A Bad Weekend

Well, yesterday was weigh-in day. Not such good results this week by any means. I lost one lousy pound. On the one hand, it's not surprising, because I didn't have a very good weekend. I don't know why, but I was in a foul mood all weekend, and that translated into a complete lack of motivation to cook, plus cravings for unhealthy food. Saturday night I decided to just go ahead and eat fast food. I had 30 daily points still available, and all 49 of my weekly points. One of the things that the weekly points are supposed to be there for is so that if you have a craving or a slip, you have space to include that in your program without feeling like you've fallen off completely. I used 10 points of my weekly allowance Saturday evening, and I didn't feel too bad about it. Unfortunately, Sunday was another bad day, and not only did I have Burger King for dinner again, I also ate an entire sleeve of Ritz crackers. That took another 20 points of my weekly allowance, and made me feel pretty rotten about myself.

On the other hand, however, the single pound is a little frustrating. I still had 19 of my weekly points left, even after my terrible weekend, and I started exercising last week. I walked 10 minutes on the treadmill at 2 mph four days last week, and I was rather proud of that. I was afraid that having not exercised during the period between stopping Atkins and beginning WW might have resulted in losing all the advances I'd made in increasing my exercise time from 5 minutes to 12 minutes per session. Anyway, technically I stayed within the WW guidelines for the week and didn't get good results. I know that the technicality doesn't really count, though. I had a bad weekend and I paid for it. I'm back on track now though.

It's been several days since I posted, so I'm not going to list my entire intake...I've already mentioned the worst part. Total points for each day were:

Thursday: 44 points
Friday: 54 points
Saturday: 66 points
Sunday: 76 points
Monday: 47 points

You guys have no idea how hard it was for me to admit to you how much I screwed up this weekend...it's even more embarrassing and humiliating to write it down and see it in black and white than it was to screw up in the first place. The deal I made with myself when I started this blog back in September was that I was going to be totally honest and accountable in it - about the bad things as well as the good. That's a large part of the point of writing it in the first place. When I do well I get to bask in the sound of your cheers, when I'm struggling but sticking to it I get to lean on your encouragement, and when I screw up royally...well, I have to admit it and take the scorn.

So Confusing...

So I've decided that staying within the technical specifications of a weight-loss program is only one piece of the puzzle. Figuring out why each program works (or doesn't!) and why they stress different foods is almost more important than sticking to your daily points or carbs or calories or whatever you're counting. Or maybe that's just the way my brain works and other people don't care why a program works as long as it does, in fact, work. I don't know. My intake for the last two days:

Tuesday
Breakfast: Oatmeal - 7 points
Lunch: Turkey pastrami wrap, tomato-beef broth - 14 points
Snack: Cottage cheese with canned pears - 9 points
Dinner: Sauerkraut and sausage - 21 points
Dessert: Sugar-free Jello pudding, Cool Whip - 5 points
Total: 56 points

Wednesday
Breakfast: Oatmeal - 7 points
Lunch: Salad, banana - 16 points
Snack: Plain Greek yogurt with blueberries and honey - 4 points
Dinner: Ham steak, red potatoes, peas, milk - 20 points
Dessert: Sugar-free Jello pudding, Cool Whip - 5 points
Total: 52 points

Anyway, I've been doing a pretty good job of staying within my WW program guidelines so far, although squeezing in three servings of milk and nine servings of fruits and vegetables per day hasn't quite worked yet. I'm working on it! Some of the points values are very confusing and counter-intuitive to me, though, particularly coming from a low-carb program like Atkins. Fruits and vegetables are for the most part zero points. While that's really nice and I love being able to eat fruit again and have more than half a cup of vegetables with my dinner, it's also a little mind-blowing, because fruits in particular have a lot of carbs. A banana has about 25 carbs! That's as much as I was allowed in a whole day on Atkins, and I don't have to count it at all on WW? Even an apple is about 15 carbs - unthinkable on a low-carb program.

The last few days I've been having oatmeal for breakfast. Once again, something that I really like, high nutritional value, lots of fiber, very natural, but very high carb. Half a cup of dry oatmeal is once again about 25 carbs, or a whole day's worth on Atkins - but only costs me 4 points. The reason I've been having oatmeal for breakfast instead of eggs and bacon or sausage? I was planning to have sausage the other day - and then I looked at the points. Bacon is fairly reasonable on points value, 4 points for three pieces. Sausage is not. Sausage is 15 points for 8 ounces! It reminds me of my reaction to learning that butter is 3 points per tablespoon. What?!

I think retraining my mind and reactions to work with the WW program instead of Atkins is going to be the hardest part of the whole diet!

It Worked!

So yesterday was weigh-in day and I was sooo nervous as we pulled in to the doctor's office. I really didn't think I was going to have lost any weight, with the number of carbs and the sheer amount of food I've been eating on the WW program. But guess what? I did lose! And I lost more than I did on any week I was on Atkins. Let's hear it for 4.4 pounds! It worked! I'm so excited. As a result of the loss, my daily points allowance has gone down from 57 to 56. I don't think that's going to be much of an issue, since I've had a hard time most days eating enough points!

My food for the last few days...

Friday
Breakfast: Scrambled egg, 3 sausage links, banana - 12 points
Lunch: Turkey pastrami wrap, tomato-beef broth - 14 points
Snack: Plain Greek yogurt with blueberries and honey - 3 points
Dinner: Chicken with teriyaki sauce, green beans, Rice-a-Roni - 23 points
Dessert: Sugar-free Jello pudding, Cool Whip - 5 points
Total: 56 points

Saturday
Breakfast: Scrambled egg, 3 pieces bacon - 11 points
Lunch: Turkey pastrami wrap, tomato-beef broth - 14 points
Snack: Plain Greek yogurt with blueberries and honey - 3 points
Dinner: Ham steak, peas, red potatoes, milk - 21 points
Dessert: Sugar-free Jello pudding, Cool Whip - 5 points
Total: 53 points

Sunday
Breakfast: Scrambled egg, 3 sausage links, banana - 12 points
Lunch: Turkey pastrami wrap, tomato-beef broth - 14 points
Snack: Cottage cheese, canned pears - 7 points
Dinner: Smoked sausage, sauerkraut - 21 points
Dessert: Sugar-free Jello pudding, Cool Whip - 5 points
Total: 58 points

Monday
Breakfast: Oatmeal - 7 points
Lunch: Turkey pastrami wrap, tomato-beef broth - 14 points
Snack: Banana - 0 points
Dinner: Chili, saltines, milk - 28 points
Dessert: Sugar-free Jello pudding, Cool Whip - 5 points
Total: 53 points

I've done a pretty good job of sticking to my points, although figuring out how to get them all in has been interesting sometimes, to say the least. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it on the blog previously, but the WW program, in addition to the daily points allowance based on your age, gender, and weight, also gives a 49-point weekly allowance to everyone. These points can be saved up for a special occasion, split evenly through the week, not used at all, or any combination of the above. I ended up using one of those points on Sunday, although I hadn't planned to use them at all. It doesn't seem to have hurt me any, though!

Hungry!

Yesterday was a hungry day...not sure why, I ate the same things I've been eating all week, but I got progressively hungrier throughout the day. I was grumpy and tired all day too (well, I'm always grumpy and tired, but more so than usual!), so maybe I was just hungry as a response to that. Anyway, I managed to resist and not eat anything I shouldn't, so that's a good thing.

Breakfast: Scrambled egg, 3 sausage links, banana - 12 points
Lunch: Salad - 16 points
Snack: Plain Greek yogurt with blueberries and honey - 3 points
Dinner: Ham steak, peas, red potatoes, milk - 20 points
Dessert: Sugar-free Jello pudding, Cool Whip - 5 points
Total: 56 points

Aside from being hungry yesterday though, I'm concerned about what the scale's gonna say on Monday when I weigh in. I just feel like I'm eating way too much to be able to be losing any weight, particularly on the carb side. I've purposely avoided adding up the carbs I'm eating so I don't freak myself out, but that doesn't keep me from knowing that fruit and rice and potatoes are high-carb! I know they're complex carbs, but still...I guess we'll find out on Monday!

Stir-Fry. Lots & Lots of Stir-Fry.

So last night I decided I'd make a stir-fry for dinner. That would seem like a simple, healthy, diet-friendly sort of meal, right? Well...sort of. The WW online tracker includes a recipe builder, so I entered all my ingredients and then stared at the total in shock. 18 points per serving! I managed to reduce it to 16 points by cutting out some of the cooking oil, but it still seemed awfully high. I'd already thawed the meat, though, so since I had enough points available, I decided to go ahead and make it. At that point I discovered one reason the total was so high. A pound of meat and two pounds of vegetables makes a lot of stir-fry. A lot. Suddenly my two servings of stir-fry turned into four servings...with 8 points each. As a result, I was quite a bit short on my points total for yesterday, but I suppose things like that are going to happen as I learn this new program.

Breakfast: Scrambled egg, 3 pieces bacon - 11 points
Lunch: Salad - 16 points
Snack: Plain Greek yogurt with blueberries and honey - 3 points
Dinner: Beef and vegetable stir-fry, milk - 10 points
Dessert: Sugar-free Jello pudding, Cool Whip - 5 points
Total: 45 points

One thing I noticed as I was using the WW recipe builder yesterday I thought was interesting - although they say that vegetables are worth zero points for the most part, and the vegetable line items showed zero, they were adding a few points to the bottom line. I haven't altered the recipe yet to a more reasonable size, and for the total points for two servings, it's showing 33 points. If I add up the individual line items, though, I get 25 points. That's a pretty significant difference! I'm guessing that if an item is worth less than one full point, it shows as zero, but when the software totals the points, it's adding in those fractions. I'd really rather it told me if an item is worth .7 points and so on, but so be it.

I'm On a Diet? Really?

So I'm a little concerned that my new program doesn't really seem like much of a diet. As I was eating my bowl of pudding last night for dessert, I was thinking about what I ate yesterday, and it didn't seem terribly...diet-ish. Well, judge for yourselves:

Breakfast: Scrambled egg, 3 pieces bacon - 11 points
Lunch: Salad - 16 points
Snack: Plain Greek yogurt with blueberries and honey - 3 points
Dinner: Chicken with Red Wine Sauce, green beans, 1 cup chicken Rice-a-Roni - 23 points
Dessert: Sugar-free Jello pudding, Cool Whip - 4 points
Total: 57 points

That doesn't really sound like a day on a diet to me. The salad I had for lunch sounds like diet food to some extent, except it was really more of a chef salad, with cheese and meat and hard-boiled egg - very yummy. I really felt guilty about having the Rice-a-Roni with dinner, but I was 8 points short for the day without it. That's a huge number of carbs! I know, I know, I'm not supposed to be counting carbs anymore...but it's going to take a while to change that mindset. It would have been a little healthier if I'd had plain rice instead of Rice-a-Roni, but I had it available so I used it. I guess we'll see what the scale says on Monday!

Day One!

Well, yesterday was interesting. After having been on Atkins, the Weight Watchers program is somewhat counter-intuitive, and I think it's going to take a while to get accustomed to the differences. I certainly get to eat a lot, though, which is pretty cool! I have 57 points to consume each day, and yesterday I only managed 52, but at least I was close. It felt strange, but very nice, to be able to eat fruit and vegetables to my heart's content.

I think the change that's going to be hardest for me to get used to between Atkins and WW is the difference in the way butter is treated. On Atkins, the whole idea is to convert your body from using carbs as its main energy source to using fats, so fats like butter and oils are encouraged and unlimited - within reason, of course. With WW, the program seems to be based more around nutrition density, calories, and the relative difficulty of processing different types of foods. The high nutritive value, fiber, and complex carbs in fruits and vegetables are encouraged and unlimited - but pure fats like butter are penalized. A single tablespoon of butter counts for 3 points. It's not really a big issue right now when I'm having a little difficulty figuring out how to eat enough to use all my daily points like I'm supposed to, although it feels a little odd to be carefully measuring something I used to use with abandon, but I can see it becoming a problem down the road as I lose weight and reduce the number of points I have available. I'll deal with it if and when I come to it, I suppose! Anyway, yesterday's meals...

Breakfast: Scrambled egg, 4 pieces bacon - 13 points
Lunch: Salad - 16 points
Snack: Apple - 0 points
Dinner: Chicken & mushrooms, sauteed zucchini, milk - 19 points
Dessert: Sugar-free Jello pudding, Cool Whip - 4 points
Total: 52 points

One thing that I think did work really well with my previous program was the schedule I made for myself of eating something every 3 hours so I was never really hungry, so I'm going to continue to do that with WW. If I'm starving, I'm more likely to have cravings, and less likely to want to spend the time and energy to cook when I want to eat right now! It's best to prevent that as much as possible, I think, since my energy levels are never exactly high to begin with. Avoiding the situations where I'm tempted to fall off the program is a large part of the battle!

A New Year, A New Start

Hey everyone! As I'm sure you've all figured out by now (since I haven't made a blog post in nearly two months) I got very frustrated with my lack of progress on my program and fell off it with a vengeance just before Thanksgiving. I thought it would be fairly self-defeating to try to start a new diet during the holidays, so I set a start date of January 3, the first Monday after New Year's, and here we are!

Based on the research I've done and comments from you guys, I've decided that the main reason I was so unsuccessful with losing weight on Atkins last fall is that my body was in starvation mode. I simply couldn't manage to consume enough calories and still stay within my carb limits. I was averaging 1100-1200 calories per day, and although different calculators came up with different numbers, the general consensus seemed to be that I should be eating 1900-2000 calories per day. That's a big deficit.

Anyway, what I've decided to do is go with a different program altogether, and the winner is Weight Watchers Online. The online version of their program is cheaper than the weekly meetings, and getting me out of the house to a meeting would be next to impossible anyway. I've been on Weight Watchers twice before, both times with the traditional weekly meeting format, both times very briefly and quite reluctantly on my part. Needless to say, I didn't have much success. They've been around for a very long time, though, and many, many people have lost a lot of weight with their programs, so they must be doing something right!

The WW program is based on point values assigned to everything you eat. They calculate the number of points you need to consume per day based on age, gender, height, and current weight, and the number changes as you lose weight. For example, when I was exploring the site before I weighed in this morning, I entered a guess for my weight as 400 lbs, anticipating that I would have gained back all I had lost. The system then calculated a daily total of 59 points for me. When I discovered this morning that I've only gained back 7 lbs (YAY!) and changed my starting weight to 383, it reduced my daily points to 57. They encourage fruit and vegetable consumption, which is something that I was having a hard time with on Atkins. On WW, most fruits and vegetables have a zero points value, so I can eat as many of them as I want. Well...within reason, of course! But I won't have to restrict myself to half a cup of vegetables with dinner and no fruit at all, which will be very nice.

So as of this morning, we're off and running again! It's gonna work this time. I'm determined.

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...

Motivation, or the Lack Thereof

So I'm thinking about motivation and progress today. I've made the 10-minute mark on my twice-daily walks, I'm rather proud of that. It's obviously still short of what most would consider an "actual" workout, but it's double what I started with! There's no way I'd have been able to walk briskly (well, briskly for me) for 10 minutes without stopping before I started this.

Unfortunately, being able to exercise longer doesn't really help with anything other than, well, exercising longer. There's not much effect on my life in general, which doesn't help much with my motivation. Having lost exactly nothing last week, my motivation is a bit low this week. I'm not quitting or anything, but it's harder to make myself go out and exercise and so on. I will be very, very happy when I can start seeing some positive effects in my daily life from this program. I don't really care what they are, as long as they're noticeable! Obviously, the end goals and motivations are summed up in the list of reasons I've got posted to the right of the page, but I'm a long, long way from achieving those.

Anyway, yesterday's intake...

Breakfast: 1 egg, scrambled, 3 pieces bacon - 1.55g
Lunch: Salad - 8.49g
Snack: 1 oz almonds - 2g
Dinner: Chicken with Red Wine Sauce, 1 cup frozen green beans - 11.47g
Dessert: Sugar-free Jell-O, 2 tbsp whipped cream - .8g
Sodium: 2713mg
Veggies: 9.18g
Total: 24.31g

Anticipating that I was going to make 375 yesterday, I had Chad take a set of "progress" pictures of me. I never did get a set of "before" pics done, so I guess those will have to stand in. I'm going to try to do pics at every 25 lb increment so that I'll be able to see if there are visible changes. When I was on Atkins the first time several years ago, I lost over 60 lbs, and although other people could see a difference in me, I never could. I know I was smaller. Some of my clothes were too big, I was able to buy smaller sizes in the store...but I couldn't see it. It's amazing how demotivational the inability to actually see that change is. I'm hoping that the pictures will help me with that. Once I've got a few sets of pics done, I'll post them on the blog so you guys can see. Well, assuming that the weight loss starts up again, I will.

A Big, Fat Zero

Hey everybody...yes, I know, I've been slacking on my posts badly this past week. My only excuse is how incredibly yucky I've been feeling with my medication withdrawal. It's been a little over a week now since I took my last dose of Effexor, and although I'm still having some background dizziness all the time and intermittent spells of worse dizziness, I'm doing much better than I was last Monday.

Anyway, today is Monday, and that means weigh-in day. As you've probably guessed from the title of this post, the result on the scale was a big, fat zero. So very, very frustrating! I stuck to my program like glue and did my walking twice a day every day except Thursday (I missed Thursday afternoon). Because I've got a week of meals to catch up on for the blog, I'm going to post just the carb totals today. I'm making a goal for this week to post every day, so tomorrow I'll be back to normal meal postings.

Tuesday - 23.80g
Wednesday - 23.43g
Thursday - 24.31g
Friday - 24.91g
Saturday - 24.40g
Sunday - 18.47g

So the results for the first two weeks of increasing to 25 grams per day are mixed. Last week, I lost 3 lbs, this week I lost nothing. I'm going to give the increased carbs one more week to stabilize, but if I don't lose next week, I guess it will be back to Induction for me. I really hope I do lose some. Well, I always hope I lose some, but it's been very nice to have those extra 5 carbs available, because it really increases my flexibility in food choices. Extra carbs or not, I'm really pretty surprised not to have lost any weight this week. In addition to my scheduled exercise, I've done my arm workout with my little 5-lb hand weight nearly every day.

I've also incorporated a lot more general movement into my day over the past week. Based on the article I linked the other day regarding spending most of your time sitting down being detrimental even with exercise as part of your life, I decided to start using a technique that's worked for me in the past to help get things done. I set my kitchen timer for 5 minutes, and work on whatever project or household chore needs to be done until the timer goes off. Then I set the timer for 10 minutes and rest/read/get on the computer/generally sit down until it starts beeping again, at which point I set it for 5 minutes and start the cycle over again. It's amazingly productive without making me feel overwhelmed or exhausted. I moved a lot more and got a lot of things done last week that I've been meaning to do for a long time...and I still didn't lose any weight. Frustrating!

Anyway, the timer's going to go off for my next 5-minute work session...I promise to post again tomorrow!

Another Dizzy Day

Well, yesterday was another nasty, dizzy day of withdrawal from Effexor. I forced myself to stick to the eating and exercise schedule, but it definitely wasn't easy. The food turned out a little odd...I was right on track with my carbs, but my calorie total was only 703. At least I was eating, though!

Breakfast: 1 egg, scrambled - 1.55g
Lunch: Tomato, cheese stick - 5.02g
Snack: 1 oz almonds - 2g
Dinner: 6 oz ham steak, 3/4 cup frozen peas
Dessert: None
Sodium: 2156mg
Veggies: 14.53g
Total: 24.88g

Anyway, not much to talk about today, short post!

Weigh-In Day and the Weekend From Hell

Hey all, sorry I've been slacking on my posts this weekend. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it on the blog yet, but I've decided to get off my antidepressants. I've got several reasons for this decision. A couple of the lesser contributing factors are that some of the research I've done has indicated that this particular medication can contribute to weight gain, and that I'm really trying to reduce the number of chemicals I'm ingesting. The reason that really triggered it, though, is that I have a friend who has been on the same medication that I've been taking, which is Effexor. She's being switched to a different combination of meds, and the withdrawals she's been going through have been horrible. She's been on it considerably longer than I have, and I want to get off of it now, before my system becomes that dependent on it. I've been on one antidepressant or another for the last six years, but this one seems to be by far the worst as far as dependency and withdrawal.

Anyway, I began tapering down off of it last week, and I took my last half-pill on Saturday. And thus began the weekend from hell, which seems to have not noticed that it should be over, since it's now Monday and I still feel awful. Saturday I got to enjoy a screaming headache most of the day in addition to the dizziness, nausea, irritability, exhaustion, and inability to think that I've had all weekend and still have. Anything that makes you feel like this when you stop taking it isn't something I think I want to be putting into my body in the first place.

Feeling the way I have been for the last couple of days hasn't led to a great eating or exercise schedule either. I haven't gone over on my carbs or anything, but it's been a little weird. I missed my afternoon walk on Saturday, which means I've missed my goal for October as well. Anyway, meals for the weekend...

Friday
Breakfast: 1 egg, scrambled, 3 pieces bacon - 1.55g
Lunch: Salad - 8.42g
Snack: 1 oz almonds - 2g
Dinner: Chicken with Red Wine Sauce, 1 1/3 cups frozen green beans - 12.97g
Dessert: None
Sodium: 2478mg
Veggies: 9g
Total: 24.94g

Saturday
Breakfast: 1 egg, scrambled, 3 pieces bacon - 1.55g
Lunch: None
Snack: None
Dinner: 8 oz sausage, 1 cup sauerkraut - 20g
Dessert: None
Sodium: 4437mg
Veggies: 8g
Total: 21.55g

Sunday
Breakfast: 1 egg, scrambled, 3 pieces bacon - 1.55g
Lunch: None
Snack: None
Dinner: 8 oz sausage, 1 cup sauerkraut - 20g
Dessert: None
Sodium: 4437mg
Veggies: 8g
Total: 21.55g

So although I haven't gone over my 25g daily, I also haven't exactly been sticking to schedule or eating healthily. Frankly, I'm just proud that I've eaten something and that I haven't fallen off my program. This morning's weigh-in showed a 3 lb. loss, so although the 5 carb increase I've been on this week hasn't resulted in more loss, it hasn't really resulted in less either. I'm a little disappointed that going off my meds doesn't seem to have resulted in additional loss, though.