Category Archives: health & fitness

A narrative of my journeys with diet, exercise, and various healthcare professionals

weight loss 1 Comment

Diet & Fitness Update, Week #15

Not much to report. I forgot to weigh myself before the weekend hit again, so today’s weigh-in was after a cheat day of Chinese for lunch and Mexican for dinner. I’m up to 209, but I’m going to weigh myself in another couple of days, after the extra calories have averaged themselves out.

I didn’t do my PUSH workouts this week. It was a challenge to try to get back into the groove after skipping my workouts from being sick, unfortunately. This week, I’m going to get back on that. I’m paying money for this program, after all. I have been continuing my daily walks, though. I’d feel like I missed out on a big part of my day if I didn’t walk during my lunch.

Not eating enough protein. I need to work on that, too. Been continuing to eat too many carbs too late in the day, just because it’s easier than cooking meat. I also have been skipping snackies during the day, because I’m finally doing work I enjoy and get caught up in. By the time I realize I didn’t eat my morning snack, it’s almost time for lunch.

So, I guess the overall gist of this week is that I’ve been coasting. I need to start getting back on this weight-loss thing hardcore. I’m tired of feeling unsexy and frumpy… although I *am* feeling much better than I was even a few months ago.

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Diet & Fitness Update, Week #14

Well, I forgot to weight myself before going ballistic on Chinese buffet and Outback for my birthday. When I weighed myself this morning, though, it showed that I’d gained two one and a half pounds since my last weigh-in. I’m OK with that; I’m guessing that everything will average itself back out in a couple of days.

I only managed to do one day of my PUSH workout this week, although I did enjoy the one time I did it. DVD #2 has me working with the resistance bands, finally, and I was definitely feeling it two days later. I feel like this is where I should have started to begin with, fitness-level-wise, but doing a month of more basic exercises to get me used to exercising was a good idea.

I’ve been continuing to eat whole wheat English muffins with natural PB (or sugar-free honey) for breakfast, although my snackies have been more sporadic. I get all into what I’m doing at work, and before I know it, it’s almost time for lunch. Oops. Oh, well. Lunch has been salad greens with canned chicken or turkey, sugar-free sweet relish, and salad dressing. OMG, I’d forgotten how much zing relish can add to stuff. Mmm. I’ve been being bad for dinner lately, though, and been making pasta salads — again, with the yummy relish and canned meats. I’ll turn my shit around for this coming week, though.

I’ve also been continuing my daily lunchtime walks, of course. Today I bought some special-for-work sneakers for walking, so I won’t wear out my nice work shoes (and so I can wear some of my cuter but more fragile shoes to work).

Oh, and I’m officially a “real” size 18 now, I think. I bought some new clothes at Lane Bryant today (thanks, Aaron, for the gift card!), and the size 20 dress pants I tried on were way bigger than I needed. I swapped them out for 18’s and didn’t try them on until I got home. They’re actually a little smaller than I’d like, but maybe I’m used to having some breathing room in my pants these days. At any rate, yay for smaller cute clothes.

(BTW, Sheryl? I feel SO LOST in Lane Bryant without you there to guide me to teh cuteness. Aaron’s a good sport, and wanders around behind me like I usually wander around behind you. Except I don’t know where I’m going, either.)

Still haven’t measured myself. I really need to do that. Blah.

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No Gnus is Good Gnus

Still sick. Headachy today. Every time I blow my nose (which isn’t as often as it was), my ears stop up, and it takes an hour for my hearing to approach normal again.

Tired. Undecided as to whether I should work out. I didn’t work out all last week, and I think I miss it. Still, though, I’m inclined to think that my body needs to use its energy to get well right now.

Appetite returning. I tried bringing a last-week-portion of lunch and snackies to work today, and that didn’t work out so well. Now that I’m home, around the food, I’m eating and eating and eating with no sign of stopping. Tomorrow, I bring a normal amount of food to work with me.

Haven’t done my measurements yet, but I did take pictures. If anyone wants to see a picture of me in a black one-piece swimsuit (I believe Sheryl would probably be the only taker on that), just shoot me an e-mail. Incidentally, I compared my earliest Before picture to yesterday’s In Progress picture, and I can definitely see a marked decrease in my abdominal fat. Good news.

No word on a monthly birthday potluck at work. I think I’ve been called out for failing to participate in recent potlucks. I’m the only April birthday in my department, so the woman who organizes them probably thinks I don’t want one.

I’m also concerned about what will or will not befall me at work on Friday, as my 30th birthday is on Saturday. I could either be totally forgotten (except by a few), or I could arrive to find black Over The Hill streamers and balloons festooning my cubicle. I’m going on the assumption that I’ll get a personal card or two, and no one else at work will care.

As far as birthdayness goes, I’m also trying to downplay the possibility of anything OMG-supar-kewl happening on my birthday proper. I mean, I threw Aaron a surprise birthday party, but I know for a fact that isn’t going to happen for me. He told me as much. See, all my friends (that would be most of you reading this) live so far out of town that you probably wouldn’t come to Toledo for an evening of drunken debauchery. So, once again, I’m trying to increase my appreciation of whatever does happen by assuming that very little will, in fact, happen.

Amy visited this past weekend, and we all traded birthday and Christmas presents. (Aaron = November, Amy = January, me = this Saturday.) That was definitely fun. Amy and I spent a few hours on Saturday evening/night in BG, drinking coffee and talking and walking around campus. For once, I felt kind of bad because my job/career situation appears to be more pleasant than hers. Usually we can commiserate about how we don’t know what direction to take, and are we going down the wrong path, and shouldn’t we be someplace better by now. I’m pretty content with working on my geeky database at work for now, though, while Amy’s feeling the pinch of being juggled by departments and not getting enough hours.

I could go on, probably, but I’m feeling like I want to go forage for some sort of tasty snackie. Already had chicken salad. Already had cereal. Already had ham. Feel like a hog… but am hungry nonetheless. Also have a headache that won’t go away, that’s making me nauseated. Or maybe that’s my drainage that’s doing that. Either way, it’s not good.

Food. Big Mouth hungry.

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Diet & Fitness Update, Week #13

Well, I guess being sick has its advantages. I stepped on the scale before this morning’s shower, and discovered that I lost three pounds this week! Holy crow. So, for those of you keeping score, I’m down to 206.5.

I can really only attribute this to eating light and not being hungry, thanks to being sick. I didn’t work out, apart from my standard daily 30-40 minute walk. I did eat a whole wheat English muffin with natural PB for breakfast every day this week. Good stuff. For the last couple of days, I’ve been eating a piece of fruit for my morning snack (banana or apple), either a salad or a low-sugar yogurt for lunch, and either another piece of fruit or a sugar-free pecan nummie from the vending machine for afternoon snackie. Dinner has been chock-full o’ carbs. Reduced-carb spaghetti with cheese sauce and salsa. Oatmeal with *real* maple syrup (purchased in Massachusetts). I did have turkey burgers one evening, and those were good. Overall, though, too little food during the day, and too carb-heavy in the evenings. I guess breakfast must have gotten my metabolism moving or something, though, because I did lose weight despite all that.

Oh, and did I mention that this cold has made food, well, go right through me? This might be TMI, but I’m sure my loose BMs haven’t just been from the sugar alcohols in the sugar-free pecan whatsits, or the one or two sugar-free Halls I’ll pop in a day. Nope, this is that special “being-sick” kind of experience. I’m guessing that might have something to do with the weight loss, too.

Don’t worry; I’ve been taking my vitamins as usual. I know that you can lose nutrients and crap (no pun intended), so I’ve been diligent as ever.

Not that I’m looking a gift horse in the mouth here. I’m tickled that I lost three pounds this week. I just don’t think it’s anything I did specifically. Besides getting sick. 🙂

I take three-month pics and measurements tomorrow. If the swimsuit picture doesn’t make me gag, maybe I’ll post it here. I make no promises, though.

[By the way… being sick makes it a lot easier not to sleep in on Saturdays. When you wake up at 9:00, and would *like* to go back to sleep, but sleeping is just too damn uncomfortable, it makes the decision to get up a lot easier. And, yes, 9am on a Saturday is early for me. I usually sleep in until 10:30 or 11:00.]

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Smacked Down By Mother Nature

Was preparing for the triumphant return of my podcast to the, er, podwaves. Was looking forward to getting my second PUSH DVD in the mail. Was geeked to weigh in for the three-month mark.

Then I got The Cold. You know, the one that everyone and their brother has been getting? Yeah, I got it.

Started with a sore throat, then some drainage. Now, three days later, it’s a full-blown monstrosity: stuffy head, stopped-up ears, sinus headache, plugged-up runny nose (isn’t that the worst?), dry eyes, sore and scratchy throat, random aches and pains, and general fatigue. I even took a short nap this evening, and I rarely do that anymore.

Podcast? Postponed until next week. PUSH? Again, I’m not working out this week. I tried to work out on Monday, before the symptoms had really set in at all, and ended up stopping the DVD before I got to my reverse ab curls because I was falling asleep from just laying on the floor. My new DVD didn’t arrive until yesterday, anyway, so I would have been doing a third week of Workout #2.

So, how about the weigh-in? Yeah, I’m still going to weigh myself tomorrow morning. I have *no* idea what the scales will say, since I’ve been eating *very* light during the day, then eating something heavier and more filling (and more carboriffic) later in the evening. If I gain a little, I won’t let myself be upset.

I’ll take some in-progress pics on Sunday evening. Amy’s coming over this weekend, so I’ll wait until she’s gone before I parade around the basement in my underwear. 😉