Week 7 Weigh In

302!  I'll take it, gladly even.  But I am still going to cross my fingers to get into the 200's next week.

On the diet coke front, so far so good.  Haven't drank any and also haven't gotten a headache.  I'm quite pleased.

Week 7 : 23 lbs down, 157 lbs to go
Current Weight : 302 lbs
Start Weight : 327 lbs
Goal Weight : 145 lbs

Diet Coke, The Final Frontier!

Tomorrow is weigh in day, Yay!  I really am very excited, I know there's going to be a loss, I just know it.

The Meloxicam I was taking for my shoulder ended up giving me a migraine and turned me into an insomniac. I've quit taking it and am going to get a cortisone shot on the 3rd.  I need to sleep and for the first time this week I am legitimately tired.  I've been getting 3-5 hours of dozing for the last few days.  I pray tonight will be at least 8 of uninterrupted sleep.

My brother is coming down from Canada and will be staying for only 2 days but I'm planning on showing him around, maybe take him geocaching or hiking in the mountains.

Today was the county fair, we had a blast it was hot and I was basically on my feet for 4 hours.  When I wasn't walking I would carry the baby and sway side to side, or lift her. I can't wait to tell her that when she was a baby mommy used her as a piece of exercise equipment.

I don't feel too bad about the food.  I ate half a small hamburger and a few fries as well as a ball of cotton candy and the whipped cream and strawberries off of a piece of strawberry short cake.  I drank a ton of water.  I love those trailer coolers of water that you see at events these days it's so much nicer than having to buy a bottle.  I refilled my 24 oz water bottle about 4 times, but I was also sharing.

My oldest always ends up throwing up or getting a headache and being ill when we go to events or do "fun" things.  So today I stayed on her and made her drink 4 oz of water every hour and didn't let her have any soda or fried sweets.  Sorry funnel cake man, it was great while it lasted! Low and behold she made it through the day with her lunch in her stomach and a smile on her face, even considering all the rides she went on.

I stuck to my goals this week, except for one.... I continued to drink at least 10 cans of diet coke a day.  So this evening I drank my official last Diet Coke ever.  The fridge has no Diet Coke in it, I will not be going and buying any either.  I have caffeine pills for alertness that I bought on a road trip a few years ago and I will take one if I find myself getting a caffeine headache, which is likely.  I will officially be viceless, wish me luck!!

Week 6 : 21 lbs down, 159 lbs to go
Current Weight : 304 lbs
Start Weight : 325 lbs
Goal Weight : 145 lbs

Procrastinating and Ice Cream

It's 11:30 at night and aside from many hours spent back to school shopping at Walmart, I have not exercised yet... and I'm sitting here blogging instead of doing it now...

I had a nap this afternoon so I'm probably going to be up for a few hours yet.  Here's the plan 10 minutes of ab's and then 50 minutes of cardio...  starting as soon as I'm done here.

On the way home from shopping I stopped at McDonalds -- yes I know very, very evil.  I got a dipped cone not knowing for sure how many calories there was going to be.  When she handed it to me I knew I was in trouble. The thing was huge!! It was at least 6 inches tall and 3-4 inches wide but the chocolate was oh so yummy.  So I got about halfway through the chocolate/ice cream and decided to throw the rest away because I'm doing everything in my power to have a totally awesome weigh in this week.  When I looked it up just now I found that the entire concoction is supposedly 270 calories.... ummmm... right and I'm a monkey's uncle.  

In comparing my ice cream cone to the stock image on the website I'm going to say I was served 2-3 times as much as was intended by the calorie information.  Not that I'm complaining, there was a time when that would have made my day.  If at some point in the future I decide to get another one I will definitely make it clear that I want a small portion because wasting really bothers me, throwing it out was hard.

Okay no more procrastinating.  T - 3 days to weigh in, can't wait!

Edit : 51 Minutes, 854 calories burned! Max HR 184, averaged 154.

Week 6 : 21 lbs down, 159 lbs to go
Current Weight : 304 lbs
Start Weight : 327 lbs
Goal Weight : 145 lbs

Metabolism Killer

I've been doing some reading about smoking and metabolism.  Two weeks ago I quit smoking, since then my weight loss has been negligible and frankly it's way too early in this process for me to be having plateau issues.  So I started looking at other culprits and it turns out that smokers actually burn 100-200 extra calories a day over non-smokers, which is roughly a 15% metabolism boost.  It has to do with the way a cigarette causes your veins to constrict driving up your blood pressure, making your heart work harder and thereby increasing metabolic rate.  This is also why contrary to what I thought heart disease is the number one leading cause of smoking related death, not cancer.

So knowing this the question is : Am I going to go out and buy a pack so I can re-boost my metabolism? No, I'm not.  I'm going to keep plugging away. Although if I'm being completely honest had I known this beforehand I might have waited to quit smoking until I had lost a bit more weight.  On the other hand I'm doing things right now that were difficult for me when I was 220 lbs and exercising daily.  Doing Just Dance 4 this morning my HR was between 160 and 175 the whole time and I still have enough air left to sing along, which I know I would not be capable of, had I not quit smoking.  It kind of surprised me when it popped that I had a unlocked an achievement for singing, I didn't realize the Kinect was listening... spooky!

I have kept my promise to myself and not weighed although I really, really want to because I have a sneaking suspicion there's going to be good news.  But I will wait!

Week 6 : 21 lbs down, 159 lbs to go
Current Weight : 304 lbs
Start Weight : 327 lbs
Goal Weight : 145 lbs

Week 6 Weigh In

So I held steady this week.  I'm 303.6 which is barely a loss over last week. .4 lbs to be exact.  Is this a plateau?  Am I eating too many pickles?  Gaining muscle (this is unlikely)? I must be hoarding fat...

Week 6 Goals

1) Not going to weigh myself - I think weighing every morning and not seeing the losses messed with my head last week.  So for Week 6 I will not be weighing again until Saturday the 31st.

2) Stay under 1200 calories.  Not a teensy bit over.

3) Bump up my cardio from 1 to 1.5 hrs a day.

That's all I've got for now.  I can't think of anything I could have changed this week, perhaps it's a plateau. I wish that if I had to plateau I could have done it at 299 or 298, I'd really like to see that 2 preceding the rest of the numbers on the scale.  I know it's only 4 lbs, but psychologically, being in the 200's is going to give me a huge boost to both my self esteem and my motivation.

5 or so years ago I hit 286 lbs on the scale and managed to get myself together and drop down into the 220's for awhile.  So I know for a fact I CAN do this as I have done it before.

Week 6 : 21 lbs down, 159 lbs to go
Current Weight : 304 lbs
Start Weight : 327 lbs
Goal Weight : 145 lbs

Week 5 Reboot

I have regained 2.8 lbs over the last 5 days. I'm not sure why exactly, but I have some ideas :

1) Not as much cardio since my shoulder got hurt.  It turns out that it's tendonitis and I'm taking some anti-inflammatories and am scheduled for a cortisone injection on the 26th.  So nothing super serious. I quit doing Just Dance, so I've only been getting about 40 minutes of cardio from my 5k training.  So I'm going to double up on the walking/running and add some cycling even though my bike makes me nervous.

2) I have been eating a bit more than normal. Instead of stopping when I get to feeling "satiated" and putting the rest in the fridge (like I was getting really good at doing) I've been polishing off what's left on the bowl or plate.  So my calories are up by about 10%.

3) I drink a lot of Diet Coke, 6-8 cans a day.  I've heard all different reports of how this can affect weight loss.  I know it has caffeine which causes water retentions as well as artificial sweeteners which some say also cause water retention.  And then there are some that just straight say diet coke causes actual weight gain.  I don't know what's true and what's not true but I do know I can't go cold turkey without getting killer caffeine headaches.  So here's the plan I'm going to cutback to 3 a day.  One in the morning, one in the afternoon and one in the early evening. 

So those are my three reasonable explanations. I'm going to reboot this week and hopefully there's enough time left before Saturday to still see a loss this week.  Cross your fingers!!

Week 5 : 21 lbs down, 159 lbs to go
Current Weight : 304 lbs
Start Weight : 327 lbs
Goal Weight : 145 lbs

Geocaching, Screams and Bee's... Oh My!

Well it was quite an exciting turn of events this evening.  Me, my friend, her 7 year old son and my two daughters went geocaching this evening.  We went to a campground nestled on the side of the mountain. There was 4 caches nearby and we found the first one no problem.  The next one was a bit more tricky we had to cross over a small stream and do some bushwhacking, but it was gorgeous and we were having a ton of fun. I had a backpack and the camera and my roommate had my 10 month old in a baby backpack.

We were trekking along when my friend's son says in a quiet voice, "I got stung," and sure enough he had.  I've never seen someone (let alone a kid) react so nonchalantly to getting stung. We were about a 1/4 mile into the bush at this point and not at good point to recross the stream.

I saw them flying around us and figured we'd better get a move on so we walked a bit farther and came to a dead end.  Just as I realized we weren't going to get through any farther my friend yells, "Ouch!" now she was stung.  I used the end of the camera to smack the yellow jacket off her back and we decided we needed to cross the stream and get the heck out of there before the baby gets stung.  So we start to head across the stream when I feel that sharp pain in my left shoulder and I'm not going to lie, I didn't say ouch, but I did do some yelling.  In my excitement I dropped my phone (which I was holding in my hand since it had the geocaching map on it) in the stream, only the end of it landed in the water but it immediately started acting funky and shut off.

We all made it safely across the stream and thank God baby didn't get stung.  My 8 year old was really jumpy however, she figured it was only a matter of time before it was her turn to be on the bad of end of a stinger.  With my phone no longer functioning we decided to head back to the truck.  I was wearing my heart rate monitor at the time and the funny thing is of the whole time we were out there the highest it got was 173 which I noticed happened immediately after I got stung, the rest of the time I was 110-140.

Now safe and sound at home, my phone is taking a rice bath and we're all laughing that the toughest one in the bunch is a 7 year old.  All in all it was good times, but we won't be going back for those caches until bee season is OVER!

Week 5 : 21 lbs down, 159 lbs to go
Current Weight : 304 lbs
Start Weight : 327 lbs
Goal Weight : 145 lbs