Short and Sweet

Is what this post is going to be like.

I just wanted to write a quick post about how I was hanging out with my friend and former roommate yesterday and just as she was about to leave she says "By the way, have you lost weight?"

I said "Yes, actually."

She says "I thought so, your stomach looks flatter. Whatever you are doing, keep it up!"

*grins* I love it when people tell me I look like I have lost weight. I mean, I know I have - and my pants fit differently to prove it - but sometimes I just think I  was so fat that I will have to lose 100 pounds before I start to look different. It is an extra little boost of positive reinforcement. Yay.

The End of The Biggest Loser ... A Bit Late

So I meant to post this last weekend (or at least at the beginning of this week) but that didn't happen because I suck. Haha. Actually I think it is more because I have been busy doing all sorts of crafty things, but that is neither here nor there.

Anyway, Biggest Loser is officially over. I didn't win, but I still think I did dang awesome and I am going to reward myself with chocolate. Oh wait. Okay, a small piece of chocolate. :)

My total weight loss was 8.8% in 6 weeks. I would tell you in pounds because I feel like that is a bit more impressive, but if I do that then you will know how much I weighed in the first place, and how much I know now, and I am not ready for that. Once I am even smaller I will give you a total poundage. Just know that I am a big girl and so 8.8% is significant ;)

Exercise - For the last 2 weeks I haven't done any exercising. I keep MEANING to go running but I really like to hang out with friends in the evening and work on crafts and just not freeze in general. It was quite rainy for a while and I wasn't sure I wanted to go running in the rain - although my roommate says she loves it, because then she doesn't over heat and she doesn't feel like she is sweating because all dampness can be blamed on external factors. I guess I just need to get over it. I live in Oregon, if I don't run in the rain then I can't really be a runner. I will work on it.

Eating - I haven't been keeping as good of track of my eating as I was before either (I haven't logged into my cal tracking website for a week! ack). I guess I kinda got sick of it. Also, I feel like making good choices is coming a bit more naturally now so I don't need the constant validation from the site. Or course, that is going to bite me in the butt in a bit when I have gained back all I lost and then some. :-/ Alright, you convinced me, I am logging in right now! I repent!

I am going to try to keep up working on being healthy and I am going to keep updating (although I think you thought I gave up! oh ye of little faith) It just might not be as often ... and it wasn't that often. I think I will keep Sunday as my 'weigh in' day so that I can have something as a consistency. So, maybe I will even update again tomorrow! (Don't hold your breath).

Week 5!

So, this week has been so crazy - I feel like I have been doing something every single day. Of course none of it is what I should have been doing, but oh well.

Eating - I did pretty good again. Most days I drank a lot of water and kept my calories in check. I did end up eating a bunch of jelly belly 'belly flops' (I should never have opened that bag!) and I also ate a lot of gummy bears thanks to my roommate (how dare she). But I still managed to do okay. I find I can't eat as much of that junky stuff as I used to since I have been eating better.

Exercise - I was not very good this week. I went to Applebee's after FHE on Monday with a bunch of people, and then I chatted for a long time after that in the parking lot so by the time I made it home I didn't want to go running - so I didn't. I went on Tuesday and ran week 5 of the 5k 101 program (walk 5 mins, run 8 mins/walk 2 mins x3 then 5 min walk to cool down) and that went fine. Then I didn't run again on Wed or Thurs, but I did on Friday. I didn't Saturday either, so I only went twice this week. But it both times were good - I wasn't too tired or out of breath by the end which was nice (although I got pretty sweaty and a little rained on ... stupid Oregon).

Weigh in - I stepped on the scale and didn't really believe what I saw. The scale I usually use wasn't working right, but my roommate has 2 scales and she knows the conversion between the two so I used the other one. I had to double and triple check. And then because I was paranoid I had to check my scale here at work as well. It was right. My total this week is 7.02%! I can tell that my clothes are fitting better - a couple pairs of pants and a shirt that was pretty tight when I bought it are now getting loose. I like this! One of our participants dropped out (the girl who had been in last for most of the time) so now it is just three, but I am in the middle. Yay! And I am only about 1.5% behind the girl in first, so I can catch up! This is the last week of the biggest loser - but like I said, I am still going to keep reporting my progress on here since I think it will help me stay motivated. :D

One More Update

I got the results from this week (they were late due to a trip taken by one of the participants so she couldn't get to a scale) and I am up. I am no longer in last place and I am only 0.01% off of being in second place! Woo. I need to push really hard this week and try to make it to number one ... but if not one, at least to number two. Wish me luck!

Week 4

So I already did the eating and exercising update the other day, but I wanted to log on and say that my weight loss for this week was 5.63%. Woo! That is a big number. Not HUGE and not as big as I will eventually need it to be, but that is still super exciting for me!

I have felt super lazy this week since I haven't been working out due to being sicky but I am going to get back into it since I am feeling way better. Hopefully that will keep me losing and I will win this competition! We only have 2 weeks left - time has just flown. Of course, I am going to keep eating healthier and exercising after the challenge is over, there just won't be the same stakes anymore. I will keep posting weekly updates (at least, if not more) though because then you all can be excited for me as I keep going. Plus if I know you have expectations of me then I will be more motivated to keep going once it is over. Yay for losing weight!

Positive Feedback!

So yesterday I was walking in to work and this girl that I work with was walking in at the same time. She turns to me and says "You know, you look like you have been losing some weight." Yay! First time someone has said something about me looking any thinner. It is tough because most people that know me well enough to notice I am losing weight I also see often enough that they wouldn't necessarily notice. Anyway, yay for someone noticing. I personally have noticed that this pair of pants that I had that used to have a really tight waist now has a not so tight waist. Yay for me!

Anyway, down to the weekly update (heh, I am not trying to spoof SNL here).

Eating - I did pretty good with my eating this week. I have been feeling not so awesome so that helps since I wasn't super hungry.

Exercise - I sucked it up this week on exercise. I woke up Monday with a sore throat and then I thought it wouldn't be a good idea to go running in the kinda cold weather and then get all sweaty and whatnot and get even sicker. So basically I didn't do any exercise this week in an attempt to become not sick. That means I have been lazy. We will see how weigh in goes tomorrow I guess.

Week 3

So this week went pretty well as well. Here is the breakdown.

Eating - I did pretty good. I wasn't as awesome as I was the previous weeks and I definitely sucked at drinking enough water, but I still did decent and stayed close to my calorie aim (even if it was a bit above, I was close - that counts right?)

Exercise - I actually was great at this. My run/walk regimen this week was run 4 mins, walk 1 min five times in a row three times a week and it was pretty easy peasy. I noticed on the thing that the next week was run 8 and then walk 2 and I thought "that is a HUGE jump up! not sure I can do that." So then I decided to try it out on my final one of last week, so I ran 8 walked 2 twice and then just ran the last 4 mins - so the total time spent walking and running remained the same but the intervals were different. I am actually okay to see how this week goes. I haven't had much problems with breathing at all which is what I was expecting because of the asthma (exercise induced) that I was diagnosed with as a child. It hasn't been a problem so far, but I have been very careful to concentrate on my breathing as I go and that helps I think.

Weigh in - So I am still at the bottom of the pile. My total this week was 3.57% and the person who is in the lead is 6.5%. So although I am still last, I am catching up. I am much closer to the person who is right ahead of me (who looks like they had a not so good week - hope she doesn't have a great week this week to make up for it and kick my butt!) than I was last time and lead keeps switching between 2 people. I think I can still catch up and beat them all - but I might need to add to my workout regimen. We will see I guess. I will let you know!

Update: Weigh In

So I just wanted to really quickly post that I did the weigh in and I didn't do very well. I was only at 2.5% total this week, which is not much above what I was at last week, but it is still above so that is good. And I am going to keep going so I am not worried. I just need to keep doing what I have been doing. The person who is ahead this week is at 5.86% and I am still in last, but I am getting there.

Also, I did do my run on Saturday. I took a look at what this week has in store and I think it is manageable so that is good. Wish me luck! I do my first one tonight sometime (heh - at least that is the plan) so I will update on how it goes later.

This Week

Eating - So, this week I have been pretty good about eating right. I already told you about Monday and then Tues, Wed and Thurs were more the of the same (not EXACTLY the same - but I did pretty good). Friday on the other hand, not so much. Here is the thing - the first Friday of every month my work has this little gathering called "First Friday" (so original right?) and they usually have food and drinks and stuff like that, and this month was no exception. I had a pretty good lunch and I knew we were meeting friends for dinner so I didn't want to eat much - I just wanted to try a few small things they had there were unique (it was an 'Oktoberfest' party so there were some interesting things there). The problem came when they had this room full of desserts. They all looked good and I just had to try a little bit of a bunch of them. FAIL. Oh well, one day isn't too bad right? And I didn't totally overindulge like I usually would have, so I was better than I normally would have been.

Exercise - I did the run thing on Monday and then on Wednesday. I like going at night - something about the cover of darkness makes me feel safe (which is a bit weird, but whatever). The problem is that we colored my hair on Wednesday and then I stayed and chatted with Jasmine and her new roomie for a bit, so by the time I got home and then said hi to Jen and them managed to get up the motivation to go running and actually change clothes and all that jazz it was later than I usually like to go. It was fine, but I need to start going a bit earlier because it makes me stay up later - and I don't need anything that makes me stay up later - I already stay up late enough thanks! I haven't done the third day yet this week - I thought about going Thurs but I simply didn't feel like it, and then I couldn't yesterday because we had some friends in town that I haven't seen in forever so we hung out with them. I need to go today - but when that will happen is yet to be seen. At least I have tomorrow off so if I go super duper late it won't be a big deal. :D

Weigh in - I haven't done this yet, obviously, but I have weighed myself a few times and it hasn't been too good. I hate it when I try hard and nothing happens. Of course, the only times I have weighed myself this week has been in the evening usually not too long after eating, so I can't trust that, but still, it is worrisome. I know that week 2 is usually a plateau week so that is kinda comforting, but gah! How annoying. I will post once I get the actual results tomorrow!

Monday, Sept 27

Well, yesterday went okay with eating and exercising.

For lunch I had a fruit salad and a turkey wrap with tzatziki sauce. Yummo.

When I came home from work I started reading my book but I was a bit drowsy and it was HOT so I drifted off to sleep. I then woke up at like 7:15 or so when my friend texted me about not being at FHE. Oops. By that time I was starving. So after puttering around for a while I decided Subway was on order so I went and picked up a sub (buffalo ... mmm). Then I came home and ate it and watched "Run, Fat Boy, Run" since I wasn't running myself because I was eating - I thought it would be good motivation.

By the time the movie ended I felt digested enough to go on my walk/run for the day. I downloaded a podcast for the weekly running schedule that tells you when to start and stop running and all that so I didn't have to keep trying to look at my phone while running (that is hard to do by the way - it is all jiggly and hard to see). That worked great! I will definitely keep downloading those - esp because it was free! Woo for free things that are useful. :D

Anyway, tonight is my night off for the exercising which is good because I am going to hang out with some fun girls! Yay! I prob won't update again until like Thurs (or later).

Heh ...

So obviously I won't be updating every day with things about how I am doing with eating and exercising - mostly because I suck am super busy. Lol. But I will do an update with how I have been doing so far. So, this week went well. I am using myfitnesspal.com to keep track of calories and eating so that is going pretty well. It is nice to have somewhere I can quickly and reliably look up the calories of tons of foods I eat. So, I have been keeping track on there and that is going well because I always feel guilty when I go over my suggested for the day - hopefully that will keep me from overeating too much. Lol.

Then I have started doing the 'couch to 5k' running plan. I am not really a runner. The last time I did any kind of running was when I was in high school and I would have to run for rugby, but that was a long long time ago (like 10 years) and since then I have had ups and downs but never really done much serious exercise. So this is what I am trying, I hope it works.  It has done me well so far. This week's weight loss was 2.1% which I was super excited about and thought was really good, until I got the update email with everyone's weekly loss and I did the worst. What!? Suck a duck. The top person lost  4.52%. Craptastic. Although so far all I have felt is extra motivation and not utter defeat, so that is good.

Problem areas: I have a hard time saying no when people want to go out to eat and stuff like that. Usually I can do okay and just plan it into my day and not do too terrible, but some days I suck. It is hard when I go out at lunch with work folks and then friends want to go out after work as well. I don't want to say no to either group and so I just end up overeating. I will work on that. Another problem area (at least this week, not sure if this will continue to be a problem) is that my former roommate is getting married soon and so we had a bridal shower for her on Saturday. It was cheesecake based because she LOVES cheesecake so I overate junky stuff on Saturday and also I was kinda forced into taking a ton home so now I have it sitting in my fridge tempting me. Good thing my roommate has said she will help me take care of it, but still, I need to get rid of it! The thing is there will always be something - shower, conference breakfast (next weekend), wedding receptions, hanging out with friends - that involve food. I just need to make sure to let myself indulge, but not OVER indulge and I need to learn to make good decisions about what I am eating. I have been doing better, but I still have a long way to go. Next week I plan to at least catch up to miss 4.52%, but I would like to surpass her as well - we'll see how that goes. :D

BIGGEST LOSER!!!

So, I know that this blog has been full of me saying I was re-dedicated again and again and then it never happened. And even worse, here it is over 2 years since my last post, and I think I weight more than I did then. Ugh. But I am doing a biggest loser challenge with some people who are spread out all over the country. The initial weight was on last Sunday and the first weigh-in will be on this coming Sunday. We each are putting in $20 so I am pretty determined because I would really like to get some free money (well, I will work hard for it ... but still kinda free). I am going to dust off this blog and use it to update my progress - I am going to put up everyday a description of workouts done and how healthy (or unhealthy) I have eaten. I think this will give me accountability that I have previously not had. I am not going to go back and do it for the days I missed (Monday and Tuesday) because it isn't worth it - I only had moderate activity and I ate pretty healthy, about 1600 cals both days. What I am going to post here is a link to a video that a friend of mine put on fb and it has totally inspired me to start running. This guy is amazing. I hope I can have even a portion of his success. Wish me luck!