Broke 190 for the first time in a year

It has been a hard-fought past 12 months.  I battled depression and crippling job stress and reverted to all my negative eating behaviours along the way.  It was only when I got my new job that I was able to muster the determination to say: "It stops here.  I can't change the past 12 months, but I can change the next 12".

And I did.  I went back to first principles of what I know worked for me - - tracking my food and pushing my workouts.  Along the way I got back in touch with this whole lifestyle change that I was supposed to be doing (rather than merely losing weight).  That has been perhaps the most profound thing I have discovered in this journey - - it really is all about the lifestyle, stupid.  There ain't no such thing as a quick fix, and negative habits will always generate negative consequences. 

The results have been just what I had hoped - - and more, and less.

The weight is coming off again, and this morning after my workout I weighed in at 189.8 pounds, a number on the scale I have not seen for about a year.  I have also noticed that as I continue along this path (and as I get older) the weight takes more work to lose.  I used to see relatively consistent losses every month.  Now I am seeing punctuated equilibrium: I stay relatively the same for a week or so, then have one week of surprisingly easy losses, then "girl time" adds 4 pounds of gratuitous bloating, then I spend 2 weeks trying to get back to where I was before nature's awesome majesty took my hormones on a ride.  Over the past few months I have seen this pattern repeated over and over again, and I am slowly starting to change my mindset from disappointment if a given week is not lower on the scale to focusing on the longer window of a month.  So although the individual days or weeks (depending on the week) may see frustratingly little weight loss, overall the months are still showing losses, and I am still moving in the right direction.

On an even more positive side, the Nerd and I are slowly starting to transition into more of a maintenance mode rather than a hard core weight loss mode.  I say this not because we do not have weight to lose - - we do - - but because we are starting to make adjustments to make our lifestyle more sustainable in the long term.

For me that means a step change reduction in calories from an average of 1,600 - 1,800 calories per day to trying to keep under my 1,430 calories per day objective (!) without having to eat back all of my exercise calories.  I usually come in somewhere between 1,400 and 1,600 calories a day, and even the difference of 200 calories (on average) per day has had profound results.

Staying under my calorie target organically has allowed me to do things like take additional rest days, or to use long walks as exercise rather than brutally exhausting elliptical workouts, while still losing weight.  I have a more normal life, and that is kind of nice.  As I age I also find it a bit tougher to maintain the intensity of the workout schedule that I used to - - after almost 3 years that kind of work takes its toll on a body.  Mine, in particular.

All of this is in aid of changing me into a person who eats sensibly more often than I do not, and who works out to feel good rather than because she has to.  Don't get me wrong, I still use workouts as a way to enable a good day of food when I know I am going out, but I am trying to focus more on the every day consumption levels as well.  It certainly seems to be working for now.

It is more difficult in many ways than simply jumping on the elliptical, because I have to be so diligent about what is going into my mouth every day, all day.  But in aggregate this approach seems to be working, and even the bake sale day of a thousand rice krispie squares and gingerbread men (omnomnom) did not set me back for long.

I know I am prone to wild mood swings about my weight loss journey, and I am always more optimistic when the weight is coming off easily as it has been this week rather than those weeks when I am doing exactly the same things and the scale is not moving at all, or worse, moves only upwards. 

However I have noticed over the last few months as I have been starting to discover my body's new rhythms that I am more relaxed about the tough weeks because I am more confident that the good weeks will come.  I am gradually becoming more disciplined in my routine, and I am able to be more zen about my progress as a result.

Not that I am zen, exactly, I am only zen-er than previously.  But I will take it, just as I take this new (revisited) milestone of breaking into the 180s.  I have worked hard for this, and I am feeling good.  

The downside of losing weight

Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled with the progress I have made since recommitting myself to my workout and healthy eating plan.  But there's definitely a downside.  My workouts burn fewer calories.  And my body requires fewer calories to function.  It's like a metabolism double whammy!

With this week's loss I am down to a base of 1,500 calories per day on a rest day.  It's no 1,200 calories, to be sure, but it's a tough target to crack when a meal can easily run 600-700 calories. 


Although it is a little depressing to see my workout burns steadily decreasing and my baseline calories falling, I know it's because my metabolism is changing, which is all to the good (at least I keep telling myself that it's good!).


It just makes it tough on a rest day like today - - I have to be super vigilant and cannot snack even the slightest bit, what with my lavish 5 calorie buffer on the books today. 


It also makes it almost impossible to eat out on a rest day, what with some restaurant meals starting at 1,500 + calories - - not to mention all the sodium.


If I keep making progress and losing weight as I have been, though, I will not complain (too much).  The results are worth it.  I loved how my jeans and blazer fit today.  So what if it's challenging to keep under the 1,500 calorie target - - I need to get used to it sometime, since this will eventually be the "new normal". 

140.8 pounds down - - slow and steady

Another week on track, and another week of poundage lost.  This week I was able to lose 1.6 pounds to bring me down to 193.1 pounds, for a loss of 140.8 pounds overall. 

I am very pleased with this result, as it shows how sticking to the workout and eating plan yields results.  I snack, and gain weight.  I don't snack, and I lose weight.  Pretty simple feedback loop there.  Even I could eventually figure that one out. 

There's something frustratingly predictable about my weight loss these last couple of weeks.  More often than not recently (in non snacking weeks, anyways), I lose around a pound and a half every week.  I work out a lot and I eat well, so in the back of my mind I am always (greedily) hoping for a larger loss.  I see other people lose 2, 3, 4 and even 5 pounds in a week, and I lust after those losses.  I know that their fact situation is different - - some are much heavier than me, some are men, some are people who have undergone gastric bypass surgery, some are training much harder than me.  I try not to compare myself to others, but I have to admit that I would love to see bigger losses sometimes, if only because it would get me to my goal, faster. 

But slow and steady wins the race to weight loss and lifestyle change.  1.5ish pounds a week is a nice, sustainable loss.  I know this because I have had comparatively few yo-yo swings in my weight loss over the past year and a half.  Sure, they happen, but overall, my weight loss has been pretty linear.

I had a momentary flash of insight today.  I usually lose 1.5 pounds a week because I have set my calorie objectives to achieve - - wait for it - - a 1.5 pound per week weight loss.  In other words, eating the way I do to a calorie target of 1,390 (now) per day before exercise, I should lose 1.5 pounds in a given week.  Just like I have been doing.   So really, losing around a pound and a half each week is a feature of my lifestyle, not a bug.  Many people would have figured that out much sooner than I did, but then, I was hired for my looks, not my smarts. 

So, another week in the books, and now I am only 28.1 pounds away from my overall weight loss goal.  I am still in the 190s (and I will be for another month or so), but I am ever so slowly chipping away at my target. 

Here's a photo for your Saturday enjoyment:

I have a plan to fight back against this whole "lower calories burned when you're lighter" thing...

It has been about a month or so since I stepped up my workouts, and now that my routine is feeling comfortable, and given the hit that my workout calories have taken with my new, streamlined weight, it's time to kick things up a notch.  After all, if you don't push yourself, you miss half the fun, right? (and by 'fun', I apparently mean 'sweat', judging by this morning's results).

My most recent workout routine was 3 days x 55 minutes of elliptical at a crossramp of 6 and tension of 5 (or 25%) and a stride rate of 130, plus 8 free weight exercises using 6 pound weights at 4 sets of 12 reps each.  On alternate days the routine is 60 minutes of elliptical at the same settings, without the weights.  I can never decide which is my 'easier' day.  Usually it's whatever day is not the current day.  On Saturdays, my rest day, I have been doing only 30 minutes of elliptical, just to keep things limber.

Over time I have been seeing a constant decrease in the calories burned from my workouts with my declining weight, and that is frustrating to me.  I feel ripped off - - if I am sweating that much (and man, do I ever sweat!), I want to get credit for it.

So I am incorporating a couple of changes to my workouts this week to try and make things a little more challenging, and hopefully kick up the calories a bit.

First, I have purchased a set of wrist/ankle weights.  The set I am getting will be up to 5 pounds per wrist/ankle, with weight able to be added in 1 pound increments.  I intend to start off using the weights on my wrists, and I will likely start light, only 1 pound per arm, just to see how it goes.  By effectively adding weight back, I am increasing the effort required during my workout, and thereby increasing the calories burned.

The second change is to add some faster tempo songs into my workout playlist.  Recently my stride rate has been around 130 strides per minute.  This weekend I added some 140 bpm songs, that will hopefully be sprinkled through the workouts (god forbid they all come one after the other!), and this will kick things up periodically through the elliptical workout.

I do not think I am yet fit enough to do a full 60 minutes at 140 bpm, and to be honest, I just don't have enough songs at that tempo to make up a full playlist.  But I have a few 140 bpm songs, and they should help me to make my elliptical workouts a bit more intense.

I tried the new playlist this morning and noticed that my calories burned had increased, along with my stride count.  I am reluctant to add much more time to my workout, because I do need to work sometime, and it's tough enough to fit an hour to an hour and half of workout into my schedule every workday as it is.

Hopefully the combination of wrist weights and faster pace will allow me to stretch out this routine for another few weeks before it starts getting comfortable again.  I definitely felt challenged this morning, so we'll see how it plays out this week.  Could be a long week...!

The new program appears to be working ...

Photo courtesy marsmet544, licensed CC-BY-SA-NC

I have been working the new elliptical program of 40 minutes per day for 3 days now, and am definitely feeling wobblier when I get off the machine.  I am thrilled that I am able to last 40 minutes, which would have been impossible even a couple of months ago when I first got the elliptical machine.  I am definitely working much harder than I was last week, and I am feeling the workouts more, even though I am only doing a mere 5 minutes of incremental time each day.   

My eating plan appears to be working as well.  I am eating between 1800 and 2000 calories each day in an attempt to cover both my BMR and most of my exercise calories.  Since I have taken the food levels up, I have found it generally easier to lose weight.  I am not feeling hungry at night, and my food cravings have largely disappeared when I am eating three meals a day.  My cravings are not entirely gone - - I noticed them last weekend when we only had brunch and dinner and I wanted to eat all afternoon - - but they are manageable.  I am taking each day as its own goal and trying to hit the target for that single day, rather than trying to look ahead too far, and this has helped a lot. Especially since the overall goal is still so far away.

This week in particular, with the step up in exercise and the higher calories, I have noticed that weight is coming off - a lot of weight has been coming off.  It almost feels like it's coming off too readily, because I am already down quite a bit and it's only Tuesday.  I can't quite believe the numbers on the scale, but my philosophy is to accept a good number with grace, and get the heck off the scale.  It's not good to tempt the weight loss gods by spurning a good result!

I am not getting too emotionally attached to the numbers I am seeing on the scale (they're in the 270s for the first time in years) because I expect to see a little rebound up in weight as the end of the week appears.  This is pretty typical for me.  My usual week has the lowest weight on Thursday, with Friday mornings - - the day I actually log my weights - - being a bit higher.  

My concern about rapid weight loss is two-fold.  

1. I want to ensure that any loss is sustainable, so while a big loss one week is great, it doesn't really count until I can sustain that loss and build on it over successive weeks.  We all know the impact of water weight, either cyclically or due to high sodium intakes.   A huge loss of water that isn't sustainable isn't really a huge loss in the end. 
2. I want to have a manageable weight loss to avoid the dreaded loose skin issues that accompany dramatic weight loss.  I am in my mid-40s now, which means that my skin no longer has its previous elasticity.  This means that taking off the weight a pound or two each week is good, but 5-10 pounds a week is too fast.  

I am probably worrying for nothing, since it is unlikely that these ridiculously low weights will stay until Friday.  I am sure that I will come back closer to last week's 283.8 weight, although I certainly hope I don't exceed it...!

As for the concerns about loose skin, I have read a lot of articles that recommend weight training as one way to reduce the incidence of loose skin.  Right now my workout routine is exclusively cardio, but my old routine had weights integrated into the routine 3x per week, and I know that I will need to work my way back to incorporating weights eventually. 

All in good time.  For now I am working on adjusting to the new workout plan.  Let me get through that on a daily basis without my legs falling off, and I will consider adding weights. 

Tough week, but I just have to keep going

Photo courtesy Michael Summers, licensed CC-BY-SA-ND

It has been a difficult week this week, after such a weekend of triumph.

Last weekend I broke the 50 pounds lost mark, and went on my first 4.4 mile walk.  I had broken through a plateau and was riding high.

This week, however, it seems that every time I get on the scale the number is bigger.  Today it was a full pound heavier than yesterday, which was heavier than the day before.  Fortunately I only log my weight once a week, on Fridays, but the trend is still extremely frustrating.  Especially since with only a day to go before my official weigh in, it will take a miracle to hold steady.

What was puzzling me is the cause.  I was exercising every morning, religiously - in fact, I haven't missed a workout in almost 15 weeks.  I was eating pre-planned meals at breakfast, lunch and dinner, ensuring that I was eating enough calories to avoid going into starvation mode.  I was not doing any late night snacking, or cheating that would put me over.  I was drinking no less than 12 and sometimes as much as 15 glasses of water a day.  And still I gained.  It's not that time of my cycle, so why? 

I was talking to the Nerd about it this morning and it turns out that the sausage cassoulet may be the culprit.  According to the recipe, a full serving is rich, but doable.  The carbs and calories are somewhat high, but well within my plan, especially when worked into a thought out meal plan.

Except...not so much.  The Nerd did not measure the sausage.  While the recipe calls for a pound of sausage (which in some cases is 4 links, but not always), he did not weigh the meat and simply used 4 links.  And these are big links.  Judging by the effects (and their size), these suckers are easily double the allotted weight called for in the recipe. 

And so, with all the best intentions in the world, the Nerd has been undermining my efforts this week, albeit unknowingly.  And I have been the unwitting participant in undoing all of the hard work for the past two weeks at least. 

I just feel so depressed right now.  I have been so disciplined, and have been doing everything according to the plan, and then a failure to measure bites me in the proverbial ass.  It was all I could do to drag myself into work this morning, because I cannot face having to re-do all of that good work. 

And I can't even get mad at the Nerd, because he certainly would not knowingly sabotage me.  It's his freewheeling cooking style that has finally come home to roost. 

I have a kitchen scale - - it looks like we're going to have to get a lot better at using it. 

The only ray of sunshine in this otherwise bleak day?  I feel absolutely no desire to emotionally eat.  That's a win, right?

Party Time, Excellent!

Photo by Maggie Q. Magniloquent, some rights reserved

Yesterday was a difficult day for me - - I had my first "appetizer party", at which the only food would be nibblies like guacamole, chicken fingers, meatballs, fruit, and fresh vegetables.  There would be no main course per se, only grazing.

The only problem with grazing, I think you'll agree, is that one never stops eating.  It is far too easy to load up a plate with food ... and then another ... and then another ... for the entire evening. 

I tried to be pragmatic about it and plan ahead for my meal, so that I would know in advance what I could have.  For example, I planned on half a serving of Tostitos scoops to go with a set amount of guacamole, many chopped vegetables (celery and red pepper), 4 swedish meatballs, and 4 chicken fingers.

I was able to stick to the 4 meatballs and 4 chicken fingers - - with difficulty - - but then lost count of the tortilla chips and guac.  I am certain that I went over on that count.  And I completely forgot to check the fresh fruit (strawberries and grapes) until halfway through the evening. 

And I have to say, other than the problems I have in counting (also demonstrated whenever I try and calculate a tip in a restaurant, which is why I am constantly overtipping), it's very difficult to stop eating when everyone around you is eating all evening.  In addition to that, many of our guests brought desserts, and we had an entire world map made out of cookies (see photo, above).  None of which I could eat (and stay anywhere near my calorie goals for the day, that is). 

As it was, I went over on my calorie goals for the day, but only slightly.  But it took an iron will and as much discipline as I had in my body to eat what I did, and not to gorge like I wanted to. 

These kind of unstructured meal times are the most challenging for me, because there is no "recipe" for the meal, as such.  I much prefer being able to eat a specific dish or course of a meal eaten in a specific time range, rather than a buffet of food over the span of an evening. 

My next challenge will be an upcoming family meal out at North 44, a fancy restaurant operated by Mark McEwan (of Bymark, One, Fabrica, McEwan's Fine Foods and Top Chef Canada fame).  It's my mom's favourite restaurant, and we're going there for her birthday.  I am really nervous about what I will choose, because the food is so rich that it will be difficult to stay anywhere close to my diet if I clean my plate.  We'll see what happens. 

Food Glorious Food

Photo Courtesy Masahiro Ihara, Licensed CC-BY-SA

I have been working out for some time now, and the constant ongoing struggle for me is still food. 

My struggle is not so much the junk food binges, which I haven't done in months (although I still dream about my old trigger foods of popcorn with cheese and nachos at times).  My struggle is more with eating enough of the right foods every day, at the right time of day.

My schedule is unpredictable, other than my morning routine.  Once I get to work, I could be there straight through to 9 pm, 10 pm, or even 1 am or later.  I don't often take the time for lunch, or if I do, I begrudge the time - - I work on a billable hour, after all, and each day is a challenge to hit the required targets and to manage the workload. 

And if lunch is difficult, so too is dinner.  If I wait to eat dinner until I get home at night, there's very good odds that I would be eating in bed.  Apparently this is not good form.  At least the Nerd busts me when he discovers crumbs. 

I also struggle with eating enough calories each day.  I love food, don't get me wrong, but I obsess about eating too much, or eating too little.  I am finding it very difficult to eat enough calories so that my body doesn't go into starvation mode. 

Hopefully with time I can work on more effective meal planning, and meal execution.  It's not just about eating well on the weekend when the Nerd cooks, it's about continuing that good work during the week when I am on my own.  Packing lunch and dinner requires meal planning, and it also requires the time to get up and pack said lunches and dinner. 

That's the biggest lifestyle change - getting up and adding this whole other routine on top of my morning workout routine.  We'll see if it's something that I can implement.