Morning weigh in: 187.4 lbs
My weight this morning is exactly the same as it was yesterday morning despite a heavy exercise day. I'm ok with that…I'm sure that I consumed a lot of water yesterday and that not all of it has made its way through my system just yet. I had another good night of sleep, so that will help me with today and with my exercise this evening. Speaking of which, its speed day again which means that I'll be doing a 15 minute warm-up followed by 6x 0.5 Miles at 8min/mile pace with 2 mins rest in between. Then a 15 minute cool down. This is an increase of two speed repeats over last week's speed day, which went very well, so let's see how I hold up under the pressure today!
I'm going to make a conscious effort to eat a bit more carbs today than I have been. On average over the past week I have netted out with 40% of calories from carbs, 30% from fat and 30% from protein. That's fine if I'm not exercising heavily, but on heavy days I will need to bring my carbs up. So I started this morning with a little bit bigger of a breakfast than I have been doing. My dinners, while healthy, tend to be late (after 8pm) and so I am going to try to eat smaller dinners, which means my breakfast and lunch consumption will have to increase a bit.
So for breakfast this morning:
So far this morning I still feel full, despite having eaten about three hours ago. Normally by three hours post meal, I'm getting hungry, so the addition of toast with Peanut Butter obviously had a good effect (in terms of keeping me going). I'll have to think about what I add to my lunch since I normally have the Vietnamese Pho soup, which is really healthy and tasty. Maybe I'll add a slice of bread for extra carbs, or some fruit…but the fruit in the cafeteria here lately has not been great. Maybe apple juice… any thoughts out there for some extra carbs for lunch??
I worked out with my trainer Michael and then did a 40 minute bike ride on the stationary bike, and it felt absolutely great. My energy level is up, and my recovery time is decreasing. In fact, I was only going to do 30 minutes on the bike and I felt so good I kept adding time because I wanted to keep listening to my tunes! Finally I realized that if I didn't stop I would be eating dinner at midnight, which would not be conducive to sleeping well.
I ate very well again today.
Breakfast: one Morningstar Veggie Sausage Patty and Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal
Lunch: Vietnamese Pho Soup (Steak & Flank Steak with rice noodles)
Snack: Almonds and Apple Juice
Dinner: Broccoli, Chicken, Salad, Rice, olive oil.
I've been taking a (almost) daily photo to document my weight loss. I posted my first photo of a week ago and then also my Friday photo right after I chopped my hair off. It seems to me that there is a noticeable difference in the photos, but in reality I was only down about 2 pounds at that point. I think it has to do with the angle at which the photo was taken as well as the lighting conditions. So from here on out, I will only be taking photos of myself from my good side! J
Morning Weigh-in: 187.4 lbs
So now I am back in the weight range that I was in early June. So put it this way, if I had paid better attention throughout June/early July, I would have started my renewed weight loss efforts at this weight. Well, in any case, it's been a good week overall, and I'm settling in to some much better habits. Even if Saturday was a bit off the norm for what I should be doing, it's still way better than what a typical weekend would have been. And I got right back into the groove for Sunday with a healthy breakfast, a two hour bike ride (after the rain ended) and then Lane and I went to "The Harvest Vine"- a Spanish Tapas restaurant in our neighborhood. The good thing with that restaurant is the small size plates and the fact that they are delicious. We started with a small plate of Serrano Ham very thinly sliced. Then we had a demi-tasse (very small glass) of gazpacho soup. It really was about three sips worth…just enough for a nice taste. Then a fresh beefsteak tomato sliced incredibly thin with olive oil, vinegar and garlic (a bit too much garlic for me). Then we had two hot tapas: Atlantic Cod and Duck breast over potato. The two hot plates had about three bites for each of us, which was perfect to get a great taste, but not overdo it. Although the Harvest Vine has a fantastic wine list of reds, whites and sparkling wine from all over Spain, we stayed with water. A perfect dinner to end the weekend. Had I not done the two hours of cycling, it would have been a bit too high in calories, but not terribly so…it was probably 700 calories.
Now to settle into week 2: I started well with a good breakfast, so I'm on the right track.
Morning Weigh in: 188.0lbs
It's now Sunday and I guess it feels a little bit like Catholic confession on Sunday… I did slip yesterday, though not in a terrible way. Yesterday was one of those great Seattle summer days. The temperature was in the low to mid 70s. We went to see the Seattle Mariners beat the Oakland A's. As with any ballgame, there's an abundance of ballpark food and drink. At least I chose the best ballpark food I could- I had a grilled chicken sandwich and I chose the least calorie/alcohol content beer available: Miller Light. I didn't eat all of the Kaiser roll that the chicken came on, so I did save a bit there. But here's a beef I have with the concession stand- the sign clearly states "Grilled Chicken Sandwich with Fries". It did not say "Grilled Chicken with Cheese…" In fact they only put one miserable slice of swiss cheese on it…. I couldn't even TASTE it! So why do I have to consumer the stupid calories if I can't even taste it. Believe me, if I'm going to splurge, I darn well want to taste it!!! By the way, I threw away most of the fries.
So far, the day was going ok…not really a slip yet. But the day was young. We went to a BBQ at our neighbor's house for dinner. I did resist the tasty hummus and pita bread (I did take a little nibble for taste) but that was about the only self-restraint I exhibited. At least foodwise, the stuff I was consuming was healthy- steak, salmon and greek salad. It was the fact that I had beer and wine (not a ton, but enough to regret it) that ruined my overall day of self-restraint.
Now looking outside its kind of a typical rainy Seattle day. Usually, we don't have rainy days in summer, so it must be due to global warming/el nino/la nina/rabid penguins/overspending in the dept of education/pick your excuse here. I don't know how I'm going to get my 2hr bike ride in…guess I'll just get wet.
I had one of those "duh" moments today as I went out on my run. It occurred to me about half a mile in that I was feeling great. My heart rate was lower than normal for the same effort/speed. I hit a hill and although my heart rate climbed, it peaked at about 163 as opposed to 175 which is what it normally does on that hill. So I started to think what was different. I normally run that course on Saturday or Sunday mornings, so the timing was not the difference. The difference is that I've had two great nights of restful sleep. I didn't have any beer or wine last night…although the night before a run I may not overdo it on beer or wine, the fact is that with even a few glasses of either I just don't get as restful sleep.
The other difference is that I ate very healthy for the last few days consistently. Its not like I eat bad stuff all the time, but when I do, I tend to do it on the weekends, starting Friday night.
I knew that eating and drinking has adverse effects on how I feel in general and in particular when I exercise. But seeing it on my heart rate monitor really made me think to myself.. "well, DUH!"
Morning Weigh in: 190.2lbs
Things I am excited about today:
…goes around. Morning weight: 191.4
This is the effect of cheating on Tuesday night… it takes some time for the body to catch up and so that's what I'm experiencing today. Water retention due to Tuesday night activities and a bit too much sodium in yesterday's diet. I'm not concerned about it, I'm still in the fine-tuning stage and will get the kinks worked out of the system. This is also why weighing yourself every day can be overkill… It makes you feel really good when you drop, but on days when you remain steady or gain back a little bit, it can be demotivational. I'm not going to let it demotivate me today, however. I know that I did a good job on my diet and exercise yesterday and I'm confident that that will be reflected in tomorrow morning's weight.
Hill repeats this afternoon (running). I haven't run hill repeats in several years at this point. (I've run rolling hill courses, but just not hill repeats).
Oh and I ate breakfast this morning, so I did the right thing to get the day going…just had to get up )#$*&(& early to do that!
Check-in this morning: Weight: 190.4
That's down two pounds from yesterday. One pound equals 3500 calories, so clearly I burned off 7000 calories yesterday. Well not quite… This is the fun part of the diet. As I become more conscious of what I eat, I am eating healthier. As that happens my body releases stored water and that water weighs a lot. From past experience, my body can sometimes store up to 4-5 pounds of water, so its not inconceivable for me to lose a few more pounds rapidly. After that I will have to remain strict on my diet to continue to lose, and it will be interesting to see how much I lose on a daily/weekly basis once I've shed the rest of the water weight. Also from past experience, it only takes one night of poor eating habits to gain back the water weight, so no cheating on the diet!!
By the way, black is known as the slimming color (even though it is not a color), so that's why I chose this theme! J
With exercise today I have used 1246 of 1849 calories. The good thing about that is that we went out to celebrate Lane's birthday and we made a conscious decision that we would not worry about our diets for one night. I know those of you who are reading this are going to say that this is one day after the diets started, and I agree that its bad timing. However, given that this will one day be a National Holiday (much as the 9th of August will be as well) we decided it was OK. So even with going out to a delicious Italian restaurant in our neighborhood, we still managed to do well . Part of that is because I had an awesome day at the gym. Today was my first speed workout, and I did 4 X .5 mile repeats, and as I was driving home with Lane I commented that I felt great…sort of like I had an exercise buzz.
Anyway, dinner was great, I did cheat on my alcohol restrictive diet, but that's a one day thing I am confident and I think I will be on track . tomorrow morning when I weigh in, I may not be as optimistic, but I will at least understand why I didn't lose more than I wanted.
By the way, the rest of the day, I did very well- I had a very healthy salad for lunch which had some protein, but only a tiny bit of olive oil for fat. I had almonds and apple juice for lunch… a good combination of healthy fats, protein and carbs.
Weigh-in this morning: 192.2lbs.
That's right folks, I've lost 20% of a pound. Woo hoo. I'm unexcited…doing the math, 20% of 1 pound equals 700 calories. That would mean that I ran a calorie deficit of 700 calories yesterday to reduce by 20% of a pound. However, I know that I actually ran much more than that given that I exercised for 45 minutes which was around 400-500 calories, and I ate around 1300 calories yesterday. I would have to eat around 2200-2400 calories a day to stay even, so that would indicate that I'm at a deficit of 1600 calories for yesterday. But of course it doesn't quite work like that. Several factors come in to play.
Like Popcorn. Evil Popcorn. So low in calories. So pleasing to the palate. Tempting Popcorn. I had two bags of it last night for a grand total of 60 calories. Its low in calories, its not high in sodium… BUT it absorbs water like nobody's business, so looking at the scale this AM I had the demotivational .2 pounds to deal with.
Experts would probably tell me that this is why you shouldn't weigh yourself everyday.
