Final Four Weeks

I am looking forward to these last 4 weeks going by. Not that it will mean I can start being horrible again.. I still hope to lose another 10-15 lbs even if I reach my 150 mini goal by the end of the competition. I want to get to final goal for once in my life. I can't give up just because no one will be competing with me. I also need to keep it up to help the husband continue with his weight loss. At this point, we have both lost almost the same number of pounds, and both have about the same amount left that we definitely want to lose, so I want to stay strict until we both get to that point... and then, NOT go crazy and gain it back this time. Healthy for life is the goal (so hard)!

So, last night I met a group of people from the competition at our healthy potluck. There wasn't really much to eat, so I didn't even go over my plan foodwise. My spinach dip got demolished, but it was not very good with the carrot/celery/bell pepper dippers.. it rocked with the 2 lighter cracker options I served though. I will definitely make it again. The other items brought were bacon wrapped dates, meatballs, turkey meatloaf, salad, and fruit with fruit dip. Not too bad, I tried a tiny bit of everything, but mostly had my dip and fruit without much of the fruit dip. It was kind of nice being one of the thinnest people in the room.

Anyway, I learned quickly that my great week wasn't enough to make a difference in the rankings. Someone at the event last night lost 8 lbs last week! However, she is more than twice my size, so her percentage wasn't much more than mine. I managed to squeeze back up to 6th place, and am within a pound from 4 of the 5 above me (and the one below me). It is very close! Kinda exciting.

Yesterday I started out with the intention of doing a long walk for my exercise, but my leg was feeling ok, so I tried out jogging. I decided I would do a slow and careful jog as long as I didn't feel any twinges of weirdness in my leg. It worked out, and at that slow pace, I was able to jog about 2 miles with only a couple of 5-10 second walk breaks to turn around and grab some gulps of water. I did 55 minutes total, with over half of that jogging, so pretty good. My leg is feeling pretty good today, but I am still not sure if I want to risk 30 Day Shred just yet.

The scale is trying to suck up to me.. it showed another drop today, but I don't really believe it. It's that time of the month, so any weird fluctuations are more common. But, if I did believe the scale, I would be only 0.2 lbs from a 20 lb loss. Pretty nice, so I am striving to see that number again this week, even if it isn't consistent. I was actually going to skip weighing for a bit, but I couldn't resist checking last night to see if yesterday morning's weight was just a ridiculous fluke, and it was the same as it was that morning, so of course I had to see if I lost this morning. ;-) If I can by some miracle pull off another 3+ lb loss this week, I might have a chance of catching up to the leaders.

150s!!!

159.8! Wooo! Haha. I was ridiculously excited to see that this morning. Finally, finally out of the 160s. Of course, just barely, so it will probably go back up, but I am going to try hard to stay there. This means lots of little milestones, I finally passed the 10% lost mark, less than 10lbs left till wedding weight/my goal for the end of the competition and 20lbs left to normal BMI (also, almost halfway to this from the start with 18.6 down and 19.8 to go).

That was a whopping 3.6 lbs lost from last week. It is funny how my body is following such a pattern this time, I will lose about 3.5, then 0, then 1.5, then 3.5, etc. Averaging out to about 5 pounds every 3 weeks, which isn't as good as the 2lbs per week I always aim for, but I will take it.

There are officially 4 weeks left in the competition. I am eager for the results to be posted this week, really hoping I at least moved back into the top 4, maybe top 3. That would be awesome, even though I expect next week will be crap on the scale (judging by my past record I will lose nothing!) and it will be ruined. But it would be a slight ego/motivation boost anyway. Our group is meeting tonight for a healthy potluck, so I will get to meet a couple of them and see at least one or 2 of my friends who are in it. I am making a healthy spinach dip, hope it comes out well.

I have now done 6 days of 30 Day Shred level 2. Yesterday I did a second workout from some of the Banish Fat Boost Metabolism video, which has a lot of kickboxing moves, and I felt something weird in my right calf, and then while in bed, I had the worst charley horse. I never get those, and only know what it is because of my mom, but pretty sure that's what it was. My calf now aches when I walk, and I am worried I am going to have to back off working out this week. That scares me. I'm just going to take it easy, but still try to get activity. May have to delay finishing 30DS because of all the jumping and lunging involved.

What's that... new progress???

Haha! 162 on the scale! Finally some forward progress, holy crap. It isn't much, but I will take it! I am so happy my 2 days of being practically perfect (aka killer workouts, no snacks/sweets, and stuck to planned meals) paid off.

It is just in time too, because yesterday I slipped down to 7th place in the competition (boo). There is a big group of people neck and neck now, it seems. The good news is, the top 2 people last week actually gained some this week, so I am closing in the gap to 1st place. In fact, as of today, I'm down 9.19%, and the leader yesterday was at 10.25%, so that is not bad at all, only 2 more lbs and I will be above that. I know if I keep up my motivation, I can catch up in the next few weeks.

I am looking for next Tuesday to be a great weigh-in, and I will do whatever I have to the rest of the week to make that happen. I am shooting for 160. 2 lbs in 6 days, I can do that, right?? I hope so.

Next Tuesday will be my 8 week photos, so it will be interesting to see if I notice many changes from start or 4 weeks. Maybe I will even post them.

Still Struggling, But Fighting It

The last couple weeks have not been fun at all. Today I was at 163.6. UP 0.4 from what I've been stuck at the last few days, and 0.8 up from the low I had gotten to like 2 weeks ago. It is so so frustrating. I had hoped to hit 160 tomorrow and now I am not even close to that goal.

Honestly, today I deserved the gain. Yesterday I was just a ridiculous moody mess. It's not even close to that time of the month, I was just a raging monster. I was so mad at the scale, so sick of being good and not getting anywhere and sick of being hungry. So I snacked far too much and to top it off, Sunday is usually my rest day for the week, so I did zero working out too.

Today is another new day, but it is so hard to keep up motivation. I have been great so far today, and have met my goal of zero snacking and no dessert so far, which means probably the scale will ignore my work and still not be nice to me for the official weigh in tomorrow. But all I can do is try. I need to just do my best and chill out about it.

I am trying to think of this as a new competition. Suck it up and do what I have to do. It's only 5 weeks now, and I need to kick it in gear. So I'm pretending all is fresh, I mapped out a workout plan for the entire 5 weeks, which now includes yoga every Sunday instead of total rest days. I am only requiring myself to do at least 20 minutes, so nothing too hard, but I want to feel like I am giving an effort every day. And trying to squeeze in extra yoga during the week too, just some poses while watching tv at night, because my flexibility sucks and I think it helps me with the previously mentioned chill factor as well.

I finally started level 2 of 30 Day Shred today, and I am going to try to finish it much faster by doing it Monday through Friday, in addition to other workouts, so it should take me 2 weeks to finish level 2 and another 2 weeks for level 3, which would mean I'd finish with a week to spare for the competition, and probably do mostly cardio the last week.

Crossing my fingers to finally have a decent weigh in tomorrow.

Not a fluke

I guess the weight increase was not just a simple fluctuation that would work itself out. :( Still 164 today, despite being pretty much perfect yesterday with eating and working my butt off. I did 2 workouts of 30 minutes each, split up this time. A walk/jog in which I made some major running progress, and went about a mile without stopping for a walk break, then another 1/2 mile without slowing, and that is pretty great for me these days. The second workout was strength. And I did over an hour more painting, which I swear should count as a partial workout. ;-)

No snacking, except 2 strawberries while cooking dinner. Lots of water. Decent meals. But no progress. I can't even blame it on the time of the month, since I am not even close to that week yet. Ugh.

Oh well. This is just a challenge of my motivation and willpower. I will succeed. It obviously may take me much longer to get to the 150s than I thought, but I will get there.

If Saturday night's even fancy restaurant dinner out does not ruin me. I really don't even want to go, but it is a friend's birthday and we haven't seen them in a while, so I think we are going to go. I hate spending lots of money at a place when I don't really even want anything. Maybe I can find an appetizer for my meal. Ugh.

Hopefully on Tuesday I will have better news to report. My goal is now to be under 162, I will be ok with even 161.8. Well, my original goal would have been to hit 160 next Tuesday, but that is most likely impossible.

Competition Halfway Point

Well yesterday marked 6 weeks into the competition, halfway done! Kinda hard to believe it's been that long, but at the same time hard to believe there are still 6 more weeks of this.

I thought I did good this week, and Sunday was down to 162.8. Then I skipped weighing Monday only because it was sooooo cold, and then Tuesday I was somehow up to 164.4. WTF?? Ugh. That made a 0.2 lb gain for the week, which I don't get AT ALL. I really don't think I did anything Sunday or Monday to justify a gain.

Now it is harder to judge if it was just random bloating or what, because yesterday was Valentine's day and I was moody from the weigh-in too, so I did not eat very well. The first half of the day was ok, except a handful of nuts/snack mix I shouldn't have had. Then we had a steak dinner at home, with lower carb veggies and salad, so also not too bad, but I probably ate too large a portion of steak. The bad part was I had a valentine's chocolate covered caramel AND dessert, which I made a yummy hot chocolate chip cookie topped with ice cream, lighter ice cream, but still, I'm sure those sweets were at least 400, maybe 500 calories I did not need.

Despite that, I was still back down a little bit today, to 164 even. But I won't be happy until I see 162 now, since I feel like that's where I should have already been yesterday.

Anyway, I am trying extra hard to eat completely clean today, drink nothing but water and a ton of water (think I may have had too much tea earlier in the week), and do a hard workout. I really really want to get back in forward motion. I dropped back to 6th place from 4th in the competition, which is ok, but the one person I most want to beat edged in front of me, and would not have if I'd stayed at 162.8, so I really want to fight my way back. I was so hoping to be in the 150s very soon, and now it feels so much farther away, boo.

Breakfast Fail

I got the brilliant idea to make a carrot cake protein shake this morning... huge huge fail. Omg, it was so gross, I can't even describe it. I'm sure it would have been better if I'd juiced the carrots instead of just blanching and then blending them, because the gritty texture was the worst thing. But the flavor was not very good either, even when I basically drowned it in cinnamon. Ick. I like carrot cake, but this did not work at all! At least it was healthy.

It made so much, and I hate wasting things, so I am going to attempt to use some of what's left in oatmeal tomorrow. Hopefully when cooked more and blended with stuff that is supposed to be clumpy/whatever, it will be ok. I just can't believe that was so terrible. I even searched for recipes and saw that other people have made similar things, and they liked it. Oh well, never know till you try.

Whew. So, now that I am getting over that gross breakfast, I can report that after half a week staying the same (seems like my body does that every single week), I have dropped one more pound. Down 15.2! Over 8% lost. I think I'm currently in 4th place in the competition, but not everyone posted their results, and 2 of the people who didn't were within 2 spots of me last week, so it's possible I am still 6th. But, the important part is, I am closing the gap to the 2 leaders (it helped that they both had a lousy week when I had a good one!). As of Tuesday, I was less than 2% away from the leader, so if I can just keep better progress than them, maybe I will catch up. It was starting to feel impossible that anyone would have a chance of catching up. We are only halfway through, anything can happen. And if not, I am still really striving for my 150 goal by March 27th. I can do this!

Last night I ate more than I should have. I was feeling compulsive eating urges coming on, and it was so so hard to resist. I think it was because we had pasta for dinner. I've been cutting way way back on high carb meals like that, and it's like it just triggered something in me. I had dessert like I almost always do (a low fat frozen yogurt bar), but then added extra peanut butter mixed with cool whip on top, and then had a handful of honey roasted peanuts I should not have eaten. Oh, and a bite of dried mango. And I still wanted more so bad. I don't know how I managed to lose a pound. All I can say is maybe my body really needed to eat more in order to lose, and it wasn't completely emotional craziness? Whatever, I am going to try hard not to repeat that, just because I didn't like feeling out of control, and back to my old ways, AT ALL.

My working out has been great, I can now do 10 regular push ups in a row instead of knee ones. I did 3 sets of 10 spread out yesterday, and some random chair dips and crunches. That was all in addition to my real workout, so it felt good to do. Today I am doing 30DS level 1 for the last time before I move up to level 2. I am going to try to do most of it with 8lb weights this time (started with all 5lbs and last time I was switching between 8 and 5). I also got a few more Jillian videos including the yoga one to try out, because I definitely want to vary my activity as much as possible.

P.S. I'm only 20 lbs from just about the lowest weight I've been. That doesn't sound so bad when I've already lost 15! What if I could make that in just 10 weeks?? It would be so amazing. I know I probably won't, but even if it takes 20 weeks, I want to get there and beyond!

Mondays are my new favorite

Why does it seem like I always have the lowest weight on Monday? Then it usually goes up again on Tuesday, but whatever. I will take today's weight of 164.2, which is 2.8lbs less than last Monday! Yay! I think last week was inflated some due to my time of the month, but anyways, I am still super happy with this week, even if it goes up tomorrow for my official challenge weigh in. I am hoping to move up a couple spots in the competition, but if not, I still killed it this week.

My eating was practically perfect (what I consider perfect/not cheating, which includes some wiggle room!), especially considering a girl's night on Friday which involved everyone bringing food. But I stuck to my plan very well, and had no alcohol or dessert (even the lighter dessert that was brought) either. No restaurant meals for the weekend, which was great. Sunday we didn't have a super bowl party to go to for once, so it wasn't hard to resist eating junk. I actually was having some emotional issues last night and did not feel like eating, so I just had a bit of grilled chicken, zucchini, and acorn squash for dinner, which is much less than I usually do. Weird, because emotional times usually lead me to want to eat, but I really did not want to at all this time.

I did a kayak trip with yoga on the beach session on Saturday and wow, that was so much more of a workout than I expected. I haven't kayaked in forever, and when I did, it was usually a river with more of a current to help you along. This bay trip seemed like a lot more work. My upper back/shoulders are still sore. The yoga was faster paced and more challenging than I expected too, but it felt great to get in totally different types of exercise this weekend. I took Sunday for a much needed rest day, as I don't really feel like I've had a complete rest day in weeks.

I am excited to be less than 5 lbs from the lowest weight I got to last year and it's only a week into February. I still think I have a shot at hitting 150 or just under by the end of my weight loss competition, and that would be so so awesome. I am ready to continue trying my best! I don't want to quit this time until I have seen 140 - my ultimate goal that always seems just out of reach. I have to make it happen!!

First Month Done, Many More to Go

Well, it's February 3rd, which means exactly one month has passed since my weight loss challenge started. I am down 11.8 lbs. Not bad, obviously, but still a little disappointing considering 7 of that was the first week. I was really hoping for 2lbs a week since the first week, but haven't been making that. Oh well. I am only 7 lbs from my lowest weight last year and it is barely February, so I am confident I will see much better this year. So far, it's not looking so good that I'll make the top 3 of this competition (only in 6th place right now, out of like 29), but we are only 1/3 of the way done, so who knows what will happen. I am just going to try my best, without depriving myself too much.

I am doing amazing at working out, and very good with eating too, but have been finding too many peanuts to snack on lately. I am working at being better with that. But I know I'll never get perfect at this, and that's ok. It's all about moderation, because I need to learn that so I can live this way for good.