Challenges and Calculators

Today was the final weigh-in for the 5 week weight loss challenge.  I cringed seeing only a 2 lb loss, weighing in at 140.8.  I laughed a little as I stared down at the scale, reaching for the camera on the counter to take a picture for the weigh-in submission.  I reflected, thinking that at the beginning of the challenge I was excited that for the first time in over 10 years I was so close to my weight loss goal.  So close that if I did 2 lbs a week I would meet that goal.

I was sad that I never once dipped below 140. I did hit it once a week ago.  What kept me from being completely shaken though was the fact I had started taking measurements and paying attention to my body fat %.  From the beginning of the challenge to today I lost 2.2% of my body fat!  Also in that time I lost an inch off my hips, 1 1/4 inches off my waist and 1/4 inch from around my neck.  Sure does look different in a mirror.  I even went and bought the next size down in jeans and they are already needing a belt to stay up.

I struggle less and less with overeating and now find I have trouble eating enough which may have been my biggest challenge this go around.  Not eating enough can stall weight loss as your body struggles to have enough calories to survive, and rather than lose weight, it again starts storing fat so it can use them, maintaining your current weight. A friend pointed me towards a nice calculator that I feel gave me a better idea of my calorie intake than using the My Fitness Pal calorie calculation.

http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/

At my age, height and current weight and activity level the calculator set on the Lean Mass Formula (I know my body fat %) my BMR which is the number of calories burned at rest...so essentially the number of calories needed to live.  This came in at 1367.  This would be the number of calories I need to just function. The number of calories needed to maintain my current weight is known as TDEE.  This the number of calories that are needed to function PLUS the number of calories the body burns daily just doing normal tasks like sleeping, working, exercising, playing and digesting food to name a few.  My TDEE at an exercise level of exercising 3 times a week moderately came in at 1879 calories.  As I stated already, this is the minimum number of calories I should consume if I wanted to maintain my current weight.  It is a nice weight, but I would like to lose a few more, or at least if I gain or maintain my muscle weight changes.

Step 2 of the calculator has you chose your goal. This is were I find the flaw in MFP calorie consumtion verses this calculator.  MFP has me at 1200 calories a day and if I exercise any it wants me to consume those calories back or it says I am way under my caloric goal.  The calculator though says at 25% fat loss (notice I did not say weight loss) I need to consume 1409 calories.

http://iifym.com/do-i-add-back-calories-i-burn-during-exercise/

The above article from the producers of the calculator explains why, if using the calculator correctly and maintaining the inputted exercise, that you do not add back in your calories expended during exercising.  If you add them back you are eating too many calories for your weight loss goals as the calculated caloric intake as already taken the exercise into consideration.

One thing I have to consider though is that the calculator does not say what kind of exercise..low, medium, high impact that is being used in this calculation, though it seems to amount to somewhere around 1000 calories worth, in my case, 3 times a week.  If you are exercising daily for instance, 1760 calories would need to be consumed to lose the same amount of weight vs exercising 3 times a week.

This next 4-5 weeks I am going to test this calculators outputs and I am adjusting my calories to match this calculator as well as try to meet their recommended protein, fat and carb intake.  This is a hefty goal as I said I am having trouble even eating 1200 calories some days. 

Oh how time flies...

It's been nearly two years since I touched this blog.  The first thing I did was to go back to the beginning and read the words I had typed.  There was or should I say is a common theme that still hold true, I have impulse control issues when it comes to food, I love food and I crave sugar.  What is different though is that I am not letting that control me.

In going back through the years I noticed how my weight fluctuated.   I started the blog on 6/26/2008 logging a starting weight of 155.2.  I noted that this was not my lowest weight and that I had been yo-yoing for 18 weeks prior.  For all of 2008, my most prolific blogging time I had a low of 151.2 in August  and a high of 160.8 in November.

2009 was much of the same at higher weights with my 2009 high being 164.6 in January and 150.8 in March which is when I stopped blogging for the year.

I logged one weight in 2010 and that was in January coming in at 157.8.

October 2011 showed my lowest weight to that date of 149.8.  Things should have been looking up from there as I remember being so proud of myself.  November 2011 we had a house fire and my life turned upside down for awhile as I moved in with my father for 4 months, bought a  house, rebuilt a house and gained over 20 pounds by August of 2012 clocking in at my highest all time weight of 170.  That was a turning point for me.

I spent the next year watching what I ate.  I got a new job in January 2013, found a new friend, and started walking every day at lunch.  By August of 2013 I was back down to 153.  I focused on my job and didn't return to using blogging or other tools to document my weight loss.  I with I had.

April 2014 I lost my job.  This could have been another setback for me, but I used it to propel me to focus on me.  I scheduled doctor and dentist appointments before my insurance expired to make sure my family and I were in good health and I continued to watch what I ate.

I joined a group of friends for a weight loss competition.  I logged 149 pounds on 5/11/2014. I have still yo-yo'd but I am proud to say I am at 141.2 pounds and 29.3% Body fat.

I have started tracking my body fat percentage as I found that even when I gained weight, that my % told me if I was gaining fat, muscle or water.  I have about 56% muscle mass, 5% bone mass, which means I retain quite a bit of water, but that means I am well hydrated.

I am trying to work on toning exercises now that I really understand my food habits and how to control them.  I have never deprived myself.  I have never really dieted, though I have tried a few "diets" that last maybe a few days.

I believe my key to weight loss has been to open up about my weight loss to friends, family and my husband.  He has grown to be my greatest supporter along with my father who has had  his own rewarding weight loss journey.

In addition to toning exercises I have been running.  I signed up for two 5k's this year with a third being decided on.  I am well on to meeting my ultimate weight loss goal, but mostly I  have given myself the tools to keep it off.

A little down

Not to much to write about but I am happy to report that I am down 2 pounds from last week...right on target.  I was a little concerned as I downed a half a loaf of zucchini bread and several beers, but seriously that couldn't have out done what I had accomplished the rest of the week and besides I was PMSing and needed the beer.

My Avocado Egg Salad

I've been roaming pinterest the last few days looking for good solid low-calorie lunch ideas.  I stumbled across one that was located at Skinnytaste.com.  I'm book marking her site for future reference.  The recipe in question is Avocado Egg Salad.  I loved the idea and decided that was what I was going to make for lunch today.  I love egg salad, I have a particular way I make it.  Eggs, mayo, pickle relish and yellow mustard.  Simple and easy but I wanted to tone it down for this recipe.  Skinnytaste's recipe while good called for things I just did not have in the fridge like plain yogurt and red wine vinegar.  I don't like the taste of vinegar in my egg salad so that was an easy one to omit.  I also prefer Miracle Whip for myself and it has less calories than most light mayo's.  I also halved the recipe.

Here is my Avocado Egg Salad Recipe (Servings: 3, 1/2 cup each)

1/2 avocado - cubed
2 small boiled eggs - cut up
2 tsp of Miracle Whip
2 tsp of yellow mustard
A couple dashes of cinnamon
A dash of paprika
Salt and pepper
3 decent sized romaine leaves

In a bowl add the cut up avocado and eggs. Add to this the miracle whip, mustard, cinnamon, and paprika.  Stir together.  Salt and pepper to taste. Spoon evenly into lettuce leaves.

Seriously this was yum-o.  Wish I would have taken pictures. I ate all three servings but hold on...ALL three servings?!  The original recipe said one 1/2 cup serving was 155 calories, so eating three would be like 465 calories.  I try for under 300 per meal depending on how often I eat, so I thought was was me over doing it again until I sat down and calculated my recipe.  By switching out or omitting some ingredients; I was able to make 3 servings equal to only 279 calories!

Note: This difference may however have more to do with the scale I used to figure calories.  Avocados for instance have two difference calorie amounts at myfitnesspal.com and I used the one noted as "corrected from website" which was 278 calories for a medium hass avocado, while the other one listed was for 240g hass avocado at 332 calories.  If I break the original recipe down using my figures the calories per serving would be approx. 122 instead of 155.

Continuing the countdown

Calorie counting.  Oh joy.  Actually it has been quite a joy and yes I am still eating what I love, just in smaller, more reasonable portions.  I've been counting calories for a week now.  The first few days were very hard.  I made it easier by utilizing technology.  On the 16th I upgraded cell phones and picked up the new Samsung Galaxy S3. 
Now I am not here to tout phone brands.  Any good smartphone capable to downloading seamlessly would be better than the piece of $&^! I had before...and it was suppose to be a smartphone too. 
Rumaging through the apps and thinking of what would be useful for me and free, I came across one called My Fitness Pal.  It has been a great tool for jump starting my diet...again.  I just enter the foods I eat by either typing in a short description or what I love to do it scan the bar code.  With this feature 9 out of 10 times it has found everything I scan, even the off and store brands.  I can adjust the number of servings I consumed of each food or if I eat something homemade and I have a rough idea of the calories, I can just manually add them.  I can also add all my exercise for the day and keep track of my water consumption.
Here is how my week has gone since day one (surprisingly I haven't missed a day).  My target calories are 1200 per day for weight loss.

1. July 19th - 810 calories (39% carbs, 44% fats, 17% protein) and exercised for a total of 30 minutes
2. July 20th - 2672 calories (I overdid it on the pizza) (58% carbs, 28% fats, 14% protein) and exercised for 20 minutes
3. July 21st - 1559 calories (snacked to much) (49 carbs, 34% fats, 17% protein) and zero exercise
4. July 22nd - 1497 calories (still snacking away) (59% carbs, 28% fats, 13% protein) and zero exercise
5. July 23rd - 1591 calories (snack, snack snack) 72% carbs, 13% fats, 15% protein) and zero exercise

On the evening of the 23rd I decided to weigh myself.  I started out at 168 on the 19th and was appalled but not surprise to see 170 on the scale after the week I had.  I decided then I needed to figure out how to spread the calories out so that one I didn't each so much and two didn't feel hungry and be tempted to snack.  I also wanted to make sure to incorporate more fruits and veggies.

My new plan:
Eat six 200 calorie meals (1 meal every 2 hours) or eat four 300 calorie meals (1 meal every 3 hours)
This is how my 6th day went

1. July 24th - 860 calories (52% carbs, 28% fats, 20% protein) and exercised my little contented heart out. 

Yep spreading out the calories made me feel so good!  I was energized and wanted to get out and do something.  I dragged pallets out, shoveled dirt and finally made my compost bin.  I got my husband motivated and we worked a great deal on the dog kennel we are building and I went walking with my son, who is always begging to go, but I am always to tired.  I also got on pinterest and found some great, short exercises that claimed to burn a lot of calories.  The one I chose to do last night says it burns as many calories as a 40-60 minute run in just 4 minutes.  Since I do a mile in 10 minutes I used the fitness calculator to estimate that in 4 minutes I would burn 772 calories!  Wow.  I tried it and yes I was tired afterwards.  Here is what you do.

4 minute workout

1. 20 secs squat thrusts (as fast as you can, as many as you can)
2. 10 secs rest
3. 20 secs mountain climbers (again as fast as you can)
4. 10 secs rest
5. 20 secs high knees (as fast and as many as you can)
6. 10 secs rest
7. 20 secs jumping jacks (as many as you can)
8. 10 secs rest
9. Repeat 1-8

I just broke out the stopwatch app on my phone and got started.  Good idea may be to stretch before this exercise and make sure you wear shoes (yeah I didn't do either of those).  It is also a great idea to do this just before your shower as you can wash the sweat off and it can help burn off the last of your energy before you settle down for the night.  Now if I could just get to bed at a decent hour.

Baby Steps go like this....

My youngest is at that stage where she is starting to scale furniture.  I sat the other day and realized something as she attempted to walk along the couch towards me.  First she took a hestitate step forward, but before her foot hit the ground she pulled it back and put it back down.  Then she tried again, a smile on her face as she pressed that tiny little foot onto the floor infront of her.  Then she gave up, or so I thought as she lowered herself to the ground, plop on her little butt.  She hadn't given up though, she had figured it was easier to go with what she knew as she crawled the remaining foot to where I sat, and used the couch to stand up again.  Reaching for me she smiled at her accomplishment.
It doesn't matter how you reach the goal as long as you feel good about yourself when you reach it.  Baby steps are not taking one step in front of the other slowly, but rather taking one step forward, one step back and then finding another route to reach your goal.  Up until then I thought, "what am I doing wrong", I was taking baby steps, changing little things in my diet, running occasionally and always lifting weights (weights being my 16 pound daughter and my 30 pound son).  My children keep me pretty active but not to the point of breaking a sweat like 30 minutes on a treadmill.  Who has time for a treadmill though.

With that little butt flop though my dear daughter opened my eyes to the fact that even though the holidays are coming up, and my goal still looms like an unreachable quarry, I can do it.  A few days ago, stepping on the scale for the first time in months I was shocked that it read...149.8!  The number made me both happy and sad.  Happy because the small changes I have been making are working, sad because I know it could be better.  I have sabtoged myself on numerous occasions. Food, good food, is a weakness and I fight not to go for seconds when seconds are available.  I also fight to resist eating a big bowl of cereal at 9pm, fight to leave the snacks I buy for my sons lunches alone, fight to regain motivation to get out and do anything. 
Here's to the holiday's and the challenges they bring.

Weight Loss Magic

Though it's been 10 months since I posted last, I wish this were a post about my amazing ability to lose all the weight I set out to lose before I got pregnant the first and second time.  Sadly no, this is a post on my amazing Photoshop abilities.  You see a picture can speak a thousand words and I thought maybe I could motivate myself to actually use the Wii exercise programs I insisted DH buy bought.  So here's my before (a few months prior to finding out some of that pooch was because I was pregnant) and my dream "after" courtesy of the magic of photoshop.  Pretty good right?  Now to make that a reality.

 After & Before

So as of today my weight sits at 156.7.  Not my lowest in the last month...that was 153.4...but still below 160.  With my yo-yo weight I've kept a steady goal of staying below my first goal weight.  Needless say I  have lots of work still ahead of me, including but not limited to the weight loss are to get motivated, stay motivated, and motivate others.  Why the last one?  Frankly speaking, I do better myself when I see people inspired by what I am doing for myself.  I get lazy though once I start peaking, maybe it's boredom, but I have to find that motivating factor and that dream number of 132 is just not enough.

Maybe it's being a role-model of eating right and good fitness for these two: