Saturday was the mid-point check-in for the 2014 Gold’s Gym Challenge. It was time for the Challenge Gods to take a look at my progress. Considering my plateau, the results are pretty awesome. Since January 6 I lost 18.9 pounds and 3.5 inches.
I’ve noticed that my jeans are very loose these days. Dropping 2.5 inches off my waist and hips will do that. I’m not quite ready for a smaller size just yet, but maybe by the end of the challenge.
Really!?! 222 pounds on 2/22? Numbers aside, I’m starting to worry about plateauing again.
The good news is I’m down 1.2 pounds this week. Of course, I was up by 1 pound last week. Basically for 3 weeks no real movement. Am I at the early stages of a plateau?
The husband thinks I’m retaining water. With my knee feeling better, I’m working out more. His theory — my muscles are shredded and retaining water. If true, I should see a big shift on the scale next week.
Another change this coming week — going to real spin classes. I’ve hit the spin room at my gym, but always on my own. I know I don’t get nearly the workout I do with the real class. Hopefully my knee holds up and I’ll finally get a hard workout.
That damn rabbit in me thinks I need to add in another workout in addition to the weights, walking and cycling. I’m itching to try Zumba. Thankfully the tortoise is still winning — I’ve had a few good days with my knee. I don’t want to rush it or I’ll screw up my progress or worse.
As for my diet, my trainer wants me to shake up my daily carb count. She’s worried my body is use to my current eating routine. So after eating about 50-75g of carbs for a few days, she wants me to drop to 20g for a day then spike it up to 200g the following day before going back to 50-70g. Can’t hurt to give it a shot.
How do you deal with a plateau?
Since the start of my Paleo Challenge, my sugar cravings are back. The sugar monster inside of me raged the last two weeks.
I’ll find out tomorrow, but I think my weigh-in will show a gain. For the last couple weeks I’ve wrestled with sugar cravings. As a result, some unhealthy foods appeared on my plate this week (a little too much wine and those blasted pancakes). It’s time to get back to basics and stop feeding that sugar monster.
What isn’t helping is the lack of exercise. I had a great workout on Wednesday with my trainer, but I tripped over a locker room bench and twisted my injured knee. I’ve iced it, but this morning it’s swollen and stiff. So no spin or yoga classes today and no muscle workout tomorrow. I need to baby it for the next few days.
Frustrated? You bet. Exercise keeps me focused on the prize and my eating in check.
While my knee is still on the mend, I think it’s a good time to get back to basics with my food. That’s how I started this little journey 100 pounds ago. It’s time to refocus and get back to eating 20g-25g of carbs a day for the next couple of weeks.
I’m still doing the Paleo challenge, but I’m going to simplify. I’m skipping the Paleo recipes this coming week. Instead I’ll eat veggies and a simple protein with each meal. But I’m adding back in one very non-Paleo item. My protein shake.
My sugar cravings are still raging this week (hence the wine) and I think fruit is the trigger. Since starting Paleo, my fruit intake is way up and I’m craving the sweet stuff as a result.
I started cutting back on fruit last week, but all that did was release the kraken. On Wednesday morning I went cold turkey to get the sugar monster off my back once and for all. My cravings reached a fever pitch Thursday afternoon. This morning I feel fine, but banning fruit from my diet isn’t a solution.
Which gets me back to the protein shake. I always added ½ banana and ½ cup of a berry with my protein shake. The fruit improves the taste of the shake and feed my muscles after working out with weights. When I blend the fruit with the shake, I have zero sugar cravings.
So my shake will be my one break from Paleo. And to me, that’s OK.
I’m trying to lose weight, not conduct a science experiment.
The video is about going to a party, but it’s good advice for happy hours or going out to dinner with friends. I needed to follow this Saturday night! Sigh…maybe next time.
One of the best ways to combat emotional eating is having a hobby. Knitting has saved me countless times from mindlessly eating.
Up until a year ago, I never thought of myself as an emotional eater. I thought I just overate. Until I did a little experiment when I tracked my food and hunger levels for a week. It was an eye opener.
It didn’t matter if I was hungry, I just ate. Clearly food wasn’t just a source of fuel to power my body. Food (and the types I ate) provided fuel for my emotions.
It took a while, but I identified my top five eating triggers. Knowing your triggers is half the battle. Having great distractions or hobbies — exercising, cleaning, sewing — are a great way to help you keep mindless eating in check.
Dot’s Top 5 Emotional Eating Triggers
5. Social Eating – I loved hanging out with friends for happy hour and blowing off steam. But I always spent the next day with indigestion and feeling bloated. Once I put two and two together I started limiting alcohol and making better food choices (salad instead of fried mozzarella). Now when meeting friends, I’m more of a teetotaler and keep my healthy portions under control. After all, it’s their company I love, not the food.
4. Stress — I never thought of myself as a stress eater. I always equated stress with activity. Lots of deadlines and not enough time to get it all done. When I’m busy, I skip meals. What I didn’t factor in was my food choices during those meals I didn’t skip. I always went for comfort foods. It was my way to self-medicate when the pressure was on. Now that I know stress is a trigger, I try to do other things than eat – go for a walk, knitting, or crank the music and start a dance party with the dogs.
3. Rewards — I think about rewarding myself with frozen custard (hey, it’s low carb) after a great weigh-in. I’m working real heard to undo this one. Lately I’m rewarding my success with fun things that encourage my continued weight loss — a new cookbook, exercise clothes, or a manicure.
2. Watching TV – This one really is part of my number 1 trigger, but it deserves its own write up. I never eat and read. I guess I want my hands clean to flip to the next page. But eating and watching TV seem to go together. Just a few years ago I’d veg out on the couch mindlessly flipping channels and eating slice after slice of pizza. When I started losing weight my viewing time also diminished. I became more active and the TV screamed “couch potato” at me. When I do sit down in front of the TV, I try to watch something that keeps me on my toes (Sherlock, Walking Dead, Chopped). Like a good book, these shows keep me engaged and not thinking about food. But if I’m just vegging, that’s a danger zone and I always make sure I have laundry to do.
1. Boredom — If I’m bored out of my mind, I can open and close the refrigerator 20 times an hour. Am I hungry? Nope. It’s just something to do. Anytime I start feeling bored, I have some go to items to beat it back — books, puzzles, brushing the dogs, car keys (day trips!). There are lots of things to do, and none of them include eating!
I’ve lost a total of 102 pounds since March 2012. I’ve learned a lot of hard lessons as I change my lifestyle.
I’m down 4 pounds this past week, bringing my total weight loss to 102 pounds!
Normally I post my weight info on the same day as weigh-ins, and I expected to do the same Saturday morning. But after stepping off that scale I immediately knew it wasn’t going to be like any other day.
You’d think I’d be jumping for joy once I reached that milestone. Losing 100 pounds is a big moment for sure, but celebrating was the farthest thing from my mind.
Yes, I crossed the century mark, but my journey is far from over. I started jotting down random thoughts and lessons I learned (some hard and some outright silly) and what I need to do to keep me on my path.
Dot and I have watched a number of episodes of “My 600-lb Life”. We’ve found many of the stories incredibly encouraging, and they’ve helped shore-up our own determination to lose weight.
And then we watched “Penny’s Story”.
The Internet can be a nasty place, so I won’t engage in the meanness burning up the message boards and comment sections of articles about this disturbing episode. Suffice to say, unlike every other story on this wonderful show, Penny really knows how to twist the screws.
A year after gastric bypass surgery, a patient weighing 600 pounds can expect to have lost as much as 350 pounds. In Penny’s case, in the year following her surgery, she’d gained weight. Her friends and family had paid for the surgery. It wasn’t stated in the show whether her disability money, her insurance or remaining charity was used to pay for her four months of hospitalization. Regardless of who was paying for it, nothing was working.
With all this opportunity to succeed as a backdrop, it was particularly hard watching her sneak food throughout the entire episode. It was painful to witness the child she loves have to visit her in the same bed she declared is “my bed, my bathroom, and my dinner table.”
I’ve lost 98 pounds to date…so close to crossing the century mark.
After last week’s peanut butter debacle I buckled down, tracking and weighing everything I ate. With the peanut butter safely locked away in a cabinet, I lost 8 pounds this week. It’s the first time I’ve weighed less than 230 in decades!
I weighed in today at an even 227, for a total weight loss of 98 pounds. I’m hoping this coming week I finally cross over the century mark! Woohoo!!!
As for my other goal – weighing 200 pounds by the end of April – I’m back on track. I’ve lost a total of 10 pounds in January. That gives me 14 weeks to drop 27 pounds – about 2 pounds per week.
I’ve so got this!
I guess I should buy that swimsuit after all.
Stop waiting to change your life and just do it!
— Roni Noone of Roni’s Weigh
This one is going up on my board. There is no spoon such thing as perfect. If I waited for the right time to start changing my life I have no doubt that I’d weigh 350 pounds today.
The time is now!
Oh, Roni’s Weigh is an awesome blog by the way. You should check it out.
This is a great little Weight Watchers (subscription required for link) recipe I’ve made a few times and is a big hit with the husband. The pork is marinated for at least 4 hours, but to get the full flavor I recommend marinating overnight.
I’m marinating 2 tenderloins today to cook tomorrow (photo tomorrow).
Gilled Cuban Pork Tenderloin
Net Carbs: 2
Weight Watchers PlusPoints: 4
Servings: 4
Ingredients
Instructions