Plenty of Food, Not Many Calories

The attempt to increase my daily calorie intake didn't go so well yesterday...I missed my afternoon snack, which didn't help, but even with that I'd have been quite a bit short. I'm also not meeting (or even getting close to) my 12-15 daily grams of veggies. I'm afraid that I'm going to have to start planning my meals ahead of time in order to meet all these numbers, which is completely unappealing.

Breakfast: 1 egg, scrambled, 3 pieces bacon - 1.55g
Lunch: Salad - 8.49g
Snack: None
Dinner: 6 oz ham steak, 1/2 cup frozen peas - 12.87g
Dessert: None
Calories: 881
Veggies: 9.87g
Total: 22.91g

Anyway, not a whole lot to talk about today. Perhaps tomorrow!

Crunch

I managed to do something weird to my left ankle and foot while I was sleeping Monday night. It feels kinda like a joint that needs to pop but won't...beats me, but it hurts and goes crunch when I move it. Don't worry, I'm still doing my walks, just wincing a bit while I'm doing them. Yesterday's meals:

Breakfast: 1 egg, scrambled, 3 pieces bacon - 1.55g
Lunch: Salad - 8.49g
Snack: 1 stalk celery, 2 tbsp peanut butter - 4.7g
Dinner: Chicken with Red Wine Sauce, 2/3 cup frozen green beans - 9.97g
Dessert: None
Calories: 1237
Veggies: 8.02g
Total: 24.71g

As you can see, I've switched out sodium tracking for calorie tracking. Sodium doesn't really seem to be an issue, and I think calories are. It seems very strange to be trying to increase my calorie intake when I'm trying to lose weight, but since it's the only reason anyone seems to be able to come up with as to why I'm having so much trouble, we'll go with it. I wish I had the insurance or the money to consult with a nutritionist. The frustration level here is so high I'd even leave the house to talk to somebody about it!

Calories?

So my walking yesterday was interesting. I increased the time to 11 minutes, and the morning session went fairly smoothly. The afternoon session, however, was rough. I did it, but I felt like I was dragging a 10-ton weight around behind me. I really wish I could figure out what's causing this tremendous afternoon fatigue and general ickiness over the last week or two. I do reasonably well (for me) in the mornings, but by 2 or so in the afternoon, I'm out of energy, aching, and pretty much done for the day. Very strange, particularly since I'm normally an afternoon/night person. Anyway, yesterday's meals...

Breakfast: 1 egg, scrambled, 3 pieces bacon - 1.55g
Lunch: Low-carb wrap "sandwich" - 8.75g
Snack: None
Dinner: Creamed Chicken w/Mushrooms, 1 1/3 cup frozen green beans - 11.39g
Dessert: None
Sodium: 2679mg
Veggies: 8.48g
Total: 21.69g

I know I've mentioned this before, but one factor that's been on the radar as a possible reason for my plateau and slow weight loss is the possibility that I'm actually not eating enough calories and as a result putting my metabolism into starvation mode. I think it's probably a factor, but I'm really not sure how to solve it. Increasing my carbs to 25g daily helped a little bit, but I'm very leery of increasing them any higher than that. My daily calorie intake averages 1100-1200, and although every calculator I've used comes up with a different number, they all agree that I should be eating more.

Eat more, lose more. I like this concept. The problem is that I'm full. I don't want to eat any more! As I type this, it's two minutes to lunchtime, and I'm still full from breakfast. That happens every single day. Some of you have mentioned that I'm not eating my snacks and dessert, and that means that I'm not sticking to my "every three hours" schedule. That's why. Eating when I'm not actually hungry is part of what got me to 400 lbs in the first place, so I don't think it's a good idea to do it now. I need to somehow come up with ways to add calories without adding either carbs or volume to my meals. I could easily add more meat for calories with little or no effect on carbs, but that would increase the volume I'm eating. I actually tried that a while back, I just cut up an extra chicken breast and added it to dinner. I couldn't finish. Thoughts and ideas would be welcome!

Finally, A Small Loss

Well, it's another Monday, and that means another weigh-in day. After three weeks at the same weight, finally a small loss of 2 lbs. It's not much, but it's certainly better than nothing at all. It's a good thing that I did lose at least a little, though, because if I hadn't, I was about ready to quit this program. The frustration level of working so hard and getting no results has been very, very high. My meals for the last few days...

Friday
Breakfast: 1 egg, scrambled, 3 pieces bacon - 1.55g
Lunch: Hard-boiled egg, string cheese, 1 piece bacon - 1.19g
Snack: None
Dinner: Chicken with Red Wine Sauce, 1 cup frozen peas - 20.71g
Dessert: Sugar-free Jello, whipped cream - .8g
Sodium: 2211mg
Veggies: 13.74g
Total: 24.25g

Saturday
Breakfast: 1 egg, scrambled, 3 pieces bacon - 1.55g
Lunch: Low-carb wrap "sandwich" - 8.75g
Snack: None
Dinner: Chicken with Red Wine Sauce, 1 1/3 cup frozen green beans - 12.97g
Dessert: None
Sodium: 3445mg
Veggies: 6g
Total: 23.27g

Sunday
Breakfast: 1 egg, scrambled, 3 pieces bacon - 1.55g
Lunch: Low-carb wrap "sandwich" - 8.75g
Snack: None
Dinner: 3 eggs, scrambled, 2 oz cheese, 5 pieces bacon - 5.12g
Dessert: Sugar-free Jello, whipped cream - .8g
Sodium: 3749mg
Veggies: 0g (oops)
Total: 15.42g

I've increased my walks to 11 minutes this week, which should be interesting. Last week my fatigue level was very, very high. It was actually higher than it's been since I started this program, and I have no idea why. I'll let you know tomorrow how it goes.

Another Day Down

Once again, not a whole lot to talk about. Met my carbs and got my exercise the last two days, and getting back to my projects around the house. This has turned out to be one of those unpleasant times when we ran out of both food and money before we ran out of pay period, but today is payday finally. Hooray! The last couple days' intake...

Wednesday
Breakfast: 1 egg, scrambled, 3 pieces bacon - 1.55g
Lunch: Low-carp wrap "sandwich" - 8.75g
Snack: None
Dinner: 6 oz ham steak, 1/2 cup frozen peas - 12.87g
Dessert: None
Sodium: 3608mg
Veggies: 6.87g
Total: 23.17g

Thursday
Breakfast: 1 egg, scrambled, 3 pieces bacon - 1.55g
Lunch: None
Snack: Hard-boiled egg - .56g
Dinner: 8 oz smoked sausage, 1 cup sauerkraut - 20g
Dessert: None
Sodium: 4499mg
Veggies: 8g
Total: 22.11g

Hopefully I'll have more to talk about tomorrow!

A Little Easier

Yesterday was a little easier than Monday...I did both walks, the morning one wasn't bad, but the afternoon was pretty difficult. I did it though! I don't really have much of anything to talk about today, so here's yesterday's intake.

Breakfast: 1 egg, scrambled, 3 pieces bacon - 1.55g
Lunch: Low-carb wrap "sandwich" - 8.75g
Snack: None
Dinner: Chicken with Indian Spices, 1 1/3 cup frozen green beans - 13.86g
Dessert: None
Sodium: 2729mg
Veggies: 6g
Total: 24.16g

I'll try to think of something to talk about for tomorrow's post!

Back To It

Yesterday was my first attempt at getting back to it. I've still got pain from the diverticulitis, but it's improving, and if I'm ever going to lose any weight, I have to just push through it. I got back on a slightly more reasonable eating schedule, and I started trying to walk again. My morning walk was a lot closer to a crawl than a walk, and I didn't even attempt the afternoon session, but at least I did one of them. I'm keeping the time to 10 minutes for a second week since I only did three days last week and then skipped four. It's astonishing how much conditioning I lost in just four days, I don't remember it being like that when I was younger and thinner and working out hard on a regular basis. Anyway, it's a start. On to yesterday's meals...

Breakfast: 1 egg, scrambled, 8 oz sausage - 1.55g
Lunch: Low-carb wrap "sandwich" - 8.75g
Snack: Hard-boiled egg - .56g
Dinner: Bacon, mushroom, and cheese omelette - 7.37g
Dessert: None
Sodium: 5095 mg!
Veggies: 2.62g
Total: 22.02g

We're in a new month now, so it's time to evaluate last month's short-term goal and set a new one...obviously I didn't meet October's goal of exercising twice a day, every day. If it had been only while the diverticulitis was so bad, I might consider it met anyway, but I'd already messed it up before that. I'm going to go ahead and use the same goal for this month, excluding yesterday as being my first recovery day back from the infection. Exercise twice a day, every day for November, and maybe I'll finally get my new tattoo!

Zero. Again.

So. Today is weigh-in day and I lost nothing again. I've also obviously reneged on my promise to write every day. The reason behind these two items is that I spent Thursday through Sunday mostly on the couch trying unsuccessfully to find a position that didn't cause me a great deal of abdominal pain. I went to the doctor on Friday and was informed that I have diverticulitis and put on two different strong antibiotics and a liquid diet for two days. I was also told that if it got any worse, I was to head directly for the Emergency Room. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Ouch.

Anyway, I'm not going to bother to put up my intake since it mostly involved water, tea, diet cranberry juice, and beef broth. I'm still hurting today, but it's not nearly as bad, and I'm eating real food again.

I'm having a hard time right now with my program. I feel like giving up, I feel like a failure, because I really screwed up these last four days, and because I just haven't lost what I should have by now. My carbs have been all over the place - 23.55 Thursday, 5.55 Friday, 4.0 Saturday, and 26.68 Sunday. I didn't exercise at all after Wednesday. And I've only lost 17 lbs. Only 4% of my original weight in eight weeks. I've been the same weight for three weeks now. I'm going to do my best to stick with it this week, but I dunno, guys...