15 months and 1.5 pounds ... or 51.3 pounds down

Achievement unlocked!  I hit a significant milestone this morning, weighing in at 184.9 pounds, which: i) brings me within 20 pounds of my goal; ii) makes me a middleweight for the first time in 15 years (and potentially a "Rumbleweight" welter, depending on how much Johnson lets himself go).  Even more significant, my weigh in this morning marks the successful end of a 15 month fight to lose the weight gained from not one but two major backslides, one when I was job hunting and hating my work and one at Christmas last year when I gave myself permission to eat All The Food (although I must tell you, the Nerd's sugar cookies are delicious). 

All in all I put on - and lost - and regained - and relost 51.3 pounds over these 15 months.  But now for the first time in 15 months I am seeing a weight on the scale that is lower than before.  This morning, I am finally back to losing weight rather than relosing weight I had only recently lost .  I am breaking new weight loss records, in other words. 

To date I have lost 149 pounds (counting linearly from what I weighed in January 2012), which brings me to within 20 pounds of my ultimate goal of 165.  The last time I weighed this much/little was in late 2000 or early 2001, right after I had starved my way to a normal weight and then immediately resumed my poor eating habits and sedentary lifestyle.  Needless to say, with my eating habits and compete lack of exercise I did not retain my losses, and by spring of 2002 I had put on more than 75 pounds from my low.

This is less likely to happen now for a few reasons.  First, my eating habits have seriously evolved over the past 3 years since I have begun working on this lifestyle change.  I understand portion control, I focus on drinking enough water in a day, and I do not binge eat as long or as frequently as I used to.  I also eat more fruit and vegetables and much less cheese and carbs than I used to.  That's not to say that I don't love cheese and carbs, but I just don't make them the focus of every course of every meal like I used to.

Second, my exercise habits have dramatically changed.  I enjoy the time on the elliptical in the morning, and regular exercise is now just a normal part of my day, rather than a tedious chore to be endured.  I like staying active, and I enjoy being able to walk around the city with the Nerd. 

Third, and most importantly, I have a supportive helpmate in the Nerd who keeps cooking us delicious, healthy meals and doesn't try and undermine me by bringing irresistible treats into the house.  I do not exaggerate when I say that I could not have achieved this without his support and encouragement. 

Finally, I am gradually adopting a more zen-like approach to weight loss.  I understand that some months my body simply chooses to retain all the water and I will put on weight for no apparent reason.  And some months I will crave snacks more than others.  No matter, though - - I understand at a very basic level now that putting on a pound or two - or five or ten - is not the end of the world just as long as I get my head back into my program and focus on eating well and exercising regularly. 

Case in point was my recent trip to the Mothership in Atlanta.  I enjoyed many meals out and sampled a variety of wonderful southern cooking including ribs, pimento cheese, fried chicken and collard greens and banana pudding.  I ate wayyyyy over my normal calories during that trip and came back to Toronto about 8 pounds higher than when I had left.  Rather than getting despondent however, I knew that much of this would be sodium-induced water weight that would come off quickly once I got back into my routine.  And the weight that did not come off quickly would come off slowly, but it would still come off.

The first time I lost a significant amount of weight (back in 2000) I did not have this certainty.  Each pound was a struggle, and when my weight started creeping up again once I resumed my poor eating habits and stopped exercising (i.e. almost immediately), it felt like I could never take the weight off again.  The task felt overwhelming, and therefore it quickly became overwhelming.  I can tell you from brutal - and repeated - experience that it is much easier to lose 5 or even 10 pounds than it is to lose 50 or 100 pounds. 

So this morning I weighed 184.9 pounds.  19.9 pounds to go until I reach my goal weight.  I expect than my target weight zone will end up being 165 pounds +/- 5 pounds, and as long as I keep within this range, all will be well.  We'll see how it goes. 

Onward and downward!

1.5 pounds down ... 25.5 pounds to goal

It's been a good week, all things considering.  I have gotten back into my healthy routine after my little break last week and I have been really enjoying how easy it is to stay within my calorie goals with our new portioning of meals. 

And the work is paying dividends.  I lost another pound and a half this week to being me down to 190.5 pounds, which is only 25.5 pounds away from my goal.

I was laughing with The Nerd on one of my walks to work this week that I was able to lose the first 120 pounds in about a year, and the next 20 pounds have taken 2 years.  Mostly because I have had to keep losing them over and over and over again. 

But now that I am comfortable that I really know how to lose those particular pounds (195 lbs-210 lbs, I'm looking at you!) it has been somewhat easier to keep going.  I joke, because otherwise I would be depressed at how my intermittent self-sabotage has repeatedly set me back.  I really am chagrined at myself how often I have had to dust myself off and recommit to my lifestyle change.  Smart people do not take so long to learn what works.  Ah well, I never said I was smart, just doggedly determined and stubborn as hell.  That works almost as well sometimes.

The good thing is that since working with Mr. Fitness my progress has been much more linear.  Even when I go slightly off the rails with food my workouts push me so much that I never regress for long.  And even when I do mess up I know that I will soon be on track - - that's amazingly important, because it keeps me from getting too despondent over periodic slips. 

Speaking of Mr. Fitness, he well and truly kicked my ass last night with a high intensity interval session.  Just brutal, but it felt great.  And it felt even better to stop, let me tell you!

I have received a ton of compliments on how I look this week, so I think that I have reached another milestone of toning.  It's the kind of progress that I don't notice because I look at myself every day, but is apparently dramatic to other people, judging by the comments.  The Nerd and I had dinner with my old landlords on Monday night and she whispered to me that when she saw me she told her husband that I "look tight".  I think that means "toned", because as a lawyer, I am by nature a tight ass - - there would be nothing new to comment on.  Ha! 

Another weekend is on the way, and before you know it the end of the month - and measurements - will be upon us.  I'm just going to keep plugging away and see where it takes me. 

Some emotional eating ... and right back on track

The pop factory laid off about 1,800 people over the past two weeks (worldwide), which seemed like an awful lot of people lost their jobs until Target Canada announced last week that they were closing and throwing 18,000 people out onto the street.  Suddenly 1,800 sounded almost reasonable, even though 1,800 is a very high number in and of itself.  Regardless of the scale, restructurings of any kind are scary as hell and very tough - - they are distracting and take focus off the work that needs to get done.  And given that I just started at the pop factory in the spring of 2014, I was feeling especially vulnerable this time.

I found out that I still had a job on Thursday January 8 (!), and for the entire week leading up to that day I had been emotionally eating in a way that was a borderline (if not outright) binge.  I found myself eating candy at the office and I was almost unable to stop.  It was ridiculous, frankly.  Thank god we found out about our department when we did, because another week of that behaviour would have been very tough to recover from. 

Unfortunately, one of my team mates (and close neighbors on the seating plan) lost her job in the restructuring, so our team did not escape Scot-free.  With her obvious (and profound) distress at losing her job I felt no small amount of survivor guilt, but fortunately I was able to deal with that without eating my way into a food coma.  Because the impact was no longer directly on me, I was able to approach it less emotionally than when I thought I might lose my job and chocolate was my crutch.  Once the restructuring happened I could be supportive for my friend but I did not need chocolate to do so.

One good thing about that day (and frankly about the only good thing about that day) was that I had an absolutely brutal high intensity interval conditioning session with Mr. Fitness that evening, and it was the perfect way to work through all my stress and anxiety about what had just happened.  All those times I doubted whether workouts help with stress are now officially put to rest.  After the workout I was shaking with exhaustion, dripping with sweat, aching, and content, if you can believe it. The more I work out with the trainer the more I enjoy it, because he pushes me during every session.  I know I will see results from this work because there is no way that my body can get used to anything - - as soon as I think it is getting easier, Mr. Fitness adds new elements to kick up the program.  Bastard (just kidding - Mr. Fitness is a lovely man and I am pretty sure his parents were married).

Another good thing about that week is that even though my mouth would not stay shut (!), I was working out hard every day.  Even better, the day after the restructuring I was suddenly and completely able to ignore all temptation or desire to snack.  It was as if a switch had flipped in my head.  The firings were over, I still had my job, and it was time to take care of business.  My brain literally got back in gear and I was immediately focused on healthy eating and my workouts.  And I haven't had any overwhelming desire to snack since.  Strange.

The net result: I put on several pounds the week of the restructuring.  After a couple of sessions with my personal trainer and two weeks of consistent hard workouts, I am now back down to a weight that is 2.7 pounds lower than before the restructuring.  I am still about 10 or 11 pounds higher than my lowest recent weight (before Christmas), but I am on a great program right now that is pushing me and I am staying on track much more than I am off plan. 

I find that  being able to track my workouts (both alone and with the personal trainer) on the Trainerize web app is very motivating, and this has especially helped me keep on track over the past couple of challenging weeks.

I have always loved tracking my workouts and my progress, and this program combines both of these things together.  Mr. Fitness accesses the interface to check on my progress, and he absolutely knows when I have been following the program and when I have been doing the workouts he set up for me.  I like this because it helps keep me accountable. 

And because the trainer knows when I have done a workout and what I have done, he knows when and how to bump up the next workout.  For example this week in my "push" conditioning session we added dips and incline bench presses.  It turns out I absolutely suck at dips, but next time I try them I will be better.  My squats were better this week than last week, and they will be even better next week.  Progress. 

I am travelling and at offsites most of this coming week, so it will be a very trying week that will challenge my discipline.  Monday will be back to back meetings followed by 2 days in senior leadership meetings with an obligatory evening dinner/event, then a full day planning meeting, then travelling to Boston and Hartford to visit a couple of our production facilities from Friday to the following Tuesday.  On the next day I have to spend the day in London Ontario teaching a class at the law school - - including an obligatory lunch with the other teachers. 

So it looks like a week and a half of hotel food, restaurant food, conference meals, and (hopefully) hotel gyms.  It looks like I will not be able to meet with the personal trainer this week due to the schedule from hell, but at least I can keep up on my program using hotel facilities as much as I can. 

This is what 12.5 miles looks like...

This morning was our last "official" long training walk for the upcoming Weekend to End Women's Cancers charity walk, in that all the training walks from now until September 6 will be shorter than 12.5 miles.  Today was 12.5 miles and tomorrow will be 8.5 miles - - together they amount to pretty much what we will be walking in one day at the event.  Next week are a couple of 6 milers on the weekend, and then it's down to 1.5 mile walks and 3 mile walks as we taper down.  It will be back to the elliptical for sure. 

This morning we left at our customary ungodly hour (we were on the road before 5 am), and we headed east along Queen Street, but instead of following Queen until the Neville Park Loop and coming back by way of the waterfront trail like we did last weekend, we went up Kingston Road to Victoria Park avenue (the old border between Toronto/East York and Scarborough), and then headed up Victoria Park to the Danforth, which we took all the way back to our stomping ground. 

I must confess that I struggled more with this walk than I did with the walk last weekend, mainly because I was trying to push the pace more this week.  And it worked - - we shaved a whole 15 minutes off our walk time for the distance, going down from 3 hr 40 min to 3 hr 25 min this morning over the same distance.  That's a full 15 minutes we did not need to walk compared to last week, which is great.

But the pace was probably an issue, because I was much more tired and sore at the tail end of this walk than I was last week, and I am sure the fact that we were pushing the pace even on the long uphill stretch up Kingston Road had something to do with it.

Nevertheless, we were able to finish the 12.5 miles in much better form than the first time we tried that distance to be sure, and I am feeling pretty good about our chances on the day of the walk. 

All these steps are doing wonders for my Fitbit rankings.  Month to date August I am ranked #60 among 1,100 Redditors who Fitbit, which puts me in the top 5-10% of that group.  Yay!

And did I mention that all this walking is good for weight loss?  Even with rehydrating throughout the walk I was down another pound this morning, for a total of 15.6 pounds lost since I started the new job and recommitted myself to my workout and eating plan.  Sweet. 

I am still above my lowest previous weight, of course, but every additional pound lost puts some distance between me and the dreaded 200 pound mark.  I now have 33 pounds to go until my goal weight, which sounds like a much more reasonable number than it feels like some mornings. 

Today the Nerd and I are going to bake some "proof of concept" Share a Coke (R) gingerbread cookies for the charity bakesale my company is having on Tuesday.  After the cookies, perhaps a much deserved nap.  I love weekends since starting my new job.

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". 

132.3 pounds down - and another size

It's the beginning of a new month and you know what that means - - summary time!

As you know I have been working out and trying to eat better for about the last two months or so (coincidentally right around the time that I started my fabulous new job).  At the end of June I saw some positive results, but July was really the first full month back on the program.  The program is a bit different than before - - with the training we have been doing for the Weekend to End Women's Cancers 32 km charity walk on September 6, my workouts have shifted from mostly elliptical workouts with some weights to mostly walking outside, with weights and elliptical thrown in on non-walking days. 

I could tell I was doing a lot of walking, because I finished the month at #65 on the total list of steps taken for the Redditors who Fitbit group, out of more than 1,000 people.  That's right, yours truly was in the top 10% of all Redditors who Fitbit according to my steps taken.  Go me!  If you want to friend me on Fitbit I am user #22LQKV.

I was very curious to see the results of all that walking, and the results are now in. 

As for my weight, I lost 12 pounds in July, for a total of 132.3 pounds lost overall.  I am still chipping away at the weight that I had gained as a result of my uncontrolled emotional binge eating during my job search and job change, but I am very happy with my progress now that I have gotten back into my healthy routine.

Put simply, all of the emotional eating and slacking off put me behind by about a full year in that I was around my current weight about this time last year.  And you know what?  That's OK.  I am not in a time-limited contest to beat anyone to a healthy weight, and as long as I am making progress in either my eating habits or my workouts I am not going to beat myself up for past poor decisions.

It's not that the past is past, it's that belabouring past errors doesn't accomplish anything and it only serves to frustrate me in the here and now.  Instead of focusing on that big leap from 185 pounds to 213+ pounds and how fast I can get back down to 185, I am focusing on the steady whittling down from 213+ pounds to where I am now, at 201.6 pounds.   I am not as focused this year about how quickly I can lose the weight since I have found that for me, that leads to unhealthy obsessiveness and general discontent about how slowly the weight comes off.  Rather, I try and make better decisions each day and look to see the weight come off in its own time.  Very zen of me, I know.  I am more and less successful at this kind of laissez-faire attitude depending on the day, but overall I am better at being patient than I was last year, so I will take this as a win.

This time around I try and celebrate the wins more and don't obsess over the minor gains if I am generally sticking to my plan.  As a result, my attitude is much more positive overall, and I feel better about myself and am generally very content with my renewed progress to date.

The measurements show the progress I have made since my May-June reboot (all measurements in inches):

I am not as focused on hitting a particular size as I am to see the positive changes in my body, however going down a size or two, as I have, is still very motivating.  Everything is coming down with the walks, except my calves.  Sheesh - - my Little Lulu cankles are destined to stay with me forever, alas. 

I am pleased to see the measurements come down to a proper size 14, which is well within the zone of being able to shop anywhere I want.  I suspect that my body is actually built to be a natural 14, even though according to my measurements I have gone down to a 12 or even a 10 in some styles (last year, before eating my way back to a 16-18).  Right now I am not going to fuss too much about the sizes and just pay attention to my body and try and wear things that are comfortable regardless of their size.  I tend to favour slightly larger size shorts, jeans and skirts, given that I have a decent badonkadonk, while I can wear smaller sweaters now that the girls are smaller.  Yes, I understand that the previous sentence is full of colourful metaphors for various parts of my anatomy - - deal with it. 

The Nerd and I went down to Columbus Ohio this weekend to visit his parents in their new home.  I spent a lot of time trying to be sensible in the face of all the delicious food - - his family has a delightful tradition of pre-dinner cocktails (complete with snacks) and it is all too easy to eat 300-400 calories just in rye and crackers and cheese and hummus and veggies before the meal even starts.  Yum!  I also tried to make a point of drinking lots of water, since I find that generally American food is higher in sodium than the Nerd and I are used to consuming in the average day.

On a side note, I discovered that I am a rye snob, because our "well" rye at home is Crown Royal, while our "nice" rye is s special edition Crown Royal.  Apparently normal people consider Crown Royal to be their upmarket rye, so it turns out that I have been very spoiled in the Canadian Whiskey department. 

Although the Nerd's mom does engage in short post-meal walks, they are nothing like the multi-mile marches that the Nerd and I have been doing as part of training for our big walk.  But at least it was some physical activity while we were visiting, which is better than sitting on my butt for the entire time.  I remember when I couldn't keep up with the Nerd's parents on their walks, and now I find them to be more of a stroll than a proper walk - - how times have changed!  All in all, it was a wonderful visit and I can't wait to go back.

Speaking of training walks, here is a map of where we have been walking so far, with the coloured lines indicating our walks:

A few points of note regarding the above map.  First, the big triangle is not where the Nerd and I discovered the power of flight, but it is where the GPS extrapolated the subway ride we took from Lawrence West subway station back downtown to finish off one of our walks. 

We also did one walk in which we drove out to the Leslie and Lawrence East area to walk through one of Toronto's many park systems.  You can see this 3.75 mile loop (for 7.5 miles total) all by itself in the top right hand side of the map.  Interestingly, we did another 5.5 mile walk up the Don Valley trail (for an 11 mile round trip) last weekend, and we almost met up with the southern end of our previous park walk.  Perhaps next weekend we will close the loop, as we have a 12.5 mile walk on the schedule for Saturday morning. 

On an personal note, I felt absolutely fine after our 11 mile walk - - a little tired, but in no obvious discomfort.  This is a big improvement over our last 12.5 mile walks and shows the benefit of doing the training plan the right way around. (!)




Finally, I am not sure if I have officially debuted my haircut, which I got just before the third interview for my current job.  I decided that growing out curly hair is just too frustrating, so I went short, as can be seen in this photo of me and my sister from her birthday in June:

I'm the one on the right

When telling each other about the dresses we were wearing we initially thought we had brought the same dress for dinner out, but we were both simply au courant with the current black and white trend.   

August has more of the same on tap - - the Nerd and I will continue our training walks, and expect to walk around 26 miles a week for the next couple of weeks, in preparation for the big charity walk at the beginning of September.  I will try and keep integrating free weights into my workouts 2-3 times a week, keeping the recent additions of reverse crunches and standing calf raises.  And of course, there's the old standby of the elliptical for those days when walks are not planned. 

Walking training update - 133.2 miles down

This week was a relatively easy week (!) in that we only had 16.5 miles on the schedule with a 5 miler on Monday, 4 miles on Wednesday, and 7.5 miles this morning.  Monday's walk was hellishly uncomfortable due to groin and foot pain combined with crowded sidewalks.  But Wednesday's walk and this morning's walk were both very nice now that I have tried to slow down a bit and take it a bit easier on the groin.  Yes, the irony of having a sports injury is not lost on me.

All this walking is having a couple of result.  First is that I am actually in the top 100 out of 921 Redditors who also Fitbit, at #71.    So far in July I have taken more than 160,000 steps, which is pretty neat considering how few steps I ever took before I started working out (less than 2,000 a day). 

The other fortunate side effect is that I am back to losing weight.  Although I am still (far) above my lowest from last summer, I have lost 8.6 pounds since I recommitted myself last month to working out and eating healthy and reducing snacking.  The food side of things is really the bigger key to success, but I have been diligently working out and trying to keep my activity levels up as well, much more so than I had been doing previously. 

If I can keep focused on taking things one day at a time and avoid seriously injuring myself in the next few months, I may even get back to where I had been.  The big picture is still too far away to really look at since I still have 40 pounds to lose, but  pretty soon I will be able to re-start that countdown to my final goal.

Workout week 80 = 138.5 pounds down [with photos]

This week was a good week. 

I tried yoga for the first time and although I am, as it turns out, about as flexible as a piece of rebar, I really enjoy trying to do the different poses.  It makes me feel all girly and stuff.  Eventually, I hope that the yoga will help me improve my balance and flexibility, even though right now I'm mostly just a lurching fool.  And this lurchiosity, my friends, is why I do my yoga at home, without witnesses.

As for the weight loss, I was right on track this week, losing 1.5 pounds to bring me to a total of 138.5 pounds lost overall.  That's 41.5% of my original body weight lost, or 82% of my total weight loss objective.

Depending on the tool used to calculate these things, I am on track to hit my weight loss goal in early December 2013 or January 2014.  The last couple of weeks of slightly slower weight loss have pushed the goal date out slightly, but I am still trending exactly where I need to be for when I need to get there. 

Last week I upped my free weights to 12 pounds, and this week I added the yoga 3 times a week.  It finally feels like I am getting back into my routine after all the disruption with my vacation.  It feels nice to be back into my routine, too.  I like the predictability of my workouts.

My fasting blood sugars have gotten back to normal, as well.  Last week I had a couple of slightly high readings, which was disappointing considering how normal my numbers had been for so long.  How soon we forget!  It wasn't all that long ago when I would have been thrilled to string along 5 normal numbers, and now to have one high reading puts me into a bad mood. 

We looked at what was causing the elevated results, and it looks like eating dinner too late in the evening is the culprit.  Both times that I had elevated blood sugars occurred the morning after we ate dinner around 9:30 - 10:00 pm.  That appears to be too late.  Now we try and eat earlier, and at the worst, no later than 8:30 pm.  So far, this slight adjustment to my routine appears to be working, and I haven't had an elevated reading since putting this plan into place.

Last week I officially broke into size 14 (according to my end of the month measurements), and in honour of that momentous occasion I am wearing a pair of Gap Classic blue jeans, size 14.  I tried to find the jeans on Gap's website so that I could post a photo, but this style is not on the website.  Considering that these jeans came out of my clothing archive and are at least 13 years old, this is perhaps not surprising.  Oh well.  You will have to trust me that they are hugging every curve.  But they fit fine - - no muffin top!

This week I had my photo taken for the firm's website.  As you may recall, in 2011 I had the sad, puffy photo taken (months before I started working out), and ever since then if you google me you will see this bloated, depressing picture staring back at you:

I look tired and sad and defeated.  138.5 pounds later, you get this:

Same basic pose, same necklace, only now I have a neck (!) and only 1 chin and my necklace hangs lower.  I don't see the progress I make from day to day, but holy cow can I see a difference between these two photos.  I am not sure if I will chose this picture for the website, but at least whatever goes up there will be more representative of what I currently look like.   After all, one always wants one's exes to look at one's photo and say "damn, how could I let her get away", rather than "whew!  Dodged a bullet there!". 

This week's loss puts me well on track to hit my goals by the end of the year or so.  I am only 10 pounds away from Middleweight, and 30.4 pounds away from my overall goal. 

30.4 pounds - - that's like the weight of 3.6 gallons of water.  I can totally reach that.  I just need to keep walking, keep ellipticalizing, keep eating sensibly and keep working on managing my calories.  My calorie goal is down to 1,400 per day which is a challenge on rest days.  However I know I have meals that will get me there, so that's no excuse.  Onward and downward!

Almost entering the terrible teens ... lost, that is

Another week is in the books - - week # 62 of exercising, and the 45th consecutive week without missing a single workout. The focus this week was on proper nutrition, and in particular, managing down my sodium levels.  So far, my efforts have been pretty successful.

This week I lost another 1.6 pounds, for 112.9 pounds lost in total (almost 113 down!).  I now weigh 221 pounds, about what the Nerd weighed last July (he's now down to 177 pounds). I am still on track to hit my goal of 165 pounds sometime around Jan-Feb of next year. 

For the past couple of weeks I have been monitoring my sodium consumption and actively working to bring my levels within Health Canada's guideline of 1,500 mg - 2,300 mg per day.  As you know, my numbers in the past have been higher than the recommended amount, occasionally much higher (my highest reading was more than 6,000 mg!).  Although my recent numbers were not so far off the charts that I needed to dramatically change my lifestyle (I was running around 2,400 - 2,600 mg on average in the past few months), I need to pay attention to sodium and make smarter choices - - both in purchasing and when selecting what foods to eat.

It has been a couple of weeks now, and my work is paying off:

Both my past 7 days and month to date averages are well within the recommended range, and with time (and work), I hope to keep the numbers on the lower end of that range.  Thankfully I do not have hypertension so I do not need to maintain a super strict sodium-reduced diet, but it's still good to keep sodium from getting out of hand - - which is tough to do, since the damn stuff is in everything.  Well, everything delicious, anyways. 
Even more promising, my fasting blood sugar levels have been absolutely fantastic in recent weeks.  I finished off March with a couple of normal results, dropping my average fasting blood sugar for the month to 5.6 mmol/L (where normal is 5.5 mmol/L and under), and I had 9 normal readings in the month (just less than 1 in 3).

So far for April, however, my fasting blood sugar levels have been almost entirely normal - - 4 out of 5 normal readings, in fact, bringing my average fasting blood sugar to 5.4, or in the normal range.  (!!!)

I can't tell you how happy I am with these numbers, as I have been working very hard on nutrition and exercise to bring my numbers into the normal range.  Knowing my double-barreled family history of Type II diabetes (thanks again, Matriarch and Patriarch!), I need to keep working on my lifestyle to get my fasting blood sugar levels down, and keep them down.  I am under no illusions that I will have dramatically improved numbers from this point onwards since this is really a long term objective, but each normal reading represents a positive step in the right direction. The long term trend has been steadily downwards into the normal zone, so I am hoping that my normal readings this month are not outliers, but rather, harbingers of positive trends in the future.

After this week, I am only 16 pounds away from light heavyweight, and 18 pounds away from being merely overweight.  That will be such a huge accomplishment when I get there - - I can't wait!  And Onederland is only 21 pounds away - - - sooooooo close!

To avoid the inevitable plateau, and because my workouts have felt pretty good recently, this week I am taking my workout program up a notch, and adding another 2 pounds to my ankle weights (1 per leg to 3 pounds per leg), and putting the crossramp on the elliptical machine to 7 (or about 50%), up from 6.  I am keeping the tension the same on the elliptical for now, at 5 (or 25%), because I can comfortably do my 130-145 stride rate at that tension.  I think I will also take the reps up on my free weight routine, to do 4 sets of 12 reps (instead of 10 reps) using the 8 lb weights. 

Looking back on what I was doing this time last year, I am amazed - - I was doing 12 minutes on the recumbent bike 3 days a week along with 2 minutes on the rowing machine, and then 15 minutes on the bike plus 3 minutes on the rowing machine the other 2 days a week (I only worked out 5 days a week at that point).  That's a whopping 14 or 18 minutes of cardio, and even that small amount almost killed me.  I was completely blown after getting off the rowing machine, which is perhaps to be expected of someone who at that point weighed around 313 pounds.

I thought I was never going to be able to do much more than that, and now here I regularly do 60 minutes on the elliptical machine, and my only concern is not whether I can finish the workout, but whether I will get too bored.  It is so true that the healthier you get, the more you can do.  My body is simply more able to handle physical exertion now than it could last year, and I love that.  It's important to remember how far I have come on those mornings when the workout is a little tougher, and I have to celebrate that.

Why do the metabolism gods punish me when I lose weight?

I have noticed that the fitness gods are mocking me now.  This month I have hit several nice milestones and lost both inches and pounds, but it's coming back to bite me in the butt.  Now, when I work out on the elliptical, the machine tells me that the calories burned are lower.  Noticeably lower.  Even though I took my step count up as an experiment, my calories burned are lower than they used to be. 

In a similar fashion, the number of calories that I need to lose weight are now 1,640 per day - - it used to be 1,900+.  In other words, I can eat less, and I get less credit for my workouts.  Pooh on that.  That is no fun at all. 

I understand exactly why this is happening, and it is all for good reasons.  It only stands to reason that a lighter body requires less fuel every day than a heavier body - - there's less to cart around, after all.  The same principle applies for the calories expended during exercise - - a heavier person burns more calories than a lighter one because a heavier person is carrying more mass and must overcome more resistance than a lighter person. 

But that doesn't make it fun.  I feel like I am working harder than ever, and getting less credit for it.  Boo! I feel ripped off!

On the good side, as I lose weight I am noticing that I get full faster.  Perhaps after 13 months my body is finally adjusting to my new and improved lifestyle.  I don't need as much food now (relatively speaking), and I cannot comfortably eat as much as I used to, so I don't feel as deprived as I would otherwise. 

Tomorrow's big weigh in will be interesting, where I see if I have maintained (or even improved) on my big milestone loss, or whether I have let the weight creep back.  Plus, it's measurement time, being the end of the month and all.  Fingers crossed!