Vacation & 40 By 40 Update

Vacation was great!!  Mom is recovering from surgery, so she was struggling a bit and tired, but so glad to see us.  We ate well, we drank well and we lazed like nobody's business.  It was positively delightful!  My parents are awesome.

I enjoyed wearing halters!  I went shopping and was pleasantly surprised at the sizes that I was able to wear.  I even bought a size M jacket from Ann Taylor and a size XL dress that looks smokin! It is for Fall though so it will be a little while before I can wear it. It is still the middle of summer in Texas! It is frustrating how this process seems to take forever, but I did get some validation that it IS working.  

Loss Goal: 40
July Loss:  5.0
Total Loss:  9.8
Left to Lose: 30.2

If I can keep losing 5 pounds per month, I will be thrilled.  That 5 pound loss even includes this Florida trip will all of its eating, drinking and laziness.  I have a couple of weeks before my trip to Louisville to see my brother and his family.

It gets frustrating working out twice a day and eating like a little birdie most of the time.  But it makes it all worth it when I can enjoy a vacation with its splurges and STILL lose weight toward my goal. 

This week is going to be a challenge.  I have a work lunch and my monthly dinner today, so no workouts.  Tomorrow, I will be able to work out at lunch and after work.  Thursday, I have church at lunch, so I'm trying to convince myself to work out before work and then after work.  Not sure about Friday either.  Saturday I will Jazzercise in the morning.  Next week I can get back to CrossFit.

Hugs!

Burdens

Everyone has a burden, their own cross to bear, their specific demon, their Achilles heel.  However you say it, every person is dealing with something. 

 

Unfortunately, obesity is a totally visible fight.  You don't have to talk about it publicly or even acknowledge it, but there is no denying or hiding it. 

 

It is frustrating.  Someone can be a complete and utter asshole, or ridiculously lazy or even dumb and they do not get the public scorn that an obese person gets.  For example, an obese person's PERCEIVED laziness is often judged more harshly than a thin person's ACTUAL laziness.  "Why don't they just work out?"  "Why don't they just eat less?" 

 

Why don't you just not be a jackass?

Of all the burdens that come to mind: health issues, health issues of a loved one, poverty, drug or alcohol addiction...food issues/obesity, while hard to live with is preferable over all those things in my mind.  Additionally, I would rather struggle with food than have to struggle to be kind. 

The older I get, the more I realize that other people's opinions of me are less important than how I feel about myself.  If I am kind and my loved ones can rely on me, I can go to bed each night knowing that all is good in the world.  When I lash out and say something mean or I gossip or I hurt someone's feelings in anger, that's when I start getting anxious and insecure.  When I'm living right, the anxiety and insecurity melt away.

It took a while, but I believe that this burden has helped teach me humility and charity.  I may have some pretty ginormo thighs, but I would like to think that my pretty ginormo heart is what leaves the strongest impression.

Hugs!

New 'do

I'm going to visit my parents this weekend.  They live in Florida and they have a pool.  It occurred to me on the way to work yesterday that I don't have a swimsuit.  Oops!  Off to Target I went last night after work to see what kind of sadness was left in the swimsuit section.

I wasn't sure what size I would wear.  I grabbed the 3 XL suits they had and then an assortment of the smaller plus sized suits.  The good news was that the XLs were a perfect fit.  The bad news is that brought my options down to the three.  I settled on a simple blue one piece.  You know, if my thighs weren't so freaking huge, I would be pretty okay with my body.  I mean I would still strive to make it better, but my thighs...they are just beyond.  Working on it...anyway.  The one piece looks fine.  I have a pair of shorts I can wear over it and I bought a simple black cover up.  It will do.

I got my hair done on Saturday.  I've been getting frustrated with my long hair and decided to get it cut.  You can see how it looked before in July picture on the right of my blog.  Here is what it looked like after:

It was okay, but it didn't really excite me much.  Plus it was a nightmare when I tried to work out yesterday at lunch.  It is too short for a ponytail and I didn't have the time to wash and redo it.  So I went back today and got it chopped.

It really is more "me" and it will be so much easier to deal with for working out.

I'm going out for sushi tonight with BFF.  It has been a while so I'm excited!  I don't seem to be very tight band-wise, so I shouldn't have a problem eating it and it will be oh so yummy.  Plus it is relatively healthy as far as going out to dinner goes. 

Hugs!!

Wake Up Call

Last night I had a bit of a wake up call.  Okay, now I have Adam Levine in my head, but that's a regular occurrence so moving on...

For the last several weeks, I have been super diligent about logging my food and activity during the week.  I have been shooting for 750-1000 calorie deficits per day and succeeding!  I did not log on Saturday or Sunday with the thought that I was roughly breaking even on those days.  After further review (and two weeks in a row of less than a pound weight loss), I discovered that is SO not the case.

I lie to myself.

I honest to God thought I had gotten past this.  I find comfort in the fact that I really don't think I was doing it on purpose.  Let's review the week, shall we?

	Burned	Eaten	Deficit
Monday	2,590	1,329	1,261
Tuesday	2,521	1,120	1,401
Wednesday	2,217	2,361	(144)
Thursday	2,644	1,529	1,115
Friday	2,262	2,660	(398)
Saturday	2,552	2,843	(291)
Sunday	2,062	2,270	(208)
	16,848	14,112	2,736

Let's evaluate...  Obviously, Monday and Tuesday were great.  Both days I went to CrossFit and also worked out at lunch.  I also averaged about 1200 calories which is my goal.

Wednesday was BFF's birthday.  I only worked out in the morning AND I was significantly higher on calories.  I will say that I didn't have nutrition information for my meals out that day, but I did try to log conservatively.  In looking back at my food log, the one thing that stands out is that I had a cupcake and ice cream that afternoon for over 500 calories.  Even if I would have just cut out the ice cream, that would have made a difference and it would have put me at a calorie deficit for the day.

Thursday I worked out at lunch and went to Jazzercise, so the calories burned was great!  I was 300 higher on my calories than I would like, but honestly, most everything on the menu that day was good calories.  Happy there.

Friday.  Oh, Friday.  I did go to CrossFit, but honestly, CrossFit isn't great cardio and doesn't burn a lot of calories (however, it does build muscle to help you burn more calories throughout the day, so I'm not complaining!)  But obviously, my problem here was calories.  We had a catered lunch and looking at my food diary, the only thing that I probably should have changed was the bread.  I had given up bread for a while, but the dinner roll looked so good (and it was!) that I ate it.  If I would have cut that out, my lunch would have been fine.  But the big no-no was the piece of chocolate cake I had.  Don't get me wrong, it was delicious.  But I should have at least cut it in half. 

For dinner we went to Joe's Crab Shack.  I thought I was doing well getting a steampot, but that sucker had over 1000 calories!!  WOW!!  Okay, well, lesson learned there.  Looking back at my food diary, I wish I would have cut the roll and the cake in half.  That would have left me close to breakeven for the day.

Saturday I went to Jazzercise so my calories burned was good.  But in a week moment, I let myself buy Ritz chips at the store.  It had been a long time since I had gotten them.  But just like Nutella, I cannot ration Ritz chips.  I can tell myself I will.  But I won't.  I CAN'T BUT THESE ANYMORE.  Period.  Full Stop.  If I would have made a different choice, I feel confident I would have saved at least 500 calories for the day.  I can't ignore that.

Sunday is almost always my rest day.  My issue with food on this day is that I had the chips & guacamole at Chipotle.  If I would have cut the chips in half I would have been under breakeven.

This analysis helped me see that just a few tweaks (not starvation, not banning all treats) would have changed my calorie intake by over 1,500 which is close to 1/2 pound.  These are the choices I need to focus on.

I know that my detailed analysis of food intake is probably not fun reading, but this exercise was very helpful to me. 

Goals for the week:
8 work outs
750-1000 calorie deficits M-Th
Make good choices while on vacation F-M.

All in all, the scale is going in the right direction and I'm feeling so very good!  That is the most important thing.

Hugs!

TTT

1.  I want to apologize to my readers for the word verification that I have apparently had up.  I hate those things!  Not sure why it was on, but it is now off.  :)

2.  The rest of BFF's birthday was awesome!  We went to the Ranger game.  The Rangers had two walk off wins in a row, so I was kind of worried that we might witness a loss.  But they came through and had a THIRD walk off in win in a row.  We were so stoked.

3.  I will also say that for as much as I disliked the FancyPants picture from yesterday, I did like the picture we took last night.  I'm not sure I love how my hair looks, but that's just being picky. 

I still have a lot of work to do, but I'm getting there. 

4.  I was proud of myself for passing on ice cream last night when I really wanted some. 

5.  Also, I had decided that since I told Godmother that I would work out with her at lunch today, that I would skip Jazzercise tonight.  But the when I logged onto Facebook this morning, someone had posted:  Don't complain about the results you didn't get from the things you didn't do.  Wow...that was appropriate.  I brought my Jazzercise stuff.

6.  I'm going to Florida next weekend to see my parents.  It will be a little harder to get in my workouts, but if I'm disciplined, I can get in eight and then enjoy my weekend.

7.  I can't believe it is already August.  Lots of fun things coming up.  The trip to Florida and another trip to Louisville at the end of the month to see my brother's family.  A couple of shows including the BOOK OF MORMON!!!!  And yes, I totally just screamed that.  I am so excited.

8. Saving money is hard.

9.  I think I like myself with shorter hair.  As I was sitting here writing this, I was looking at the picture above compared to some pictures from the Olympics that SIL put in this year's calendar which is hanging on my wall.  No, granted, I was about 10 pounds lighter at the Olympics, but I was softer because I hadn't worked out in two months.  So I would say kind of comparable.  I like the Olympic ones better.  But that length of hair is so difficult when you are working out because you can't put it up but it is too long to just wash and go.  I'm getting my hair done on Saturday and I'm going to keep it as-is, but the wheels are turning.  Here is a picture of what I'm talking about:

 

Also, those boys were adorable.  German hockey players.  :-)

10.  Tomorrow is Friday and that is worth a little Woohoo!! 


Hugs!