So, here I am. Chronicling my own personal battle of the bulge. I know there is nothing unique or new about this — thousands of blogs are probably devoted to weight loss. But I’ve gotta do it for myself and I’ve gotta do it my way! In future posts, while I keep up with what I’m doing, I hope to talk a bit more about what’s gotten me to the point I’m at now, but for now, let’s set the scene.
• Current status:
I’m a 26-year-old female. I’m 5-feet 2-inches tall. And I weigh an unacceptable 178ish. I’m at a size 16 pants right now. I want to be a size 6 or about 125 pounds. I hope I can do it in less than a year — I think I can if I stay motivated and consistent.
• Exercise:
Right now, I work full time as a newspaper reporter. What that means is I work a lot of (unpaid) overtime so I’m working all day. I usually wake up at about 10 a.m., head off to work by 1 p.m. and come home around 11 p.m. That means finding time to workout is one of my challenges in weight loss. I keep saying I’ll start waking up early and exercising in the mornings, but it never happens. (It’s after midnight right now and I still have to do some laundry.)
I’ve come to realize a big part of my weight loss is managing more than just food. I need to manage my time so I get enough sleep (FACT: research shows sleep deprivation makes you overeat… it also makes me too tired to exercise) and to have enough time to prepare and pack food (so I don’t use any drive-thrus). The next thing would be managing time to workout on work days.
I’m left working out maybe once a week because I get two days off and usually spend one of those days doing errands and chores. When I do workoutm I go on the treadmill for 45 minutes and go about 3 miles. I mix walking and jogging. I need to get conditioned and get some more endurance. (I can’t wait to not get winded going up the tall stairs at my office.)
I hope to join a gym someday soon, if I ever do find a way to workout on work days.
• Eating:
My eating habits are much easier to change that my exercise habits. I haven’t eaten takeout in over two weeks. I used to constantly stop at Tim Hortons or McDonalds or Burger King Or Dunkin Donuts inbetween events I had to go cover. I was never bringing adequate meals to work and ended up getting drive-thru crap daily. Many times twice a day. I’ve stopped that and I already feel better.
I did one week of just making sure I didn’t eat any takeout. Now I want to track everything and know what I’m eating and how bad/good it is. Along with this journal, I’ll be using FitDay.com to keep strict daily calorie counts. I used it once before a few years ago (when I got pretty darn fit) so I have all my custom foods saved there.
Here’s what today’s diet looks like (not necessarily in order):
Foods
Cals Fat Carb Prot Kashi Oat flakes & wild blueberry cluster ( 0.6 cup ) 120 2 25 4 Tops Fat-Free Milk, vitamin A & D ( 0.6 cup ) 54 0 8 5 Tops Bran Flakes – whole wheat & bran ( 0.6 cup ) 72 0 18 2 Lean Pockets pepperoni pizza (1 pocket) ( 2 serving ) 560 14 78 26 Campbell’s select Italian Wedding (healthy request) ( 1 cup ) 120 3 15 7 Almonds, unroasted ( 20 almond ) 139 12 5 5 Lean Cuisine chicken marsala ( 1 serving ) 140 4 12 14 Kashi TLC bar honey almond flax ( 1 serving ) 140 5 19 7 Wegman’s sushi – California (1 roll) ( 4 serving ) 160 4 28 4 Hot cayenne pepper sauce ( 4 teaspoon ) 2 0 0 0 Total 1507 44 208 74
I wish you could input times in FitDay, but you can’t. I have to keep track of that on my own.
FACT: Every time you eat, your metabolism goes up. If you eat 6 small meals, you’re giving your metabolism 6 boosts that day. If you eat three large meals, you’re only giving your body three. That metabolism boost will probably start to go back down by the time a large meal is done digesting, where as a small meal can be covered by the full benefit of that boost. Plus, if you let your body decide it is hungry and needs to be fed, you’ll likely overeat at your next meal. And when your body thinks it’s starving, it goes into starvation mode where it looks for sources of protein (i.e. your muscles) and holds on desperately to fat. Don’t let yourself ever feeling like you’re starving.
