m doing and make these things permanent lifestyle changes. I don’t feel like I’m starving or missing favorite foods. I’m just teaching myself moderation with food servings and sizes, self-discipline when it comes to exercise and to appreciate the baby steps my progress takes.
Hopefully you are having some luck too. Please leave a comment and let me know how you’re doing.
Yard work for weight loss worked, I think. My apologies in advance to any male readers as I intend to discuss female things today as the reason for my uncertainty about the cause of my weight loss.
I did indeed do some yard work this past week but less than half of what I had planned. You see, I am 48 years old and I believe entering menopause. I say “I believe” because five months ago I had blood tests done that can indicate whether or not a woman is entering that “special” phase of life. My test indicated I was not. This despite the fact that for a year, I would have 2 or three periods and then randomly skip one after having been as regular as ole Big Ben for 34 years. I was also experiencing insomnia and the occasional hot flash. Still the doctors said nope, not yet.
Well there could be other causes for insomnia – like the caffeine I used to ingest by the coffee pot full. Once I stopped the caffeine, my sleep cycles returned to normal. As for the hot flashes, they only lasted a month or so. Maybe the doctors were right. Not yet.
I hadn’t had a period since January. Three months had elapsed and I was blissfully submerged in the belief that the doctors had been wrong and I was indeed experiencing menopause. Then, BAM! Yep, I got another period that started last Tuesday. No PMS, no random pimples, no cramps. Just BAM! And it was a doowsey. Without being overly graphic, let’s just say it made up for lost time. I was unable to use the Wii Fit or get outside much for most of the week.
The good news is, my weight still went down ever so slightly. I did try to stick to my low carb diet with only a couple excursions off the plan. This morning I weighed in at 156 even. I’m down another .4 for a total of 9.7 lbs.
This week I am back on feet though dealing with some family issues. I have every intention of exercising and continuing the yard work. In addition to clearing that fence line, I also have 7 new bushes to plant. That means lots of digging. Hopefully this week I will be able to get more done and see if yard work really can be considered a weight loss tool.
This past week I made it outside to work in the yard twice. It mostly consisted of cleaning up and that will be the job for the next few weeks or more. I am hoping that my little bit of weight loss and slightly increased energy levels help in this endeavor almost as much as I’m hoping the work itself helps me lose even more.
I have a large area of land around my home that I am trying to tame. The previous owners were elderly and could no longer care for the place. When we moved here from Chicago, we had no idea how to care for a place this large and o equipment or tools with which to do it. Gradully we are learning and building up our arsenal of tools and supplies but it is slow going.
This summer I am taking down a fence that divides the grassy lawn area from what was a pasture on the other side. The fence line has become overrun with trees, bushes, honeysuckle vines, blackberry brambles (thorny!) and wild rose bushes (also thorny).
Given my weight and health, I cannot work for long periods of time. I have to break physical exertion into blocks of an hour give or take. This last week, I discovered it takes about an hour to clean from one fence post to another. Perfect. With my other responsibilities, it should take 3-4 weeks to complete the chore.
Not only will I have removed rotted wood posts strung with rusty barbed wire and enhanced the view of the landscape from the west side of my house, I will burned extra calories. And I will be using the area and the few remaining fence posts I leave in place as anchors for my pair of goats. We tether them out eat day to graze – good for them, good for the environment. I haven’t been able to let them graze here because they would become tangled in the barbed wire. Now I can see my babies more often throughout the day.
How’d I Do?
Pretty well, thanks for asking. I’m down to 256.4, a total loss of 9.3. I can see that 10 lb goal just on the horizon. Hopefully the yard work technique will help push me over.
I’ve been on low-carb for ten days now. It seems to have given my metabolism just the boost it needed. I was at 260 when I started low-carbing and this morning I saw 256.7 on the scale, the lowest I’ve been since starting the baby steps.
I’m using Atkins as my guide for now and I’ve been trying to adhere to the induction phase recommendation of 20 net carbs a day. For those of you wondering about net carbs, you can determine your net carbs by reading the total carbs per serving on the package label & deducting any carbs listed as being from fiber (also shown on food labels). The result is the net carbs.
I’ve also been more diligent this last week about exercising, breaking a number of my personal bests on the Wii Fit Plus, something I’m proud of. Still trying to do many of the things I’ve been talking about…walking more, drinking water, portion control, healthy snacks – all that stuff.
I do have to say I have felt a little more energetic this week. Not entirely sure where that is coming from but I’ll take it.
The downward movement on the scale is exhilarating. It’s been so long since I’ve seen any movement in that direction that hitting a new low is like going to Disney World! It makes me want to work harder.
I’ll try to post more often. It got discouraging for a while when I had no good news to report. Hopefully things are turning around.
Well, gang, I’ve been at this for 4 months and have not done nearly as well as I hoped. Stress and fatigue have undermined me at every corner and I find myself back at 260 as of Monday. This will not do.
A couple of weeks ago, my husband had to take some medical tests for his company’s health insurance program. He got his results last week and found his bad cholesterol and triglycerides to high, not exceedingly so but igher than when they were checked 4 years ago. Danger! Danger!
So we spent a few days looking into it and have decided we, nay, our whole family might benefit from a low-carb diet. We began Monday.
It hasn’t been difficult. Many of the foods that are allowed by a low-carb lifestyle are those we already enjoy. It will be a sacrifice to give up pasta for me, bread and pasta for my husband but we know so many people who espouse this lifestyle choice, and after reading about the benefits, we decided to giveit a try.
This morning I weighed in at 258.4. No telling if that is strictly from reducing the carbs or because Ihave been working in my garden in addition to exercising.
I am taking my daughter and grandaughter to the doctor this morning for Baby J’s 4 month check up. I am reminded how quickly times passes. Though I am not where I hoped to be on the scale, I am hopeful. I can feel the difference in the flexibility and stamina my body has achieved from working out, even if the pounds haven’t gone away as quickly as I’d hoped. Today is a good day. I feel strong.
It’s another Monday and that means weigh in day. I haven’t been following my plan as I mentioned last week so I’m starting anew today. My scale says I went up a mere .3 lbs since the last time I recorded a weight. All things considered, that’s not too bad. I remain at 258.7.
My excuse is that my life got busy. Working on the rental property and then moving the kids in took a big chunk of my time for a couple of weeks. It was easier to eat convenience foods, skip exercising and drink soda instead of water. I’m trying to turn this around.
I wonder why it is when our lives get complicated, the first thing we let go of is our own care. It is logical that we should take better care of ourselves during times of stress so that we don’t wear ourselves down but this doesn’t seem to be the way things work, not at least for anyone I know. I would love to hear how you manage your own care when facing stress or busy periods of life.
I do know that I have to keep trying. There is too much at stake for me to throw in the towel.
I’ve had a couple of difficult weeks and slid on the slippery slope of disappointment. After 12 weeks of this adventure, I have only lost 8 pounds. And though I am not at the 1 lb per week goal I set for myself, I am even more disheartened by how long I have been stuck here. It’s been weeks.
The longer I go, fluctuating within a pound or two of this plateau, the more discouraged I have become. I have let a number of the better eating ideas I implemented slip away in despair.
I love to garden and cook. I enjoying canning, freezing and dehydrating the fruits and vegetables I grow. Spring is nearly upon us and soon it will be time to begin the work that it takes to accomplish all that. It’s not so bad in the spring when the weather is milder but the heat and humidity of summer kills me. There’s also a lot of getting up and down, a lot of digging, weeding, sowing – all done from a kneeling or bent over position. I can’t handle very much without becoming fatigued or feeling pain.
Last year, I was unable to do it because of my weight. I had hoped to be in better shape this year and more able to do some of this work. The discouragement comes from realizing I am no better off than I was at this point last year. If anything, I am in worse shape because I gained throughout all of last year.
I have not posted on the blog because I feel so discouraged. I didn’t know what to say to all of you. I had hoped this blog would an inspiration to some and feeling utterly disappointed in myself and ashamed, it is difficult to know what to say.
I spoke with my dearest friends last night, all of whom were supportive and encouraging and they, en masse, suggested I share these feelings with you, to just be honest. So that’s where I am, be honest, disappointed and discouraged. I hope to rally and find the strength to keep taking baby steps; I just don’t know which direction those steps will lead at the moment.
Note: This was supposed to be Monday’s post but my site was down. Thanks for your patience!
I have been diligently working my plan, for the most part, for closing in on three months. I’ve lost about 7.5 lbs and a couple of inches but for the last three weeks, my weight keeps wavering a pound or so at around the same number – today – 258.9. I haven’t significantly deviated from my plan and when I have overindulged, I’ve stepped up my exercise to counteract the effects (at least that’s what I told myself). Still, no downward movement on the scale. What’s up with that?
So I did some research this morning on weight loss plateaus and found some interesting things. Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is the energy required to keep a body functioning even while at rst. It includes the energy to breathe, pump blood and so on. Typically, a person’s BMR accounts for 60 to 70 % of the calories burned daily. Using the standard caloric math, in order to lose 1 lb each week, I need to reduce my calories by 500 each day, whether through diet, exercise of a combination of both.
Apparently after a number of weeks, everyone hits a stall. That’s because there is less of me and my BMR has dropped also. Where my body may have needed 1300 calories to function at the beginning, the leaner me may now only needs 1100 calories each day. Since I haven’t modified my diet or exercise plan recently, I have hit a wall and will continue to simply maintain the weight I’m at.
So what do I do about this? I found several tips, including – ‘hang in there’. I think I’ll skip that one.
The next tip was to check my math. I need to be sure I’m really counting all my calories. Since I try not to graze, I know there aren’t extra calories coming from there. Condiments like dressings and gravies add calories. So does that piece of Valentine’s Day candy. I also read that if I don’t want to cut back 3500 calories a week, I would have to walk about ten extra hours to achieve the same thing.
Building muscle is another option. The more muscle you have, the higher your BMR is to sustain it and the more fat you burn. So more muscle, less fat.
Add more protein. Up to a maximum of 20% of your calories can from protein. We all know protein is good for building muscle and there is some evidence that it can therefore preserve your BMR.
Make changes to your diet or exercise routine. Change keeps you interested because variety is the spice of life. Staying interested is the key to not quitting when it seems like you just can’t do it anymore. Add some weight training instead of always working on aerobics, for example.
Check your motivation. I know this sometimes gets to me. I lose sight of my goals and the reasons I wanted to do this. Refreshing my perspective is a great way to rekindle the motivation. Sometimes I email friends or reach out to others thru social media when my reserves are flagging.
The last suggestion that made sense to me was to vary the number of meals. Instead of eating three meals a day, I could eat snacks in between but reduce the calories eaten at the main meals.
So there are a number of possibilities. I will try them one at a time, then in combination to see if I can’t get past this barrier.
New For This Week
I will try adding more protein and decreasing fats and carbs for a week, maybe two and see if that helps. I will be a challenge for me as I am cooking for six people on just one income. We tend to eat a lot of noodles, rice and bread because it is filling and cheap. This will be an interesting challenge but I think I can manage it.
I like salad. I really do. I just don’t enjoy making them. There’s so much cutting, shredding, chopping, etc that goes into a salad that the time it takes makes it expendable. I know that’s lame but it’s the truth, at least until Bag-o-Salad arrived on the scene. The busy person’s best friend, bags of prewashed and prepared salads have been cropping up in store for years now.
Today, however, I read an article about my little friend, Bag-o-Salad and have decided to be more selective about my friends. In an article I read by Mary Hartley, the registered dietician on CaloriCount.com, she talks about 208 salads tested in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut from both local and national producers. Her information came from a Consumer Reports piece and found that “unacceptable levels of coliforms and enterococcus bacteria across all brands.” Both types imply sanitation issues.
The article went on to say that neither raised significant health concerns and all things considered, the salads are safe to eat. It also recommended buying bagged salad that is not close to its expiration date as the older it gets, the higher the level of bacteria present. This explains the brown soup in my refrigerator vegetable bin. Obviously washing the salad and keeping it away from raw meat will help prevent cross contaminations too.
While I may still buy my old friend Bag-o-Salad from time to time, I think I will return to the old fashioned methods of making a salad. Shredding lettuce and spinach leaves isn’t that difficult. Really.
