Wednesday Weigh In: Week 55

This shirt--Jerry bought it for me. I am certainly not that confident to say I am "super sexy" and Jerry knows that! So I told him I'd wear it as an around-the-house shirt or even in the garage when I'm woodworking. I like that he still thinks of me as "sexy" after being married for 19 years. Moving on...

I'll start out be saying that my expectations for my weigh-in were met this week. And not in a good way!

This post may sound like a bunch of bad excuses, and I'm sure some of it is, but it was either typing all of this out or just skipping my weigh-in (I actually considered that). 

I had a bad week for both my diet and exercise. Last week, I mentioned that I wanted to get back to logging my food every day. I was eating the same breakfast and lunch, so I knew how many calories I was getting. Then for dinner, I just assumed that unless I ate an enormous portion, I'd be fine. And I probably would be, if it wasn't for more snacking in the evening.

However, something that's been tough as far as calorie counting goes is that I've been cooking a LOT of new recipes--something new just about every single day. I really like trying new vegan foods and experimenting with recipes that sound good to me. And because the recipes--and some ingredients--are so new to me, it's hard for me to estimate how many calories are in the dish just by looking at the recipe. Just because something is vegan doesn't mean it's low calorie (or even healthy!).

The meals I've been cooking are certainly healthier than what I was eating a year ago, but I haven't been entering them into the Cronometer food log. To do that, I have to create a new recipe in the app, find and add all the ingredients, and save it to my log. Inputing a recipe takes more than you'd think--probably 10 minutes-- which isn't long, but I just tell myself I'll do it later and I forget. And then I don't enter my snack, either.

Anyway, let's cut to the chase and get to the weigh-in that I really don't want to share:

I was at 148.4. Normally, I would be cool with this number! Remember how badly I wanted to hit the 140s again? And now I'm here. However, I gained a pound last week and a pound the week before--today, I am up one pound from last week. So, that's a three-pound gain in three weeks. 

I *know* that doesn't sound like a big deal. When I was 250+ pounds, it used to drive me absolutely crazy when a friend would complain about having to lose five pounds or something. But if I'd caught the five pounds back in my teens(!), it never would have escalated to 253 pounds in my 20s.

I'm not in a panic mode or anything, but at this point I want to catch these three pounds before they turn into five or twenty or a hundred. If I work hard and stay focused, I can lose this in 1-2 weeks. Actually, I have my final weigh-in for the six-month DietBet on July 1st, so I can't afford to gain any more. I have to weigh less than 147.1; and since it's the final month, the pot is much larger than the first five months.

Because the DietBet is almost over and I have no desire to do another, I'd like to think of some way to stay on top of things through the summer. I hate the word "motivated" when it comes to losing weight--it's so temporary, like I wrote in my post "The Difference Between Motivation and Determination". (That's a good post, if I do say so myself--worth the read.) I feel determined already, in the sense that I'm going to keep moving on and not let the few small gains make me say "Screw it!" and just quit altogether. I'm not that dramatic ;)

The official start of summer is on June 21st, so I thought it would be fun to make a *simple* challenge for myself for the summer. (Maybe just three simple goals to work on.)

I only ran once this past week, even though I'd planned to follow the 80/20 schedule (which is six days a week!). I ran three times in the past couple of weeks, which is better than nothing, but I'd like a routine. The schedule I had been planning to follow may not be what I want after all (at least through the summer). I was excited to do it! But I didn't enjoy the first runs that I did because I was too focused on my heart rate zones. I did better (and felt better) when I was running more by feel over the last year.

I'm going to do some thinking about it this week and decide whether I want to give it a good try or if I should stick to something more minimal (running X number of days per week without a specific fitness goal, other than getting/staying in shape). Or maybe something in between.

The dew point is 71 F today (with an actual temp of 95, index of 107), which basically means that if you step outside, you instantly feel wet and sticky (I always consider the dew point before looking at the temps; a high dew point--especially over 70--means the humidity is ridiculous. The conditions of my first marathon, hahaha.

Running in this heat wouldn't be the slightest bit fun. I don't mind running on the treadmill, but with the heart rate training, there is way too much up and down in speed and that's far from ideal on the treadmill. I would have to be watching my heart rate constantly. And again--no fun.

What I'm leaning toward doing is just running 3-4 days a week at whatever speed feels good that day, and if the weather is too hot I can just run on the treadmill. Maybe I'll even write a running plan that is specific to the treadmill; that would be pretty fun!

I really hope this post doesn't sound whiny or like I'm just making excuses to hide the fact that I'm falling apart (I'm not falling apart, I promise). I actually feel good about myself! I had an appointment with my psychiatrist yesterday and for the first time, I didn't have any issues that I felt needed addressing. We switched my anxiety med back to the one I was on previously (the new one I tried made me forgetful and I hated that).

Anyway, this week I am going to try to focus on this:

1) Log my calories. It will be much easier if I create the recipe in my Cronometer app before I even cook; that way, I can take the correct portion and I'll know how many calories it is.

2) Find a go-to vegan snack that I look forward to eating. I only eat a snack once a day (at around 8:00 PM) and I want it to be at least somewhat healthy. I like hummus, so I was thinking I could make some homemade pitas to have with hummus. That sounds so good!

That's it! Super simple. By next week, I'll try to have a plan for the summer--something that is simple, not too easy or too difficult. And that will get me "motivated" to keep working on taking the weight off!