dianaschnuth

My back is officially healed from its traumatic bedroom-painting experience, and today is officially six months since I decided to really lose weight.

WTF. *shakes head*

I’m somehow reminded of that Tubthumper song from back in the late 90s: “I get knocked down, and I get up again…” ad infinitum. Sometimes I feel like that’s my diet story this year, except I don’t really get knocked down. I just lose momentum, and stop giving a shit, but then I realize what my apathy has done and I resolve to work even harder. It’s luckily not resulted in a massive yo-yo of weight, but the yo-yo of mental fortitude is damaging enough.

My stats haven’t changed much in the past two months, apart from going back up to 210 and 35.1% bodyfat. Lost a quarter inch in my bust and neck; gained a quarter inch in my chest; gained a half inch in my lower arm; and my waist, hips, thigh and calf stayed the same. I screwed up on measuring my upper arm, because it says I gained an entire inch in the past two months, and there’s no way that can be right. My arm can’t be as big around as my neck. Can it?

I’m embarking once more on the John & Sheryl diet method, shared with me by Sheryl back in… when was it? January. Yes. Back in January. This time, though, I’m setting myself up for success by planning out my entire week of meals in advance. I have my meal plan posted to the fridge, and I intend to spend some quality time each evening preparing my meals for the following day. Protein shakes, fish, chicken, whatever needs preparing and assembling. I think that should help considerably. And when I’m done eating, I’m done eating. No more snacking after my last meal of the day, even if it seems like a healthy snack. Water will have to do.

And since my back is all healed, I’m going to continue with my PUSH workouts again. I was hesitant to do strength training or even cardio when my lower back was all fubar. Now, though, I’m ready to go for it again. Monday, Wednesday and Friday will be my PUSH workout days, and Tuesday and Thursday I’ll go jogging at Wildwood.

*checks weather.com for this week’s outlook*

OK, I might have to come up with some alternate indoor cardio for Thursday. Maybe rebounding (trampolining). But, still, that’s my plan. As always, I’ll be walking at least 30 minutes a day over my lunch. Likely 45 minutes, assuming I get to work on time and don’t have to short my lunch hour.

That’s something else. I’m going to wake up earlier (i.e. not hit the snooze) and get to work on time this week. See, I have up until eight minutes after 8am to technically be “on time” by the timeclock’s rules. I’ve been just missing that by a minute or two, usually clocking in at about 8:10am. So, I have to short my lunch by ten minutes or so in order to get my full eight hours in. This week, I’m not going to let myself be late like that. The idea is to eventually be awake early enough to at least do some morning stretches, and preferably take a walk or jog around the block. That’s not for a while, though. For now… let’s just be on time to work, shall we?

So, this week’s success will be measured by:

1. Sticking to my prescribed menu
2. Exercising every evening
3. Arriving to work on time every day

I’m also giving myself a non-food reward to look forward to: when I lose five pounds — when I reach 205 — I’m buying myself some clothes. But not until. (I’ve been addicted to mail-order catalogs this spring and summer.)

That’s the plan. And I’ll tell you what, if I don’t lose any weight (or bodyfat) this week, after setting myself up for success as best I can, I will be highly disappointed. But I think I’ll do fine.

I’ll keep you updated.

Just a quick update this time…

I realized during my inadvertent hour-long nap this evening that I forgot to measure myself last Friday. So, although I know that I’m back down to 208 lbs and 34.2% bodyfat as of Saturday morning, I don’t have measurements to share.

Last week’s exercise was kind of slack: I did my PUSH workout on Monday, jogged on Tuesday, then did nothing for the rest of the week. I focused mainly on getting my carb-protein-fat ratio looking better, and keeping my calories under control, which I did fairly well.

The beginning of this week so far hasn’t been spectacular, and my Mom’s coming to visit starting on Thursday night, so I don’t have any preconceptions of losing a crapload of weight this week. We’ll see, though.

After a month-long hiatus of slackitude, I’m back with a vengeance. After gaining back most of my recent weight loss, I managed to lose two pounds this week, bringing me back to 210lbs and 34.5% bodyfat (or thereabouts).

The big deal this week was exercise. I returned to doing my PUSH workouts, and I added jogging into my repertoire. Granted, it was a walk-jog, but it did the job of getting my heart rate up and getting the blood flowing. Even better, Aaron and I went on a walk-jog together on Saturday! If we can make this a weekend habit, it’ll be much easier for us to keep it rolling, I think.

So, the week’s exercise was: Monday, PUSH. Tuesday, jogging. Wednesday, PUSH. Thursday and Friday, rest; and Saturday, jogging. I hadn’t intended to put those rest days in there, but my legs were killing me, and Aaron convinced me that I should let my legs heal instead of going for a jog on Thursday. 🙂 And, as usual, the slackitude rolled over into Friday, when I’d had every intention of doing my PUSH workout. Ah, well. I’ll shoot for more consistency next week.

Food was pretty much the same as usual this week, although I continued to get caught up in my work and ended up foregoing the morning snack, for the most part. Dinner was more protein than usual, though, as I’ve been cooking up chicken breasts for most of the week. I haven’t been tracking my actual calories or carbs or protein lately, which is something I should be doing again. I think I’ll charge up the Palm and start using my Diet Organizer program again.

So, overall, this week was the long-awaited introduction of cardio to my lifestyle. I know I didn’t do nearly as much as I should, but I at least learned that a little cardio won’t kill me. In fact, it feels pretty good.

This week was definitely an improvement, although I’m still not doing everything I need to do. Despite my continued slackitude, I’m back down to 207, which is only half a pound more than my sick-week weight. My Omron Body Fat Analyzer arrives today from Amazon, so I’ll do an official stats-gathering tomorrow: new weight, measurements, photos, and body fat analysis. *gulp*

According to some online guesstimators, I may be somewhere between 35% and 40% body fat. I’d like to get that down to 30% for a start. Granted, that’s not ideal, but it’s better than I was even in high school. (Yes, I did have my body fat measured with calipers when I was 17, and it came out to 33%, as I recall. Sarge and I did a week or two of morning jogging to get my body fat down to 30%, so I could join up with the Army Band. Thankfully, that didn’t work out, though, for other reasons. Mainly because I came to my senses.)

I did my PUSH workout on Monday, then did some gardening on Thursday. You might scoff at my using gardening as exercise, and it surely wasn’t aerobic, but I did do some shoveling and worked my arms and legs and glutes. I sure felt it for the next couple of days. As always, I also kept with my daily 30-45 minute lunchtime walks, and kicked up the intensity there.

Food was pretty consistent: Breakfast was either a whole-grain English muffin with natural crunchy peanut butter or ¾ cup oatmeal with Splenda Brown Sugar Blend. Morning snackie was either low-sugar yogurt or an apple or strawberries. Lunch was brown rice or reduced-carb pasta or lettuce salad. Afternoon snackie was selected from the same foods as the morning snackie, mainly for convenience’s sake, and dinner was usually a meat and a carb — chicken breast and frozen broccoli, or chicken salad on a wheat tortilla, or unbreaded chicken fingers with reduced-carb pasta.

I would also like to mention that I didn’t go hog-wild this weekend after my weigh-in. Saturday I had some ground sirloin with salad and vegetable beef soup and veggies for lunch, then had the Orange Chicken Bowl at Applebee’s for dinner. Not entirely good, but not nearly as bad as I could have been. Sunday, though, we did go to the Dragon Buffet, just because it was Mother’s Day and they had LOBSTER on the buffet. I didn’t stuff myself too bad, though, really. Dinner on Sunday was curry chicken (with a curry cream sauce, evil me) and frozen broccoli, with a homemade chocolate cream cheese souffle for dessert.

The discovery of the week was this: Although I feel like I crave carbs in the evening (and OMG have I been craving carbs), if I make sure to include a good portion of protein in my evening meal, I tend to stave off the hunger and cravings better. So, if I can just chill out and make myself some chicken, or even turkey burgers, instead of whipping up something fast and meatless, I’m less likely to make myself cinnamon tortilla snackies at 8pm.

My goal this week is to eat more protein, and to do my PUSH workout three times. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Yes, I need to get my podcast done, because it’s horribly overdue (as usual), but taking care of me is more important.

Update, 6:30pm: My Omron Body Fat Analyzer arrived this evening, and a preliminary pre-dinner reading shows me at just over 35% body fat. This is no surprise, and is actually better than some online guesstimators had been telling me. We’ll get a “real” reading tomorrow morning.

Gotta get back into the swing of things.

I took my little break from exercise while I was sick, and never got back into it. Also, Aaron and I have been gorging ourselves on the weekends, and I know that our 2½ mile Saturday walks at Wildwood Metropark haven’t been offsetting our binges nearly as much as we wish they would. I haven’t gone back to eating completely shitty during the week, but I also haven’t been eating enough protein, especially in the evenings.

That said, I have purposely not weighed myself this week. No point.

Don’t take this to mean I’m giving up. Far from it. In fact, I’m approaching my fitness plan with renewed gusto this week, despite having a bunch of stuff I need to do. Finish up my podcast, update the Lakeshoremen site… but I’m setting priorities. First, I have to work out. That always makes me feel better and more energized. Then I can do the other things I “need” to do.

I am fucking sick and tired of being all frumpy and shit. I am doing something about it. I’ve gained back the weight I lost while I was sick, and I’m not going back up where I was, dammit. I need to change something about *me* if I’m going to make this thing happen. Cardio has to happen. Protein has to happen. Early rising has to happen. I need to act like I’m already fit, and then it will happen.

(Oh, and I apologize to anyone who recently found my blog who wasn’t expecting me to drop an f-bomb. I do that every now and then.)

Natty Jo, in response to your questions: I’ve actually only been on the PUSH program for two months — and thanks to my being sick and then slacking, I’m only on Workout #1 of DVD #2. So, I guess you could call this my fifth week on PUSH. I’m sticking with Bob Harper myself, although I am curious about the new trainer they have on the list. This particular workout is finally getting to where I need to be, fitness-wise, although I’m having my next DVD focus more on my legs. Yay for arms and abs, though! w00t!

Stay tuned to see how I’m coming along. Next weekend will be the monthly weigh-and-measure (for real this time)!