It's been a while, hasn't it?

Yeah... so, everything has been fine for the last month or so. After I hit my 5-pound goal, I basically decided I was cool with my body, cool with the number, and I wasn't going to try to change my weight anymore. For the first couple of weeks I bounced between 127-130. Then I got my period around the same time I had a wisdom tooth bothering me and dropped down to just under 125 in a few days, then hovered around 125-126 for somewhat over a week. I kept counting calories for a bit and figured that, eating intuitively, I take in about 1600 calories/day during the first half of my cycle and 1900 calories/day in the second half, and a 2500 or so day about a once a week - all averaging out to about 1850/day. Then I dropped the calorie counting, and pretty soon after that I dropped the exercise tracking because I know whether I'm doing enough exercise without looking a spreadsheet of it. The reasons I exercise have nothing to do with weight anymore and everything to do with mood regulation. Finally when I hit the middle of my cycle, I shot up to 129 in a few days, and have dropped back to 126-128. So, I guess I lost a pound or something on average during that first month "maintaining". I'm still writing down what I eat, and weighing every day - not so much because I need to monitor it that closely, but to establish a baseline and to assess when I've "really" stabilized at a static average weight, which may take a few months.

I figure as long as my weight stays below 130 it can do whatever it wants. Past 130 I'll start paying attention, 135 I think is my definite action level, and 145 should be about my max. Of course, this could change if I actually get into some strength training and it pays off, or further in the future when I get pregnant, but for now those are the graduated ceilings I see for my weight.

Anyway, I'm actually thinking of quitting this blog. Nobody's reading it, I'm doing fine, and it's been suggested I create a web-based presentation of my weight loss process, but I don't really want to just open this anonymous blog to all the people who know me. So I'm going to take the data, re-work it up, and start a new blog that will actually be associated with me and have readers. 

Adios, amigos!

Drinking ice water really does burn calories

We've all heard that line, but to me, at least, it always seemed like the scale must be so small it couldn't possibly be perceptible. Then I was reading a description of the phenomenon today that said if you drank all your water ice-cold, it could be equivalent to adding a workout a week.


So I got interested, and calculated it.


It's actually fairly easy to calculate. The specific heat of water is 1 calorie per gram per degree Celsius (little calorie, not food kcal), and its density is 1 gram per milliliter. (A lot of things are defined in reference to water.) If you drink ice-cold water, it is at 0 degrees Celsius, and the temperature your water is probably usually at is around 20 degrees Celsius.


What this means is that to warm up water from 0 degrees Celsius to 20 degrees, you have to put in 20 little calories for every milliliter of water you have. When it goes into your body, it actually has to warm up further to around 37 degrees, but your body is already doing that when you drink room temp water, although that also means if you just drink more room temperature water in a day it will burn more calories too. Anyway, if you drink 2 liters of iced water a day, that's 2000 x 20 little calories = 40,000 little calories = 40 kcals, or food calories. 40 calories a day! In a week, that's 280 calories - a light workout, an extra pound every 3 months or so. Not so negligible.


What's neat about this too is that this is non-negotiable calorie burn. It's just heat transfer. It's not something your body can do more efficiently, or kind of do a crap job on to save energy. By the laws of thermodynamics the water will suck heat out of your body, and your body can either compensate or tolerate hypothermia. Granted, anorexics who try to practice this trick probably will reap more hypothermia than calorie burn from it, but for the rest of us, I doubt our bodies are desperate enough to refuse to heat up ice water. Cheers!

Intuitive eating

I did an experiment today. I practiced intuitive eating and deliberately shut off all my quantifying and arranging mechanisms until nighttime. I refused to tally up calories in my head until I was done eating for the day. I refused to plan my food more than was necessary for practical purposes (i.e. lunch and snacks to bring to work tomorrow). I dismissed thoughts of what I could eat later in the day with "that's nice, but I'll see if it's what I want when I actually get hungry." I wrote down what I had eaten so far in the day if I was at my computer, but didn't spend much time looking at the pattern, and didn't let myself interrupt other activities to do so. Let me tell you, this food and weight-loss thing has become a great procrastination technique for me. Just plan what to eat for breakfast tomorrow, or all week, read about the USDA's new dietary recommendations and what counts as an ounce of grains and make up a day's menu that has just so many servings of each thing, think of hypothetical ways to arrange calories in the week and lose at X rate... and avoid working on that presentation I don't really want to give. Because I know "listen to your body" isn't quite THAT simple, I asked myself "am I thirsty, bored, stiff, or want a distraction?" before deciding to eat. I drank a LOT of water today because it was hot, and I also went for a run, a short 2.3-mile jaunt. Oh, and I made sure to have a treat. That's right, not just allowed, but actively attended to having a treat. I will have a treat every day until the idea gets old and I don't feel like one. Today it was a piece of lemon poppyseed cake, and some other time it could be chocolate, ice cream, a cocktail, a cookie, whatever I want that day.

The results:

Sunday 6/5

Grits with a fried egg, 1/2 orange and 1/2 banana (330)

Apple (100)

1/2 Tofurky sausage rolled in a slice of bread (210)

Lemon poppyseed cake with coffee (maybe 400)

Celery sticks and cream cheese herb dip (100)

Salt and peppered boiled potato (100)
Raspberry-redwine sorbet (50)

Ginger candy (10)

Rice and beans with tomatoes, onions, and a dollop of cream cheese (330)

Iced tea (35)

Est. 1665

I'm pretty pleased with that.

Lose 5 more pounds

After waiting for my weight to stabilize, it looks like I'm back to the 132 range. I've done a lot of exercise the past couple days - gotten back on the elliptical since I found my Sansa cable again, and really pushed it, a whole 60 minutes today, plus some yoga while cooling down.

I'm sort of back to counting calories. It's actually a little like a WW points system, only with big points, and I think of them more as levels - plus it all translates back into calories at the literal end of the day, just a much rougher estimate than I was working with before. The benefit is being able to think about my meals and snacks as "chunks" in the plan of the day. I assign foods or combinations of foods I often eat to levels:

1 - under 100 calories
2 - 100-200 calories
3 - 200-300 calories

There are then "zeroes", which are under 30, and the idea is to account for a piece of hard candy or a bite of someone's food without using up a whole level 1. My typical target day plan is eat 2 "3's", 3 "2's" and 3 "1's" apart from dinner, then about 500 calories for dinner (counted normally), and less than 100 calories' worth of zeroes, estimated according to how many and what they actually were at the end of the day. Estimating 1's as 100 calories, 2's as 150, and 3's as 250, this totals about 1750-1850.

I'm making it a goal to lose 5 pounds from here. So, I want to see 127.x.  I'm not sure what the timescale will be, but I'd say a month would be ambitious and it should definitely be done by the end of the summer. Maybe by 4th of July.

Not much new

133.2 and 25.3% body fat. I'm not thrilled that the percentage has been up above 25% again a few days lately. 133.2 has come up a LOT of times recently. Apparently my low weight/fat upon returning from my trip was spurious. My week of restriction went well, although results aren't evident at this time. I had Pilates on Monday and Wednesday, yoga on Tuesday and Thursday, and a run on Friday. I stayed under 1600 calories M-W and had 1690 calories Th, but the extra 90 were less than the amount I had accumulated "under target" the past three days, so I count myself as successful at hitting 1600 for the four major schooldays. Yesterday I hit 2085 which is a little more than 2000 but I'm not worried about that for reasons that will be clarified. It was great, I had just a light breakfast and then pushed it 'til midafternoon and then had a whole box of Annie's macaroni and cheese and a bunch of ice cream bars. Mmm yum. So the idea is that between Saturday and Sunday, one can be another roughly-2000 calorie day and the other should be no more than 1700-1750. Anyway, after all the food yesterday afternoon I wasn't very hungry this morning and feel like I will be eating lightly today, so I'm pretty confident I'll make up for that 85-calorie difference without any trouble.

This coming week I'll be doing a similar strategy. Target of 1600 for M-Th, except for T when I'll be going to Bikram so if I feel extra hungry, an 1800 target is still a greater deficit than a 1600 target with the usual yoga. Out of F-Sa-Su, two can be about 2000 and 1 should be around 1700. Usually the 2000 calorie days will probably be Friday and Sunday - Friday because it's nice to dig into a big bowl of something delicious at the end of the week, and Sunday because I'll be doing my long runs on Sunday. The general exercise plan from here is Pilates MW, yoga TTh, shorter runs with a little stretching and pushups WF, and long runs Su. I might do some home-yoga on Saturdays too but it could be a day off too - that might vary week to week as I feel like I need rest or stretching more. The modified plan for this week, to use up my Bikram classes, is to replace Tuesday vinyasa, Friday run, and Sunday run (both of the coming weekends) with Bikram.

Also, I'm doing something mildly interesting today: fitness testing. There was a flyer in the sports center about fitness testing on several dimensions, including body composition, cardiovascular fitness, muscular strength and endurance, and some that I can't remember. I know basically about my body composition, but I am interested in what other dimensions they test and how I compare to recommendations. I mean, I think it's pretty cool that I can run 2 miles in less than 25 minutes with no preparation and can sustain a 6-7 mph pace on a treadmill for a couple of minutes, but what are the standards? How strong do they expect 20-year-old college girls to be? I know 25% isn't awesome for body fat, but what conclusions might they draw when considered alongside my other abilities, and will they get a different number if they use a different method? Etc.

Monday plan

Here's my planned eats for today:

2 poached eggs, buttered toast, 1/2 sliced grapefruit, and cafe au lait (140+90+50+30+65=375)

Salad with sunflower seeds and dressing and a can of tuna (50+50+50+150=300)
Chunk of cheese (110)

Snack in class?

Chicken spaghetti casserole (and veggies?) (about 550)

This is projected at 1335, not including the possible class snack (you never know if someone's actually bringing one). My target is 1600. Therefore, if I'm under 1500 by after-dinner (allows 165 "extra"), then I get an ice cream bar.

Plan/strategies for Hum snack: either JUST SAY NO or take a small amount. Drink water or coffee. Prefer juice and hard candy to solid snack foods.

Adverse conditions

The conditions here are really terrible for weight loss. We have:

- Junk food readily available and visible

- Not much to do and 20 minutes' drive into town

- Dry climate that makes you constantly thirsty even if you drink a lot of water

- Icy roads that make running tough

- Unfamiliar, non-gridded roads that I might get lost on if I went running by myself

So I'm only earning a sedentary 1750 or so calories a day, and am constantly fending off the behavioral availability of eating. Well, life is life. When I get back I have low-calorie, lower-carb meal plans, careful scheduling, and environmental control strategies to lose a couple more pounds before my birthday and the end of phase 3. By the way, I'm not taking aerobics next quarter but instead pilates on Monday and Wednesday. I can keep going to yoga on Tuesday and Thursday and this will improve my evening load a bit and also spread my exercise out so there is some on all four days of the fully-booked week. My Bikram package expires soon and since we may be moving soon, I can't afford to get another one. So I'll be mostly relying on those school classes, and maybe I'll take advantage of the weekends to get back into regular running, since the weather's getting warmer. I could see doing a short run (2-3 mi) on Fridays, a little yoga at home on Saturday, and a longer run on Sunday. That would give me approximately 150 calories of lifestyle activity and 200-300 calories of exercise over my sedentary expenditure each day, so if I kept my calories down to my sedentary expenditure or less (I checked again and actually it's about 1730 right now), I'd keep losing around 3/4 pound a week. If I stayed below 1600 four days a week I could have two 2000-calorie days for the same results, in theory. I think I have 4 Bikram classes left to use up before 4/11, so I will have to either take 2 each of the coming weekends or 1 on of the 8th, 9th, and 10th, unless I'm able to make it to one on Sunday, but since I'm now staying an extra day, I will have a lot to do when I get back.

Sugar binge

Monday 12/27

Toast, scrambled eggs with chard and swiss, and 1/2 grapefruit (90+140+30+100+100=460)
2 chocolate truffles (210)
2 caramel waffle cookies and coffee (250)
1/2 TLC sandwich and tangerine (90+110+100+30+40=370)
Mini cupcake, pistachios, and chocolate (100+160+150+220=630)
Skinny Cow ice cream, 2 bars and 1 cup (200+150)
Chicken vegetable soup and a stroopwafel (500+125=625)
2 mini cupcakes (200)

460+210+250+370+630+350+625+200=3095

This is the diet of someone who has had too much sugar sitting right in front of her face for too many days in a row. But I tried! I started off with a healthy breakfast, see...

Hoping for better luck tomorrow.

Merry Christmas

I'm not weighing in this week because the number is unreliable - I had a super low weight yesterday due to special circumstances on Thursday, and a fairly high number today due to special circumstances yesterday, also known as Christmas Eve dinner.

However, I will talk about today a little. I figured I'd go to my parents' house, eat lots of chocolate and some teff muffins and also a real breakfast, stop by home and eat salad if I was hungry, and then go the dinner and not eat a ton of appetizers because I would have either eaten salad or not been hungry in the first place.

Unfortunately, my parents' plans did not involve a real breakfast and so until one o'clock pretty much all I ate was sugar. I'm sure the fiber-y, protein-y teff muffins helped a bit, but they were still basically a sweet carb-based food. So I was really pretty strung out by the time I got home and I ate some leftovers with my salad for lunch. I got myself back on basically the level, but it wasn't a good foundation for the day and I also ate a little cupcake on my way out the door and I did not have particularly good calorie control at the dinner.

I ate enough today to gain half a pound. I don't feel bad about it, but I'm a little worried about tomorrow. We're out of eggs, as well as many other things, since we usually shop on Saturday, so there isn't an evident protein source to get back on track with a healthy wholesome breakfast. I don't want to end up eating the waffle-pressed caramel cookies with coffee for breakfast. Maybe I will have a rice cake with cheese?

How'd that happen?

Today I weighed in at... 148.8? How did I gain 4.2 pounds in 2 days? Certainly not from the extra calories I've eaten. If I was up to 145.0, I'd understand. I kind of binged over the weekend. But this is clearly a load of crap (well, that, and water).

I've been reluctant to use the word "binge" for my episodes of overeating. I know that true binging is a much uglier affair. When I "binge", I eat about 2500 calories in a day. Many bulimics and binge eaters can eat 2500 calories in a sitting. I also don't have the sense of uncontrol that characterizes problem bineing... I think. I don't feel like I can't stop myself, just like I don't care. I will think "damn it, this is going to put me over maintenance calories, but resisting what I want is just not worth it right now." So... that happens sometimes, and I am reluctant to use the word "binge" not only because it may trivialize a more serious issue, but because I don't want to start thinking of it in terms of that more serious issue, i.e., feeling like I start to lose control simply because I'm using a word that implies that. I brought it out though because I don't know a lighter word for it.

I look back at this weekend and think, what happened? On Friday we spontaneously stopped for a Peanut Buster Parfait after Bikram yoga. I actually thought that was great, because I'd been feeling an itch to have some ice cream, and also chocolate, for a while. I'd been trying to figure in a time when I could afford those calories, and as we were riding home from our 670-calorie workout my boyfriend commented that the 700-calorie dessert sounded real good. I figured - yes, great exchange, I'll still be in deficit for today and this'll satisfy my ice-cream craving so I don't have to think about it anymore. And that seemed to work out great. I don't think this was the trigger. I just bring it up because this was my idea of working to avoid a "binge."

I would be in denial if I didn't acknowledge that pot has something to do with it. Pot causes munchies, and it always seems to cause more irresistible munchies when I go back to it after a break. I don't always go over calories when I smoke pot, but it makes it harder.

I usually "binge" on particular foods, but they aren't "trigger foods" because most of the time I eat those foods in normal amounts. Bread and cheese, particularly mozzarella cheese for some reason, ice cream or chocolate... and then peanut butter is in a special class. Peanut butter is my food that I eat when I'm craving something, but I know I will feel satisfied after just a tablespoon of it.

I might have been pushing it with the carbohydrates in the past week. We did have enriched-flour bagels during the week, and I had made those muffins which, while whole-wheat, obviously contained sugar. Boyfriend wanted to make pizza Saturday night, so that contributed some carbs. And I had eaten random food from the library and coffee on campus earlier in the week. Once I realized I was on the decline, I tried to at least eat protein-heavy foods rather than carbs in the hope of helping to terminate it.

What really I think screws me up though is going off my routine. I get routinized easily, and so I end up forgetting things when the schedule changes. Exercising is harder to make sure I do when it doesn't automatically fit into a slot in my day. I got that intro package at Bikram to go to over the break, but there are two things that aren't working great about my plans to go almost every day: one, I don't actually like Bikram enough to want to go often, and two, their schedule sucks for me. They have classes at 6/8, 9:30/10, 4/5, and 6/7 depending on the day. It's hard to go to class before eating in the day because it's such a hard workout, but it's also hard to get up early enough to eat breakfast, digest, and still go to 9:30 class on a relatively empty stomach - and then you've spent the whole morning. It feels terribly inefficient. By four o'clock, though, I'm not interested in exercise anymore. I would go all the time if they had, say, a 12 noon class. The other problem with falling out of routine is it's very hard, even just on weekends, for me to remember to drink water when I'm not at school. At school, I sit down with my backpack in front of me and my water bottle ready to jump into my left hand while I take notes with my right about four times a day. At home, I leave my water bottle or water glass in one room, wander into another, and forget about it. Finally, without a schedule of tasks, it's easy to think it's time to eat sooner, because there's nothing I have to accomplish first.

So here I am, four spurious pounds up, and tomorrow is the end of phase 2. I really want to shed most of this by tomorrow to get an accurate view of how much I've lost in these 99 days. I took a Cascara Sagrada this morning, which may sound a little bit bulimic, but it's really not, because the calories are long since absorbed - I just want to get the poop out. I'm also going to drink at least 4 bottles of water today (what I was drinking during the cleanse, 3 being typical for a schoolday) to flush out the bloating. I'll check my weight throughout the day and possibly take another Cascara in the afternoon, pay attention to fiber and salt content, etc. I admit it's rather shallow to be so concerned about my weight on a particular day, but okay, I care, and to be fair, it's as much about accuracy as anything else.

What's a little disturbing about these "binges" is that they tend to peter themselves out between 2000-2500 calories. Why should that be disturbing? Because the "that's enough" response is neither totally overridden nor occurs at an appropriate level. My body naturally stops me between 2000-2500 calories in a day. There's evidence of adaptation, because I usually feel rather stuffed and not entirely comfortable after that large amount of food, and also, if I am eating slowly and have been eating good food and gotten my exercise, I notice the cues coming in at the level I want them to - feeling satisfied at each meal at a point that lets it all add up to 1500-1800. But it appears that some aspects of my appetite are resistant to change. I just hope I am not fighting the urge to eat 2300 calories a day and weigh 165 pounds forever.

Diet is going well this week

So far, I am proud of my diet this week. It has been good quality and my calorie counts have been 1740, 1335, and 1500. Today is planned between 1310-1510 (depending on whether someone brings snack to my conference class) and tomorrow is planned at 1415. My strategy has been to eat a fairly low-calorie (~300), but delicious and balanced breakfast, bring two snacks that together would constitute a balanced meal (combined ~500), but eat them separately at about 11am and 3pm so I don't get "bogged down" or distracted by lunch, and then eat a larger, balanced dinner (~500). If I'm doing cardio in the morning, I'll bring an extra post-workout snack and reduce calories in other places. Altogether this adds up to 1300, which leaves room for the 15 here and 10 there that go over the targets, for a coffee-with-milk I didn't plan on, or for a random cake to appear in front of me.

... I didn't talk about the cake yet, did I? On Monday, I walked into my 10am class and there was a half-eaten cake at the front of the room. No explanation was given. My instructor didn't say anything about it at all. Before he started lecturing someone from the back of the room came up and spooned some of it into a jar, so after class, I broke off one bite for what I called 50 calories. By 2pm when I had another class in the same room, it was gone. I have no idea why it was there.

So hopefully this week will go well and show results. I am certainly pushing enough deficit to merit them, and I will get to work out hard tomorrow and Friday. Then it's my mom's birthday, yummy dinner, and next week I start the cleanse! I'm excited about that for the most part, although it will be hard to stop using caffeine and pot. Hopefully determination and elation from the restricted diet and detoxing will carry me through.

Magic number: 1888

That is the number of calories, according to my current formulas, that are needed to sustain my ordinary level of activity without any formal exercise at my target weight.

Let's just try to stay below that number each day for now.

(Nevermind tomorrow.)

Ew

I just ate a maple bar and looked up the calories. I thought it would be something like 300.

It's fucking 460.

Combined with the fact that I forgot my gym clothes as I went out the door and was NOT going to turn around and get them once I was halfway to school (the ground is icy today), looks like it'll be another wash today. Why did it suddenly get so hard?

An inflection point

The title is a little bit of a math reference. When a graph changes from concave to convex or back, that is, when its second derivative changes sign, that's an inflection point. The function itself may not go from positive to negative, and it doesn't even change from going-up to going-down, but it's still a perceptible, subtle change.

That's what it's like lately. Things are changing about this weight loss process, just a little.

The first thing I've noticed is that, before, I was losing about 2/3 fat to 1/3 lean mass. For the last 7 or so pounds, my lean mass has remained constant on average. This makes sense because I'm now past my lowest previous weight. When I was coming down from 185 to 165 and even to 155, I was losing excess skin, superfluous vascular tissue, weight-bearing muscle that was no longer needed. But the amount of lean mass I have now (about 99-103 pounds) is an amount my body has had for a LONG time and has good uses for regardless of my fat level.

Thus it makes sense that I'm also losing weight more slowly. When my average deficit is about 500, I scrape off a pound in a week, because I'm not getting extra credit.

And who knew that exercising could make you more hungry? Not me! Until now, that wasn't the case. Unless I pushed myself hard all day like on that bike trip, a good workout wouldn't make any difference for how much food I wanted to eat. Now, I'm noticing that I am hungrier on days when I exercise a lot. If I exercise not at all (maintenance intake ~1975) I can deal with eating only 1500-1600 calories. If I burn 200 calories (MC 2175) I'm good for 1600-1700 calories. If I burn 600 calories (MC 2575) then I feel okay on 1800-1900 calories. Obviously this is still a net benefit, but there was a time when I would eat the same number of calories whether I burned 0 or 600 in exercise.

Being hungry after exercise makes it harder to push the same kind of deficit I could before, as well as the fact that I'm burning fewer calories to begin with. You can only scale back your intake so much - for me, between the mental demands of school and the social occasionality of meals, it's not practical to eat fewer than 1500-1600 calories on a typical day. It's starting to strain a little. I haven't had ice cream in almost a month (I don't count the spoonful on spice cake at my parents' dinner, that's not the same), or many other treats recently. All the time I put it off, saying I won't have ice cream today, I'll have it some other time, because that would be 150 or 300 calories cutting into my deficit, which is certainly not 800, and even if it's 650, wouldn't I rather have 650 than just 500?

And mentally, my body image is in a strange spot. I feel SO skinny some respects, yet I observe the fat that remains. My collarbone is concave above, concave below, and sticks up a little around the shoulder. I go to massage my neck and feel one, two, three, FOUR vertebrae protruding in what almost seems like an unnatural way. When I lay on my back, my hipbones feel scarily close to the surface of the skin. Yet I'm still 32% fat. My belly still squishes into rolls when I slouch. My thighs and butt still ripple when I walk (not that you can tell when I'm wearing pants, but there's a full length mirror in the locker room).

Just have to have patience and perseverance. 5 more pounds by Solstice. Take what I get for January. A few more by the end of February, and 5 more before spring break, brings me right up to goal, right? Part of me wants to go on some sort of extreme diet, say, Slimfast and super caffeine pills, or at least a highly regimented, planned diet. I probably would if not for social concerns. But my boyfriend already thinks I'm too inflexible about food. If he would offer me high-calorie food at 8am instead of 8pm when I've already eaten most of my calories for the day, he might get a different impression.

Good eats, weekly summary, and sshh don't get excited yet

I wouldn't have said anything if it hadn't been my official weigh-in day, but today I weigh 149.8 lbs and 31.7% fat.

Which means that yes, actually technically barely, I am normal weight. And I am also still 0.2 pounds above my meso goal. I kind of don't believe it, though. I like the .6 goals because they give a little more buffer against popping back up over the tens-place switch. So no more on this today.

Quick stats:  Average kcals/day 1866, 4 cardio, 2 yoga, average estimated balance -425, -1.0 lb.


Now I've got to catch up on some things I didn't have time to finish a post about this week. Thursday morning, I ate this:

1 egg fried in 1/2 tsp olive oil on a slice of toast (70+20+90=180)
1 orange, cut into half-rounds (100)
8 oz skim milk (90)
8 oz black coffee

Delicious, no? Funny thing is, at 370 calories, it's on the upper end of what I usually eat for breakfast, but it looks like such a typical "dieter's breakfast." (Of course, it would be even more so if I had just the eggwhites and cooked it with some kind of fat free spray, but I like egg yolks and fat is filling). Anyway, I really enjoyed it. Then I went to the gym and burned *659* calories while listening to my Sansa. Thursday morning was pretty much awesome.

For dinner I made tofu and I diced and cooked a turnip my boyfriend had in the crisper. I've probably had turnip before, but only in a soup or something - I didn't really know what it was going to taste like, but I figured it might be a little like a parsnip, especially since I tend to mix up the two words. So I tasted it... it was kind of funny, so I put some butter and salt and pepper on it. It was pretty good that way, but it still had this funny, bitter-spicy note that started to catch up with my tastebuds toward the end of the portion. I think I don't particularly care for turnips, but maybe there's a better way to prepare them.

Friday night, I made acorn squash with butter and brown sugar, then put some leftover rice and crumbled pecans in the hollow. It was amazing. Sometimes acorn squash isn't so good, and I don't really know how to pick out a good one, but they're in season right now, so statistics should be on my side.

So, I like skim milk, coffee, and fruit with a meager protein/carb combo for breakfast, and I should definitely start making more squash. The boyfriend has been gone, but he's coming back today and we'll go shopping and get lots of fruits and vegetables. A few of my new dietary goals are to eat fruit with every breakfast, eat vegetables with every dinner, and to buy produce from the five pigment-antioxidant color groups: red/pink, yellow/orange, green, blue/purple/black, and white/brown.

Activity:

S: 0
S: Outdoor run (2.0 mi)
M: 1 hr yoga
T: Elliptical (15+10m,165+115) and rowing (7:15, 85c)
W: 1 hr yoga
T: Elliptical (42.5m, 527c) and rowing (10.5m, 132c)
F: Elliptical (40.5m, 500c)

Food:

Friday 11/12

Yogurt, granola, and raisin parfait and coffee (130+140+130=400)
Banana and skim milk (100+90=190)
Egg, cheese, and vegetable sandwich (140+40+110+30+180=500)
Babybel cheese (70)
Werther's candy (20)
Skim milk (90)
1/2 acorn squash with butter, brown sugar, black rice and almonds (85+100+45+70+100=400)
Butter and sugar (100+45=145)
Skim milk (90)

400+190+500+70+20+90+400+145+90=1905

Thursday 11/11

Egg on toast, glass of skim milk, an orange, and black coffee (90+90+90+100=370)
Apple with peanut butter (100+200=300)
Tuna garden salad and 1/2 cheese sandwich (20+35+150+90+110=405)
Seasoned popcorn (165)
Bottled Thai coffee (150)
Babybel cheese (70)
Tofu, turnip buttered with salt & pepper, and chard with vinegar (200+40+35+50+10+5=340)

370+300+405+165+150++70+340=1800

Wednesday 11/10

Toast and yogurt with honey (90+130+30=350)
Tangerine (40)
Coffee with skim and simple syrup (10+5=15)
Apple with peanut butter and milk (100+200+80+45=425)
Stonewall Jerquee (165)
Lentils, black rice, tomato sauce, and cheese (130+160+50+110=450)
Seasoned popcorn (50)
Babybel cheese and 1 potato chip (70+10=80)

350+40+15+425+165+450+50+80=1575

Tuesday 11/9

Egg and cheese on toast and a tangerine (90+90+110+40=330)
Almonds (200)
Dry cocoa mix and 100 calorie bar (75+100=175)
Chicken Caesar salad (550)
Pasta with sauce, tofu, and chard with balsamic vinegar (200+50+200+20+10+5=485)

330+200+175+550+485=1740

Monday 11/8

Granola and milk (140+160=300)
Apple (100)
TLC sandwich (430)
Cookies and fig newtons (225+140=365)
Lentils and black rice with cheese (130+160+165=455)

300+100+430+365+455=1650

Sunday 11/7

Chard & cheese scrambled eggs, toast, 1/2 grapefruit, and coffee with milk & sugar (140+100+10+90+30+45=415)
Tangerine (40)
Greek yogurt and honey (130+60=190)
Pinto beans and cheese (130+70=200)
Dinner with parents (1770)
    3 glasses wine and 1 vodka elderflower drink (500)
    3.5 slices baguette with cheese (280)
    Cauliflower/cheese/egg/potato casserole, salad, and bread (600+75+100=775)
    1 chocolate, apple spice cake and ice cream (65+75+75=215)

415+40+190+200+1770=2615

Saturday 11/6

1.3 bagels with flavored cream cheese (350+130=480)
Clif builder bar (270)
Vanilla Coke (250)
Nibbles while making dinner (100)
Pasta and asparagus with garlic cheese sauce (400+50+230=680)

480+270+250+100+680=1780

Dinner with the 'rents

Holy crap. I always eat/drink a lot at dinner parties, but this time I ate enough calories for an entire day (1770). Thank God I went for a run this morning, so my surplus for the day was only in the 400s.

On the bright side, my stepdad looked pointedly at my jeans and asked "are you continuing to lose weight? You're looking great." Apparently I get shout-outs every 15 pounds. YAY!

Another thing that's nice about losing weight, at least when you have a little money, is that you have a good reason to buy cute new clothes. I got some sweatpants on my way back home that I'll be wearing to yoga tomorrow morning. I used to only buy clothes once or twice a year, when I'd get $50 or $100 in giftcards for my birthday and Christmas, but it's nice to just go get new clothes when the ones I have start to suck.

That's all. Goodnight!

Weekly summary

Is it time for another weekly summary already? Today I'm 150.8 pounds and 33.1% fat.

Weekly stats: average kcals/day 1878, 3 cardio, 1 yoga, 1 miscellaneous, average daily balance -287, -2.6 lbs.

Activity:

Sa: 0
Su: 0
M: Extra trip to campus
Tu: Elliptical (20m, 252c)
W: 1 hr yoga
Th: Rowing (10m, 117c) and elliptical (20m, 250c)
F: Elliptical (20m, 261c)

Food journal:

Friday 11/5

Chocolate oatmeal (150+115=265)
Pasta with chicken, green beans, and a small apple (200+340+25+80=645)
Cookie (125)
Rice, beans, and corn with cream cheese and hot sauce (160+115+75+100=450)
Cream cheese (100)

265+645+125+450+100=1585

Thursday 11/4

Chard and cheese omelette and 1 toast (140+110+20+90=360)
Tangerine (40)
TLC sandwich (180+220+30=430)
Chocolate milk (340)
Chocolate (55)
Chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, and green beans (340+100+50+15+50=555)

360+40+430+340+55+555=1780

Wednesday 11/3

Oatmeal with chocolate and milk (150+85+40=275)
1/2 PB and honey sandwich (90+95+20=205)
Pasta salad and a tangerine (200+90+30+40=360)
Vegan jerky and Tootsie pop (80+60=140)
Cinnamon sugar apples (45+50=95)
Rice and beans with cheese, onions and tomatoes (160+115+220+30=525)
Coffee with milk and touch of sugar (40+5=45)

275+205+360+140+95+525+45=1645

Tuesday 11/2

Scrambled eggs with onions and toast with cream cheese (140+40+10+90+100=390)
Apple (100)
TOC sandwich and a tangerine (180+220+30+40=470)
Strawberries and honey (50+30=80)
Mini Twix (50)
Peanut butter (125)
Pasta with sauce and sauteed tofu and lettuce with dressing (400+50+120+10+45=625)

390+100+470+80+50+125+625=1840

Monday 11/1

Granola with milk (140+160=300)
Greek yogurt with honey and strawberries (130+60+25=215)
Cream cheese roll-up and tangerine (180+100+40=320)
Carrots and hummus (35+65=100)
Halloween candy (105+260+100+70+60=595)
Falafel, rice, cheese, and tomato sauce (200+160+110+30=500)

300+215+320+100+595+500=2030

Sunday 10/31

Chard and cheese omelette and coffee with milk and sugar (175+25+100+50+20+50=420)
Chocolate bar (510)
Ramen (380)
Peanut butter roll-up and milk (180+190+160=530)
Miso with tofu (30+100=130)
2 shots whiskey (205)
Bread and cheese (90+110=200)

420+510+380+530+130+205+200=2375

Saturday 10/30

Breakfast out (870)
    Vegetable, cheese, and egg crepe (200+300+100+50=650)
    Mixed fruit (100)
    2 cups sweetened creamed coffee (100)
    Andes mint (20)
Pecans and string cheese (50+80=130)
Black Boss Porter (280)
Pizza (300+25+175+55=555)
Coffee with milk and sugar (55)

870+130+280+555+55=1890

Reorientation day 2

I went to the gym this morning like I said I would. I was a little late getting out and I don't have the patience for much more than 20 minutes of elliptical without music anyway, so 20 minutes it was, which isn't the stellar 500 calorie workout I was doing before, but it's a fine chunk to slap on top of as much of a dietary deficit as I care to create.

I ate 1840 calories. With just what I was planning to eat for dinner, it could have been 1640, but I was still hungry so, after letting it sit for about 10 minutes, I decided to go ahead and have another serving of pasta. My overall balance was -408 calories. It was nice to not overthink it - I ate when I was hungry, modified my plans due to being hungry, and even indulged spontaneously in a Twix (the big bowl of candy is gone, but there are still stragglers about campus). I think I was getting a little emotionally attached to the numbers, but not counting my calories until after I've eaten them, or at least committed myself to them because that's what I have with me to eat, is really calming. It puts the focus on eating reasonably. I do want to push these last four or so pounds to meso-goal, because I really want to be normal-weight, but in terms of body image I'm basically content to not really worry about it and just let the pounds fade away, as long as I keep making progress. I've got better things to think about than whether I'm eating 1600 or 1800 calories.

Day 1 of reorientation

Well, on my first day of getting-my-shit-back-together, there was a bowl of Halloween candy in the Psych lounge. Then more Halloween candy was the snack in my conference class where we bring snacks. I admit, I ate quite a bit of Halloween candy. That's okay. I hadn't had any yet this year, I'm sure it was less than I've eaten in years past, and in a day or two it will all go away.

What's surprising is that after a couple tiny boxes of Milk Duds, a full-size 3 Musketeers, fun size Butterfinger and Crunch, and a Tootsie pop, I still ended up with a deficit for the day - a margin-of-error slim deficit, but still, I was expecting to go way over. I didn't count my calories until the end of the day, instead just making food that seemed good and reasonable last night and bringing it to school. If, instead of 595 calories of candy, I had eaten 200 calories of a more typical snack (sometimes cookies, but sometimes fruit and nuts or caprese crackers), my calorie count for the day would have been 1635, which is impressive to me. Actually, I might have eaten something after dinner as I'm still a little hungry, but as it is I'm inclined not to because then I WOULD have a surplus for the day. Then again, I might not have been hungry after dinner had I not eaten the candy, because we all know sugar actually makes you more hungry.

I didn't exercise, but I have a really good excuse for that. Today was actually my yoga day, but I skipped because I REALLY needed the sleep after being woken up every couple of hours by the consequences of my boyfriend's late-night Halloween party attendance. After that I basically didn't have time because of classes and reading I needed to finish. Tomorrow I'm definitely going into the gym in the morning, and I'm eagerly awaiting my Sansa. I really think that once I can pair exercise with music again this thing will just kick off and I'll hardly have to think about how much I'm eating.

Interesting thing is, while I've been struggling with my diet, my weight has looked like a sine wave but my body fat has evidently dropped. I noticed my percentages were going down much faster than they were before, and my lean mass was increasing when my weight increased, so I figured there was a water retention element but I didn't know if my fat weight was going down or not because that's not what I track in my spreadsheet. So I just changed the formula a little and looked at the past few weeks. While the net change in my weight has been very little, I've definitely lost between 2-4 pounds of fat. So that's good! I don't know what I could have been doing to promote lean mass, since I've REALLY been slacking on my strength training, but maybe it lends support to the idea that I should be eating more and exercising well at this point.

Weekly summary

153.4 and 33.8% body fat.

Weekly stats: average kcals/day 1805, 2 cardio, 2 yoga, average daily balance -299, +0.2 lbs.

Activity log:
Sat: 0
Sun: 0
Mon: Outdoor run (2.0 mi)
Tue: 1 hr yoga
Wed: 0
Thurs: 1 hr yoga
Fri: Elliptical (28m, 303c)

One thing I'd just like to point out is that I think yesterday (Friday) was a great example of how to do a party. I anticipated that I would want to eat high calorie food and drink, so I minimized my calories during the day, but still ate several healthy, small meals. I also made sure to work out and racked up a couple of hundred negative calories there. Once I was there, I ate a bit of everything I wanted, but didn't mindlessly munch, and drank the perfect amount to get fairly silly with minimal hangover. I ended up with a surplus, but it was a small one due to my pre-emptive measures.

Food journal:

Friday 10/29

Buttered toasted bagel half, 2 eggs, and 1/2 grapefruit (110+50+180+30=370)
Rockfish, brussels sprouts, and rice (100+50+160=310)
100 calorie bar (100)
Bagel half with peanut butter and honey (110+95+30=235)
Cheesy bread, pizza, cookie, sushi, veggies, chips, and birthday cake (150+350+150+75+25+150+150=1000)
4 whiskey drinks with varying amounts of mixers (420+65+65+20=570)

370+310+100+1000+570=2585

Thursday 10/28

Oatmeal with dark chocolate, cinnamon, sugar, and milk (150+30+15+80=275)
Chocolate soymilk (130)
Rice and beans with cheese and tomatoes (160+115+110+40=425)
Leftover pasta and sauce (225)
Mixed nuts (85)
Rockfish, brussels sprouts, and potatoes (200+50+100=350)

275+130+425+225+85+350=1490

Wednesday 10/27

Bagel with egg patty and cheddar and chocolate (220+70+110+160=560)
Kale, potatoes, carrots and boiled egg with apple and grape salad (30+100+35+70+100+50=385)
2 cookies and Dr. Pepper (250+100=350)
1 slice pizza (300)
Rockstar energy drink (260)

560+385+350+300+260=1855

Tuesday 10/26

Oatmeal with dark chocolate, PB, sugar, and a glass of milk (150+55+95+15+160=475)
Apple (100)
Cheese and veggie wrap (180+165+30=375)
Honey green tea and 100 calorie bar (40+100=140)
Pasta with sauce and nutri-yeast and salad with cheese (300+50+50+20+165=585)
Balance bar (200)

475+100+375+140+585+200=1875

Monday 10/25

Grapes pre-run (50)
Bagel with cream cheese and 2 eggs (220+70+180=470)
Jolly Rancher (20)
Tuna, tomato and avocado wrap (180+75+40+100=395)
100 calorie bar (100)
Honey green tea, baby carrots and hummus (60+35+65=160)
Dark chocolate (55)
Tomato bean soup and cheese (250+165=425)

50+470+20+395+100+160+55+425=1665

Sunday 10/24

Yogurt and granola with grapes (140+45+50=235)
Milk, quesadilla with caramelized onions, and grapes (80+180+220+30+20+50=580)
Coffee with milk and sugar (40+20=60)
Peanut butter (95)
Tomato bean soup topped with avocado (250+50=300)
About half of some tuna and cheese (40+55=95)
100 calorie bar (100)

235+580+60+95+300+95+100=1565

Saturday 10/23

Grits with butter and 1/2 grapefruit (200+100+30=330)
Gorgonzola cheese (100)
Toast (220)
Grocery store samples (40)
Clif builder bar (270)
Mac and cheese with broccoli (310+45+30=385)
Dark chocolate, peanut butter, and milk (80+95+80=255)

330+100+220+40+270+385+255=1600