100th Post

I was going to stop blogging until I hit either 100 followers or hit Onederland, but since both of those are still out of reach I had to give in. I just can’t let my milestone last night go unblogged about. I have posted this same posting on my new blog (about running) so if you happen for follow that one too (Hi Pie!) then you will see the same thing there. I started that blog to record my running journey – without specifically talking about my band. If you are interesting feel free to check it out – but I won’t hunt you down if you don’t follow it ;)

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Last night was the beginning of week three of my training program and our group run. This week we were scheduled to do 5 miles. I have never run five miles in my entire life. Never even wanted to – until now. For some strange reason I wasn’t worried about completing the run anymore. When I finished the four miles last week something clicked into my mind that if I could do this I can do anything – with the right training :)

Luckily when I got there they had divided the slow group into 2 sections. Last week I just about killed myself with the pace and was blown by the last mile. The faster 15 started out with 2-1s (run 2 min/walk 1 min) while the slower group did 1-1s. According to Galloway’s method for my pace I am supposed to do even smaller intervals so I was a little concerned about keeping up, but luckily one of the trainers started a small group of us out in 30-30s.

Now you would think that doing such smaller intervals would have really slowed us down, but for the first mile we were within a few hundred feet of us. It was probably about 2.5 miles before they got completely out of sight, but they still only finished a few minutes ahead of us. But doing the 30-30s was so much easier. Well not easy – it was still hard, but I didn’t feel like I wanted to puke after so I consider it much better.

The best part of the run – I didn’t finish last! Only because the other runners with me took a bathroom break, but still it was nice not to finish last for once.

Here are a couple snapshots of my run – from a numbers point of view. The first is my stats from runkeeper.com. I logged every mile in around 16:30 – except the last, but I forgot to turn it off right away. The second is my calorie burn for the day. The long high peak is the run of course. You can see that I did 80 minutes of vigorous activity (I have defined at >4.8 mets). That is almost my entire run. Even though I am walking during part of the run, the way it happens (frequent but short) allows my burn to stay steady.

7 Months Already!

Time has just flown by. 7 months ago I was wondering what the hell I had just done to myself and thinking I might have just made a big mistake. Today, I am 75 pounds down and know I made the best decision of my life! Even if I were to stop losing today everything I have done has been completely worth it. I am so much healthier and happier it is amazing. But of course, I won’t stop today and I can’t wait to reach my goal!!

Some of my accomplishments over the last 7 months:

• 75 pounds gone!
• Dropped from a 22W-24W to a regular 16
• Dropped from a 3x shirt to a plain XL
• Shoes dropped ½ size
• Ran/walked a 5K
• Ran 4 miles
• Hired a personal trainer
• Started training for a half marathon
• Own more work out clothes than normal clothes
• A complexion that doesn’t remind everyone of a ghost
• A 99% reduction in stomach issues
• Menstrual cycles went from 90-120 days to 27 days!
• The realization that I might actually be able to get pregnant if I wanted
• Asthma symptoms are rare and NOT exercise induced
• Not feeling hungry all the time

Things I am hoping for in the next 5 months:

• 25 more pounds to go! TWENTY FIVE!!!!
• Running at least 2 more “short races” (5-10k)
• Running 10 mile race
• Running a half marathon
• An increase of HDLs to a normal range
• An additional 10% reduction of body fat
• Knowing my weight is a non-issue and can’t stop me from ANYTHING!!

I Survived!

I lived through my first group run, but it was close :) I can now officially say I have run 4 miles. I was last, but I made it. Luckily I wasn’t by myself this time. Two others (plus a trainer) were with me, but they kept complaining about leg problems. I had no excuse except that it was hard. By the second half they shortened the intervals for us slow pokes, but by then I hated the start of each interval with a passion.

Part of the reason it was so hard is that this branch of the program is 3 or 4 times bigger than last year. So even though they split us into 4 teams, the teams have people with vastly different skill sets. In fact, our “slow team” has more people that the entire program had last year – and they split into 3 teams. Next week they are supposed to split our team into smaller groups so they can pace us better according to our skill set. Hopefully, this will make a huge difference in at least the way I feel during the second half. Yeah it will be 5 miles, but their goal is to not having us puking our guts out when we are done – and believe me it was a close call this time.

Even though it was hard, once the run was over I felt GREAT! I can’t wait until next week. Those running endorphins are absolutely wonderful. Wonderful!!!!! And with the run/walk intervals I felt very little pain afterwards. In fact, I barely felt anything until about noon today. Now I feel like I could use a hot bath or a good massage, but not to the point where I would avoid any activity (except maybe another long run). I think that if I didn’t work on the computer all day I really wouldn’t have notice much besides a slight soreness.

The only other side effect that I noticed is my general lack of hunger. Last night I had a small ice cream cone (150 calories) on my way home and a protein bar later, but I only ate because I knew I needed too. I avoiding eating too much before running so I had many calories to spare. Today I am doing terrible. No breakfast, a tiny lunch (ate my carb first and got really full), and no snacks. I finally went down and got myself some chili for dinner around 7pm, but I still wasn’t hungry. I just knew I needed some protein. For someone who normally eats 5-6 times a day (and stops losing under 1000 calories) this is not a good side effect. What a thing to complain about huh?

I will leave you with a few pictures that I just got of my 5K last month. 

 

Exhausted!

This really has been a week from hell on the work side. We are all pushing and pushing for a important meeting next week, but it seems never ending. I almost pulled an all nighter last night, but by 2am I was toast. When my alarm went off at 6am I almost cried and then hit snooze for an hour. Meetings with VPs are just so stressful – especially when the project isn’t going well. Luckily I was able to get everything I needed for today done so I am indulging myself with a quick blogger break. I am also thinking of heading to main offices support group tonight so I can meet up with Grace – if I am awake by then :( 

Luckily today is an exercise free day - a mandatory exercise free day! I am sure I won’t hit my calorie burn, but at this point I DON’T CARE!! Why is this a exercise free day, you ask? (Or at least I assume you are asking.) Because tomorrow starts week 2 of the half marathon training and group run day. Tomorrow we are doing 4 miles and they require 1 day of no exercise before each long run. It is supposed to reduce the risk of injury and help your muscles “learn” better tomorrow. Sounds reasonable to me so I am going to stick to it, but honestly I find it kind of hard to be told I can’t exercise. What a complete 180 from where I was 6 months ago!

In case you were wondering my training plan is below. The only days that are mandatory are the 20+minute run on Mon, the easy walk on Tuesday, the rest on Wednesday, the long run on Thursday, and the 20+ minute run on Sat. Below is a copy of my training schedule.

(click to "biggerize" :)

The strength and cross training days were added by me based on options allowed in the overall plan, but those days can be rest days depending on what your goals/needs are. They do stress that more is not always better – in fact many times it leads to people failing the program due to injury or being burned out. For me, I think this will work well, but I am am very very worried about keeping up with the group runs.

However, I just found out that there are four team leaders for our group (of 20 or so). I am crossing my fingers that that means our group will split into smaller groups based on additional needs. If not, I KNOW I did everything they said I needed to do before training to be successful so I guess I will just do what I can and let them figure out what to do with me. The main leader said I could do it, so I will let her put her skills where her mouth is :)

Ok. I got to run back to work so I can take a couple hours out tonight so talk to you guys later!!!!

Random Update

Tonight was support group night and there was actually another person there! Woohooo!!! I gave my blog address out to her and the NP so I am quickly deleting all the bad things I wrote about the doctor's office(just kidding Kristie!!) I just love how much support I get from all you guys and can’t wait to tell all the bandsters I meet. The new person recognized Amy W’s name and it made me think. How many unofficial followers are out there reading our blogs thinking about having surgery? I knew before surgery I did, but I never really thought about affecting someone’s decision based on what we say. I hope they don’t catch me on a bad day ;)

The scale is up today. Probably due to the workout I did yesterday with the trainer. It hurt to even hold the phone up last night and I thought I would wake up sore this morning, but it wasn’t too bad. I twinge now and then, but that actually feels good. I am still hoping to be down to 199.9 by this time next week and I should be able to do it.

My next fill is scheduled for next week and I am still not sure what I want to do. Last week I would have said no to any fill, but today I am not sure. Last night, I had 4 ounces of pork roast, 9 cherries and some zucchini chips. A cup plus or minus a smidge :) Not only did I not get that full feeling, but I also got really hungry an hour later. Crap. Today the same thing happened. But my question is how in the world can my restriction just vanish overnight. It has to be a fluke or I didn’t notice the restriction slowly letting up. I am going to watch carefully over the next few days and see how I feel. I am hoping for maybe a .1cc fill, but I am not sure if my doc will do that. *sigh*

I also forgot about a couple very important NSVs in my last post. As of last week, I fit perfectly into my size 16 jeans - a regular size 16 not a women’s size. My 18s were almost falling off of me, but the muffin top was too bad to wear until last week. I am also in XL shirts almost exclusively. My 1Xs are too big, but I still wear the tanks a little since the cut on the XLs allow my back fat to hang out. Arghhh!!! I love working out in tanks, but that back fat things just drives me nuts. Hopefully, that will start to go away soon.

Another really big NSV happened in the hotel last week. I picked up the hotel towel and it went all the way around me! I could even tuck it in. Granted I couldn’t move too fast or it would slide down, but it still was amazing to me! I would have jumped up and down, but I think I need to lose a little more before trying that. Sometimes, the little things on this journey seem to give so much pleasure. I love them all!

Summer Meltdown and NSVs

As you saw from yesterday’s post I hit a new low of 202. I was sooo surprised that it was still 202 this morning after my splurge on hummus, pretzel chips, and bing cherries. 7 servings of hummus in 2 days! Not something I will probably keep in the house very often, but it was soo good. I know I was close to my calorie target (maybe a little high), but I was expecting all that extra sodium to give me a bounce on the scale. So glad it hasn’t. Now since I have finished off all the hummus I am hoping the scale will still be nice tomorrow morning.

With the travel this week I had a bunch of NSVs. When I picked up the puppy from the kennel the trainer mentioned that someone else who worked there said how good I looked and how much weight I lost. Also, for first time people at work actually noticed that I have lost weight. I In the past, a couple people have said something, but only after I said something myself. This time several people mentioned it without me saying a word. Their comments usually started with me walking towards them and then “OMG – have you lost a BUNCH of weight?” The OMG and the BUNCH rankles me a little now, but at the time it felt so great. Ok, it still feels great.

The conversation at our team lunch (right after someone said those exact words to me) started focusing on weight. Talking about people who “OMG lost 25 pounds” or how much people gained after they started working at my company. My boss went on to say how she gained 15 pounds since she started and she decided that she just had to lose it or she would go nuts. Now I admit she could lose 15 pound and I don’t want to minimize the importance to her, but the way she was talking it just was unbelievable that she just “let herself go” and was so lazy. I wondered what she would think if I told her I gained 50 pounds since I started working for her. She also said something about how her husband makes fun of fat people. First of all, why in the world would she tell us that? Second, I work for someone who married a guy that makes fun of fat people. What does that say about her? (Remember she said my medical leave was selfish so I am a little biased.)

OK, on to good thoughts– at least kind of good thoughts. I started my first training class for my half marathon. We started the kickoff with a couple great speakers. They went on a little about the methodology that we would be using (Galloway’s), how it worked, and how counter-intuitive it seems. For example, Galloway says to go faster go walk. To go faster, slow down. If you feel great, slow down. Slow down??? Seems crazy, but when you look at the details it starts to make sense. For example, if you do your “long runs” slower than you feel you could, your muscles can rebound faster and you have less injuries and more success next time. If you go slow in the beginning your muscles have stamina to keep going later on. The program has been going on for about 16 years and is the largest training program for a single event in the world. They have had nearly a 100% success rate.

I felt pumped!

Until I ran my pace mile.

Everyone training in the level one/two half marathon groups had to run a mile. The first 20 went into one group, the second 20 in the next, the last 20 in the final training group. I knew I would come in the last group so I wasn’t worried, but I came in last. So I am the slowest person in the slow group. I am going to be running with people ever week that run much faster than I do. This does not bode well for a good summer. Also, when I researched Galloway’s method I saw that for my pace I would be doing intervals of either 30 or 45 seconds of running and a minute to minute and a half of walking. Very doable. However, since I am the slowest everyone else is at a higher intervals – at least 1 minute of running to 1 minute of walking. I don’t know if I can even do that for a couple miles let alone the 4 miles we are doing next week.

I am thinking of moving in the walking group or the 5k group. It isn’t the end of the world right? I just so wanted to be able to do this. I knew that I might not be able to complete the half in the time limit by fall, but I wanted to at least do the training. *sigh* I just don’t know what to do. Have I bit off too much? As my pre-training health assessment stated I am still obese. I may still be obese on race day. Oh, and I have to give up Wednesday Zumba since I can’t exercise at all the day before training. I don’t even like Zumba that much, but it helps give me more reasons to change my mind.

*sigh*

Quick Update

Lean Body Mass and New Goals

Last Wednesday, when I signed up for the gym, the manager asked me what my goals were. Of course I said to lose weight, but also to build muscle tone. When he asked how much I wanted to lose I smiled and said at least 29, but technically I need to lose at least 50 so I wasn’t sure yet. He kind of laughed – not in a bad way, but he pointed out that those were very different numbers. And honestly he is right and that is why I have such a hard time picking a goal.

I also mentioned a few times that my doc set my goal at a 29.9 BMI (180lbs). I lowered it to 175 so that I had some breathing room from the obesity label. But according to the BMI scale I need to be 150 to be labeled normal. Most doctors I have had in my life (including my current NP) have always told me that I have a larger frame and that the BMI scale doesn’t necessarily predict what is healthy for me. In fact, my NP said if I get to my “ideal” weight (some medical formula puts it at 125) she would probably label me anorexic. I think I would be dead.

In preparation for my appointment with my new personal trainer (personal torturer) I ran through all my numbers in my spreadsheets.  One number that I have been tracking, but not paying a ton of attention to is  my body fat. While doing this I had an epiphany. The BMI scale may be skewed for larger framed people, but body fat isn’t. What is considered a healthy percentage of body fat for a small framed woman is also considered healthy for a larger framed woman (with some variation for age).

Once I figured that out, I researched what a healthy body fat percentage was. That isn’t as easy as it sounds. There are many different charts out there saying different things, but I did find one chart that seemed to be repeated quite a bit. I am not sure where it originated from, but it is listed on the American Council on Exercise website.

So now that I had my research done I need to find out what it would take to get me to get to each classification. To do that I estimated my Lean Body Mass (LBM) – muscle, bones, organs, etc… (Body Weight X (1- Body Fat %). According to this, I currently have 126.48 pounds of LBM. That would leave me with 77.52 pounds of body fat (yuck!). Now ideally when you lose weight you want to lose body fat not LBM. So if I want to get under 32% body fat (considered Acceptable) then I need to lose 18 pounds of body fat. To get in the Fitness range (under 25%) I would need to lose 35 pounds of body fat.

(What my goal would be like at a steady LBM - Notice that the lowest value (Fit) is still 10lbs over the "normal" BMI range)

That sounds so great! I mean that would mean at 183 I would have an acceptable body fat and at 168 I would be considered Fit. That is 18 pounds heavier than what the BMI scale says is normal! The only twist is that to just lose body fat is really hard to do. One reason is because you are carrying less weight and thus you need less muscle. It is one of the reasons why our docs stress the protein part - it doesn’t just help with keeping us full and keeping our hair in place :)

From what I can gather losing 25% is considered normal without a comprehensive workout schedule (including cardio, strength training, and of course an appropriate fat diet). That means for every 3 pounds of fat you also lose 1 pound of muscle. In the last 10 weeks, I have lost about 15% of my weight through LBM or almost 1 pound of muscle for every 6 pounds of fat. So even without the strength training I have been doing better than average. GREAT!!! Now that I have added weight training I am hoping to continue this or do even better.

So with this in mind, I did my calculations again. If I do really bad and 25% of my weight lost is LBM then 175 would put me in the acceptable range and 148 would be considered fit. If I continue my trend of 15% then 180 would be acceptable and 158 would be fit. I love these numbers!!! They seem to “prove” that the BMI scale isn’t right for me and that my NP might be right when she says that even 150 could be too low. That makes me feel SOOOOO much better about my goals.

(Estimates of what 15% LBM would look like.)

Ok so in the end what does this really mean? Basically, my goal will be set by my body fat %. I am aiming for a short term goal of 30% body fat, a final goal of 27% body fat, and a stretch goal of 24% body fat. The actual pounds are still up in the air and will be determined by how good I am in keeping my LBM up.

 

However today I am committing to a couple pound related goals. I am setting a minimum goal of 175 and maximum goal of 155 (5 pounds over a normal BMI). If I do hit 155 and feel like going lower I am going to take a hard look at my body fat. If it is over 24% then I am going to focus on building my LBM (without losing weight!). If I am already at 24% fat then I will re-evaluate my goal and set it lower, but that decision can’t be made until I hit that point. I can’t wait to have that discussion with myself ;)

Hot Summer Meltdown

Thanks for everyone’s comments yesterday. Just to clarify I really didn’t think I would be blacklisted. I was just really surprised at the number of people against dieting, counting and measuring there were out there. I felt like the only person with my view for a little while. That combined with the complete lack of comments on my Friday post was just funny.

As many of you know today marks the start of the Hot Summer Meltdown Challenge. When I weighed myself this morning I almost fell over. It showed 206.2.  I am UP 2.2 pounds – overnight! I know for a fact that it isn’t true weight gain. I mean I upped my calories yesterday, but I doubt I hit 1700 let alone 7000. There is just no way it is real. NO WAY!!!

I blamed my lack of losing this week on the weight training I started on Thursday, but I don’t think I can blame my gain today on that. Not three days later. I did Zumba yesterday, but it was the second time and last time I didn’t gain so I don’t think it is that. What I am guessing is that it is a combination of all the exercise plus the fact that I upped my water intake yesterday (I had been slacking on this all week). Hopefully, I will wake up tomorrow and some of it will be gone, but with my weight training today I don’t know if that will happen.

I feel a little guilty even sending the weight into the challenge, but I guess if my weight was up on the last day I would feel like I was cheating if I sent another weight so I will just leave it the way it is. However, I am NOT counting this gain as my official weight. Normally, I take the best weight of the weekend to count as my weekly weight just because of this reason. So that makes this week loss a whole .5 pounds. Not my best week, but not my worst (I had a .2 pound loss in Jan).

Diet - It Doesn't Have to Be a Four Letter Word

Either my post yesterday was extremely boring or my comment on Sandy Lee’s post got me blacklisted. I am going to convince myself that the reason I didn’t get a single comment was because you were all out partying last night and based on Gilly’s post that could be a good guess :)

Just to get myself in deeper water I wanted to expand a little on my comment yesterday on Sandy Lee’s post. She posted about the diets, measuring food, and the other things that our skinny nutritionists tend to tell us. I know many of you out there are struggling through bandster hell and hate the advice we get sometimes, but I took a slightly different approach. Since my comment was already really long I thought I would elaborate a little here.

First, I wanted to talk a little about that dreaded word “DIET”. When I hear this word I don’t think of it as one of those bad four letter words because I guess I think of the word diet in a more general way – as in the food you eat everyday. For example, a monkey eats a diet of bananas. It isn’t just about losing weight. Webster defines Diet in a couple of ways: a : food and drink regularly provided or consumed b : habitual nourishment c : the kind and amount of food prescribed for a person or animal for a special reason d : a regimen of eating and drinking sparingly so as to reduce one's weight.

So when my nut asks me how I am doing on my diet it means the same to me as when the NP or Dr ask me what I have been eating lately. And truly that is how she means it. She wants this to be a lifestyle change not a form of deprivation. But honestly even the last definition is true for all of us. We are all eating in a certain way to reduce our weight so technically we are all on a form of diet whether we want to say it or not. Granted we want to use our band to help do that reduction, but our eating HAS to change in either volume or type of foods for us to lose weight. We couldn’t continue to do things the same way as we did before and expect different results.

Of course I am not saying that there aren’t bad connotations to the word diet. (I completely understand why you want to avoid using the word). Fad diets and yo-yo diets are two and most of us have tried and failed on them. Personally any type of diet that focuses on just one thing (low carb diet, grapefruit diet, slim fast diet, etc…) is bad in my eyes. I want NOTHING to do with them ever again.

That being said I think doing some “diety” things can help us with the band. Calorie counting, measuring our foods, and eating diet foods are all tools that we can use. For ME (and I am not saying anyone else should feel this way) I feel that to not use these tools in conjunction with my band would be doing myself a disservice.

That does not mean I use them every day – not even close. However, each of these tools has been helpful at one or more points in my journey. Diet food, for example, was my saving grace during bandster hell. Chocolate rice cakes with a smear of natural peanut butter helped fill me up without messing up calories for the whole day. I munched on bags of raw veggies (in 1 cup servings) to get that full feeling. Heck I still drink crystal light like it will be gone tomorrow.

As for calorie counting and measuring, I used that religiously during the first 6 weeks or so after surgery and I learned a lot. I re-learned what a portion size really looked like (who guessed a serving of nuts was sooo small). I re-learned how all the little things add up calorie wise (yes I knew that, but it is different when you have to be accountable). I learned that some things just weren’t worth keeping in my diet and some things were. I am not sure if I would have learned the same things if I hadn’t been so strict.

After 6 months of having no restriction using these tools has been essential to my success. I no longer use them every day and I don’t do them strictly as I did before because yes it can become depressing. However, even the informal use of them helps. For example, when I think I am having issues now I just keep a rolling log of items on my fridge. More often than not I find that my gut was right and I can see where I need to adjust. It is really easy for me to do and it doesn’t feel restrictive at all. I may still use diet foods like slim fast for breakfast because it is something that I like. It works for me.

So hopefully I won’t wake up tomorrow with no followers. I am in now way saying that this is how everyone should view their journey, but I guess I will leave you guys with a couple of thoughts. First, the word diet doesn’t have to be a dirty word if it is used the right way. Second, there our tools out there that can help with our journey and although using them everyday may not be acceptable there are times when they can help. Like the band, they may not be for everyone, but they might help if used right.

A Day in My Pouch

I didn’t plan this in advance, but yesterday I took pictures as the day went on. I didn’t add everything up until today and didn’t really pay a lot of attention to what I ate (nor more or less than normal). I was kind of surprised by the numbers. I ended up with just under 1000 calories with 25g of fat, 71g of protein, and 110g of carbs – which is low for me.


Breakfast – High Protein Slim Fast with extra milk. It had 250 calories, 3.5g fat, 19g protein, and 31g carbs. Normally I use a shaker cup to avoid the clumping you see, but they all need to be washed.

Lunch - Baked Zuchini Chips and Crab salad with Peas (included a horseradish dipping sauce not shown). Lunch had 325 calories, 5g fat, 24g protein, and 38g carbs.

Afternoon snack (pre-workout). It had 185 calories, 6.5 fat, 27 carbs, and 8.5 protein.

Protein Drink for post work out. It had 50 calories, 10 g protein, 2 carbs, and .5 fat

Dinner – Hot Italian Turkey Sausage, Baked Polenta Chips, and Wilted Spinach. It had 225 calories, 10g fat, 19 g protein, and 14g of carbs.

This is both a typical day and non-typical day - if that makes sense. Typically I try to eat 1400 calories with at least 90-95g of protein and 150-160g of carbs and I had I been paying attention I would have added in at least 1 more snack yesterday. However, I often have days like this. Usually it is b/c I am in a rush and just deal with the hunger, but yesterday it was more about the fact that wasn't hungry and lost track of time. The not being hungry part is great!!! BUT and this is a big BUT, I normally stop losing weight if I go under 1050-1150. I am not sure if after losing the last few pounds that will still be true, but I haven’t lost any weight in the last 4 days. Looking back I think my calories have been lower than normal all week.

My NP pointed out to me one time that my “bad” days aren’t days where I splurge on “something", but when I don’t get enough calories.  That is different than most people, but still not good. I know she is right since I have only “splurged” twice in the last 6.5 months - both times on THREE fatty carby rolls (Bread with warm cinnamon butter… yummmm…I am starting to get hungry now!) What I don’t understand is why my “bad” days are normal days for their other patients. They want most patients to get 800-1200 calories, but after a couple days of doing that I crash and burn. I can’t be the only person exercising for goodness sake.

Just to be clear even though I don't "splurge", I don’t eat like an angel by any means. I eat fast food, ice cream, and other “bad” foods. However, anything from fast food or is a white carb is carefully added into my day. I am also very careful on where I get it and how much I get. For example, if I want a cookie I get ONE from Micky D’s instead of buying them at the store and bringing them home. If I want ice cream I pick up one single serving pre-packaged thing from the store (that has a reasonable calorie count). It helps so much more than even buying a box of low fat snacks. Because with me I will have just one, but one every day until they are gone!

Zumba!

As you have heard me say in the last few blogs I have noticed my calorie burn getting a lot harder now that I am close to Onederland. I find it really hard to burn 2400 calories on an average day (which now includes exercise) on a day when I don’t exercise it is really low. Of course carrying 70 pounds less makes a huge difference, but with my BodyMedia Fit thingy I can see even when 5 pounds has made a huge change. It has honestly prevented me from any true plateaus b/c I can see them coming and make adjustments.

However, since it is getting harder and harder to up my exercise routine without getting burnt out (which I just did) I decided to bite the bullet and join a gym. Yesterday, after many many talks to myself (remember I am allergic to new things) I went over to the Bally’s about 15-20 minutes away and signed up. I have been looking at gyms for awhile and was thinking about just joining the university gym in the fall (when most exercise classes start), but I noticed that there was a Bally’s by the hotel that I always stay at and since they offer a nationwide membership I figured I would try it.

I got to admit the gym experience is just ok. The place is very clean, but old and smells like an old gym locker room. But heck don’t they all? After signing up I decided to try the Zumba class they offered. Everyone else seems to love it so I figured what the heck. Now I won’t say I love it. I actually suck at it, but I burned a lot of calories and made it through without dying so I consider it a success. I would do it again that is for sure. I wasn’t the heaviest person in the class (which always surprises me anymore), but I did feel like it. I picked a spot at the back of the class right behind the instructor so 1) she couldn’t see me and 2) I could focus on her feet!!. I didn’t realize at first that I was right in front of the door until later. At one point I looked over to see a couple guys staring in and the thought in my mind was that they were taking bets on when the girl with the red face would collapse (me if you didn’t guess). It really bothered me for a while and threw me off, but I just thought of what you guys would say to me and stopped worrying (very hard to do!).

Another thing I broke down and did was get a personal trainer. The rates were much cheaper if you bought them at the signup (almost a 1/3 of the price) so impulsive me had to go for the deal. Honestly, I have been thinking about it for a while and that was a huge reason for joining the gym, but the $$ could have probably been spent somewhere else. Tonight is my first session so if you don’t hear from me assume either I killed her or she killed me :) Got to run and get there since it will be rush hour soon. I will update you later.

Memorial Day Weekend

I hope you all had a great Memorial Day weekend! Mine was wonderful, and I was exhausted by Sunday night. Saturday I went to one of the Metroparks in the area. I just brought a book and a blanket and enjoyed everything around me. I was going to go kayaking, but something held me back. I was a little nervous about getting into a rental kayak with the puppy by myself. I did this many times last summer, but with my own kayak. The last time I was in a rental kayak I had the hardest time. The kayak was ok for my weight and big enough, but like many rentals it was narrow and was very awkward moving around (the reason I bought my own kayak).

I had a great time anyways, but when I got home I regretted not getting a kayak. I am honestly not sure if it was my weight that bothered me or the fact that I had never done this before - renting a kayak by myself. I am allergic to doing new things :) So remembering my post the other day about not being held back anymore I went back to the park on Sunday and spent two great hours on the lake. It was wonderful!! So wonderful I went back on Monday and spent another couple hours on the water.

The only bad thing this weekend is I didn’t get any walking/running in. I am actually really slacking on that side. For some reason I just don’t feel like exercising. I think I am a little burnt out, but considering that the training for the half marathon starts next week I really need to get moving!! I think the first thing we have to do is run a mile so they can evaulate us and put us in the correct class.  I don't expect to do great since I am a beginner, but I want to do my best. 

Here is a picture of my Memorial Day dinner. The steak was so good. I am not really sure what kind it is, but they come in a pack of two and have tons of marbling (yes a little fatty, but really really tender). Each steak is about 5 ounces before being cooked and 3 ounces after. All together the meal was a little high in calories (somewhere around 400/450), but I expect a lot of the fat cooked off.  I just can't measure it so I estimate high. The best part is that it all went down great, but I was easily full when I should be. I probably could be a little tighter, but restriction is so great!!!!

I also love these plates. They are actually baby plates (and have lids), but they work perfect. I normally put my protein in the large slot, a veggie or fruit in one of the small slots, and a carb/grain in the last slot. Since corn is both a grain and a veggie I used it for both this day. I spit the corn just so I would eat it slower, and I found that if I cut up my protein ahead of time I am much more likely to eat smaller bites.

On the scale side I did hit my memorial day goal – actually exceeded it! Since then my weight has bounced around from 204 to 206, but that is typical for me after a big loss. I am hoping to get down to 203 by Sunday, but it could easily be 207. A little annoying, but I know that after I go up I will normally have a big drop a week or two later.

I am so close to Onederland I can taste it! I have a bridal shower to go to in 3.5 weeks (if I ever get the invite) and I am setting a goal to be there by then. I would prefer 195, but that might be a stretch. This will be the first time this side of the family has seen me since January. I was down 32 pounds at that time and I want to be down 75-80 pounds down this time. Not that they will say anything, but I will know.