Exercise becoming reduced

It's really rather hard to get cardio in on Tuesday and Thursday with such a full schedule. Ironically, this is because my 8-9 o'clock hour (roughly) is taken up by my P.E. class, yoga. On Thursday, I don't have enough free time after that until 4-6pm, when I want to study with physics buddies on the Friday homework set. On Tuesday, I was ellipticizing the hour afterward, but now I have to give that up in order to tutor someone. So I'll just have to make do with my yoga for exercise those days and continue doing cardio and pull-ups MWF. I can't wait until next year when I've lost this weight, built up my arm strength and earned my P.E. credit. I'll have so many more options for when and how to exercise.

Weekly summary

So I was reading a website the other day that was making the point, a calorie is a calorie, and it said for an example, eating 4000 calories it doesn't matter if you eat 444 grams of fat or 1000 grams of white sugar. Weeeelll, I looked up the LD50 of sugar, and 1000 grams would be about half an LD50 dose, based on rat values, for someone of my current weight. So erm... it matters in other ways!

... oh yeah, my current weight. 157.6, 35.5% fat. We are on another WTF curve, this one pointing the opposite direction from last time:

That gray line is 160 and each of those dots is spaced approximately 1 pound up or down from the next. Yes, I've been seeing one-pound steps all week. I don't fuckin' know, dude.

Quick stats: average kcals/day 1660, 5 cardio, 3 strength workouts, 2 yoga classes, average estimated daily kcal balance -816, -2.6 lbs.

I did some measuring again today. I still can't find a way to measure my arm that gives me consistent readings. I think it's just because I have to use both hands, one of which is attached to the arm itself. I've lost another quarter inch off my "hips" since the phase end. I've decided for the hips I'll just keep measuring the spot that's easy to do, because it's still a self-consistent measurement.

Friday 9/24

Scrambled eggs with sauteed onions and cheese and toast with cream cheese and jam (140+30+20+110+110+45+25=480)
Coffee with skim (10)
Roseberry chocolate (80)
Soup, cheese, and crackers (200+110+130=440)
Crackers (50)
Rice and cheese soft taco with less beans (120+115+60+110=405)
Ice cream (300)

480+10+80+440+50+405+300=1765

Thursday 9/23

Granola with cream (140+80=220)
Banana and soaked almonds (100+100=200)
CV sandwich (470)
Coffee with skim (15)
1/2 bar roseberry chocolate (135)
Chicken, half a buttered baked potato, and green beans (480+100+50+50=680)

220+200+470+15+135+680=1730

Wednesday 9/22

Plum (50)
Egg and cheese toast sandwich (90+110+110=310)
Pasta, black beans, sauce, and cheese (200+115+50+110=475)
Soaked almonds (100)
Coffee with skim and cookies (10+40+140=190)
Rice, bean, and cheese soft taco (460)

50+310+475+100+190+460=1575

Tuesday 9/21

Oatmeal with cream and sugar and tea (220+40+30=290)
A few bites of a nectarine that was bad (20)
Kiwi (50)
Vegetable soup, cheese, and crackers (200+220+130=550)
Coffee with skim (10)
Flatbread (120)
Pasta with sauce and salad with tuna and dressing (200+50+25+75+50=400)

290+20+50+550+10+120+400=1440

Monday 9/20

Sweetened yogurt topped with granola and an egg on bread (85+25+70+80+100=360)
Coffee with skim (10)
Vegetable soup, cheese, and crackers (200+110+130=440)
Kiwi (50)
Bell pepper and cream cheese (35+90=125)
Coffee with skim (10)
Flatbread (200)
Rice, bean, and cheese soft taco (230+110+120=460)
Glass of wine (125)

360+10+440+50+125+200+460+125=1780

Sunday 9/19

Oatmeal with cream and sugar, grapefruit with sugar, and an egg (150+60+30+45+80=365)
Cheese and tomato sandwich (470)
Crackers (90)
Plum (50)
Vegetable soup, bread, and wine (200+400+125=725)

365+470+90+50+725=1700

Saturday 9/18

Banana chocolate chip pancake, veggie sausage, and coffee with cream and sugar (475+160+55=690)
Potatoes (150)
Leftover pancake (230)
Chunk of cheese (110)
Mac and cheese with tuna and peas (300+40+75+35=450)

690+150+230+110+450=1630

Halfway done!

160 has been broken. My ticker finally balances at 25 pounds lost, 25 to go. I weigh 159.6 lbs.

And now comes the part of the year when it's cold. When I say to myself every day "damn, it's chillier than it was yesterday, I should have worn a sweater under the coat/worn a different coat/brought a scarf/need to get some gloves." When I sit down for class in my long sleeved shirt and after twenty minutes of not moving start incrementally adding my outdoor layers. When at home I shiver no matter how many sweaters and blankets I use, except when my furnace of a boyfriend cuddles me.

This year it'll be worse, too. My insulating fat layer will be thinner than past years and thinning all the while. My mom is always cold in winter and has always weighed no more, usually less than my goal weight. I may be doomed to follow in her footsteps. But I guess the point is I will be cold anyway and I'm currently overweight by any calculation. If I can freeze my ass off weighing 175 (as last winter) then my sense of temperature really ought to have no bearing on my weight loss efforts. And it doesn't. I'm just... not looking forward to being even colder than usual. I don't remember noticing these effects in September before either. But we had a sucky summer that came in late, never really reached its usual heights, and appears to be checking out early, yay climate change, so maybe it's not me it's the planet. I'll wear 25 pounds of sweaters if I have to this winter, but I'm not storing the weight in my body!

Weekly summary

Today, I weigh 160.2 lbs with 35.6% body fat. I also wore my free-box 8 pants out to breakfast.

Quick stats: average kcals/day 1714, 6 cardio, 2 strength workouts, 1 yoga class, average estimated kcal balance -707, -2.2 lbs.

Food journal:

Friday 9/17

2 toast with cream cheese, 1 oil-fried egg, 1/2 grapefruit, and 1 Emergen-C (220+90+80+30+25=445)
Chicken Caesar salad and coffee with cream and sugar (550+55=605)
Coffee with milk (20)
Brownie (200)
Emergen-C (25)
Rice and beans with cream cheese and cumin (230+120=350)
Pizza-dough bread and chai with cream and sugar (200+80+30=310)

445+605+20+200+25+350+310=1955

Thursday 9/16

Yogurt and granola (295)
Tangelo (70)
TLC sandwich and an apple (470+100=570)
Latte (160)
Salmon, sauteed potatoes, green beans and broccoli (260+150+120+50=580)

295+70+570+160+580=1675

Wednesday 9/15

2 toast with cream cheese and 1 oil-fried egg (220+90+90=400)
Broccoli cheese macaroni soup and a banana (400+100=500)
Fun size Almond Joy, Werther's candy, and Hershey kiss (90+20+20=130)
Most of an apple (80)
Coffee with mixed cream and skim (30)
Rice and beans with cheese and corn (230+110+50=390)
Frozen grapes (100)
Spoonful of cream cheese (45)

400+500+130+80+30+390+100+45=1675

Tuesday 9/14

Yogurt and granola (85+210=295)
Kiwifruit (50)
Broccoli, cheese, and black bean soup with tortilla chips (400+180=580)
Coke (140)
Coffee with skim (10)
Spoonful of cream cheese (45)
Pasta with red sauce and salad with cheese cubes and dressing (300+100+50+110+40+15=615)

295+50+580+140+10+45+615=1735

Monday 9/13

Scrambled eggs with sauteed toms and onions, toast, and kiwifruit with green tea (140+30+20+110+50=350)
Banana (100)
Cheese and cucumber sandwich and an apple (220+220+10+100=550)
Coffee with skim (10)
Celery sticks with cream cheese (15+90=105)
Frozen grapes (50)
Rice and beans with cheese and corn (230+110+50=390)

350+100+550+10+105+50+390=1555

Sunday 9/12

1/2 individual pizza (435)
Banana (100)
Coffee with milk and 1/2 PBJ sandwich (20+220=240)
1/2 PBJ sandwich (215)
Frozen grapes (100)
Broccoli cheese soup and bread (300+200=500)
Frozen grapes and ice cream (100+70=170)

435+100+240+215+100+500+170=1760

Saturday 9/11

Popcorn and string cheese (100+60=160)
Oatmeal with cream and sugar, 1/2 grapefruit with sugar, and 1 oil-fried egg (150+40+40+60+70+20=380)
2 slices bread and a chunk of cheese (200+110=310)
1/2 individual pizza and grapes (0.5*[500+320+50]+100=535)
Pumpkin spice latte (160+45+50=255)

160+380+310+535+255=1640

Sick

I'm getting a cold. This was a situation I did not think of and plan for because uh, well, I get only 2-3 colds a year and usually they don't happen in the summer, so it wasn't on my mind when I started this thing. Anyway, I always get extra hungry when I have a cold. I particularly crave salt, I imagine because I'm leaking a bunch of it in snot. I don't know if I actually need the extra calories or not, but I do know it makes me feel better to eat more. So I'm going to just say fuck it while I'm sick. I'll try to still push a deficit, any deficit, but not worry about it being 500-1000 or how I achieve it, that is, I'm also not going to worry about doing my scheduled exercise. But on that note, I have impressed myself recently. Yesterday I didn't have much time, but I really craved the feeling of sweating and loosening up, so I popped in just for 15 min on the elliptical, all I had time for. Today, even though I'm sick, I wanted to go ellipticize, so I just took a real easy pace and went through my whole playlist. Even when there are things in the way I'm finding that my body makes me want to do my exercise anyway, and that's a positive change.

BMI < 27

Surprise, I weigh 161.6 today. Why couldn't that have happened yesterday for my phase-concluding weigh-in?! One might observe that in fact, since yesterday was day 99, I can only today say that in 99 days such-and-such has happened. But then one would have to observe that I didn't weigh in until day 5 or so, so it's only been, what, 94 days to which my weight loss can be credited? And 94 is not so snazzy as 99. But all that doesn't matter, because really, the 99 days came from the number of rows in my spreadsheet. Yesterday was the last day I could record in my first spreadsheet so it was the first end-date. This next period, I will be able to say with perfect accuracy that in 99 days I have lost so many pounds. And I'm quite pleased that my second end-date falls on Winter Solstice, not the least important reason being that my family has a Solstice dinner rather than a Christmas dinner (for us Christmas is all about the morning) and so I'll be eating root vegetable soup, lots of bread and cheese, probably drinking quite a bit, and possibly having desserts that night, all things that could give me a spurious gain the next morning. Well, maybe not the vegetable soup. But I digress.

The real point of this post is that my BMI is 26.9 now! I know I've had a BMI in the 26 range before, but I've never calculated it to be such. The times I was light enough, I either wasn't weighing myself or wasn't thinking about BMI. I've seen my BMI at 27 quite a bit, and some 28, and of course 30 (my awareness skipped over 29 somehow), but yay, 26!

Day 99 - conclusion of Phase I

Well it's day 99 and what do I weigh? 162.8. As I updated in my sidebar earlier, that means that in the first 99 days I lost:

21.8 pounds
3.5 inches off my waist
1, almost 2 pant sizes

and for a bonus:

at least 1 cup size
at least 2 band sizes
3.5 inches off the part of my hips that might not be where I'm supposed to measure, but at least I'm consistent
1.75 inches off my thigh

Here's my weight data over time in eye-candy form:

"Adjusted" simply means that weight entries from the analog scale were multiplied by 1.026 to align them with entries from the digital scale. See 7/23 for a more detailed explanation.

So, I'm excited about my progress so far and I'm also excited about new features in my spreadsheet for Phase II! I've added a column that calculates my BMR based on my body weight and then another one that multiplies by 1.3 for what I call my LMC, lifestyle maintenance calories. This assumes that, before the exercise I track, my basic lifestyle of being a student, walking around campus with books, and riding my bike to and from school is in between "sedentary" and "lightly active". I may tweak the multiplier on weekends or other days that I am noticeably less active. I'm also going to start estimating my calories burned during exercise, since so much of it lately is on machines that calculate it. For now I'll count running as 100/mile, and a yoga class as about 200 (harder than walking for an hour, but less aerobic & rhythmic, plus, the internet said no). Finally, my last handy dandy column puts it all together and calculates my estimated deficit. So each week, I'll now be able to compare the deficit I think I had to the weight I lost. It'll be fun!

And now, it's time to start over. My "high weight" is no longer 184.6, it's 166.2. I've gotten a little ahead already, but the name of the game is to get further away from that reminiscent-of-8th-grade number and close in on that juicy normal-weight number, 149.6. I'm really looking forward to breaking 160, although it could still be a few weeks away. Bring on the 5's!

Weekly summary

Hey, yeah, I didn't forget about today's weigh-in. I was just busy with errands and suchlike. Today I weigh 162.4 and 36.1% body fat.

Quick stats: average kcals/day 1861, 6 cardio, 2 strength workouts, 2 yoga classes, -0.4 lbs.

Now admittedly, this was not the best week in terms of diet. Still, I have been doing cardio workouts almost every day - 1861 average should still be in the vicinity of 500 deficit. There is some serious WTF going on and this can be clearly seen by looking at my weight graph this week:

For perspective, the gray lines that these dots lie inside are the 160 and 170 lines on my graph. In two days I went from 162.2 to 166.6. Sure, 2400 was an intentional booster day and 2210 was an unintentional disaster, but 600 or 800 excess calories or even the whole 4610 total do not weigh 4.4 lbs. Nor does extra bulk of the food they come in. By Wednesday or Thursday morning, I should have been clean of the extra food weight and back to null calorie difference relative to my low weight, but that was not reflected in my weight as you can see. Since certain timing and certain physical signs occurred right about at the time I had those two high calorie days, I'm going to blame the discrepancy on hormonally induced water retention.

In other news, I am a B-cup again! I bought a new bra today and it is a 36B. The 34B of this brand is a little small in the cup, and the 34C is too big in the cup. I tried another brand, in which the 34C was too big in the cup and the 36B was too big in the band, but I couldn't find any 34Bs of that brand on clearance, so I just got the one 36B of the first kind. I'm lucky too that this particular bra is super cute, red with little black rosettes, and it happens to be a push-up bra. So I'm feeling really lovely after being basically used to band size 38, "large" "barely-there" bras that accommodated a 20 pound weight gain. Now I just need to lose about 3 more pounds to get comfy in the free-box 8's, and then ask someone how to take in the sides of that cute sweater from last winter, and then...

... and then post my food journal to round this whole thing off:

Friday 9/10

Oil-fried eggs, toast, and coffee with cream and sugar (20+140+100+35=295)
Peach (100)
PBJ sandwich and string cheese (200+190+50+60=500)
Bite-size Baby Ruth (50)
Ice cream and seasoned popcorn (70+165=235)
Rice, beans, and a quesadilla with salsa (230+120+80+20=450)
San Pellegrino Aranciata (80)

295+100+500+50+235+450+80=1710

Thursday 9/9

Yogurt and granola (335)
String cheese and coffee with skim (60+20=80)
Cheese sandwich, apple, and Coke Zero (420+100=520)
Coffee with skim (10)
Tangelo (60)
Tofu, rice, green vegetables, and miso broth (135+115+50+120+20=440)
Ice cream and espresso (140)

335+80+520+10+60+440+140=1585

Wednesday 9/8

Scrambled eggs with sauteed onions, cheese, and toast (140+20+20+110+100=390)
Banana (100)
Werther's candies (40)
TOC sandwich (470)
Latte (160)
String cheese and pretzels (60+20=80)
Coffee with skim milk (10)
Minestrone soup, ice cream, and port (350+140+185=675)

390+100+40+470+160+80+1+675=1925

Tuesday 9/7

Banana, soaked almonds, and coffee (100+100=200)
Plum (40)
Mint rosemary chocolate (270)
Minestrone soup, 1/2 cheese sandwich, and coffee with skim milk (350+220+10=580)
Yogurt (85+25=110)
Tabouli, assorted vegetables and tofu (325)

200+40+270+580+110+325=1525

Monday 9/6

Banana and coffee (100)
Oil-fried egg on toast (80+110=190)
Ice cream (380)
PBJ sandwich (220+190+96+25=435)
1 bowl minestrone soup (350)
2 string cheese (120)
Coffee with cream (20)
Lentils and rice (230)
Espresso with cream and sugar (55)
2 string cheese (120)
Bread and butter (210)

100+190+380+435+350+120+20+230+55+120+210=2210

Sunday 9/5

Yogurt and granola and a pear (85+250+100=435)
Tofu, sweet potatoes, and peas tikka masala over rice (495)
2 toast with butter and jam (220+100+50=370)
String cheese (60)
Espresso with cream (40)
Spoonful of crunchy peanut butter (95)
1.5 bowls minestrone soup and ice cream (525+380=905)

435+495+370+60+40+95+905=2400

Saturday 9/4

Breakfast out (710)
-Blue cheese and caramelized onion quiche (500)
-Salad with vinaigrette and baguette slices (100)
-Coffee with cream and sugar (90)
-Andes mint (20)
Apple, string cheese and bread (100+60+110=270)
Milk chocolate (200)
Tofu and sweet potatoes tikka masala over rice (230+175+90=495)

710+270+200+495=1675

FML

3 days ago I was going to do a booster day, but I started off with a high fat breakfast out and ate just about the same amount I did all last week... 2 days ago I renewed my efforts at a booster day and ate 2400 calories... 1 day ago it just all went out of control, was going to go back to normal but no, I had 2210 cals spread out over no less then eleven occasions, seriously I ate or drank things eleven times yesterday, WTF, normal is around 5... and today I'm just a wreck, oh I will stay in the calorie limit and exercise, god I have been waiting to exercise all day because I had a physical and had to prep for my lab during the time I normally would, but shit just all seems to be overwhelming, we've got a houseguest and my brain chemistry feels all kinds of off balance, been drinking too much coffee, don't even care that I've been smoking a lot of pot, and I have so much to do for tomorrow, oh and did I mention my weight was 166.6 this morning... FML.

Intangible motivation

Sometimes we get up and we know we need to exercise, there's every logical reason to exercise: we want to lose weight, so we need to make a deficit and keep our metabolism up; it's the day we're scheduled to exercise; we feel better and better about ourselves when we get up and get it done. Rationally, we want to go run. But emotionally, we don't feel like it. We feel tired and kinda depressed in that way that has no particular reason and while we'll take that cup of coffee, after that we'd really prefer to smoke a bunch of weed, eat ice cream for breakfast, and put off exercise by studying. (I don't really mean this to be a "royal we", it's really more like the French pronoun on except using "one" in English sounds weirdly formal.) Yet sometimes we go ahead, eat a banana with the coffee, change into our running clothes and go out anyway - and sometimes we stay in, smoke, eat breakfast, though not ice cream, and wait for a moment when cardio seems more important than the molecular geometry of acetonitrile. What makes the difference? What is the arbiter between the "two wills", as Augustine would put it? Maybe it was the fact that the weather looked nice, and when the weather is nice at 7:30 AM it's usually not so nice by the afternoon. Or that I've got a cute new athletic top to wear, even though it was still cold enough to wear a sweatshirt over it.

Sometimes, after you've sucked it up and trotted your butt out the door, the world seems to want to test your commitment. Like, you start to get a pain in your leg and it's as if someone wants to know your ability to tell a good reason to stop from a minor obstacle requiring patient persistence from a bullshit excuse. Because later on, after you've shaken it out a little and decided to at least jog to the 1.4-mile turnaround, and then felt okay and kept going to the 2.0-mile turnaround, you feel really just fine and of course you could go the third mile, but if you do, you'll probably miss your boyfriend's radio show that you usually can't listen to because you have class. So you turn around feel strange that you pushed past biological dampers, but ended up cutting short due to a reason that would have seemed a lame excuse if you hadn't really wanted to go further.

Ultimately, I'm glad I only went 2.0 miles. I got to listen to the radio show and my leg started to complain again just as I was getting back, so I might have had to stop and walk if I'd gone for 3. Which would have been much more trouble than anything that did happen.

Clothes shopping

I went to the store today to get athletic tops. I've been wearing cotton shirts during exercise, but that doesn't work when I have to leave my stuff in a locker to dry while I go to class. There was a cute style on sale, so I got 2 of it, one periwinkle, one red, for yoga class and sweaty cardio, respectively. (I've quit even changing for strength training - I don't sweat much and I don't need the flexibility so why take the time?) The small gave me great bra support, but was a little tight in other places. The medium was most comfortable overall, but the support wasn't as good. Now - silly me - I was actually going to buy the medium. I'm completely guided by comfort in my clothes shopping and pretty much live the credo to buy - and wear - what fits now. My boyfriend, thankfully, pointed out that I will be getting smaller and if I want my purchase to last I should get the small. So I did.

I also wanted to try on pants while I was there, and I got some Levi jeans, 8P and 10P. The 10P fit pretty well and the 8P wasn't going to go over my hips. It's not exactly what I would guess based on the pants I have at home, but jeans tend to be sized smaller than other kinds of pants. I didn't try on any other pants though because my boyfriend wanted to get on to the food shopping. I'm guessing a lot of 8s would have fit me a little tightly and most 10s would have been comfortable to loose.

Finally, I tried on a couple of bras. Now let me talk about my bra size history. I think I started out wearing a 34A when I first got a bra, but by the end of middle school/early high school I was wearing a 38B. When I went shopping for my own bras around junior year I was a well-fit 36C. Then those bras starting wearing out and the tightest one (which I still have) started getting uncomfortable - it was always a little stiff anyway. I got new ones that were thin, stretchy, soft, and not traditionally sized. By the time I reached my high weight, the old 36C was far too tight in the band, but I guessed the cups would have still fit alright. Now I can wear it, but the cups aren't quite right. At the store, I tried on a 36C, which seemed good but maybe a little too cuppy. Then I got a 36B, which seemed great but only fit tight enough on the tightest hook, and new bras are supposed to fit with the loosest one. Then I stopped trying on bras. I'm not convinced a 34B would fit, but a 34C might be the ticket. But I think I will wait until I AM a B-cup, since I'm clearly close, because then I know it'll last as long as I can expect something bought while I'm losing weight to last.

And again! Why are fitting rooms so unflatteringly lit? Fat and imperfect skin look so much worse under white fluorescent light than any other lighting conditions you'll be in.

I also saw a kind of creepy bit of advertising. Manufacturers have putting these "tummy slimming panels" in pants for a while, but today I saw a description of the feature that said it "invisibly controls natural variations in feminine form." Now that does NOT sounds like a good thing to me! That sounds to me like something you would read in a feminist essay criticizing the technology for distorting womens' body image. And frankly, I don't mind that tummy slimming panels exist, but the idea that variation needs to be controlled - that you wouldn't want to be slightly different from some standard figure, even if you're acknowledging (given the associations with the word "natural") that there's essentially nothing wrong with it... yeah that's a little creepy. More to the point, it's creepy that putting it so baldfacedly is what is thought to be appealing to women. Even if that's what you want, to control your figure and look like an external ideal, wouldn't it be uncomfortable and give one pause to be presented with the offer so straightforwardly? It's not the sort of thing you're supposed to want.

Weekly summary

Today I weigh 162.8 at 36.2% body fat. I'm happy my body fat is going down again, it was stuck around 36.6-37.2 for a long time - and I know it's not just a fluke because I got 36.2 the other day and 36.0 yesterday.

Quick stats: average kcals/day 1624, 6 cardio, 3 strength workouts, 2 yoga classes, -2.2 lbs.

Food journal:

Friday 9/3

Eggs fried in olive oil and toast (140+40+110=290)
Nectarine (70)
String cheese (60)
PBJ sandwich with carrot sticks and a boiled egg (220+190+25+40+70=545)
Riesen candy (45)
2 string cheese and a plum (120+60=180)
Rice and beans with grated string cheese, salsa, and a tortilla (230+60+30+120=440)

290+70+60+545+45+180+440=1610 + Elliptical (36 min, 497 cals) and pull-up practice

Thursday 9/2

Yogurt and granola (85+250=335)
Banana (100)
TOC sandwich and a plum (470+60=530)
Coffee with nonfat milk and dark chocolate (10+170=180)
Pasta with parmesan cheese and broccoli (300+150+50=500)

335+100+530+180+500=1645 + Elliptical (35 min, 534 cals) and 1 hr yoga

Wednesday 9/1

Scrambled eggs with sauteed onions and buttered toast (140+40+110+50=340)
Banana and soaked almonds (100+105=205)
Spicy potato beet soup, baguette, and string cheese (200+120+60=380)
1/2 PBJ sandwich (110+95+25=230)
Spicy potato beet soup with wild rice and cheese (200+115+220=535)

340+205+380+230+535=1690 + Elliptical (34 min, 444 cals) and pull-up practice

Tuesday 8/31

Yogurt and granola (340)
Banana and soaked almonds (210+100=310)
Rice and beans with cheese, a tortilla, and a plum (120+230+110+60=520)
Chicken with wild rice and green beans (340+115+50=505)

340+310+520+505=1675 + Elliptical (21 min, 266 cals) and 1 hr yoga

Monday 8/30

Banana and coffee (100)
Eggs and toast (140+110=250)
TLC sandwich and an apple (470+100=570)
String cheese and apricot yogurt (60+85+25=170)
1.5 tortillas, rice and beans, cheese and salsa (180+230+110+20=540)

100+250+570+170+540=1630 + Outdoor run (1.2 mi) and pull-up practice

Sunday 8/29

Yogurt and granola (85+255=340)
Cocoa coffee (105)
Whole-wheat linguine with sauce and a falafel (300+50+85=435)
String cheese (60)
Bite of Powerbar (20)
Spicy potato beet soup with cheese and baguette (200+110+200=510)

340+105+435+60+20+510=1470 + Outdoor run (2 x 1.5 mi)

Saturday 8/28

Instant oatmeal, 1/2 tangelo, espresso with milk and a piece of bread (160+30+30+110=330)
Yogurt and blueberries with espresso (85+30=115)
TLC sandwich and a string cheese with tomato sauce (220+220+50+60+50=600)
Falafel with whole-wheat linguine and sauce (3*85+250+100=605)

330+115+600+605=1650 + no exercise

5-a-day

With my new food awareness, I've been thinking about the 5-a-day of fruits and vegetables recommendation. Sometimes I count up my fruits and vegetables and realize, damn, it's really hard to meet 5 servings a day. For instance, yesterday I ate 4 servings, and it was a pretty good day in that respect. I had a banana after my workout, tomatoes and onions in my lunch sandwich, a plum with my lunch, and broccoli with my dinner. Today I've had a nectarine after workout, carrot sticks with lunch, I have a plum for a snack later, and I'll probably have a tomato and onion salsa with dinner. Again, only 4.

Most of the time it's more like 3 - a fruit before or after my exercise, a fruit for a snack or with lunch, and a vegetable with lunch or dinner. I could try to always have vegetables with lunch AND dinner, like I did these past 2 days, but it still only makes 4. Then I could try to have fruit with breakfast, but... I don't like to eat that much for breakfast, sometimes my post-workout fruit is with breakfast anyway, and I can't just sub in the fruit for something else because then it wouldn't be substantial enough. Eat fruits or veggies for another snack? Then I'm eating a lot of snacks, and at any rate, by the afternoon they just don't cut it - I need starch or protein or I'll just be hungry again in an hour.

And y'know what? I don't eat enough servings of most anything else either. They say you can eat the minimum servings for a 1600 calorie diet but that's gotta be bullshit. Yesterday I ate 2 vegetables, 2 fruits, 4-5 grains, 3 dairy, no meat/nut/beans, 1645 calories, and the only thing I ate that doesn't satisfy these categories is the chocolate. WTF, mate.

Empowerment

This whole calorie counting thing is really empowering. Everyone who has unresolved food issues, if they haven't tried it, should do it (non-judgmentally) for a bit. I know the food journal thing is annoying as hell to some - I hated the idea of doing in high school. Actually, I didn't hate the idea, I hated the reality. Because you know what happened: I didn't want to go to the trouble of writing stuff down, so I hardly ate anything, and so I got hungry and cranky and didn't get any useful information about my eating habits because I wasn't following my usual eating habits.

Somehow that has changed. Maybe it's that I have my journal in a Google Doc, making it accessible, or that I eat in a more regular fashion than I did back then. At any rate, I feel like I have so much more understanding and control over my diet now. I won't go into details about my childhood since I can't remember it terribly objectively, but suffice it to say I developed a deprivation complex of sorts. (Note: I think my inappropriate portions were unrelated to this.) And I think I am not stepping out of my objectivity to say that my "forbidden fruits" shared two characteristics: 1) they were eaten in my family less often than I'd have liked and talked about in such a way as to mark them as only appropriate in such rarity, and 2) when we did have them, they were accompanied by "compensation talk" of the sort that just makes it no fun. I imagine this is similar to the guilt-talk many dieters tell themselves when they indulge. It would be the "oh we'll have to have a big salad for dinner because of this", it would be the exploration of how "unhealthy" it was, even while we were eating it... My parents are a little more lax now in their actions, and say they indulge often enough that how can food issues be justified for my sister? But you can't enjoy your indulgences when there's always a soundtrack of how you have to compensate for them.

And so, in high school, with my babysitting money, I would buy chocolate bars. I would eat a whole chocolate bar at once, y'know, one of those 3.5 oz bars. I didn't buy them all the time for a long period, but some weeks I might have eaten three of them. I ate them at school on my breaks, away from compensation talk. Of course, eating nearly a pound of milk chocolate a week is not the best nutritional practice. But as far as I'm concerned now, my parents were wrong too.

Now, I have my general idea of what a healthy diet is, and I have my primary rule that my daily calories must come in under a certain amount. And you know what I realized? There's no reason I can't eat chocolate every day if I want to, as long as I eat a small amount and fit it into my overall daily plan. I don't have to eat it only on rare occasions, nor do I feel compelled to chomp whole chocolate bars, in the back of my mind knowing I'm doing myself in. And so for a few weeks this summer, I practically celebrated the fact. I ate about 100 calories of chocolate every day for about two weeks and I really enjoyed it. Then I didn't want to spend the money on chocolate next time I was at the grocery store, so I stopped. I didn't miss it that much. It hasn't been a big deal. I thought of all this because I ate chocolate again today, maybe a month or six weeks since the last time. It was a 1.2 oz 70% cocoa dark Lindt bar that weighed in at 170 calories and it was delicious.

Skinny

I feel skinny today. My pants are sagging a little and my shirt shows off my collarbones, which are now prominent from most angles and in most shoulder positions. My hair is pulled up, both the large part into a messy ponytail and my bangs into a clip on top of my head, because it's a warm sunny day. The summer weather is ending though, so the most dramatic part of my weight loss will happen while I'm covered in clothes! Next time I'm this exposed, I will feel throughout my whole body and radiate in all directions the slimness that right now I feel about 10%.

Pants-a-dance

My current pants, the ones that are labeled 13 but are obviously really 10, the ones that all of a sudden fit perfectly a week and a half ago, are starting to sag off my hips. The weirdest thing being, I've only lost about 2 pounds. I was 164.6 coming back from my trip, bumped up to 165.6 within a few days, wore the pants, now registering 163.4. It may be that they are loosening up from wear. If that's the case, they'll tighten again when I wash them. If not, I hope they last another 3-5 pounds because my next pair of pants, the free-box 8, are not quite to the point where I want to wear them. They fit, but if I wore them now I think I would stretch them a bit and I want them to last as long as they can because when they become big I will have to buy new pants. As an independent check, since I only acquired these two pairs of pants within the last month and neither of them new, the old 10P is a little loose. I would wear them if they didn't have a hole, and they would probably slip about as much as the current pants do. It's so weird to be between an 8 and a 10 now. I was briefly at that point last summer, but then I went to school and gained 20 pounds. To think that by the time I reach my goal weight I'll probably be a 6, or maybe even a 4 at this rate! I've never been that small. My mom, who's always been my model of slender beauty, wears 6s. It's pretty exciting.

Quick update

Started school Monday so, posts will be less frequent now. Crossed 20 pounds again yesterday, forgot to update the ticker then but just did now (had another fairly dramatic drop today). I also changed the goal on my ticker to 134.6 because that's really how I'm thinking of it and I can always modify it again later if I want to but I was tired of mentally adding 5 pounds onto what my ticker said. I want to be able to go throw a little party in my head when it says 25 lost, 25 to go.