Half-assing it

Okay, what the hell is my problem?  I have not yet really gotten back into the swing of diet and exercise since the first of the year.  First it was the flu which started on January 3.  I took it easy for about 10 days and just started back to working out last week, doing really well Monday through Thursday.  Friday, a girlfriend came over, and we fixed drinks and had pizza.  Saturday, nothing.  No food logging, no exercise (though Saturday has been set aside as my day off).  Sunday, I was going to go to kickboxing, something that I haven't done in FIVE weeks now, but I decided to sleep in and not go.  Again, no exercise or food logging.  Monday was a holiday, and again, no exercise or food logging.  Tuesday and today I have been home due to the heavy snow and cold.  Yesterday, no exercise or food logging.  Today has been the same, though technically the day is not lost, so long as I don't MAKE it a loser.

At this rate, my FitBit is an expensive bracelet.

I don't know I'm in some sort of funk or if it's that I don't have a "goal" like I did last year when I was needing to fit into a dress, but I've GOT to get back on track.  I was 0.2 pounds away from 100 lost, and THAT should be incentive enough -- to get into that "more than 100 pounds lost" category.

It's time for me to put on my big girl panties and get back on the wagon before the damn thing runs me over.

Don't make this your summertime truth

Gangbusters or procrastinator?

  

How many times have YOU done this?  I can't even begin to tell you how often I did this when beginning -- or thinking about beginning -- an exercise routine.  It could have been easy to do again here recently, because, even though I love the results of my exercise and the attention I've paid to my food intake, I won't lie -- it was kind of nice to have my little self-imposed vacation from it.  I know how easy it would have been to plop down every night when I get home and not work out.  And logging food is <whine> soooooo haaaaaaaard.  Truly, it's not that it's hard, per se -- but if you do it, you are forced to be accountable to yourself.  And an entire liter of Bailey's over the course of a day, well... I probably didn't want to know what THAT costs.

I haven't watched Dr. Phil for years, and I don't see him as some sort of guru, but he HAS said some great things before.  One of the sayings that used to hit me like a 2 by 4 is this:

A year from now, you're gonna weigh more or less than what you do right now.

 That's totally true.  Where do YOU want to be next year?

I added a Fitbit Force to the family

I've had it since last Thursday now, but I'm still checking things out and seeing how it works.  Yesterday I slowly got back into exercise after having been away for a few weeks (two weeks were a self-imposed break, and one week was due to the flu), and I logged the minimum 10,000 steps I have the unit set for.  Today I did my kettlebell routine, and I can't really say I'm impressed with the calorie expenditure it logged.  It actually gave me a higher calorie spike when I walked to my car than what I believe I expended during my workout.  For all this time, I've been logging kettlebell workouts pretty high as everything I've found online says you use about 850 calories an hour.  It may take a bit of tweaking to get this to register correctly.

So far I don't know if I'll use ALL the functions for it as I do that on LoseIt! online.  I don't want to duplicate anything, and since my Fitbit doesn't sync with my phone yet (they sync with some Samsungs but not mine), I would have to log everything from my computer later.

Anyway, here's to adding this little tool to my routine to see how I do.  :)



*** 1/15/14 Update

I used a treadmill at the gym today to do what I call a walk-run (two minutes of each, back and forth for 28 minutes, then a 5-minute cool down).  The treadmill had me at 285 calories burned at the end of my workout.  I synced the unit with my computer and then added the calorie burn during the time I exercised and it came up with 286.  That's close enough to be impressed!  I may have to research to see if there's a way to make it a bit more sensitive during certain types of exercise like my kettlebells.

0.2!!

That's all I am away from exactly 100 pounds lost -- 0.2, y'all!  I know, I know, I've technically lost 100 pounds, but since the scale I weighed in on prior to my surgery said 289 and not 289-point something, I'm looking at it as a flat number.  And this morning, I was at 189.2.  This number has been a long time coming.  I actually thought I would hit it months ago, but I plateaued for a while.  Then the holidays hit.  Then I went "on strike" and didn't work out AND ate without logging for a couple weeks.  Then I got the flu.  I'm on the back side of that (only have a very slight cough hanging on and don't want to push it), so I will be incorporating exercise back into my daily regimen again very soon.

People who hate fat people are asses

There's a huge back story here that I won't get into, but my eyes were opened wide yesterday about somebody whose blog and FB page I've followed for just over a year now.  In order to make sense, I have to give a tiny bit of the back story, so here it is.

Two women run a blog I follow that's political in nature.  One poster on that blog is a guy who mentioned some months back that he has an unnatural disgust of fat people.  I mean, he was downright vile about his comments over the months.  What made it worse was that the two women who own the site never moderated it.  Even when we told them that this guy would call women on the site "c*nts" and other horrible names, nothing was done.  However, other folks had been banned for bad behavior, but not as bad as THIS guy.

So, there was a big blow-up in a Facebook group today over this, a group that these women are also members of (I say this to say that nothing was said behind their backs).  There was a long thread talking about this guy and wondering why they let this idiot stay there and say the things he does.  One of the two women came on and, instead of taking ownership, pointed fingers at an entire "room" full of folks.

What makes this interesting, however, is that one of the two women (the one who went on the attack) has her OWN separate blog, and some of my friends had turned me onto a keyword she uses:  "landbeast."  Yep, landbeast.  This is what she calls fat people, y'all.  Not only does she call fat people landbeasts, but she had 13 pages -- PAGES -- of posts dedicated to mocking fat people.  So, if you put in the keyword "landbeast" into her blog's search feature, it pulls every single one, and each page had probably five to seven posts.  So, when I say pages, I mean lots and lots of posts mocking fat people. 

I decided to call her on it on the political blog she shares with the other woman.  And, I placed it on the thread she had written saying that women have self esteem issues because people like Robyn Lawley (I discussed her below) are called plus sized.  I said,

"Actually, [link to 13 pages of landbeast posts] this is ALSO why women have self-esteem issues. I think I see the problem... and why the disconnect. Wow...

She replied with:

This is the dumbest thing ever.

Yes, by all means, take a look at who I call landbeasts, and you'll notice that first and foremost, they are shameless, idiotic morons who display themselves in ways even I, at a size 2, would never consider.

THINK.

I love, seriously truly love, a lot of overweight people. In fact, many of them LOVE the landbeast section of the [blog name], because they're every bit as mortified by the people who are highlighted there as any other person should be. They get it. They know I don't have a personal issue with obese people. They know I have an issue with idiotic morons, who are featured prominently all over that site no matter what size they are.

And when your argument consists of you needing to search a totally unrelated site, to dig into posts from 2011, well, then you pretty much have no argument.

Now, many of these people never promoted their photos.  Hell, many didn't even know photos had been taken of them, much less posted online!  Somebody posted them, yes, but many were taken of people, very obviously unbeknownst to them.

So, not only does she mock fat people, but she justifies it.  You know, cuz she's a "size 2," and they're just asking for it.  What disgusts me is that I met these women this past summer, so we're not just faceless, nameless entities.  But hate of fat people seems to be the last allowable sin.

This. THIS is why we get so effed in the head, y'all

 This article showcases a gorgeous model named Robyn Lawley, a 6'2" tower of all woman and graciousness.  She rocks a size 12, and -- get this -- she is PLUS SIZE, y'all.  When a size 12 -- much less a size 12 in a 6'2" frame -- can be considered plus size, we're in a world of hurt, ladies.  And we wonder why we hate our bodies and our daughters talk of dieting at age nine.  Walking clothes hangers are held up as the epitome of beauty and health, and it seems that every decade or so, that standard keeps being made smaller and smaller.  Heck, in today's market, Cindy Crawford, one of THE original supermodels, would be considered too big because, hey, "heroin chic" is in.

Now, you tell me -- is THIS plus sized?

 










Or this?

 










Or this?

How about this

Why is it we let little prissy gay men tell us what beauty is, especially since they only want to dress women who look like prepubescent little boys?  Because I don't know about you, but I'd about give my eye teeth to look like she does.

Here is the lovely Robyn in an interview with Ellen Degeneres about the life of a "plus-sized" model.  Behold.

Reflections and Resolutions

Okay, I hate the word "resolutions" as most of us probably do, because resolutions seem to be things that we break by mid-February.  But it went well with "reflections," so deal.  :)

This time last year, I had just made the decision to leave my husband after 19 1/2 years of a less-than-happy marriage.  This time last year, I was 55 pounds heavier than I am right now.  This time last year, I was scared, unsure, and worried about my future.  I was still relatively new at my job, my boss took on a new partner (which gave me a second boss), and that brought with it a lot of unknowns.

Fast forward 365 days.  I secured a great little condo in a nice area and left my husband alone to wallow in his own misery.  I have shed 55 of the 100 or so remaining pounds I have left to lose -- going from a size 18 to a 14 and dropping under 200 for the first time in 15 years -- and I'm stronger than I've ever been.  I now do kettlebells religiously, and I recently added kickboxing to the mix.  I ran my very first ever 5k, and I did it in 43 minutes.  I'm far less scared about what's going to happen or how I'll do.  I still really love where I work and who I work with, and I know they love me to pieces and see what I contribute to the firm.  I've even ventured out on a few dates where, even though they weren't great or productive, are working towards getting my self-esteem back up.

So for 2014, I have -- let's call it a bucket list of things I want to accomplish.

•  Get closer to God
•  Drop the last of my weight, whatever that number might be (40 or 50 pounds) and continue toning up
•  Run at least one more 5k, and to improve on the time set by my first one
•  Start learning a new language
•  Ride my bike more/enjoy the outdoors more
•  Get out there and make more friendships

I think this makes a good start for a new year without being too unreasonable.  And being that they're not resolutions, there's nothing to break.

So... a new year

I never intended for so much time to go by without writing, but two days after my last post, all hell broke loose at work with my bosses.  Without going into detail, let's just say there are some things that need clearing up, and they were both out of the office for over two weeks and not available to talk to in order to figure out what the hell happened.  Actually, tomorrow is likely the first time we'll all be together since it happened, and I'm a bit nervous as to how to deal with things.  It was so upsetting that I literally was in a depression past Christmas.  Well, that and spending the holidays alone, and I was a mess.  I essentially "took a break" from logging and exercising.  I know it's the wrong response, but I did it knowingly and intentionally, with every intention of getting back on track after the 1st.

Now I sit here with the flu, after a temperature of 103.2 on Friday night.  Luckily, it hit over the weekend, if there IS good news in reference to the flu.

Add to that the fact that I've been on a few dating sites for a couple months now, and things aren't going great.  I can either choose my loser or somebody else's loser.  It also doesn't help that I haven't dated in 22 years, and apparently things have changed quite a bit -- like talk of sex by date two.  Um, no.  Date one only got two dates out of me when, on the second date, as we were sightseeing, he swatted my butt a couple times as he helped me out of the car.  The fact is, I didn't like him enough to look past it anyway.  Date two got as far as THREE dates (even though he grabbed my boob and talked about "wanting me" on our second date).  The third date was at his place (his son was there, and he knew that everyone I knew was aware of where I was), and he fixed some great grilled chicken.  However, he started "getting all excited" again and told me how he wanted to make love to me.  Yeah, I bet he did.  I said that what I had was pretty damn excellent, and there was no way I was giving it away for a chicken dinner.  I then found out through my "resources" that he has a criminal history, so that sealed the deal.  Date three Never. Shut. Up. for 3 1/2 hours, and most of that talking was about himself.  Never asked a thing about me.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.  Even if he had, he was a snoozer.

I told my mom the other night that I went from a husband who found NO value in having sex with me to a bunch of nobodies whose only value they find in me is sex.  Nice, huh?  I may as well forget that there may be decent guys left out there.

Anyway, as of yesterday, I was at a new low of 189.6, but I can't count it since I hadn't eaten in 36 hours and was very dehydrated after a night of high fever.  I was a pound higher than that this morning, so I won't cheat and count that.  :)

So close I can taste it -- no pun intended

I've been bobbling up and down the same couple pounds since the end of November.  Granted, Thanksgiving also occurred at the end of November, and I suppose I didn't do so badly considering, but the scale and I haven't been on friendly terms most mornings because I'm thisclose to 100 pounds lost.  As of today, it's officially 99.  However... I. Want. That. Last. Pound.

So... here's to hoping it can be done before Christmas, when it's likely it'll all be undone anyway, right?  :)

The aftermath of Thanksgiving

Considering Thanksgiving food and eating on the fly in the car, I really didn't do all that bad.  I weighed myself before I left last Tuesday and didn't step on a scale again until yesterday.  The good news is that I only gained two pounds, which in itself is rather amazing for the time of year.  However, as of THIS morning, I had already lost 1.5 pounds of it.  I was already up about 1.5 additional pounds before I left, having gained that from my new low of 190.2 just over a week ago.  I'm STILL waiting to hit that 100-pounds-lost, and I'm very close, but it'll be another week or so before I see that.

Also, since I rarely took pictures before (and am still not great about it now), I looked back at my measurements around the last time I would have seen my siblings.  Since that time, I've lost approximately 46 inches overall -- a HUGE, noticeable difference.  I'm feeling very accomplished.  :)

Knocked it out of the park

Well, I'm back home from my Thanksgiving visit with the family.  I haven't seen my brother and sister in over four years -- but I did see my folks back in August.

My mom and dad were the most vocal about how I looked, and that had me really surprised since I saw them a few short months ago.  They noticed the difference from that time, and they kept saying over and over, "Wow, you look SO GOOD!"  My mom said that, especially from behind, I just look "normal size" now.  Since I can't really see how I look from behind, I was very surprised by this.  I also wore some jeans I got at the Goodwill recently which I felt fit my frame very nicely.  My mom said she can't remember the last time she's ever seen me in jeans -- which is very true.

My siblings also said I look good, but it was much more low key.  I didn't expect much from my brother, but I also believe my sister was a bit taken aback, which kept her comments to a minimum -- especially after we teasingly did a "butt check" with my mom, who said our butts looked pretty much the same (my sister is taller than me and says she's a 12 compared to my 14, but I don't know that for a fact).

Though it wasn't a contest for me, it felt good to be close to her size for the first time in 20 years.  :)

And for obvious reasons, food was NOT logged nor calories counted during this trip.  Come Monday, it's back to the grind.  I'm READY to hit that 100-pounds-lost mark.

5-year bandiversary!

The fact is, I've missed the date of my bandiversary more often than I've remembered or recognized it.  But today is year five, and as of this moment -- after recommitting myself to my health and weight loss -- I'm down 98.8 pounds and 114.75 inches.  I had hoped to hit the 100-pounds-lost mark by today, but I'm close enough to be satisfied.  I figure I'll make it before Thanksgiving next week when I go to see family.  The last time I saw my brother and sister, I was down about 65 pounds and probably not working out as diligently as I am now.

Anyway, here's to a non-cake celebration of five years.  :)

I'm sure it's mean of me, but...

...my sister posted a picture on her Facebook page last night from a month or so ago of her driving her boat.  The picture was from behind and, I have to say, she was looking a bit... thick.

Now, under normal circumstances, this would probably be mean.  However, as I posted here and here, MY weight has been fodder for jokes and a topic of intense interest to her -- mainly, I believe, because she's concerned about how I'll look when we get together for Thanksgiving.

But I have to say, I felt just the tiniest bit of glee seeing that picture.  Mean?  Yeah, maybe.  But right now, I don't care.  :)

Epiphanies and other odd things

As I was rushing around this morning getting ready for work, an epiphany hit me, and in some ways it's rather odd.  What's odder still is I have absolutely no idea why this popped into my head as I was scrambling to shower and get ready after a morning where I forgot to set my alarm.

Issue Number One:  I was always upset that my husband never seemed to accept who I was, regardless of how I looked.  Any of you reading this probably understand what I mean -- we KNOW we don't look good, but we want to be accepted and feel loved anyway.

Issue Number Two:  I recently went out on three very short dates with a guy who loved the way I look NOW and wanted me to stay where I was.  Though that sounds great at first blush, I don't like how I look right now, and I'm still working to get to a better place in my weight loss journey.

So... what's wrong with me?  When I was heavier, I wanted to be accepted for who I am no matter how I looked.  And now, I don't want someone to want me to stay where I am today.  Don't get me wrong, I'd like to know that somebody accepts me where I am, but I would also want someone who is supportive about me bettering myself while being encouraging.

Does this make sense?

I guess I never thought I'd find myself in a place where I would be disappointed at somebody accepting me and wanting me to stay where I am right now.

Additionally, I went out twice with another guy a few months ago who was actually surprised that I exercise as much as I do and my dedication to it.  He was a large guy himself; and though I'm not knocking him for that, all I could think of was, "guy with food issues -- how long before I'd be back to my old habits?"

Again, we'd be going in opposite directions.

Though it all makes sense, it also seems very odd to me.  Maybe I'm learning something about myself.  Then again, maybe I'm just hormonal and confused.

Attempting to understand BMR and RMR

All this calories in-calories out thing has led me to try to delve deeper into what BMR and RMR are and what they mean to me in relation to my weight loss.  I've heard of them, but they've never really meant anything to me.  In general, they may not in my everyday journey, but I still felt it was important to know what they are.

Obviously these are all estimates and don't take all factors of your individual activity or body mass into consideration, but I think they're still good to help you see what your caloric expenditure would be just resting all day in comparison to the calories you take in  and the exercise you do.  For me, it further shows the difference between my BMR/RMR and recommended calories for weight loss, especially in relation to calories expended doing exercise and how divergent these numbers are from the BMR/RMR calculations.

Make sense?  No?  I didn't think so.  Okay, so here is the breakdown:


This site talks about BMR and RMR and their similarities and differences and how to calculate them both.  This is what they say about them both:

• BMR stands for Basal Metabolic Rate, and is synonymous with Basal Energy Expenditure or BEE. BMR measurements are typically taken in a darkened room upon waking after 8 hours of sleep; 12 hours of fasting to ensure that the digestive system is inactive; and with the subject resting in a reclining position.

• RMR stands for Resting Metabolic Rate, and is synonymous with Resting Energy Expenditure or REE. RMR measurements are typically taken under less restricted conditions than BMR, and do not require that the subject spend the night sleeping in the test facility prior to testing.

Probably all of us have heard of BMR, but if you're like me, RMR is not quite as common a term.

The site provides calculations to determine what your caloric intake should be if you are simply at rest for 24 hours.  The first is the Harris-Benedict* equation for BMR:

• For men: (13.75 x w) + (5 x h) - (6.76 x a) + 66
• For women: (9.56 x w) + (1.85 x h) - (4.68 x a) + 655

 Based on this formula, my numbers look like this:

(86.8 kg x 9.56 = 830) + (170.18 cm x 1.85 = 315) + (48 x 4.68 = 225) + 655 = 2,025

This site also says that the Harris-Benedict typically overestimates by 5 percent or more.  Subtracting 5 percent from 2,025 is 101, which then brings the number to 1,924.

The other calculator is the Mufflin* equation for RMR:

• For men: (10 x w) + (6.25 x h) - (5 x a) + 5
• For women: (10 x w) + (6.25 x h) - (5 x a) - 161

Based on this formula, my numbers look like this:

(86.8 x 10 = 868) + (170.18 x 6.25 = 1,064) + (48 x 5 = 240) - 161 = 2,011

(*Please note these two calculations are done in metrics: w = weight in kg; h = height in cm; a = age)

What I take away from all this math is this:

Harris-Benedict:  2,025 (or 1,924 based on the overestimation)

Mufflin:  2,011

This shows that they're pretty close (even with the overestimation of the Harris-Benedict test).  So, when my LoseIt! or other apps tell me that, in order to diet, I should be taking in 1,225 calories, it's understandable to me now that if my net calories for the day are less than 500 (calories in minus calories through exercise), that my body would go into a form of self-preservation "shock" and stop losing, resulting in plateaus.  This is why I MUST either scale back on my exercise or increase my caloric intake.

And if I've kept your interest thus far, I hope you've learned something today, class.  :)


**Information retrieved from Caloriesperhour.com

I'm only overweight!

Though I know these things aren't the best indicators of health due to a number of factors, I will use and exploit any NSV at my disposal. :)

I plugged in today's weight (191.4), and today's calculation has taken me from Obese Class 1 to straight Overweight.

Though nobody likes to hear they're overweight, I'll take that category over obese any day.

Now on to 159, the next category -- Normal Weight.

Less truly IS more

I've put into place the plan from my post here over the last week, and the results are in:  I'm down 2.2 pounds!

I admit I'm no whiz-bang where diet and nutrition are concerned, because it just seems as if the more exercise you do, the more "reserves" you're tapping in to.  It should truly be that simple.  However, it's not, and I've had to get my mind around actually working out LESS to get off my plateau.  It was difficult mentally, but I liked it physically, as it only required about 20 to 25 minutes of my time each day.

The other things I see in my very near future is 100 pounds lost and my 5-year bandiversary next week! 

New direction

I had hit another dreaded plateau for a few weeks, bobbling up and down about 1.5 pounds.  Though I know I'm still losing inches, I hate scale plateaus and decided to research to see if maybe there is another reason for it.

What I came up with was this:  I needed to either eat more or exercise less, or some combination of both.  My kettlebell training, which is every other day, expends about 850 calories for 50 minutes.  Though that's great, the fact is that if I don't eat back any of those calories, it would leave me with a net calorie intake of less than 400 calories.

Though one would think that anything worked off that goes beyond what we eat would automatically result in pounds lost, the fact is that our bodies only look at the net calories, apparently.  So, day after day, my body thinks I'm starving because IT only sees those 400 calories.

Okay, so I decided to go against what we THINK we should do and scale back my exercise somewhat and intensify parts of it.  Because of my band, it's nearly impossible (and rather dumb) to eat back my exercise calories.  As it was, I was somewhat supplementing with candy.  Which, I know, is rather dumb.  So starting Sunday I decided to reduce my kettlebell training to about 20 to 25 minutes on my weight days, and to do about 30 minutes or so of cardio on my alternate days.

I also remember that our bodies tend to get used to the exercises we do if we keep doing the same thing for weeks on end -- which I've been guilty of.  So on my cardio days, I have begun to do shorter bursts with higher intensity -- and to shake up what I'm doing (previously, my cardio was 50 minutes on the elliptical only).  For the next couple weeks, I will be doing a combination of my walk-run, where I walk for two minutes and run for two minutes, and do this back and forth for 30 minutes.  It is actually one of the suggestions for HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) that is becoming popular these days.

Just since making these two changes this week, I've lost 1.4 pounds since Saturday!  It's great that I may actually get more for less when it comes to my workouts.  I mean, who WOULDN'T be all for realizing weight loss for half the exercise?  :)

Skinny fingers

I got myself a topaz ring back in June that was a celebration of my new singledom.  When I got it, I had it sized from the standard 7 all rings come in now to a 6.  Not long after I got it, it seemed a bit too big; however, being a top-heavy ring with a thin band, I didn't really think much of it.  Them it went in the drawer because one of the tiny diamonds fell out of it.  This was probably in August or so.

I finally took it back to Macy's to have the diamond repaired (luckily I bought the service plan), and I asked to have it re-sized as well.  The lady pulled out the little sizing rings to see what to size it to, and the 5.5 slipped right onto my finger.  WOW!  I can't even remember the last time I could wear a 5.5 ring -- probably about 15 years ago.  When I was skinny, I wore a 5 on my ring finger, so maybe I'll be back there again!

I'm loving these NSVs as much as the SVs.  :)