Well I finally got back to my strength training today and it felt great to get it done. I can tell I’ve taken a break, but I’m still stronger than when I first started my program. I made sure to stretch well afterwards, and I’m going to start making an effort to stretch everyday. It is just so good for you!
I made a huge pot of chicken fried rice this evening for dinner. A serving of it is about 500 calories with 26 grams of protein, 16 grams of fiber, and a bunch of vitamins. The serving was pretty big and very filling. The only down side was the high sodium content but that is to be expected in any meal that uses soy sauce. I submitted the recipe to spark and I hope it gets accepted.
I’m not currently counting calories because I feel that by now I should have a good basic idea of how much food it is ok for me to eat in a day. I don’t like constantly thinking about numbers and obsessing about where I am for that one day. I don’t like being cuffed to the food tracker. If I notice not counting is back firing on me, I’ll go back to counting.
I had a great holiday!
The breakfasts and dinners were all buffet meals. At dinner I made an effort to eat salads, fruits and veggies before I ate the higher calorie items. At breakfast I picked up fruit, eggs, some potatoes, and two french toast sticks.
The first day lunch was pizza at a local climber’s hangout. It was really good pizza, high on grease but all very fresh ingredients. They even made a few slices of tofu pizza for my mom.
The second day lunch was a turkey hot dog with a slice of cheddar cheese.
I hiked for three days. The first day was a pretty short and easy hike up and down the mountain. The second day was longer, with some more difficult sections but there were also lots of breaks for picture taking and kid snacking. I’m telling you those kids required frequent refueling. The third day was shorter, but difficult going up. We went up the steepest trail so it was pretty much of rock or wooden stairs. Man did my legs burn!
I weighed myself this morning and I was somewhere in the 148 range. I was 147.6 before I left. This is the time of the month where I gain water weight, so I’m not really sure where I stand. I might have gained on my trip, I might not have. I’ll do an official weigh in tomorrow.
I finally did a bit of exercise in this past weekend, my mom and I went on two walks. I haven't count calories for four days now, but I'm down to 147.6 so I must be doing something right! Four days ago I was up at 148.4
Its so odd that I'm getting better results right now when I'm not exercising and not counting calories. Is it because there is something I'm doing now that my body needs and wasn't getting? Maybe I wasn't eating enough, even though it should have been enough. Or is it because I've just got some weight loss momentum built up?
One thing I need to consider is I could be dehydrated and that could explain for some of the extra weight loss. I haven't been drinking my water and the last two days I've been drinking caffine. I need to get rid of the two liter of Diet Dr. Pepper because the caffine is really messing up my sleep schedule. I'm going to go ahead and dump it down the sink.
Confession time: I haven't done any exercise since my last post, no cardio, no weights, nothing.
Life has just been a little crazy, between school work, needing to clean my apartment, and lacking a car.
I have been a little more active than normal with some extra walking from my apartment to campus, and all the extra cleaning.
I've also kept my eating in line and when I jumped on the scale this morning I was down to 148.4! So I'm making progress! I can't wait to get a car though; I miss my runs in the park.
When I look in the mirror lately I can just barely tell I've lost weight. I'm glad its starting to show some.
Last week I was 149.8, in the middle of the week I was 149.2, today I’m 150.2! Darn it! My only consolation is that my measurements stayed the same or decreased just an itty bitty bit.
Is this water weight, or bad choices? Here is a review:
Cardio:
I did miss a cardio workout last week because that weekend run never did work out. I got my other two in though.
Strength Training:
Umm… nope. I was pretty bad about this, but I don’t think it should have had such a negative effect. The whole point of strength training is so you don’t lose too much muscle.
Eating:
I’m not sure how I did on Saturday because there was no way to track, but I know I did great until the party and I wasn’t out of control at the party. I never even felt full that evening.
On Sunday I know I went over because D and I went to CiCi’s pizza.
I can see I made some mistakes. I guess what bugs me is that in the past I’ve made the same mistakes and still lost weight.
What it comes down to I think is my body is comfortable at 150 pounds. I’ve maintained between 150 and 155 for over a year now. I guess this is a mini plateau. I’m going to have to be extra vigilant to get over this hump.
I’m striking off my goal of being 135 by the New Year. That just isn’t realistic, it never really was. My new goal is to break the hold 150 pounds has on my body. I want to move steadily away from it, even if I only lose half a pound a week! I think if I can reach 145 I’ll be out of its grasp so that’s the goal I’m going to set in my mind.
My plan for this week:
Cardio:
My car is in the shop so I can’t drive to the park for my runs. The area around my apartment isn’t good for runs (for me), but it’s great for walks. I’m going to concentrate on walks until I get my car back.
Strength Training:
I’m going to reacquaint myself with my strength training routine.
Calories:
I’m going to try and stay in my range 100% this week. I was in range yesterday!
Today I was suppose to go for a run, but when I walked out my door to go I realized it was pouring out! I know from experience that it was more rain than my jacket can handle. I thought about going anyway but I just can’t get myself pumped up for a wet and miserable run. I’ve rescheduled it for tomorrow.
I’m not going to count calories today because D and I are going to a party, and I’ll just have no idea of what the calorie content of the food is. I could just choose not to eat there, but I really want to. This will be the first time I haven’t counted in four weeks! My plan for the night is to just not over stuff myself. :)
Yesterday was a glorious day for a run. The weather was sunny and the temperature was easy to dress for, and I did wonderfully. I’m going further than I was on my run bursts and I feel like I could go further still. I’m holding myself back a little bit so I can do more on Saturday for my “long run” and have some where to build to in future weeks. Last time I was able to do more I did so much more that I didn’t see any more progress for a bit, and it was so discouraging. Little bit by little bit is the way to go for me!
The whole month I’ve been at spark I’ve had kitchen sink problems. The sink wasn’t draining properly and it made it very difficult to do dishes. This has resulted in paper plates, and easy too cook meals. I mainly stuck with frozen things that didn’t require me to use dishes. The sink was fixed today!!! The ability to do dishes easily will make it so much easier to eat more healthy meals. I’m so excited!!! :D
I still need to do my strength training today. I think I’ll get off of here and do that. Today is just upper body and core. I’m leaving out the legs to avoid tiring myself out before my “long run” tomorrow. lol
I accidently over ate yesterday due to poor food choices leaving me hungry. I have my cereal and milk back for breakfast again so things should go better! I do so much better when I have my Kashi GoLean cereal with all its fiber and protein. Yum.
My run went well today. I am noticing that I am going further and at times I feel like I could do even a little more. I'm holding off on that little more until next week. For my long run saturday I think I'll go ahead and extend my run by one more long burst than I've been doing.
You know the scale is an odd thing. I woke up this morning and went to the restroom and weighed myself. I was at 150.4 which just didn't seem right to me. I waited a bit and tried the restroom again where I barely did anything and hopped back on the scale and I got 149.8 which seemed more realistic. A few minutes later I got back on in a whim just to double check and it was down to 149.6. I wonder why it does that? It is so odd. I took the 149.8 and used that for my weigh in today. My measurements were down as well.
I joined a challenge to lose 15 pounds by new years. I'd have to lose 2 pounds a week to make it, which might not be realistic but I'm going to try!
~~~
For a few weeks now I have developed my own little theory about weight loss. I've easily maintained between 150 and 155 for awhile, at least a year or two. Right before I started this journey I accidently got up to 160 pounds, and that first 5 pounds melted away easily. It has been difficult to get out of this 150-155 range, I have had to increase my effort and really pay attention.
What I have been thinking is if your body has maintained easily at a specific weight for awhile it will be harder to push away from that weight becuase your body has grown comfortable there. If I'm right as I get further away from the 150-155 range my weight will begin to come off more easily. I maintained at 130-135 for a number of years and perhaps once my body realizes it can't have the 150-155 it will speed up to get into that old comfort zone of 130-135 and then begin to fight me again. This idea could explain plateaus and it makes sense to me.
A new article was posted on spark recently by Coach Dean about his weight loss journey, it mentioned something similar. He found that he got stuck at a weight that he'd maintained easily at in the past and he mentioned the set point theory explaining this.
"“set-point” theory—the idea that your body has a narrow weight range that it is most comfortable within, and will go to great lengths to stay there."
When I researched the set-point theory the actual claim I saw was that everyone has a weight range that is natural to them, and it basically said its useless to try and weigh less or more than that weight. I don't agree with that theory.
Ok I did it! I did my strength training. I'm working on incorperating the core and the lower body along with the upper body work I've been doing.
Upper Body:
One Arm Dumbell Rows upper back, shoulders, biceps
Dumbell Laterl Raises shoulders
Alternating Dumbell Bicep Curls biceps
Core:
Modified Plank Abs
Crunches Abs
Superman lower back
Lower Body:
Calf Raises With Chair Calves
Lying Abduction Outer thighs and hips
Lying Leg Curls hamstring
I don't necisairly do them in that order. I wouldn't mind adding on one more exercise to get me up to 10, and then I could roll a 10 sided dice to set the order. Random order should keep my body from getting use to the exercises as quickly.
Here are some thoughts on some of them:
I'm getting better and better at that modified plank! I can now hold it for a count of 12 for both reps, when I first started I could only hold it for five seconds each rep. Talk about improvement!
The Lying Abduction are a fancy way of saying leg lifts. I always thought leg lifts were whimpy, but these really did take some work! My hips and thighs were feeling it.
I didn't really feel anything when I was doing the lying leg curls. Maybe my hamstrings are in good shape? I'm not even really sure where my hamstrings are.
I have been slacking on my strength training. I haven't even done todays yet. I just don't feel like doing the strength training anymore. It isn't enjoyable like running.
This weekend I went home to visit and so I did my run walk there, and it was so different than here. Here at the park there are constant hills, none are very steep except that one but they are constant and take their toll on me. At home there are less hills and I was able to run more. I found myself switching to walking because I was out of breath instead of because my leg muscles were sore. It was a really interesting experience. This christmas break I might try the track on campus a few times, just to see what I can do there without hills.
Right now hills work my mucles, but flat area lets me work my cardio.
My eating has been a bit naughty what with halloween and going home but I don't think I did too much damage over all. I still got all my cardio in.
I'm going to go poke around spark at the different strength training exercises, and do some for today. Maybe switching it up some will help me get on track, or maybe I just need to buckle down and do it.
