This morning's weight: 171.8 (or 171.2 -  now I can't recall)

I am going very strong so far! No lapses, no issues.   In fact, I am not eating enough.  First I had to add 100 calories to my 900 allotment because I wasn't getting enough protein so decided to add an egg.  Over the weekend, I had a "hard" time hitting 800 so I discovered I could make a cookie-like dessert and get the protein and some calories while having dessert! So I took the egg back out of my weekday allotment and will do the cookies instead (6 TBS eggwhites, 200 grams of squash, 2 tsp Konjac powder, plus flavorings and stevia.  375 oven for 25 minutes on parchment paper)

The downside, my menstrual cycle is all effed in the a again, and I can only point to low calories.  Oh and I am already back to a constant state of cold, unless I am drinking something hot or in the hot shower.  Not having your body regulate it's temperature is awful.

This is just a short and sweet check in :)

Until next time!

This morning's weight: 174.6

Wow. A year to the day since my last entry and my big plans for maintenance.  I did not plan the timing of this, I swear.

I took a break from rigid dieting last year.  I somehow managed to struggle the whole year, but it was still a break.  I am still 100% sugar free.  I still steer away from white flour products.  I sort of avoid eating anything but clean,  but therein lies the trouble.

I found myself taking "little tastes" of things my husband had in the house: crackers, cheese, pepperoni, the homemade pizza dough I make for him every couple of weeks.  Those little tastes did me no good, I can assure you.  I also went way crazy with fruit, especially raisins (taken by the mouthful, or along with spoonfuls of natural peanut butter)  and bowls of frozen mixed fruit covered in chocolate baking powder and stevia. 

I think that most people without food issues would look at my idea of treats and say "uh yeah that is all healthy stuff...".  Yes it is, for most people.  But I have to face the facts.  I have food issues so I overeat.  And I have severe metabolic issues, so 1600 calories a day makes me gain weight (yes I am on meds, but it doesn't change my calorie reality).

The end result is that I gained 31 pounds over the course of 2012 when I was supposed to be maintaining.

I can chalk it up to a learning experience I think (hell, something good has to come out of it, right?).  Things I learned:

• My brain has a mind of it's own if I am not being strict
• I experience what I can only refer to as a fugue state where I don't have control over what I am putting in my mouth
• Counting calories is a pain in the ass, but the only way I have of corralling myself
• If I am not thinking about food most of the time (what I am going to eat, what I can't eat, the reasons for eating, the reasons for not eating) then I am unconsciously snacking
• 1400 calories or thereabouts is my maintenance level of calories (how freaking sad is that)
• I can't talk myself into being good one day here or there, or letting myself have treat days here or there : I am an all or nothing girl
• dieting is tiring, but if I want to stay healthy, I need to keep at it
• trying to talk myself in to being good doesn't work right away; something needs to click for me to be able to move forward. I don't know what that thing is.  It just happens.

 After months of me nightly berating myself and telling myself that "today was the last day I am overeating and I am going back to my strict way of dieting" it finally clicked last week and I am back to being strict again.  In fact, at least for now, I am stricter than I ever was in the past.  

I got on the scale last week and it was flickering between 181 and 178 (maybe my scale needs new batteries...).  I have put myself on a 900* calorie allowance until my stomach shrinks and my body finishes detoxing all the crap it has accumulated.  I have had a mild headache for 5 straight days now, but I have confidence it will pass.  I am already down to 174.6, most of which I know is a combo of water weight and my cycle coming to an end.  But there is a confidence boost and positive feedback I crave to keep going another day.

Right now, all I really want is to feel good again.  I am feeling puffy for lack of a better word.  My fingers feel pudgy.  I am having a harder time crossing my legs.  My favorite pants are hugging my thighs to the point I don't want to wear them as I feel they may tear.  My wedding ring is tight enough that it is sweating under the band and causing a skin reaction.  I am snoring more.  I am sleeping on my arms again and they are falling asleep / pins and needles pain up to the elbow and keeping me up all night. So in the immediate, my goals for re-losing are to feel better.

Once I am back to not feeling rolly-polly, I need to figure out some goals other than to "look good" at the wedding I am in come October.  Which,of course, I do want to look good.  Oh and I want to run again.  That has fallen to the way side a bit, and now it is too cold and too dark to start training up.  I'd like to start mountain biking this spring/summer.  It will be better on my old lady knees.

I have always thrived on goals during this process, so I definitely need to work on some of those.

I'll have to go through and update some of the pages on this blog.  I know I have a couple of people who poke their heads in, but mostly this is my personal log of this journey I am on.  I need to update my goals and want to add a page of meal plans that I can refer to when I forget what a 900 calorie day looks like.

Anyway, until next time (and hopefully that will be way sooner than January 3 of 2014!)...

*How did I come up with 900?  If 1400 is my maintenance, and I want to lose a pound a week, I need a 500 a day deficit. 500 x 7 = 3500 calories = 1 pound.  Of course, with severe hypothyroidism, 3500 calories for me is probably only half a pound or whatever, but since I don't have a scientific lab set up in my garage for testing my exact numbers, I just have to go with the generally accepted knowledge.

Another New Year, and my 2 year Anniversary of Healthy Living

A friend of mine asked me for info about my weight loss. I don't really tend to talk about it much since I am convinced most people would find it boring.  But that conversation inspired me to update my "goals" and my "weights and measures" pages (see links, above). And to make an actual post.

I was doing well on foods until the 11-day staycation hit this last week.  I was at 2k calories a day, pretty much  every day, the whole time.  I am too scared to get on the scale. But it's all good. I'll get on on Sunday and see what is what.  That will give me a week to be on track so I won't feel so bad when I see I am up a pound or two - I'll know that I am in the process of being sorted.  Oh the mind fuckery I do to myself...

I never make New Years Resolutions. I think they are stupid and a really good way to set yourself up for failure.  Instead, I took some time this morning to reevaluate where I am and where I want to be.  As it turns out, I really just want to maintain.  Maintenance so far has proven hard.  Yes, I lost like 2 pounds in the last 3 months, but I am considering that maintenance since I have not been exercising due to knee and being too damn cold all the time to go outside.  And my calories have been more lax than I strictly should be if I was trying to aggressively lose weight.  At least I know my maintenance range is 16-1800 a day.

Now, all that said, I did set some weight loss goals for myself and I WOULD like to meet them.  Let's just say, my minimal goal is to maintain, my ultimate goal is to lose a bit more (12-17 pounds) over the course of 2012.  With all that said. I figure a 1.4 pound loss a month will get me to my low low low goal by years end and I think a healthy thing to shoot for.  I won't be overdoing it, I can relax a little, but still have my control points (calorie and food restrictions) to keep me in line.

1.4 pounds = 4900 calorie deficit over the course of the month
=1225 deficit each week
=164 deficit a day
Which puts my daily intake at 1436 max a day.  I can do that.

My trouble is later at night.  I want dessert SO BAD.  Sure my desert is frozen fruit with various nut and nut butter toppings, but I desire it like crazy.  My brain just goes into stupid FEED ME MODE as soon as I eat dinner.  I am not sure what is up with that.  I am sure I don't like it.  I have very little control over it.  It is the strangest thing.  I can talk to myself (and I do) say things like "this puts you over calories you know" and then I answer myself "fuck it".  I hope resetting my goals and doing this eval this morning puts my head back in order.

I am also starting my walks up again today.  I am starting back into my exercise regime slow and steady, just like I started it a year ago.  I am not going to get back into running until after my knee gets looked at (getting my regular doc to look at it on Thursday next week, then hopefully onto a specialist ASAP). So at least the doggies are in for a treat.  I miss my time hanging with them too, anyway.  I just wish it didn't get dark so fast, and that I had more hills to climb near my new house.

On a final note, tomorrow is the 2-year anniversary of my living healthfully.  I feel freaking fantastic.  I love love love clothes shopping now and I get the cutest stuff off the rack at little boutiques (my husband, however, is NOT thrilled with this turn of events. HA!)  I love sitting in curious positions with my legs pulled up.  I love how clear my skin is and how soft my hair is (even though it is thinning).  I love that I can walk for miles and not mind it. I love that I am lost in airplane seats now with multiple inches to either side of my hips.  I love what I eat and how I have learned to cook magnificently and healthfully.  I love that I can walk between closely parked cars in the parking lot, closely sat tables in busy restaurants, and down crowded aisles between carts at the grocery store.

I do NOT love the feel of my bones poking into the back of my chair from my spine, or the bruises on my elbows from lack of padding when I lean, or the look of my bony chest and droopy-boobs, or the discomfort of my knees knocking together when I lay on my side, or the look of my veins being 3D in various places due to lack of padding.  What wonderful problems to have =)   Except being COLD TO THE BONE ALL THE TIME uuuuhhhggggg   That sucks in a way I can't quite describe.

Until next time...

Even the Mighty Shall Fall

That is a bit of an overstatement, but the guilt makes me feel this way! (So say we all!)  Guilt is bad! Bad, bad bad!  But I have a Jewish mother so it is not to be helped.

This post is coming from a headspace where I have been thinking of myself as this unstoppable health machine.  I didn't "get" how people could fail so hard, so fast (I read lots of weight loss stories on 3fc).  It has never occurred to me that I would have a set back, or struggle with moving forward and maintaining my journey.  Or even come to a place where I would feel any amount of guilt for any reason because I am awesome (and totally not at all full of myself LOL)

Anyway...

I gave myself permission to eat what I wanted over the Thanksgiving holiday.  My father was in town, and is eating similar to the way I eat (he is on the Paleo diet these days). This means that I got to cook food that I eat and show off my cooking skills, which are pretty terrific if I do not say so myself.  The following were my dinner menus for the 2 nights he was in town:

Thanksgiving Dinner:

• Roasted Chicken with Onion and Fennel gravy (made from the drippings and the veggies it was cooked with; no flour or additional fats) 
• Simple Roasted Root Veggies (Rutabaga, Beets, and Sweet Potato)
• Mashed Cauliflower with Roasted Garlic
• Pan Seared Brussels Sprouts with Bacon
• Apple-Spice Cranberry Sauce
• Mandarin-Pomegranate Cranberry Sauce
• Punkin Pice Cream (my personal recipe, made with Butternut Squash this time)

Friday Dinner:

• Bouillabaisse (with clams, mussels, cod, squid, and shrimp we picked up fresh from the Half Moon Bay Fish Market)
• Roasted Turnip Rounds
• Black-Bean Brownies with Cocoa Nibs

For the whole weekend I did not count calories, and I did not tell myself "no" even when what I wanted was a big ol' spoonful of coconut butter.  My portions during meals were normal for me, but I snacked long and hard.  I even had some butter on my popcorn!  And slices of sheep's milk Parmesan from the farmers market!

So, while I did not break down entirely and eat off my personal list of allowable (ie, no sugar, no bread, no alcohol, nothing terrible for me... except those couple of bites of crispy chicken skin which I normally would stay WELL away from)  I am quite positive that I went over my calorie allottment.  Probably 5-fold.  I honestly don't even really want to know how far I set myself back just from this one weekend of gluttony.  I never ate 'til I felt sick, which is a personal triumph (I think I have only done that 2-3 times since starting my journey).  But, I also ate when not hungry.  It was like this little devil on my tongue and in my brain that was saying eat! eat!eat!

So now I am in damage-control mode.  Since September, I have been in maintenance calorie range (for me, that is 1800 calories when I am not exercising).  I have no idea how many calories I need to make up for from this weekend, but my plan is to stay in the 1200-1300 range until my weight drops 1 pound from where I started, and maintain that pound loss for a week, before I go back into the 1800 maintenance mode.  In this way, I know I will have "fixed" what I did this weekend. I predict that I can drop that pound in 2-3 weeks and then another week to see if it "takes".

That, in a nutshell, is my next mini-goal.  Stay on this track for 1 month.  1200 is loooow and hard for me.  I have been having dizzy / tired / sicky spells almost every day if I do not get the appropriate amount of protein in me.  Balancing the need to eat protein every couple of hours against staying this low is a challenge.  I managed it yesterday.  I can only hope for as good of results for the next month.

One weird thing that has come up in the last 48 hours for me, mentally, is that this strict control on what I am putting in my mouth makes me feel better.  In maintenance mode, I have felt like little nibbles were OK.  Now I am not feeling that that is the case. And I just feel more in control in general.  I guess I am an all or nothing person.  I will have to think on that further...

The Final Push?

They aren't kidding about the last few pounds being the hardest.  This journey has not been truly difficult until the last few months, and even then, I know it is because I am not a patient person.  I accepted the slow down and pushed myself harder.  I've tried different calories, and have been keeping up with exercise. 

Last time I wrote, I was cutting down my calories to around 1200 - the lowest you are supposed to go.  I found I was getting very tired, and I was cold a LOT more. But, I did lose like 6 pounds that month.  Regardless of the success, I just don't have it in me to have that low of energy in my body.  So then I upped it to 14-1600, but the reality is I was doing more like 1800 because I get great satisfaction from having a dessert at night (a hot cup [or 3] of almond milk with Torani's sugar free flavored syrup, or a bowl of my NiceCream - frozen fruit blended with Stevia and almond milk, then topped with a tablespoon or 2 of coconut butter).  The result of that is that I have been stuck at the same weight for about a month now.  It seems that 1600-1800 is going to be my maintenance calorie number.  

Now, I know I am gaining muscle.  My arms and shoulders have definition and my thighs are pretty solid (under the remaining loose skin and fat) so there is a good chance that I am replacing some fat with muscle, but I am just not satisfied.  The intellectual in me KNOWS this is stupid. Numbers on the scale are just numbers and don't really mean much in the grand scheme of things when you are talking overall fitness.  But, I really want the satisfaction of seeing that I am in the "normal" BMI category which means I need to lose 10 pounds somehow.

I can see the excess fat anyway - so I won't be truly satisfied until the fat is gone.  If it is all replaced with muscle I would be quite happy - I would love to end up ripped :)  But, that is an aspect of my journey I am just starting to ponder and won't peruse it further until the fat is off.

I need to do a final push that I can really focus on so I am switching up my meals to have a less caloric breakfast (I got it down to 276 which includes my almond-mik in my coffee and my flax seed supplements, from 401). In this way, I think I can stick to 1400 for reals, and still have a dessert drink at night (probably not my NiceCream, but that's OK). I have to admit that I am hungry now because of this change, but it is almost lunch time.

Another thing I want to do is start running more, but the only way to do that on my schedule is to get a treadmill so I can run in the am - so this is a semi long-term goal as I need to save $$ before that can happen.  Those freaking things are EXPENSIVE but I think it will be worth it in the long run. Pun intended.

So here a very cool thing: I put on a size 4 skirt this weekend and I was able to zip it all the way up (it was tight, adn there was overhang, but that sipper was all the way up!).  CRAZY TALK.  I am in a 6 jeans now.  I hope I can get this excess flab under the loose skin off so I can actually get into a 4. 8 was my dream size, 6 was my wishful thinking size.  I never thought about 4 until now...

Doin' Great and Feelin' Fine!

It seems that the reduction of calories and increasing my activity has kick started my weight loss again.  HORAY!

Since I last posted, I have started jogging a FULL 5k (3.1+ miles) 3 times a week.  How cool is that!?  When I started, it was taking me roughly 42 minutes.  Now I am doing 38-39 minutes.  I am not pushing myself, it is jut sort of naturally speeding up on it's own, which is super cool.  I have also been good about my toning DVD and hilly walk on my non-run days.  And even about letting myself have a rest day when it is needed, usually just 1 day a week, but it is sometimes 2 days.

My hair is feeling and looking so much better.  It is not an tangled mass of thin straw anymore.  It is very silky.  I am not really seeing an increase in thickness of it yet;  if there is going to be thick increase, I won't see that for MONTHS as it starts growing back in.  But, I have noticed that my nails are growing at a phenomenal rate.  I hope that means the same is happening on my head.

It is REALLY hard for me to stick to 1200 calories a day, but I am trying hard.  I am letting myself have a bigger day on one weekend day (1500-1600) just to keep my body guessing.  I am far from perfect on this though.  My last week as been like this, calorie-wise:
Thur 1128
Fri 1181
Sat 1623
Sun 1259
Mon 1306
Tues 1364
So I have definite room for improvement since the average there is 1310.  It is just so hard since my breakfast is roughly 550 calories, I only have 700ish to spread across 2 more meals, and I usually want a snack - but I have been trying not to have one since that is always the reason my days go over 1200.  Oh well.. there is always room for improvement and this is where mine is right now.

Not much else is happening weight journey wise.  In non-related news, we are moving along with the house. Contractors have been coming out and I am expecting the bids to come pouring in soon.  We move in less than 2 months.  Exciting stuff!  This is my first home that is MINE - not rented, and not my parents.  So weird.

Until next time...

Wishy-Washy, Determined, or Re-evaluation Savvy?

I can't do it - I can't stop my weight-loss journey when I am 24 pounds from high-maintenance weight.  My friend told me I have mental issues and should seek help because I felt guilty about eating 1600-1800 calories.  I think she may be jealous (I think this is the case for other reasons than that one statement - she said a couple of nasties to me yesterday, but I am OK with it.  I know I have done something amazing here and it is bound to cause an issue with the person who was used to being the "thin" one in the relationship.)

So, knowing that I am not ready to stop regulating my calorie intake, but also have more than a little concern about my hair thinning due to mal-nutrition issues, I have done some re-working of current plans and short term goals.

I am being diligent bout taking my Healthy Skin & Hair-Nails supplements twice a day (never read that I was supposed to have it twice a day on the label before. Duh) and my multivitamin and calcium at night.  I have also added Flax Seed oil supplements to my routine (30 extra calories a day - worth it if it helps my hair).  I am committed to having salmon twice a week - which is no skin off my back. I love me some salmon.  And I am committed to protein in every meal.  I am having a harder time adding fat to every meal, but I think my flax seed supplements will take care of that need.  Also, I went out and spent a LOT (to me) of money on some special shampoo and conditioner that is made for thin hair, Nioxin.

My calorie commitment is 1200 a day.  Yup, I knocked it way the hell down.  I hope the last month of 16-1800 is going to break the plateau I was in, and now this deficit will get the ball rolling.  So far, day 1 of my new commitment (July 5) I managed 1380 - whoops.  Day 2 I did 1169 - much better!  Of course, I am going out to lunch today with a co-worker, so who knows what today will be, but I will try to keep it light (side salad and ceviche should be under 400 leaving my dinner free to be 400).

My exercise routine is going along well.  Every other day I am jogging 32:30 which is about 2.5 miles, then a 3minute break, then another 6.5 mins / .5 miles to finish up.  On off days, I have been following a Jackie somethingorother DVD with the free weights on abs and upper body for 30 minutes, then a 40 minute hill climb (an elevation change of + 400 feet in 1 mile of road)  in my neighborhood with the mutts.  That said, I am listening to my body, and if I am feeling worn down, I take a break day.  So far it has seemed like I do 3-4 workouts in a row, and then my body wants a rest day.  I am good with that.

New short term goal:  I am visiting the hubs family the first weekend of November.  It would be great to lose 4 pounds a month until then.  So my wishful goal is to be 152 by the first weekend of November.  I am still firmly in size 10, but can't wait for my jeans to start loosening up a bit so I can be in single digit clothing.  That's gonna be a weird day ;)

Until next time (and who knows what changes I will have made by then LOL)