Tuesdays are my big scary long days so today there was no exercising, but I felt like I was able to make some good decisions about food-- namely that between my business at the clinic I did not go out to a fast-food place, even though that is what I wanted to do.
According to my wii fit I have in fact lost 2 pounds since yesterday. Oh weight loss is such a funny thing isn't it?
Well, I should be in the 160s right now, but instead I am 50 pounds off course. I am bigger than I have ever been in my entire life and it feels totally and completely awful. My weigh in for today slotted me in at 209.
Hi again everyone! Some updates:
I'm finally starting to exercise every day again. My brand new, fancy-shmancy Wii Fit has been helping me out. I've come to the conclusion that the scale I bought is very very wrong because both at the doctors office the other day and on the Wii fit I'm floating around 196. Which sucks, but considering how bad I've been this summer, I just need to suck it up. It is what it is.
Now that I'm getting a little bit of a schedule back into my life (ignore the fact that I'm writing this at 1am) I'm feeling more positive. Graduate school, though it's going to kick my butt, is going to give me the structure necessary to get back on track.
I'm considering going on a more serious type of diet than I have in the past starting with school. Tay and Tarver say that I am not allowed to go on a liquid diet. I say, neither of them have a BMI above 30 (or 31, or 32.) But I don't think the liquid diet thing is for me. I'm looking at doing meal-replacement. Obviously this isn't the sort of thing I'd want to just do! Surprise! I'm doing some research and seeing if it's right for me.
I'm 22. I'm 5'5" and I weigh almost 200 pounds. Something needs to change and yes, it does need to be a little drastic.
I've exercised every day in August thusfar. I can do this.
So, Morning weigh-in: 186.
Which is sort of unbelievable. And by sort of I mean, that would be a lowest-low if it was at all accurate. Dude. But I'm thinking it's not. I'm thinking I'll have to bring back my new scale. I'm not into the 180s yet I don't think. I know what I feel like in the 180s and this isn't it.
Heading out to BL to be with the Fam! Got in a good, intense hour-long workout today. It felt good :) The struggle is, and always will be, FOOD.
<3 <3 <3
Thanks for reading!
Morning Weigh-In: 192.
Today I exercised. I'm trying trying trying to get back on the wagon.
I feel pretty darn good that I've only gained a little bit of weight. Woot.
Tomorrow I will write a better entry. Promise.
I have a new mantra.
Don't think I'm an anorexic.
"I don't want any food. I don't want any food." It seems to work well on snacking. Also, I think I'd have to lose about 80 pounds before anyone was concerned about anorexia. My downfall is usually eating too much in one sitting: pizza, pasta, HuHot, whathaveyous. But this summer I think my downfall has been snacking. Mostly out of boredom.
I DO NOT WANT ANY FOOD.
Really. Maybe crackers, but no food.
I guess it didn't help that I watched "Modern Marvels: Chocolate Factories" while I was on the elliptical today.
After a good hour or so of gym-mousyness early this afternoon (having decided that early afternoon is the quietest time of day to visit AF during the week) I am feeling pretty darn good about my progress.
I have decided to try the weighing myself once a week idea--- mostly because it will give me something to look forward to each week haha. :) I weighed a billion this morning, that is all I will say.
Also, I watched Spongebob today at the gym. I am very confused about whether or not I can watch spongebob on a regular basis or if the TV guide just doesn't know what it's talking about. Also, all of the doors for the tanning rooms were locked today and the lady was vacuuming and so I didn't feel like I could say "HELLO PLEASE! I WOULD LIKE TO TAN!"
Furthermore, I'm starting to see how people can spend hours on end in the gym. I get the feeling I'll get there within a week or so. Half an hour here, half an hour there-- I could pretty much do that all day. And I have very little else to do.
I have been struggling with this "relaxation" concept. I'm really good at slacking, time-wasting, surfing the internet (which is a complex combination of the two), sleeping too much, eating too much and generally being slothful. However, truly restful relaxing time is not really in my reporitoire. Tanning has been helping, because you can't help but chill out when you're getting baked to a delicious brown :)
Also the people who run are apartment are a bunch of pirates and wenches, and not in the cool, "arr matey, getcher booty" sort of way.
This is the general vibe I get from them:
"Your air conditioning doesn't work and we couldn't possibly care any less than we do, no matter how many times you politely call and ask us to fix it. As a matter of fact, the amount that we care falls somewhere between 'I don't give a sh$#,' and straight up 'F@#% off.' So it is in your best interests just to stop pretending you MIGHT live in a comfortable situation sometime this summer and grow bigger ears in an effort to cool the blood in your body like dessert rabbits do."
So, if anything, I might sweat off a few pounds.
This morning I got up and hung out for awhile. I had planned my fitness this morning with precision. I would arrive at the gym at 10:00-- the same time Spongebob starts :)
Only to find that my gym does not carry Nickelodeon. I suppose this makes sense. Maybe it costs a little more to have kids' channels and the gym really doesn't have a need to do that. Except for ME who wanted to watch spongebob and ended up watching Say Yes to the Dress and Will & Grace instead which of course isn't awful, but when I'm ready to watch some spongebob anything else is a letdown.
Even so, I put in a good 45 minutes, tanned (yaaay!) and we're heading out to go swimming pretty quick here. So today will be a good second day on my route to there being less of me.
Eating is still a ridiculous struggle. I'm getting there, working on it. <3
It is indeed a good wagon. I did a good half hour on an elliptical! :) Since I'm not doing much else with my life I'm going to become a gym-rat (mouse... hammy... gerbil...?). Tomorrow I will go back and the next day and the next day!
I feel so much better.
Special thanks to my Dad who sent me some awesome motivational emails and helped me get back on track. He has been a great role-model for my fitness-journey; he has lost a LOT of weight and I am very very proud of him. I love you dad! <3
Thanks for reading everyone!
Hi guys.
I am really struggling to get back on the "wagon." Not having a job and having so much free time is weird for me (I continue to search for a temp position-- but nothing has panned out.) Without structure in my life I have no IDEA what I should be doing. That's not entirely true-- I know what I should be doing, but there's so much time it's difficult to convince myself that NOW is the time to do those things. I'm a very schedule-oriented person, which is why I did so well as an undergrad and why I'll do very well as a graduate student. This floating summer thing? Well, I'm not sure how awesome I'm going to be at it. This week has been a little better. I have at least started a reading log and am doing reading related to my new career path. I'm catching up on psychology and familiarizing myself with therapy. I know that once I start I'll be able to really kick butt this summer.
193 flat this morning. Which isn't GREAT but I'm not heartbroken either. Thinking about the way I've been managing my food, I'm very surprised it isn't more.
I'm ready to do this, I just have to go do it.
What's that saying? A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step? I really have to start walking. For cereal.
Hi there. I'm definitely back now-- today I am on a mission to find a new workout home. We are fully moved in to our new place and I am ready to go! I am still weighing in at around 190-- so unfortunately I didn't lose my 5 pounds for May, but I did graduate and move, so that's pretty exciting :)
So, today I thought I would sign up at Anytime Fitness-- until I went straight up to the door and saw their hours:
Mon-Thurs: 7AM-7PM
Fri: 7AM-6PM
Sat & Sun: By appointment only.
I'm sorry, what? Why would you name your gym "ANYTIME fitness" and not make it available on weekends? Whatever. Their face.
I think I'll go join planet fitness later today :)
Morning Weigh-in: 190 flat!
I managed to not do too much damage over the weekend, which is staggering. Today I am going to get a membership to the Y for the summer and watch what I eat. GO ME!
Sorry so short-- thanks for reading!
Morning weigh-in: ten billion. No for real, I gained 2 full pounds. I haven't gotten the chance to exercise in what feels like a thousand years (really, two days)
We are graduating today!
:)
Morning Weigh-in: 189.5
Which is good. Which is lower than yesterday. Today is a busy day full of paper editing and putting the final touches on the house-- T's momma is flying in this evening, yay!
I can't believe we graduate the day after tomorrow!!! WOW.
Sorry this entry is short-- lots of stuff to do! :)
17 pounds later, this is still hard.
Morning Weigh-in: 190
eeeehrgh. It's such slow work. Exercising still makes me happy, and eating is still difficult. Yesterday I spent about 15 minutes on a bike and half an hour on an elliptical-- then I went and did a full upper-body weight-lifting workout.
Weight loss is a long long long process. It was my goal to be at 185 before June-- but almost halfway through May I'm still fighting with 190?
May has been a really hard month with food. Usually it's just me and Tarver at our house. Tarver eats giant bowls of cereal and I eat spinach and brown rice and other stuff... this month it feels like I have been everywhere-- and by everywhere I mean, coldstone, granite city, green mill--- you get the idea.
Exercising is great, but I need to committ to BOTH parts of the weight-loss process. Summer will be a lot easier.
Also, I'm so close to being done with my undergrad career-- lots of hard work today and tomorrow. For serious.
Morning Weigh-in: 189.5
Which is a nice weight to start the week with, if I do say so myself. I am hoping to establish myself in the 80's for good this week.
Today will be full of food challenges. I am studying most of the day-- except for when we eat. We'll be eating at Qdoba with my dad who's in town taking an exam, and at the Green Mill with Tarver's sort-of-grandma-person. So, food is the main challenge today!
I'm really excited for all of my studying to be over after this week. Then I can really start focusing on my weight-loss. Hopefully soon lake activities can be added in as well!
Also, some people have said they've had trouble posting comments? If you have such a problem, send me a facebook and I'll look into it.
Good morning! We're back in Moorhead. We decided to leave GF from the wedding dance last night. It was a good decision. Except that I had to weigh myself the day after a wedding :( However, it didn't seem to turn out so bad.
Morning weigh-in: 187.
Yay me! I weighed myself again to confirm that I had somehow lost weight eating cake and not exercising...
Morning weigh-in: 190.5
Eh? How exactly am I supposed to interpret that? I think I'll stick with the 190 since it makes more sense but for seriousness, why can't my scale stop teasing me? It's not very nice.
I'm back on the weight-loss wagon after a very brief furlough into wedding-land. The next four days are me writing my last papers and cleaning the house. It's going to be intense.
Also, happy mothers day today!!! I love my momma so much; she is incredibly supportive and just a great lady all-around. Also, she just got a new job, so I'm very proud of her this Mothers Day as well. <3!!!
Good morning from Grand Forks, North Dakota! I wa/'t able to weigh myself this morning but I'll update tomorrow with my weight. :)
Morning Weigh-in: 188 flat!!!
So, I am progressing nicely. Unfortunately I won't be able to weigh myself at all this weekend, but fortunately it's because we're going to Tarver's cousin's wedding!!! Yaaaay! It's going to be very exciting and we're staying with his grandparents whom we don't get to see very often. It's going to be an awesome weekend for family fun but probably not so great for weight-loss. So, I'm going to set some realistic goals for myself for this weekend.
Morning Weigh-In: 188.5!!!
A new low for my very last day of school! I didn't write this morning because I was putting the finishing touches on my Health and Medicine paper. I am so happy to be hanging out in the 80's today! I am feeling good about myself and how I look. :)
My BMI as of today is 30.9-- down from 34 at the beginning of the blog.
I AM SO CLOSE to not being obese any more! Mostly I will be glad to be out of the "high-risk" zone. I am seriously not interested in diabetes, or smooshing my internal organs, or that sad feeling when I was winded after walking up two flights of stairs.
Today is an absolutely beautiful day in Moorhead! Hopefully I will get to spend some time outside and some time doing some reading :)
Morning Weigh-in: 190
Well, it's not a loss but it's not a gain either, so I'm really not too disappointed with it. Sometimes I work really hard and still have a stasis and I'm like, really, do I have to work harder?
But then I realize that I weigh myself every single day and I probably just drank more or less water than usual yesterday.
Today is my lastest ever senior theory class and my second-to-last senior seminar class. It's so completely weird to be saying goodbye to all of this-- that's been such a huge part of my life for so long.
But I am definitely ready to move on to the next thing. I am making progress and getting my papers done and I'm totally ready for next fall-- once I finish all of this stuff. :)
Morning weigh-in: 190
I am ever so slowly inching downward. It feels like it's taking forever but I know this is the best way to do it. Also I can tell every day that I'm healthier and stronger. I like being at the wellness center and I don't miss over-eating too badly most days.
Yesterday I read this woman's blog-- "101 reasons I hate being fat," she started out a lot bigger than me (300+!) but there was a lot of truth in some of her reasons. Some I couldn't relate to because quite frankly, thought I've been obese, I've never been that big. But some of the stuff-- being ashamed to go to the beach, not ever wanting to wear sleveless anythings, feeling like people are staring at you, being the fattest girl in the room-- I've been there and it absolutely sucks.
But here I am. That's why I'm down 17.5 pounds from my high point, because I don't like it, it's not healthy, and my life is changing.
Morning Weigh-in: 191.5 :(
But, you know what, if 191.5 is my high weight, I really am making progress. It's just a battle every day and some days are easier than others. Today, for instance, might be a little hard, because it'll be the last day I'll have to resist advo pizza-- tonight is our end-of-year party. We'll see.
This week is finish-writing-all-of-my-papers week, but after Thursday-- no more class! Next week we have a ton of exciting things going on. Including GRADUATION. Wow. SCARY.
So, focusing on getting my stuff done and continuing in the gym this week. That's the goal. :)
Morning Weigh-in: 189!
I am FINALLY seeing the end of the 190s! Sorry it's taken me so long to write this entry, I woke up this morning, weighed myself and then went back to sleep :) Last night was a late night or morning however you want to look at it.
I am really, really, really happy to see this number. Thank goodness. I feel like this is really going to happen-- definitely like I can do this. It's May, so hopefully I can lose 5 pounds again this month leaving me at 185 at the beginning of June, 180 by July, 175 by August 170 by September, 165 by October, 160 by November, 155 by December and 150 by January 1, 2010.
Today I have several things on my to-do list. The first is to continue my new eating plan, which I have somehow not explained-- but I have switched to eating several 300ish calorie meals a day. I eat breakfast, then some lunch, another meal at about 4, and another at around 7 or 8, then I have "space" for a small snack or beer or whatever at night. I end up at at around 1,500 calories. :) It's worked well for about the past week, so I'm going to keep going with it.
Also, paper writing and exercising! Yay!
This is my 101st post! Yaaaay!!!
Morning weigh-in: 191.5
Considering that I didn't exercise yesterday and the food I ate, I am incredibly pleased that I only gained half a pound. I don't regret eating ice cream yesterday-- we had a great time at coldstone and choir is is almost no more forever.
Today is Saturday and I have a lot of work to do!!! I will be writing papers, exercising and writing some more! I feel happy and ready to go this morning.
My measurements stayed the same this week, but I've trimmed up anyway in other areas that I'm not actually measuring. I'm losing weight in completely random spots-- not confined to my waist or my hips. So I feel like I look better even though my numbers haven't gone down.
Morning weigh-in: 191 flat
HAPPY MAY!!! Tarver and I graduate exactly TWO weeks from today! Can I get down into the 180s by then? I think so.
This is not bad. Unfortunately I won't be able to concentrate on my weight-loss (or my homework) today because of our choir trip. Yesterday I did pretty well with food-- I give myself an A-. We went to the wellness center but I was really tired and not feeling up to giving it my all, so we didn't stay very long. Even though it sucks, having a day off might be what I need right now.
Have a good Friday, everyone! <3
Morning weigh-in: 190.5
I'd never complain about it, but it is weird. Up and DOWN and UP and DOWN.
Oh well. Yesterday I was good with food and exercised harder than usual because I was absolutely determined to see a lower number today and I did! I'm actually surprised the number was so low since I drank a LOT of water yesterday to keep myself from eating. But water doesn't have any calories so it doesn't even count. Hooray!
I have been very careful and will do it again today. Keeping track of my calories and exercising hard is definitely the way to go. I'm down 15 pounds again (still?) and really ready to keep going from here. I want to see the 180s sooooo bad. I weighed in the upper 180s when Tarver and I first met, and I was briefly in the high 170s in the summer of 2006-- but only very briefly.
Of course, tomorrow, choir is ruining things again. We have to go on a fieldtrip which starts at 6:30AM and we won't get back until 2AM on Saturday. 8 hours in a bus, all together. It'll be a good chance for me to get some reading done but for goodness' sakes, it's finals week I need to be at home with my computer writing my papers and exercising so I look good at my graduation! I'm like Cameron from Ferris Bueller,
I'll go. I'll go. I'll go...
Morning Weigh-in: 193 flat
Dude. I need to get control of my eating. I'm always so good until someone says "do you want to go to _____?" and of course we do, we're graduating, we're leaving MSUM, we want to celebrate our last moments here.
It is very difficult to healthily celebrate last moments.
I just need to remember that I can do this. :)
Morning Weigh-in: 192.5
Of course, I also weighed in at 191 flat and 194.5 within minutes of each other. I decided to clock in in the middle ground. Weight fluctuates, aaah! :)
My main struggle these days has been food. I am not good with food. Closer to the beginning of this blog I was very serious about food and restricting my calories heavily. I was losing weight pretty quickly that way (or it could have been that I used to do a full hour of cardio and now can't). I need to find the motivation to eat less and eat better. I'm going to start using Calorieconnect again at least for the next few days to get a grip on what I can and can't eat.
It also could be that I spend about a half an hour a day weight-training and might be gaining muscle faster than I'm burning fat. I can only get so muscle-y so that will hopefully stop soon. I really would love to have a personal trainer (and a nutritionist, now that I think of it.)
Tonight is our very last night at the school newspaper :'( but otherwise it will be a good day!
...
Well that's pretty much all. I haven't done pushups (good ones anyway) since probably 11th grade. I only did five and it basically killed me, but I did them, and that's the point.
Maybe tomorrow I will do SIX!!! :)
Morning Weigh-in: 192.
I'm not upset about this. I should have been better, but I'm not surprised that I gained weight-- I drank like 700 glasses of water yesterday and we at at the HuHot (<3!!!) In celebration of the "we beat the flood" concert and my last home concert.
Also, last night was senior recognition night, so that was really fun. I got my very own round of applause when my director announced that I was graduating summa. That felt pretty cool. Of course, I found out later that Tarver and Jesse started it, but it made it no less awesome.
Today is a normal day, and those are the easiest for weight loss :)
I am not losing weight very quickly nowadays, but I think that might be the best way to do it. I lose about a pound a week, and apparently that's what doctors say I should do. I'd really love to just lose ten pounds every week for about a month and then call it good, but whatever. With tendinitis holding me back from really kicking cardio-butt this is the best I can do.
I have said before that I'm starting to look more like a human and less like a blob-- I think this is thanks to weight-lifting. Neat. Humanness. I don't want to get too disgusting, but when I started this process I was developing fat rolls, and now I'm still, you know, covered in fat, but nothing is like bulging out anymore. PROGRESS!
Morning Weigh-in: 190.5
This is my second time at the all time low of 190.5! It is good to see that number again!
I'm not sure what exactly happened yesterday, but again, it's the weighing myself every day thing. This is destined to be the fight of 55 pounds! Every day or once a week?! Maybe I'll settle on every other day or every third day or something like that? No idea.
Yesterday was a good day. I spent the day walking around the mall with my mom and sister, and ate well for breakfast and lunch then okayish for dinner, but Thai food is mostly vegetables even though I did eat my whole plate because Thai food is amazing.
Today is another big day. I am studying this morning, have a big concert this afternoon and then another concert this evening. I won't be able to exercise until after the second concert-- hopefully I'll have enough energy!!!
Since last Saturday I have gained half a pound.
Morning weigh-in: 193.5
Of course. This is my argument against weighing myself once a week. At least I know I had a nice low in there somewhere. Imagine the awful, crushed defeat I would have if I only weighed myself on Saturdays and found out that this week, after exercising HARD every day and eating well, I had gained half of a pound.
It makes me cranky enough just this morning. Seriously.
Weight-loss is a long process. More exercise, less food.
Though I did lose half an inch each off my arms and thighs this week, in comparison to last week. Also, I have been weight-training all week. Can we all simultaneously pretend that I gained muscle? :)
Morning Weigh-in: 190.5!
You read it here first folks. On my very first entry, I weighed in at 205.5. I have officially lost FIFTEEN pounds!!!
*Several balloons and streamers*
Of course, having lost so much the past few days it'll probably come back. I know I haven't created a caloric deficit of 3500 each of these days, and that's what it takes to legitimately lose one pound. We'll see what happens tomorrow, but today I am almost out of the 90s!
I was very good again yesterday. It turns out being incredibly busy is really good for me not eating too much. We met some friends at applebees last night and when I usually would have had some sort of fried appetizer or worse yet, boneless wings, I had a spinach salad (NO BACON! Why bacon and spinach seem to be best friends on salads is completely beyond me-- doesn't it follow that people who are ordering spinach salads are interested in their health and therefore rarely touch bacon?) and it was quite wonderful, either way.
I was also at the wellness center yesterday, cardioing and weight-lifting it up. Haha, I actually got stuck in one of the leg press machines and this buff guy tried to offer to help, but I was like "no, I got this," as I'm like wedged between 60 pounds of weight and a machine whose adjustment button is apparently broken, haha, oh well. Today is an ARMS day at the wellness center so that's cool for me.
Tomorrow I am taking the day off of exercising to spend time with my mom and sister!!! Yaaay! We will be walking around the mall all day so as long as I keep my calories under control it should be just fine.
15 pounds down, 40 to go!
Thanks for reading, everyone. <3
Morning weigh in: 191.5
Yesterday I did pretty awesome. I ate well, I worked HARD at the gym and now I just have to replicate that today! This week Saturday is my day off instead of Tuesday, and the rest of my week is absolutely filled with studying and writing time.
I have a lot to do between now and the end of the semester. But I have time-management skills, I just have to use them. Haha. It's a lot harder than it sounds. I charted out all of my days for the next ten days with everything that has to get done including 2 hours of completely free do-whatever-I-want time, 2 hours for exercising (I don't exercise for 2 hours, but packing, walking to the gym, changing, exercising, changing again and coming back often takes 2 hours) and at least 8 hours for sleeping (usually 9, because I love sleeping).
On weight-loss. I have been lifting weights! Not free weights yet, I'm too afraid of those and whether or not I'll do them correctly. But I use the plethora of muscle specific machines on alternating days (I've just started an arms/abs, legs/abs, switch-off pattern with days off between sets of two). I have biceps!!! My arms are still too much like blobs for it to be noticeable, but I can tell and it makes me happy :)
Morning weigh-in: 193.5
Ah yes, I'm back down despite eating french fries yesterday! I didn't eat that many of them-- so that's good. My blog has changed colors again because apparently the last template wouldn't let people comment, and I like to have running commentary whenever applicable. So, welcome back!
We had a discussion yesterday about me starting to weigh myself less than every day. This is probably a good idea. Although weighing myself every day helps me to get up and blog and feel responsible for what's going on in my weight-loss life. Maybe I'll keep weighing myself every day and only write it down on like Mondays and Fridays. Don't know.
My weight has been really fluctuating lately, here is what the "Big Chart
" looks like right now: and you can clearly see that for the past few weeks I have been STUCK. Various things to be angry at here: The Red River, my ankle, school. Or you know, I could own up that I haven't done all I can to lose weight this past month.
I think I need to re recommit.
Morning Weigh-in: 195
Seriously? Where did this come from? Did I not do an entire hour at the wellness center last night? I have to believe it must be my calories I was over on. We had dinner at Tarver's family yesterday and the food was really tasty but probably loaded with calories. Even so I tried to limit myself! And when I counted calories I estimated that meal at about 1000 calories (scalloped potatoes with breading on top, ham, cake, ice-cream) and I was just about 100 calories over for the day-- which would usually make no difference whatsoever.
Sometimes weight-loss sucks. Seriously am I still in the mid-90s?! I know it's supposed to take awhile but I was pretty good yesterday and I worked out HARD. I don't think I deserved to gain two pounds. Eew.
More exercise. Less food. That's all that can be done.
Aaah the wellness center. I always feel so much better when I come back. A little approved cardio, plenty of stretching and weight-lifting and I have a happy self.
Exercising has gotten easier again and I'm just really glad that I'm starting to feel like I belong there a little more. Recently I feel less like a 1950's horror movie monster (Aaaaah! THE BLOB!!!) and more like a person again.
No reason to stop there. So, I'm excited to keep exercising and hopefully keep seeing some good results. I really like being able to lift weights and do pushups. I feel proud of myself and definitely more confident :)
Morning weigh-in: 193.
Yesterday I was bad with food (this is a continuing trend-- more on it later) but I did get some good approved-cardio and weight-lifting in so I managed to maintain! GO ME!
Last night I also recommitted to eating well. I got new bars and some frozen food to help me deal with my difficult times of the day. It is difficult to make myself balanced meals and wouldn't you know it, some companies actually make them and then freeze them! I've had to be really careful about which ones I buy but I have lots of resources available to me so I think I was able to make some good decisions.
My internet was down at home this morning for some reason so I'm posting at the office so there will be no chart update until later :(
Today is the first of many designated HOMEWORK days. The end of the semester is LOOMING ahead and I need to get my butt in gear.
Morning Weigh-In: 193.
This is a good weight considering how bad I was yesterday! I don't think I actually went over on calories but the food I did eat wasn't necessarily very good for me. Also I didn't get to the gym (which I had wanted to) because I ended up taking a nap which I thought would only take about half an hour, then when I woke up it was two hours later! Oops!
In other news, my ankle is almost the size of a normal ankle and then I shall get back on the exercise bikes and proceed to lose a lot of weight. Huzzah! Today I have some homework to get done but I will be at the wellness center pumping irons and rocking it out. I have a lot of work to do! I am amazed at how different I look already. I'll have to get some pictures and put them up of what I looked like at christmas and what I look like now. I've lost almost 15 pounds.
Today is the Honors Convocation, so that's pretty sweet. I'll have to find something nice to wear and we get to see T's family and my dad. Yay! :)
Morning Weigh-in: 193
This is not bad. It's less than my weight on Thursday and I got rid of it from swimming and not eating to much. Fridays are always hard though. Fridays generally include us, our friends, food, frozen pizza, sometimes beer and other things that take me down (furthermore, naps often occur on Friday afternoons). Now Saturdays are generally different. I have time on Saturdays to do some real exercising and prepare real food.
I am slowly making progress. I am actually starting to look a little different now, too. I mean, it's still very obvious that I have 43 pounds left to lose, but I think I can get it done before new years.
My ankle has been feeling much better. I'm comparing it to an apple or a small orange now instead of a grapefruit. Next week Thursday is the two-week mark and hopefully I can feel ready to use some cardio machines at that point. Because seriously, this super-slow ridiculously ridiculous stuff should stop. As much as I love the Spice girls, the mid-90s SUCK.
It' only a few weeks to graduation now, so that means it's also time to crack down on our studies! Yay for Saturdays! :)
What do you think of my new design? I will get my chart back up tomorrow morning, but for now, how do we feel about the pink and the measuring tape? I feel like it makes more sense.
Feedback?
So yesterday was a pretty exciting day. :)
Morning Weigh-in: 191.5 A NEW LOW!
Unfortunately I can't take full credit for that, since, I have to be honest. We went out bowling last night and I definitely had too much to drink-- and I'm fairly sure most of my calories came right back out of me. :/ The weirdest part was that I "only" had between 4 and 5 drinks over several hours. I would imagine the medicine I'm on made me more susceptible to being drunk and made me sick.
This is why I will never be a bulimic-- throwing up may be a pretty efficient way to lose 2 pounds, but it is painful and embarrassing (and really bad for your teeth, esophagus, stomach, sinuses, self-esteem etc etc etc). It is definitely not my cup of tea. I will not be drinking for awhile, haha.
I am prepared to gain a little bit of weight today since I DEFINITELY lost those two pounds unhealthily.
But the good part about it was that I had an amazing time with my friends and I was drunk enough to tell them how much I really love them. :) Also I got two strikes, which is amaaaazing!
Today we are HOUSECLEANING! Which is an awesome calorie burner. Like I said, I will not be concerned if I gain a pound today. I'm not going to TRY for it, but it won't be that big of a deal.
On the other hand, I'm 1.5lbs away from having lost FIFTEEN pounds! Yay!
I was microwaving my cream of wheat when I got the phonecall:
One of the girls decided not to come, so that means that I get to go to NDSU next year!!!
*DANCEDANCEDANCE*
Morning Weigh-in:193.5
193.5 is my low weight. I've been at it 3 times since March 26, and never gone below. Today, that is the goal. The goal is to either maintain (which hasn't happened at 193.5 before) or to see 193 flat. Today is Thursday and I'm generally not too busy on Thursdays so I'll be able to take some time to do some weight circuits at the gym and some homemade cardio (not squats though because I am STILL very sore from those!!!)
Yesterday I hit an important moment in my dieting career. I had been avoiding pasta like the plague because I traditionally have had very little control over my portions when it comes to pasta. Yesterday I made myself some pasta with chickpeas and spinach that I measured out very carefully and everything went okay! Yaaaay! :)
I am glad I lost even a little yesterday since I didn't exercise. Dieting does seem to work, but I know diet AND exercise works a lot faster. In a little while my ankle will be in good enough shape that I can get back on the cardio machines. Ugh I can't WAIT for that day. It's weird, but I miss it. I liked going to the gym and working out hard. I felt really good doing that.
NDSU did not call me yesterday. I have my fingers crossed for them to call today, but again, no bets :(
Morning Weigh-In: 194
As long as sometime soon I can see 192, I will be pleased. Yesterday I think went pretty well. I did some in my bedroom by myself cardio that Lindsey taught me. Holy crap, it totally kicked my butt. Squats! Now standing up and sitting down is like impossible. Haha. But, I was able to do several pushups from my knees (I can't do full ones because, duh, my ankle is full of stupidness). I also did some dip things off of my chair and some of those stand up fall down thinggums. I only did it for about half an hour but I was TIRED afterward!
Today I'm going to go to the wellness center to do some weight-lifting and I'll probably do some more pushups and dips... no squats today!
Yesterday the food part of losing weight went pretty well. I was very good until late at night when we decided to go to a 24-hour restaurant to study. Even there I was okay, I had scrambled eggs and hashbrowns (which probably weren't so great for me) and whole wheat toast (which they always put butter on. Why is that? I don't want my toast buttered.)
Today is Wednesday, which means I have senior seminar at night and I have to watch allll of my classmates eat junkfood. It's kind of torturous. Also, for those of you who follow the Life of Liz, today NDSU is supposed to call me to tell me where they are with getting the people who got legitimately chosen to say "yeah, I'll come." If ONE of them says no, then I'm in. So, cross your fingers today folks! <3
Also, Happy 13th Birthday to my little sister today!
Morning Weigh-in: 194.5
So, I had been told that swimming would be the best exercise for me-- low impact, right? Nope. Swimming was AWFUL for my ankle. I couldn't even stay in the pool for very long I ended up mostly hopping on the other foot and treading water with my arms for most of the time. When I got out of the pool I was staggering around and my ankle was back to being HUUUGE. I should have taken a picture, I think that's the worst it's ever been.
Swimming was fun though, if painful. Now I'm wishing I could go back to cardio right away-- not a good plan. At least when I go to the gym I can wear my brace and monitor my motion.
Even so, I did lose a pound yesterday. I was pretty good about counting my calories (in the end I might have had one breadstick too many, but I did lose a pound, so we'll see how it pans out).
I'm going to be good again today and hopefully I can break my 2-week plateau.
I told Tay yesterday "I've been stuck in the mid-90s for like two weeks,"
And she was like, "You've been watching 'Saved by the Bell' or what?"
Morning Weigh-In: 195.5
Not bad. I'm actually pretty happy about it. I'm down from Saturday when I was up THREE whole pounds, and 195 is an okay weight to proceed at. Exercising starts hardcore today. There's open swimming tonight so that might happen, but for sure the wellness center this afternoon for a good dose of weight training and doing some low-impact cardio.
I'm glad Easter didn't seem to take me down too badly. All things considered (besides the cheesecake) I was pretty good yesterday. Today is, as always, a new day. It's a little sad since we were SUPPOSED to have this day off. I could definitely have spent some more time sleeping, but here we go.
Exercising and counting calories!!! I can do this!
Part of my problem is that I've become complacent. I've lost 10 pounds and that's great, but I can't let myself think that it's good enough. I have a long way to go before I'm out of the woods. I may have gone back to looking basically like I did before but it doesn't mean I should calm down or stop.
Furthermore, tendinitis sucks. I wish my ankle wasn't a disaster, because I really just want to start going hard-core again. Seriously. I have to get this done, and I wanted to look good for summer and for this wedding we're going to in May. If I want that it's going to have to be an intense couple of weeks.
PS: This is my 75th Entry!
I am recommitting tomorrow. Easter was a wonderful day full of family and FOOD. My cousin taught me some exercises I can do without hurting my ankle so those will be super-useful. They look HARD! I don't even know if I can do ONE pushup. But it's time to get back on the road. It seems like the last month has been full of roadblocks, but I haven't gotten back up to 200, so I'm marking it up as a positive.
I will be on full alert tomorrow. 1,750 calories, an hour of cardio and probably some weight training too. I can and will do it. Life has to go back to normal somehow. I just have to make it happen.
Thanks to everyone who has stuck with me, reading my blog and supporting me even as I fluctuate in the 190's and 150 seems light-years away. <3 You're the reason I haven't given up and just gone back to being a blob.
"IT DOES NOT MATTER HOW SLOWLY YOU GO-- ONLY THAT YOU DO NOT STOP."
Because I can do an incredible amount of damage in one day.
Morning weigh-in: 197.
Astounding, right? I won't lie, this week has just gotten worse and worse, and ended by us finding out that our favorite restaurant had closed without our knowledge. Feeling sad, we came home and invited some friends over. Having had the week that I did, rejection, tendinitis, ear infections, closed favorite restaurants etc, I indulged way too much in frozen pizza, beer, Pimms & Rootbeer and other varieties of things I should never have even looked at, much less consumed.
We did exercise yesterday though. Weight-training isn't as easy or mindless as cardio, but I can't get back on the treadmill until my ankles are the same size again. :(
But if you think you can stop me once my ankles are the same size. Oh boy.
So, on another note. My next choices for graduate school are in Minneapolis and Fort Lauderdale, FL. Looking at both of the schools, I actually prefer the Florida school, which offers health insurance, a wellness center and the possibility for TAship. Also, I hear it's pretty warm in this mysterious land called Florida. I've never been to Florida, so we'll see.
T says he's coming with me wherever I go, so that's comforting. :)
It also means I'm going to have to kick up the weight loss. I'm NOT going to live in a beach-town looking like this. Bleck.
PS: Something is weird with my excel doc I use to make my charts-- I'm not actually avoiding putting them up out of pure shame-- only partially out of shame. :)
Morning Weigh-In: 193.5
Still not bad. I'd like to break that 193 barrier just because I've been there for a couple of weeks. I was talking to my cousin last night and she said she'll teach me how to do some good cardio even if my ankle's basically useless. So that'll be awesome :)
Today is Friday, which is nice. I'm ready for this week to be OVER. This afternoon and tomorrow will be awesome chances to get some more homework and exercising in. I'm thinking of getting a membership to the Y this summer-- that way I can have access to a pool and all that other stuff. My original plan was to you know, get into NDSU and use their stuff for free, but plans change.
Yesterday went well considering I didn't exercise. I made us some healthy food for dinner and watched my calories the rest of the day. Dieting alone won't do it every day but I'm going to have to depend on it more since I can't get in as much cardio time. Boo ankle! You suck!
Though, it doesn't look as much like a grapefruit this morning, so that's a plus.
So, all of my whining was legitimized today. I have tendinitis in my right ankle. The tendon is so swollen that it's causing any movement to be difficult and painful. Thank goodness it's not broken, but Mr. Doctorpants did say it's a bad idea for me to do any sort of cardio until the swelling goes down-- about TWO WEEKS. He said I'm allowed to swim and weight train.
Swimming would be fun-- if another doctor hadn't told me earlier this week that I have an ear infection and NOT to go swimming for about the same amount of time.
The good news is two weeks is not that long. it's only a minor setback. As long as I'm really watching my calories and trying to get in as much swimming and weight training as possible I should be able to maintain and maybe even keep losing, if at a slower rate.
And that's what's up. :)
Morning weigh-in: 194
I'm definitely not mad about this. I probably gained half a pound by virtue of actually drinking water and eating food yesterday. 2 pounds was a LOT to lose in one day.
Yesterday in general was a good day, though. Full of actually doing stuff, I had my presentation for senior seminar which went well and then I got to go to the new wellness center with Tay. Fantastical! All of the machines have tvs actually mounted on them so I don't have to watch trashy MTV reality shows OR sports! Yay! So we did a good 45 minutes of cardio-- it's really getting more difficult for me on my ankle. But I want to get enough exercising in before they stick me in a cast or put me on bedrest. Boo.
Today is sunny and I'm ready for it! :)
Morning Weigh-In: 193.5
Yesterday I did get my important phone call. I got wait-listed for graduate school. For normal people, this might seem like something sort of arbitrary; I applied for other schools, I'm the first on the wait-list, so there's hope, but for me, it felt like everything just came crashing down. I'm not really used to not getting accepted for things. I'm usually pretty resilient, but yesterday I absolutely shut down. I haven't even been to the new wellness center yet. I think I ignored like 6 phone calls.
So, apparently crying all day is excellent exercise. Or at the very least I managed to dehydrate myself.
Overreacting? Maybe. But, you have to take into account that not getting into NDSU means several other things too: It means we have to leave our friends and family and start an entirely new life at LEAST 4 hours away. We won't be here when one of our good friends gets back from basic in September. It means that finances, which we weren't too concerned about in Fargo, are a real concern in Minneapolis or anywhere else, because rent in Minneapolis is easily double what we would pay even for the nicest apartments here.
Put all that together with the fact that my degree is useless without graduate school, that I've worked my ass off for four years just for this moment to actually fail, that EVERYONE around me brushed off my fears and told me I was a "shoo in" and you have a real recipe for a sad, sad me.
Also I went to the doctor and I have an ear infection AND she thinks my ankle is actually fractured, not sprained.
I'm just rainbows and sunshine this morning, aren't I?
Whatever. I lost 2 pounds, and that's the note I'm starting today with. I am GOING to be positive today. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself.
Morning Weigh-in: 195.5
Which I'm actually really happy about since yesterday I didn't actually go exercise :/ I got caught up in one of my projects and then we went to visit some friends and it just didn't happen. But I'm a pound down and didn't eat too much yesterday-- though it wasn't any good food, so that will need to start up again today.
Losing the ten pounds I've lost has been awesome, and it proved to me that it CAN be done. I just have to get back up on that treadmill today and rock it out. It may be a little difficult since my ankle seems to be getting worse, but I have a brace and some ibuprofen, and what else could I possibly need, right? :) Maybe today I'll take a picture of my ankle so you all can experience it's grapefruit-like glory first hand.
On an unrelated note, I am psychic.
Yesterday morning, I had a dream that NDSU's graduate program had lost my phone number, and that was why they hadn't called me. Yesterday evening I received an email from the director of the program, which said he seemed to have the wrong number and wanted to know how to get a hold of me so that he can "discuss my admissions status."
Me? Psychic. More likely though? Me finding out whether or not I got into graduate school TODAY.
So I've mentioned before that my head is absolutely filled with irrational-ness.
I'm a planner, a worrier, I'm high-anxiety, high-stress, high-ambition AND high-achieving. I just picked up my Summa Cum Laude graduation cords today, but you know what? I'm a month-and-a-half into my next big self improvement project: ME.
My entire college career has been about these cords. In the meantime, I've gained almost 40 pounds. I've struggled to explain to people how being "the fat girl" feels. Almost everyone brushes it off; they tell me "no one thinks that about you," that "you aren't that big," or my personal favorite, "you have so many other wonderful talents." I appreciate the sentiment, but it's not what other people think about me. It's what I think about me, and what I perceive others to be thinking about me. Remembering again, that I am incredibly irrational, self-critical and success-driven.
And here it is, if you've ever wondered what it feels like to be the fat girl, give this woman's blog a read: http://www.mopie.com/0309/15.html
Morning Weigh-in: 196 which is THE SAME!
I GET TO EXERCISE TODAY!
HOPEFULLY I WILL GET MY IMPORTANT PHONECALL!
I'm yelling. I'm sorry. I'm just happy to have my life back :)
Morning weigh-in: 196.
This is okay. I was "Bad" yesterday with my food choices. It was all going really well until we had people over for drinks and frozen pizza. Usually I would have only had one slice but I reverted back to my old habits and ate way too much :( Today is another day and I'm still well below 200 pounds, so I'm pretty happy. It's another day of cleaning and homework so that tomorrow we can go back to school without too much pain. Today I'll be cleaning out the refrigerator and going grocery shopping-- yay control over my own calories!!!
Tada! Here I am in Moorhead. I weighed myself on my own scale, woke up in my own bed, will choose what I get to eat today and when/if I exercise (YES). I have gained control over my life again. Awesome.
I was worried that I would weigh several pounds more this morning since life's been so weird and I've basically just been eating whatever people give me at their houses and not exercising much (my ankle has gotten worse-- I'm not really sure what to do about it exactly.)
Either way, this morning I weighed 195 which is not a bad weight at all. If you read back, it was the weight I had hoped to reach by April, so technically, I'm still on track :)
This week I will be back to school and back to exercising. I'm going to add more weight-training into my workouts. For sure half an hour of cardio every day still, but maybe every other day it'll be half an hour of cardio and half an hour of weights, and a full hour of cardio on the other days. I might try that for a week or so and see how it goes.
195 is a good weight. It seems that I maintained fairly well while I was away and I can get right back on track with some good exercising and food choices.
Thanks for being patient with my randomness these past three weeks-- April should bring normalcy and spring, so life should improve drastically :) Also, enjoy BLUE-- hopefully April will bring plenty of RAIN to get rid of this stupid snow. Also it was no longer March. So blue seems appropriate. Just a little facelift here at 55lbs.
I have been definitely avoiding writing in my blog. Life has been so completely weird being away from home, being at my family's-- where there are amazing special K bars and vodka cream penne. I have gained about a half-pound since I last wrote :( Which put me two pounds up from last week Monday.
I'm not going to beat myself up over it. I'm still down 10 pounds in general and I can definitely get back on track.
Life will go back to normal soon. After choir tour, a week of sandbagging and this week of being floating refugees I will be able to get into a ROUTINE again. Also, I have to remember that this is a long-term thing. Three weeks is not that long in the grand scheme of things. Right now three weeks sounds like a billion years, but life WILL BE back to normal soon.
I hope everyone is safe, dry and happy. I will be updating every day from now on to let you know how and what I'm doing. :)
Morning Weigh-in: 196.5
So, all in all, this crazy week, I have lost one pound :)
T and I are safe at my parents' house. It looks like we're not going back to school for awhile. They think the river has crested, but there's not anything to do in our city right now. No school, which means neither of us can work, and no more sandbagging is going on. So we're going to stay here for a few days and then go to some friends' house where we'll be able to help with some stuff.
I'm okay with gaining 3 pounds in two days. I'm pretty sure I lost most of that weight in water and stress. This is the healthy way for me to be doing this-- gradually. Of course, it is a little sad not to see those super-low numbers, but considering the times I'm just worried about staying healthy and safe.
Good morning everyone!
It's 3AM and I was woken up by sirens thank goodness they weren't for us. The students at the local private college are being asked to evacuate. And a bunch of areas in Moorhead and Fargo have already been evacuated. We are, according to this fancy map, in amazing danger of having our home flooded. I have lost several pounds since Saturday, half from sandbagging and I would guess half from pure stress.
The National Weather Service upped our estimated crest from 41 to 43. Tomorrow morning we are leaving for my parents' house in more central Minnesota. Quite frankly I am very torn about it. I live here. I love it here. We have worked for hours trying to save our community and it feels wrong to abandon it now. Fargo and Moorhead now are in fact, separate places only connected by the 94 bridge-- one lane traffic each way.
It's so frustrating because people came to help in droves. Volunteers were being turned away in some places. We had built sandbag dikes and levees to protect homes and communities-- up to 42 feet. They've been trying to add two more feet to the dikes, but it's set to crest pretty soon here and the roads next to the river are all closed. They asked us not to come to the Fargodome unless we live close to it. I have a hard time dealing with the fact that after an entire week of work, some people putting in astounding eight and twelve hour shifts and with the help of the National Guard-- we still may be forced to leave and we don't know for how long.
So we're going before they make us. Tomorrow morning. Stay safe and dry, friends.
PS: A quick 3AM sociology lesson: The lack of normalness, or rather the presence of normlessness has a name in the Sociology field. It's called Anomie. Emile Durkheim, who is one of our founding fathers wrote about it extensively. Technically we are not to structural anomie yet. But every day hanging out anomie, oh yeah we're there.
Morning Weigh-in: 193.5
I'm really just breezing through the 190s. I guess a natural disaster will do that for you. Last night we went to help at the Fargodome which has turned into Sandbag Central II. Then we heard news that Nemzek hall, (which had previously just been a meeting point for volunteers) had become Sandbag Central III and also gone into 24-hour operations. So, T and his best friend went out there late last night-- I haven't talked to him yet because he got back at like 6 this morning.
I went to sleep because one of my choir friends needs help right away this morning.
The river is set to crest at 41 feet-- if it goes over 41.1 it'll be an all-time record flood for Fargo (apparently it hit 41.1 during a flood in the late 1800s.)
I am starting to feel a little weird about not having school, not having a schedule, not being able to use my water freely, having my boyfriend gone at weird hours of the night, worrying about evacuation... etc. It's just getting a little scary.
All we can do is pitch in and hope it doesn't get any warmer or any colder. Any warmer and the snow will melt and we'll have a serious problem. Any colder and our dikes and levees could get destroyed by ice. If our levees and dikes get destroyed, well, a lot of each city is going to be under water.
Pretty soon, Fargo and Moorhead will legitimately be separate places. :(
Morning weigh-in: 194 again. I am so not complaining about this. I've lost a ton of weight the last few days. Life has been completely weird so who knows what's going on with my metabolism.
They're asking us not to run much water since our sewer systems are under so much stress-- not that we want to use the water since it tastes and smells bad since they switched to wells instead of purifying our river water like they usually do. They say it's okay for us to drink, but I've been having to choke it down. I only drink water! So I imagine some of the weight I've lost comes from that I usually drink LOTS of water in a day and now I'm only drinking what's absolutely required :P
Last night we had planned to help with the late-night sandbagging effort, so a bunch of us met at Perkins to get the required energy. Of course, once I'd eaten oatmeal and an omelet, we found out they weren't going to need us until like 5AM. By this time it's 2AM and we've had rough days already. Some of my friends did go at 5-- I slept through my alarm. :(
Only in Fargo-Moorhead does it snow, flood, blizzard and flood again. As of right now the flood is up to 34.7 feet. It's expected to crest at about 40 and the ground is covered in snow again, ready to melt off and fill up the river.
In other news, I went to the old wellness center yesterday to cardio-off some of my soreness and it worked really well. I'm mad that the new wellness center isn't opening until April now-- but there's nothing I can do about that. Except write angry letters, which I might.
I'm leaving to check out the new wellness center. I'm feeling tense and sore from sandbagging so I bet some good old fashioned cardio will straighten me out a little bit. :)
Also no school again tomorrow so more sandbagging to be done!
PS: New wellness center-- not opening until March 30th. We've been paying for this thing for 4 years-- we'll get to use it for ONE month.
Morning weigh-in: 194 flat
That means that I've lost a pound every single day this week. I guess sandbagging is awesome exercise, haha. Good thing I'm doing it again today and probably again tomorrow. I was amazed to see 196, astounded at 195, and now I just think my scale is broken, hahaha.
I can't believe that I'm getting close to losing 15 pounds. It's a struggle every day, but seeing this progress is totally worth it.
Now if only the town would stop flooding and the grad school would call me, the world would be pretty much perfect. :)
Morning weigh-in: 195!
I'm amazed I didn't gain yesterday since I had such a big loss the day before. It just tells me that my weight-loss is actually kicking into gear and hopefully I'll be able to continue losing weight!
I can see the 180s. I weighed somewhere in there when T and I met almost two years ago. If I go below 170, I'll be at an all-time adult low. I might have weighed less than 170 sometime in high school, but it would have been my freshman or sophomore years IF it ever happened.
Also, it was my goal to get down to 195 before April :)
Today I probably won't go to the wellness center either. T and his dad are going to work on the lake in our backyard and I'm going to go help sandbag a music professor's house. Then this afternoon we're both going to one of our other professor's house to do the same. And I need to get some homework done today. Seriously.
Today I did not go to the brand new wellness center. We spent two hours at what's being called "Sandbag Central" instead. In Fargo, sandbags are being filled around the clock to protect homes and buildings from the impending flood. It was a little scary at first. We went at night when they need more volunteers. It felt like everyone was moving very quickly. Disaster prevention is a serious business. The Army (and/or national guard?), the Salvation Army, the Red Cross and Nechama were all there providing food, volunteers and leadership.
It was very loud with several bulldozers of different sizes hauling around thousands of tons of sand. A lot of beeping and scraping and thumping made yelling necessary. The huge warehouse door was open so that the biggest bulldozers could come in and out of the pouring rain to dump sand. We quickly fell in line, taking turns shoveling and holding bags.
Eventually we 'adopted' a kid who tied off our bags for us and opened new ones. It was very functional. It just shows how helpful people can be no matter what their age or ability. There were quite a few kids there, and they all seemed just as busy as the adults, distributing bag-ties and bags, tying off, opening bags.
School is canceled tomorrow so that everyone can go out and help with sandbagging. Some of our friends and professors are in serious danger of having their houses flooded. T and I have a huge, ominous lake in our backyard that's about 7 feet away from filling our basement. Luckily, T's dad has a pump of some sort and I think they're going to work on that tomorrow before anything gets any worse.
At one point, a man came up to me while I was shovelling and asked if I wanted him to take over. Two months ago, I might have said "okay," but today I smiled at him and said "Nope. I'm good."
I got my exercise and helped the community. Woot.
This morning I weighed in at 196! Which I was really amazed at. I didn't actually get any real cardio in yesterday but it just shows that keeping my calories at a reasonable level is really making a big difference.
Of course, it's not easy. Last night we went over to some friends' apartment. I can tell how much I've changed by the way I reacted to all of the potential food choices. Usually I would have had no problem indulging in a huge pineapple-based drink. I might have had two or more if T was driving. Yesterday I took one look at the nutrition facts on the back of the pineapple juice and knew I shouldn't have any of it. I tasted T's drink and called that good.
Then of course, there was frozen pizza. Which I would have consumed in fantastic amounts. T and I used to buy frozen pizzas and we'd each eat half and sometimes we'd also eat breadsticks. So of course, there I was, checking out the nutrition facts for the pizza (pizza companies do this tricky thing, where they make a "serving" one third of the pizza, when most people cut pizzas in 8 slices and generally consume half of a pizza. Sometimes figuring out calorie counts for frozen pizza isn't my favorite thing). I was feeling hungry, so first I ate an apple. Then I decided, yes, I was hungry, and had one slice of pizza from the first pizza and part of another slice. I didn't have to not eat pizza, I just had to make sure I didn't eat too much of it.
Today the wellness center opens (actually I think the brand-new wellness center is opening) and I will be happy to get back to a regular exercise routine! Today I'm going to exercise and watch my food-- still! :)
I am wearing my old jeans. They were the top pair of jeans in a pile I had to set aside about two months ago because they didn't fit anymore.
Today, they're just a little bit snug, but I'm wearing them. Pretty soon I hope that they'll be too big for me as well and I can have an excuse to buy some new clothes :)
Today we did some extra walking-- so that felt good. I will also be going up and down the stairs several times to get all of the stuff out of our basement just in case the flooding comes as far as the house. There isn't anything too heavy down there, but it'd suck to have it all destroyed.
For instance, one thing in the basement is my prom dress. I haven't been able to wear it in years. It definitely didn't fit me when I was a sophomore in college and I'm sure it doesn't fit me now. Even so, it will be cool to be able to try it on again in a few pounds. Not that I'll ever have anywhere else to wear it, but it'll feel good.
Morning weigh-in: 197.5
Which means several things: I didn't gain weight on my trip, as difficult as it was to not do so, I have officially hit the 10lb mark, and I'm SO happy to be home :) The new wellness center opens tomorrow and I am totally ready to hit it hard and take off the rest of this weight. I have 47.5 pounds to go and I'm feeling good.
On the trip I bought a shirt that baaarely fit me... just a little tighter than most people should wear. I hope that by the end of this it won't fit me because it'll be too big :)
I have also done my measurements, since I was unable to do so last Sunday. All of my measurements are lower by at least half of an inch :) Thusfar I've lost 3.5" off my hips, 3" off my waist, a full inch off of my thighs and half an inch off of my arms. I'm feeling pretty good. Yay!
My immediate goal is to get out of the "obese" category of BMI, and it looks like I have several pounds to go. But until I get out of there I'm still putting myself at risk for diabetes and heart disease. Eeew.
It sounds like I'll get my exercise this weekend since we're going to have to sandbag the river. Apparently we're supposed to have a pretty serious flood. :(
Here's the excitement from the last day of tour!
Tour has been awesome. I'm having a great time with everyone here and have seen some awesome things. But I will be incredibly happy to be home. Tomorrow I will have my weigh in to find out how I did on tour :/ I am very nervous. It's a long time to go without having an official gym and control over my food choices.
Saturday I will have to find something else to do as well since the wellness center doesn't open back up until Sunday. That means I didn't exercise yesterday, can't exercise today and probably won't be able to exercise tomorrow. Hopefully I can find something to do tomorrow to get back in the groove of things.
Tonight we have a concert in Alexandria and then we finally get to go home. I can't wait to be back in my own house and my own scale.
I did bring my measuring tape with on the trip, but I haven't really measured myself. I th ink I'm just going to wait until Sunday for my measure-in.
I'll be updating every day again starting tomorrow! Thanks for reading!
Hello from Arlington, Virginia! :) We are almost halfway through our trip (it feels like a really long trip) and I am still working hard at balancing my calories with my exercise. It has been more difficult because I can't really control the food I eat-- even on days where we're completely free, often we have to grab some food between sightseeing or want to take advantage of ethnic restaurants that definitely don't exist in Fargo-- for instance, we ate at a Portuguese restaurant for lunch and an Indian restaurant for dinner today (we do have 2 Indian restaurants in FM, but they're really expensive).
Yesterday was hard with food as well since the church provided lunch (two equally sized tables: one covered in "salads" and sandwiches and the other covered in desserts) and dinner, which was pizza. I did quite a bit of exercising last night so hopefully it all balanced out. Today we did a lot of walking too, but I think I'm going to go do some actual exercising for a little while too. New food experiences are wonderful, but I can't help but worry about the amount of calories I've consumed. :/
Exercise is the only cure.
Tomorrow is a concert day, but I should be able to get up early enough to be able to exercise before the bus leaves. We're in host homes tomorrow night so I won't get another chance to get movement in. The next day is a wandering Philadelphia day so hopefully I'll get my exercise then. Thursday and Friday will be killer-- both days are concert days, with no time or opportunity for exercise on either and no control over food.
Again, :/
But the trip is going really well, I'm seeing some awesome things and I love the people in my choir. I miss home and was really happy to get a chance to talk to both T and my Dad today. I love them both a billion :)
Hello from Baltimore, Maryland! I am on the computer in the lobby of our hotel, watching over the continental breakfast. Not very uplifting to be completely honest. I was careful making my breakfast decisions: a piece of whole-wheat toast with peanut butter, an apple and black tea. I looked at the yogurt and decided just drinking some milk would be a better option for my calcium. WRONG! Two types of milk: Whole and 2%. SERIOUSLY? Why, if you're only going to have one kind of milk, would you not provide just a little bit more variety?
Whatever. Last night we did quite a bit of walking and I took advantage of the Hotel's exercise facility. I now feel bad for ever calling the wellness center ghetto, because this place only had a bike, a Stairmaster(TM) and a treadmill on which the incline did NOT work. I did 15 minutes on the stairmaster and half an hour on the non-inclined treadmill.
Also, on the treadmill, I got brave, and I ran for just a little while. It is a little easier on my ankle now that I weigh a little less. So, that's cool.
In other news, I'm really tired because I didn't get very good sleep last night. We didn't go to bed until after midnight and then I kept getting woken up by stray alarms from cell phones and our ridiculous in-house alarm clock. And then, also, one of my roommates snores... like an outboard motor. I am NOT used to that!
Today is exploring Washington D.C. so I'll be wearing my pedometer to judge whether or not I walk enough to constitute exercise for the day.
:)
Morning Weigh-In: 198 flat. That's a loss despite a cream puff, baby! I worked hard last night at the gym!
I'm leaving for Baltimore today, DC tomorrow and Philadelphia next week.
Hope to update again soon!
Let me explain. I didn't want to, I really didn't.
So I went to this dessert social for the grad program I want to get into (my interview went really well, for those of you who have been following. I won't hear anything for about 3 weeks, so let's see if I can break 195 before they call. Haha). At this social there's a biiiig long table of desserts that the current students made for the prospective cohort. Very sweet of them! Literally.
So, I'm watching as all of these other women are just piling on the desserts. I have absolutely no interest in eating any of them. I'm at an all-time low today and I do NOT want that to turn around for my last weigh-in tomorrow morning. But, I'm not going to be that girl. So I take a mini cream-puff, a mini-cheesecake (about one square inch of cheesecake) and this homemade swiss-cake roll thing.
I ate the puff and the cheesecake and half of the roll.
I have to tell you that until this point in my life I would have easily taken a full plate of desserts and thought absolutely nothing of it. I might have had a full plate and had one MORE of the thing I liked best.
For the first time in my life, I felt disgusted by food without nutritional value. I had always been confused when I read nutritionists or athletes or in extreme situations bulimics or anorexics discussing their feelings about "bad" food and how "bad" food is gross.
I had absolutely no desire to eat more. This is a pretty huge step for me in my fight against over-eating. :)
Tomorrow morning will be my last post for awhile. I'll try to find computers on tour, but we don't come back into the area until March 20th :( So I won't get a valid weight until the 21st.
As always, thanks for reading, I appreciate the support, even if it's silent. <3
So, I try not to get to excited on the scale these days, because I know I'm doing the right thing and the weight will come off one way or another. But, you know, it helps when the scale gives you numbers like 198.5 at that point I really feel like I'm out of the 200s and hopefully it can stay that way for a very very very long time.
Today is my interview for the graduate program I want to get into. It's kind of an extremely huge deal and I'm trying not to be too nervous. But having a loss this morning rather than a stasis or a gain has really set the tone for the day. If I can lose nine pounds since Feb. 16 I can do pretty much anything. :)
Also, 48.5lbs to go. I fully expect for it to take until the end of the year, but I also fully expect it to happen.
Here is an upd
ate of what my big chart looks like:
Well it's very exciting to have another day under 200lbs. This morning I weighed in at 199.0 again! Yay me! Days where I'm under 200lbs are always good days. This is my third one thus far and I'm happy.
It's going to be a very busy day, with making up for all of the things that didn't happen yesterday like the school newspaper and getting another rehearsal in with the choir.
It's weird for it to still be dark outside right now-- hmm. Today will be another day of exercising and making sure I eat enough of the right foods. Thankfully the blizzard decided to fall on my day off of exercising so that worked out really well.
Also, we finally got our itinerary for choir tour, and all of the hotels we're staying in have fitness centers. On days when we're not in hotels, often we're sightseeing all day so I'm not concerned about getting my exercise those days. There was only one day in there (next Wednesday) where I felt like it might be a dangerous day. But I can exercise on Tuesday and take Wednesday off instead.
I am determined to come back from this tour NOT weighing any more than I do. Seriously. I've worked way too hard to have it messed up now.
I am very pleased that Fargo-Moorhead shut down completely on my off-day. Last night when I was at the wellness center, they put up signs saying they'd be closed today. Haha! On my break day! Luck was completely on my side.
The evil plateau continues: 200.5
But like I said, I'm happy to plateau just a little bit lower. Healthy weight-loss is a pound a week, and that's what I'm going for. (2lbs would be great, but I'm not going to be choosy). The unfortunate thing is that I'll have to leave a big gap in my data from choir tour :( I like my data to be all pretty and continuous.
Today, I will probably still get my exercise as I'm going to do laundry. The bedroom is on the second floor, the laundry is in the basement :) STAIRS!
I said "I'll be okay if I plateau even a little lower." BUT, after gaining a half a pound every day this weekend, I'm getting a little annoyed. This is my same diatribe as it always is: WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?! Blah blah blah, I ate well, blah blah blah, an hour of cardio, blah blah blah.
200.5
T was telling me yesterday that it will probably start to get easier. I really hope so because right now every single day is an incredible struggle with food (I'm pretty good about exercising now).
In other news, choir tour begins this Friday, so I'll probably be updating my blog, but my scale is staying home. That's the other scary, frustrating thing happening. I'm not READY to go anywhere. One week could completely undo everything I've done so far. I'm incredibly excited to go-- I've never been to the East Coast before, but at the same time it's a lot scary for me to just go out there on my own, not knowing what the food will be (church food, much of the time :P) or whether or not I'll be able to walk enough to get my exercise, which I doubt on concert days.
It's just scary. I like to have my things, all set up and ready to go. Choir tour will be a lot of fun and I'm sure I'll have a great time. I just hope I don't come back needing to start all over again :/
Well this morning I gained half a pound, but 200 flat isn't too depressing when I look at my overall chart.
It's a Sunday so that means weekly check-in day! I lost a pound and a half, an inch and a half off my hips and a half an inch off my waist. The rest of my measurements stayed the same. I'm eagerly awaiting the day when my arms FINALLY start getting smaller. It'll be my favorite day.
I will definitely miss getting to watch whatever I want in our garage when I return to the wellness center tonight (especially since it's a Sunday and they are by far the worst day).
My challenge today will be the family gathering. We will be celebrating my cousin's birthday with... KFC. Hmm. So I don't know exactly how I'm going to avoid that. I'm fairly sure KFC doesn't make anything on my diet. It's probably a great test for my portion-control skills haha.
If I can keep losing a pound and a half or two pounds each week, someday I'll weigh less. Hahaha.
We're at my family's this weekend and so food is the biggest challenge. There's definitely a treadmill and I worked out hard last night. I'm happy to announce that yesterday was not a fluke-- this morning I weighed in at 199.5.
Today we're going to watch my little sister play in a volleyball tournament and then I'm making us some soup for dinner. Another hour on the treadmill tonight and I think I should be okay. Just another day of working hard and even maintaining wouldn't be bad. I want to say goodbye to 200 and keep working my way down.
This morning, I weighed in at 199.0.
I'm guessing that tomorrow I will be back up to 200-something, but it didn't stop me from being very happy to at least SEE the number and know that it's possible. I MIGHT be out of the evil plateau. Woo!
Today we leave for BL to visit my wonderful family. Lucky they have a treadmill and the only person I'll have to fight for it is my dad :)
Part of my theory is that I haven't been eating enough. When I allow myself to eat a little more I tend to lose more weight. I have to remember that calories are actually energy.
I'm under 200 pounds, at least for the day-- man does that feel good!
After my little debacle yesterday at the wellness center, I was loathe to go back today-- but I did.
I should explain that I'm probably one of the least rational people I've ever met. I have a ton of irrational fears-- most of them involving me flunking out of college or disappointing my loved ones, but a good portion of them center around people making fun of me being fat. One of my particular irrational fear scenarios was coming to the gym and being asked to leave by a scary buff guy-- this fear has kept me away from the Dragon Wellness Center-- pretty much forever. Even when I did exercise, I went to Curves.
Exactly that happened last night. Not in so many words, of course, but it did freak me out and send me right back to where I was at the beginning of this blog: feeling like only people who are there to train and maintain are allowed. No fat people. So coming back today was a bigger challenge than going in the first place.
But nothing changes if you don't make it change. I thought about my support group and how many people are cheering me on. I was inspired by Jimmy Eat World (as usual) "Don't write yourself off yet, it's only in your head you feel left out or looked down on." I reflected on weighing 200 pounds forever. I finally put on my exercise pants and went.
I was happy to be there. :)
This morning I was at 201.5. I'm not too surprised since I didn't get to finish exercising last night. But do you know what's getting a little frustrating? Never getting below 201. That's frustrating. Feb 23 was the first time I saw 201.5, since then I've been up to 203.5 and down to 201. I'm just going to keep plugging away! It can't stay stuck on me forever, so I'm just going to keep exercising.
The other interesting thing was that I've been talking about how my right ankle has been sore for awhile now. It never actually occurred to me to LOOK at it, since I figured it was just a pulled muscle or remnants of when I hurt it in freshman year-- nothing to see, right? But yesterday I had T look at it, and it's easily twice the size of my other ankle and a weird color of purple. :/
T thinks I should to go to the doctor. I think I hate doctors, and that it's not broken, so I should go get some sort of brace or ace bandage and move on with my life. The last time I had a problem with my ankle, they took an x-ray, found out it wasn't broken, then the doctor came into the room, poked my ankle (literally, poked it once) and prescribed me pain medication. THANKS BUDDY! Pain meds are nice and all, but I'd rather you actually fixed my problem rather than cover it up with drugs that dull my system and make me nauseous.
So I don't know what to do. In reality, T is right, my ankle does look pretty messed up, but that probably also means giving up exercising which I really do NOT want to do.
So. Exercising has been going really well. The wellness center is crowded, but it hasn't been bad. Until today, when someone thought it would be okay to color over my initials. I signed up for a normal workout-- half an hour on a bike and half an hour on a treadmill. When I finished my time on the bike, I got on the treadmill, only to be poked by some buff jock, asking me to get off the treadmill.
I apologized, thinking I had signed up for the wrong machine. When I went to check-- I WAS on the wrong machine-- someone had colored over MY initials.
We need that new place to open, seriously.
Why is it that people at the gym seem to think their marathon training is more important than me getting out of obesity? Of avoiding diabetes and heart disease? I don't think maintenance and attainment are any different, training is important, and so is my health.
I signed up, I should have my half an hour, that's it. SERIOUSLY.
The worst part is, by then all of the machines are taken, I have nothing to exercise with or on and I'm completely embarrassed by being asked to leave my machine. So I only get half an hour in today, and not even my good half an hour.
When I stepped on the scale this morning, it told me 200.0lbs. I was absolutely speechless and did not believe it. So I stepped on my other scale (I now have two, even though I think I'm returning my new one-- the display is all wonky), which told me 201.1lbs, and that felt a little more accurate-- I didn't exercise yesterday. So I'm sticking with 201.
I've decided not to get all excited about being near the under 200lb mark-- I don't want my blog to get boring! :) Also, I don't want to bring myself the disappointment of last week.
This is my "Biggest Loser" hypothesis:
During week one of exercising I lost a considerable amount of weight (3.5lbs) the second week of exercising, I haven't lost much weight at all, only about 1lb. However, this is exactly what happens on the biggest loser-- week two is always really bad for weight loss and they're doing like 6 hours a day of exercise. So, I have my hopes up that this next week is going to be a lot better.
Isn't it amazing how quickly I can put on weight and how slowly it comes off!? This morning I weighed in at 202.5.
But, it's less than yesterday. It's progress, even though it's backtracking progress. J suggested to T yesterday that I see a nutritionist. This is would probably be a good plan if I didn't know that nutritionists charge up the wazoo and I definitely don't have the money for it right now (Thanks, Choir Tour!). I was writing my dad last night that the problem I'm having with eating healthy isn't the emotional overeating problem I started out with. I dropped that almost immediately.
Now my problem is that I'm terrified of food. I don't know what food to eat. All of the food seems to have too much of something, too much sodium, too much fat, too many carbs, too much sugar or scary ingredients that I KNOW my body won't process properly. So in the end, I eat whole wheat toast with organic peanut butter (ingredients: peanuts, salt), scrambled eggs, oatmeal, bananas, home-made soup when I have time to make it, brown rice and black beans when I have time for those and various fiber-one bars. It's kind of like I'm stuck in perpetual breakfast.
Like I told my dad, an hour or an hour and a half at the gym isn't my favorite thing in the world, but it's easy and I KNOW it's good for me.
My diet before consisted of a lot of pasta (and I mean A LOT), a lot of tortillas, chicken nuggets, a lot of various kinds of pizza and other things that I just don't think will help me in this process. I found out the other day that Applebees' boneless hot buffalo wings with bleu cheese weigh in at 1750-some calories. No wonder I gained so much weight! I used to eat a basket of those with fries AND beer. Add that to my already crappy eating habits and you have a recipe for disaster.
So, in short, I've established that what I was doing before was unhealthy. So I stopped doing it. Now I need to figure out how to eat healthy on my college-student time-crunch and college-student budget.
