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Week 15: Water, Water Everywhere!

Sep17

This week… three more pounds have joined the four that decided to hang out last week.

That’s a seven pound gain in two weeks. Food? Nope. Water.

My body hangs onto water.  Perhaps yours does, too. Because I track my weight, I can even see the cycles in which I gain water; within a couple weeks, I lose it, plus a few more pounds.  Some folks call this a “whoosh”, and while I like the sounds of that, the facts are that my body likes hanging onto water.

One article I read suggests that when you “fad diet”, your body is burning through both carbs and protein, which bind water.  As a result, your body over-compensates by retaining water as a means of protection.  I think it’s more likely, though, that the cycle of my own body tends toward retaining water, and if I don’t make sure I have enough water intake, any weight loss is masked by water weight gain.

The last couple weeks, I’ve been a slacker.  I’ve been just coasting along in my efforts.  I haven’t done what I know works for my body.  I hit these times of mental barriers, where I fight doing anything constructive when it comes to weight loss.  I’m trying to figure out why; I have had good successes, and I’m making progress.  What I’ve been doing, when I’ve made a full and complete effort, is working.  It’s been easy, in fact.  So why am I doing this to myself?

This is the exact reason why I started this blog.  I don’t yet know the answer to why my brain is currently misbehaving, but I know that coming here and talking myself through it is a lot better than just trashing my efforts and letting myself slide back into old habits.

For the next week, I will do the following — because they work:

  • Drink enough water every day.  Currently, for me, that’s at least a gallon.  If you’re not sold on the reasons why water is good for your body, read here: http://www.shapeupshop.com/weightloss/water-weight-loss.html
  • Exercise.  Exercising helps relieve water weight, in addition to assisting weight loss and fitness.
  • Pay attention to what I eat and continue to record it.

Next week, with all those things in place, I am confident that at least some, if not all, of the water weight I’m holding will have left.

Week 12: Feeling Good

Aug27

26 pounds of butter = 104 sticks!

After last week’s fairly large loss, and being sick, I thought I might see a bounce this week.  Not so.  Another two pounds off!  That brings me to 26.5 pounds down, and just 1.5 pounds away from my next goal.

I’m feeling good, too.  I haven’t resumed exercise, yet, but plan on resuming next week.  I’m doing well with food and with fluid intake, and getting good sleep.

A couple pairs of shorts that I bought several weeks back, and were snug, are now fitting perfectly.  My shirts are getting looser.  I’m moving easier, which is the biggest payoff of losing weight.

I’m also feeling more confident about seeing this through, and that’s major.  When I lost a ton of weight before, I got to a point where I’d buy clothes that were in a smaller size, and I knew for sure that I would lose enough weight that they would fit.  There was no doubt in my mind.  The last few efforts I’ve made, which have been small and sort of half-hearted, I didn’t have that confidence.  I found myself in the same frame of mind several weeks back; I was hesitant to buy something that was snug, because I just wasn’t sure the weight would come off.  I’ve (thankfully) proved that part of my brain wrong.

Thanks to those of you who are following me along in this effort.  Your support means a lot.

Week 8: Weighing the Evidence

Jul30

Last week, I reported that I had a 3 pound gain.  This week, it’s the same thing; 3 more pounds gained.

I know I’m totally capable of losing this weight; if I wasn’t confident about it, seeing the scale read 6 pounds heavier would send me into a tailspin.  It certainly has, before.  I have to detach myself from seeing the scale as anything more than just another measuring tool; but like many, I’ve been trained by long years to judge myself by that number, and very little else.

Entire (civil) court cases have been decided on a preponderance of the evidence, meaning that the balance of evidence tips past 50% in one direction.  I have to remind myself that the scale is just one piece of evidence; there is much to the contrary, pointing to a problem I’ve had before, and apparently still have: an amazing ability to retain water.

The good evidence includes clothing that either fits better or is baggy.  Aching joints that indicate water weight gain.  The fact that I would have had to eat 21,000 excess calories (over and above what my body would need to maintain at a given level, and I eat less than that, so actually more than 21,000) over a course of two weeks in order to create a legitimate 6 pound gain.

My eating has been on track.  Calories are in the correct range.  I have added exercise in the last two weeks.  The only area that needs improvement is, sadly, water intake.

Logically and physiologically, all evidence points to successfully losing weight, not gaining it.  The only bit of conflicting evidence is that damned scale.  So rather than let it get me down or mentally derail my efforts, I am going to consciously choose to believe the preponderance of the evidence.  I am also not going to overreact by changing what I’m doing; I’m going to stay the course and see what results I have in another couple of weeks.

Recommended Reading: Why The Scale Lies

Week 7 Weigh-In: Speed Bumps

Jul23

I’ll get this over with, quickly: I saw a 3 pound gain this week.  Considering the mental sabotage I dealt with earlier in the week, I did expect either no loss or a slight gain, but not 3 pounds.  It’s another mental thing I’m having to deal with: I can easily become very scale dependent and get hung up on those numbers.  I was hoping that I might break that 20 pound number this week, but that will come in time.

Instead, I’m listening to my body.  I have made some good changes this week, but they haven’t had time to benefit me, yet.  The big one is adding exercise back in; for now, I will be water jogging three times a week. As of this morning, I’ve done two of three sessions for the week, and the last session will be later today.  I also switched what I was eating for breakfast; partly because I was getting bored with what I was eating, and having to cook breakfast was getting on my nerves and making me eat later than I should, but also because I haven’t been getting enough fiber.  That started yesterday.

My body is telling me that I’m currently holding water.  I can feel it in my joints; even my fingers are stiff.  My body can pull up to 15 pounds of water weight at any given time, so carrying 3-5 isn’t major for me.  I didn’t drink water like I should have this past week, so I plan to be more diligent overall this next week.

I am also not going to flog myself by changing my total loss shown.  If for some reason this weight doesn’t come off next week and take a couple extra pounds with it, I’ll reconsider.

Mental Barricades

Jul21

One of the reasons that I created this blog was to talk myself through the rough times, because I knew they would come.  Now is one of those times; when I could easily just turn my back on this journey out of frustration.  It’s the mental aspect of working toward health and losing weight that makes it so tough.

I’m sure I’m not alone.  This is the mental gymnastics that make no sense about losing weight.  I’ve been on plan for 6 weeks, now; I already spoke about having a little bit of a mental problem with that 20 pound mark, and I think I have probably sabotaged my way out of seeing that mark this week.  We went to Memphis with friends this last weekend, and I ate a higher amount of carbs than I usually allow myself on the weekend.  But that’s not the sabotage, believe it or not; I believe that if I have the occasional off-plan meal, I’m a lot more likely to be able to deal with staying on plan generally.  I have yet to have a craving or yearning for something that just sent me straight off course.

No, that’s not the problem.  The problem is photos.  I do well on my eating plan.  I feel results in how my clothes fit, and I’m starting to be able to fit into smaller sizes.  I commit myself to looking good and feeling good.  And then I see myself in a group picture, where I’m the largest one in the pic, and by my estimates, look gargantuan — and I flog myself and want to just stop making an effort.

Why is that?  Why is it that when we see a realistic image of ourselves, it makes us want to throw in the towel instead of working harder to change that reality?  Just giving up makes absolutely no sense at all, because there will be other photos; what, then?  Just commit yourself to feeling like shit about yourself every time you see a photo?

That’s dumb.  But that’s where I am.  Last week, I committed myself to making some changes this week; I was getting tired of sausage/egg/cheese breakfasts, so told myself I’d make some flaxseed muffins that I could eat during the week.  I also decided that this would be the week to start exercise, but I haven’t done it, yet.  I am hurting no one but myself by allowing this sort of behavior to creep in.  Now that I’ve recognized it for what it is, I need to do something about it.

My solution:

  • Take progress photos of myself.  I haven’t wanted to do this; I have no starting photo.  I have been avoiding the camera.  Time to face it and change it, so the next time someone snaps a photo of me, I can go back to the photos I’ve taken and see my progress for myself.
  • Make flaxseed muffins. Today.
  • Get down to the gym and start my program.  Today.

The best thing I can do after recognizing my mental slide is to take action to stop it. Otherwise, this just becomes another failed effort at achieving my dreams, and the only thing I will have earned out of it is feeling bad about myself. Why willingly choose that, if I can succeed?

Week 5 Weigh-in: Being Honest

Jul7

This is the first weigh-in that has been flat for me; no loss, no gain.  Sooner or later, it was bound to happen, but this time around, I was able to predict the probability that my loss would be compromised by making a food choice on a holiday weekend.

Usually, I will increase carbs on Saturday and Sunday to a moderate amount, and then decrease again on Monday.  Well, Monday came, and I decided to make it a three day instead of a two day.  I knew, at the time, that the down side might be no measurable loss on the scale this week.  I wasn’t in denial; I knew the probable consequences of my actions before deciding to take them.

There was a time, years ago, when I would have scarfed down a forbidden food and then hoped it wouldn’t show up on the scale.  And because it was some dark secret, more crept in, and I would eventually resent my diet plan for denying me things I loved.  Now, that’s not the case; I changed my thinking to realize that there are no forbidden foods.  There’s a big difference, mentally, between “I can’t have that” and “I choose not to have that”.  Denying yourself is punishment, and sooner or later, that can break the most determined person.  Choosing not to have that means you have the power to make that choice, and you understand the consequences of the choice, good or bad.

Gosh, after all that, you’d think I sucked down a cheesecake by myself.  😀  Nah, it was just a matter of having an extra day in the 50-100 carb range instead of 20 or under.  I still recorded what I ate.  I still evaluated it.  I think, where I and others can run into problems, is when I might make the choice to not accurately record something, so the numbers still look right at the end of the day.  How dumb is that, really?  If losing weight were as simple as only recording a set number of calories/carbs/fat/whatever a day, no matter what you eat, then trust me, I would make an accountant’s head spin.  No matter what numbers I come up with, my body works on its own internal calculator, and it’s up to me to figure out how that calculator is working.

Things I could have done better this week: Water intake, and staying true to my eating plan so I can accurately predict changes when necessary.

Week 4 Weigh-In, and Einstein

Jun30

Today was my Week 4 weigh-in, and I’m happy to announce that I lost another 2 pounds, which brings me to a total of 16 pounds down.  Just in case you need a visualization, the lovely striper in the photo weights 16 pounds.

16 pounds of FISH!

I like having visual reminders of how much of me has dissolved into nothingness, so as long as I remember it, I plan on showing the occasional equivalent.

I was sharing with some friends, just this morning, that I have always believed in the Law of Conservation of Energy, which in part holds that energy holds constant over time and cannot be created or destroyed.  Einstein’s Theory of Relativity said that energy equals mass.

So.  I’ve lost 16 pounds.  Where did it go?  I used to maintain that I was overweight enough that I took up the mass that 45 other woman let go of.  It has to go somewhere.  It must have floated through the universe and attached itself to my ass.  Not that I’m totally against the universe bringing me good stuff, but let that fat drift somewhere else and attach its barnacle-like self to someone who needs it.  Please.

Having lost 2 pounds this past week, a number of volunteers stepped forward to profess that they had found my 2 pounds attached to their posteriors.  Friends, mass cannot be created or destroyed; it only changes form, so I cannot be responsible, mathematically, for releasing two pounds from my body and having it turn into ten pounds cumulatively on several other people.  😉

The last week has been a good one; once again, I need to improve on drinking enough fluid each day.  It really does make a difference.  How else do you think fat gets out of your body?  It has to be released somehow, and this is one of the ways it goes out.

On a final note, I have decided to set my goal at 20% of my total goal met, which means I will meet that goal when I lose a total of 28 pounds, or the total weight of 284 (or below).  I’d like to lose a total of 140 pounds, so each 14 pounds will mark another 10% gone.  I expect to meet my next goal on or before Week 10.

How It Feels: June, 2010

Jun23

From time to time, I’m going to record the common problems I have, and what my body is going through.  I’m doing this for a couple of reasons; first and foremost, it’s easy to forget what you went through in the past, after you lose a substantial amount of weight.  You get to feeling good, and the little things that bothered you slip away from memory.  I want to record the problems I have that are weight-loss related, so that as I lose weight, I remember.  When I’m mentally slipping, I want the chance to look back in time and think “oh, yeah, I remember that.  That was horrible.”

There are so many benefits to losing weight, but so often, we dwell on just the weight, and not all the great benefits that come along with it.  Even if you end up in a plateau, all of those benefits are worth fighting for and not giving up.

Many of the problems I initially had before my major weight loss in recent years have crept back in, and some are new or compounded problems.  Please note: this isn’t whining.  This is documentation.  I know all of these things will improve.  I also hope that if you’re reading this because someone you love is obese, you might have a glimpse into a part of their world that perhaps they haven’t shared with you out of embarrassment.

It’s summer and hot out; I have skin patches that are likely yeast related.  I’m currently taking probiotics, because they do help, but losing weight so those areas aren’t constantly moist will help.  The worst spots are the folds behind my knees; the skin there is red and definitely painful to the touch.  I am usually seated, so the backs of my knees are kept in skin folds from fat.  In the past, when I was heavier than I am now, I also had these patches underneath my breasts, but those have not returned.

I have severe arthritis in both knees.  The arthritis hurts more when I am retaining water.  One knee is bone-on-bone and is often sore, but I have already noticed some relief, thanks in part to losing weight.  Although the arthritis will never go away, it will feel better as I continue to lose weight.

I cannot cross my legs when I sit.  My thighs are too big.

I find it disconcerting to have to find a chair in a public place that will either fit my girth or support me.  It’s embarrassing to have to even consider it when out and about.  Last year, I was out to eat with my husband in a diner that had old chairs and formica tables; I sat down in a chair and the whole thing folded under me. 🙁 I was so incredibly embarrassed.  I also find it difficult to sit in bar stools, and I have to swallow my pride and tell wait staff to not seat me in a bar stool.

Whether it’s true or not, I often feel as if I’m the biggest person in the room, and that silent judgments are being made about me.  I know how it is.  Heck, I’ve been on the other end, pitying some poor man or woman who was grossly overweight, and thinking that they should just do something about it.  How sad is that?  Maybe they are doing something about it.  Maybe I’m seeing them 100 or more pounds less than what they were before.  Just because someone is extremely obese does not mean they’re doing nothing, but I know how many people jump to that conclusion.

Although I have started my weight-loss efforts, they aren’t noticeable, yet, and I’ve only told one person outside of immediate family that I am losing weight, again.  I only said something to her because we were talking about healthy weight loss methods as opposed to unhealthy ones; several of our friends have currently been trying fad methods, and a couple of them have decided that they were, in fact, a fad.

I am hesitant to talk about weight loss for several reasons; first, I have had several failures lately, and I fear failure, again.  While a failed diet may not be a big deal for someone who has 20-30 pounds to lose (“Yeah, it didn’t work, I’ll try again later in the summer”), it’s nearly a moral indictment if you’re obese and fail.  I’m not sure why that is.  People, the reason many people are obese is because it’s harder to lose weight and keep it off, not because we’re lazy.  Some are; I won’t deny that.  Some are gluttons; again, I’m not going to deny that, either.  But generally speaking, if it were as easy for me to lose weight and keep it off as it is for an average person, I’d be thin.  For whatever reason, it’s much more of a challenge.  Is it unfair?  Sure, but if it can’t be changed, then you deal with what you’re given.

I hesitate to talk about weight loss, too, because I feel awkward when well-meaning people who have much less of a weight problem than I do want to give me advice or recommend a diet.  I want to succeed at the method I’ve chosen, so when it becomes noticeable to them, I don’t have to listen to “have you tried HCG/acacia/Alli/whatever?”  My weight loss will probably not become noticeable to the point of mentioning it until I’ve lost around 50-60 pounds.  People might think I look different before then, but they will hesitate to mention it.  As a side note, please don’t hesitate to mention it.  I like having hard work acknowledged.

Back to my body… movement is difficult.  I feel very prone to falling; not just because of the weight I’m carrying, which sometimes makes me feel off-balance, but because of arthritis.  I can’t move quickly and decisively; I have to think about movement.

Getting up from a seated position can be awkward and painful.  I snore when I sleep.  Shoes that I wore when I was thinner  no longer fit, because my weight is flattening my arches and increasing the length of my feet.

I have occasional back pain and hip pain, as well as ankles that crackle and knees that pop.  These things will improve with weight loss and with muscle strengthening.

And that’s how I feel right now.

About Last Night: What’s sustainable in the long run?

Jun3

In my 48 years on this earth, the vast majority of them spent overweight, I’ve bounced around to various diets. Lots of them.  In fact, it’s probably a pretty obscene number of them.

I remember being roughly 14 or 15 and convincing myself that I needed to lose weight.  In retrospect, I didn’t, but self-perception when you’re that age is pretty awful, usually.  I decided that my diet should consist of Tab.  Yeah, anyone remember Tab?  Horrible stuff.  That’s all I consumed, and I did lose weight; of course! I wasn’t really eating anything.  I don’t remember how much I lost, but I was on my special Tab Only Diet long enough that my body objected and it made my cycle go off kilter.  Mom took me to the doctor. (I can only imagine what she was thinking!)  I finally told the doc about my awesome diet plan, and he told me to stop it, that I’d made myself anemic.  Wonderful.

In my late teens, I tried lots of stupid crap, which probably contributed to crappy metabolism later in life.  I lost 30 pounds when I was 19 and looked pretty good.  I won’t say how I lost it, but suffice it to say that it wasn’t a good thing in the least, and likely not quite legal. Backing up a couple years, I remember secretly sending cash in the mail to get some diet pill that I hoped would work, and it never showed up.  Someone probably tucked that very hard-earned money in their pocket.

I tried low fat 51,903 times.  The most I could ever lose while eating low fat was 40 pounds.  I tried the tuna fish diet, and the friend who suggested it called me within a week to tell me to stop it, because it made her horribly sick and she didn’t want the same thing to happen to me.  I did Weight Watchers, the really old version.  I remember doing diet shake substitution for real meals.  I tried SlimFast.  I tried… oh, heck, I don’t remember how many more I tried, but if you look back over the last few paragraphs, you can easily see that each time I tried something, I gained back the weight I lost, and more.

My most successful weight loss effort was with Atkins, but I didn’t do it right.  I stayed in the induction phase so long that I believe my body adapted, and I couldn’t break through that adaptation.  I gained back weight despite continuing on low carb and exercising, usually two hours a day minimum.  Knee problems cut back on the exercise drastically, and then — yeah, I’ll admit it — I lost my mojo.  It seemed so grossly unfair that I should have to do cardio and weight training for a minimum of two hours, just to maintain my weight, which was still 60 pounds above my goal.  Some would say that perhaps I should have increased my strength training or cardio, but I was to the point of hurting myself.  I was 45 years old and doing 350 lb. squats, and embarrassing many of the young studs in the gym. I walked for over an hour a day.  I felt like I was in training for the Olympics.

Fast-forward to last night, the end of my first full day back doing low carb.  We were at a restaurant with a bunch of friends, and all but one of the women was on a diet.  One was starting phentermine.  Two others are doing the HCG diet.  Now, should my friends ever happen to read this, please understand that I love you, but my first thought as I was watching one put homeopathic HCG under her tongue before ordering dinner, another opening a Walmart bag to pull out things to put on her plain lettuce and grilled chicken salad so it would taste better, and the final one who asked how much meat was actually on her pizza… was that none of these methods are sustainable in the long run.

That’s my real quest: to find something that gets me healthy, and that I can live with for the rest of my life, without having to resort to dragging extra stuff into a restaurant to make food that I’m paying cash-money for palatable, without having to analyze every last thing that goes into my mouth, and yeah, without having to take hours out of my day for exercise just to maintain.  Eventually, all of those systems fail.  This time around, I am determined to pay closer attention to the signs; the ones that indicate that I need to make a change in what I’m doing before my body counteracts me.  That’s what the human body is designed to do: to protect itself and adapt to its environment, so if you stay in one environment for too long, what worked before no longer works.  Exercise physiology also shows that exercise routines must be changed up for maximum benefit, for the same reasons: the body adapts.

A couple of my friends are well-meaning and they know I am frustrated with my weight.  They’ve suggested a few of the trendy diets.  They might work to lose 20 pounds, but certainly not 200.   They are not sustainable in the long run, not only because it would be pretty tough to stay on them for the length of time required to lose 200 pounds, but it also doesn’t get to the bottom of why a person is overweight.  Unless there are real changes made, especially in the fat that’s between a person’s ears, it won’t work.  I’m convinced of that.

Oh, last night?  I ate dinner before I went to the restaurant.  We were there for an activity that had nothing to do with eating, so I did my eating early, didn’t worry about what was on the menu that would work for me, and drank several Diet Cokes.  No pressure.

In the beginning…

Jun2

Today, June 2, 2010, is my restart day.

I started off today by dreading my weigh-in.  Naturally.  I knew it wouldn’t be good news.  When I finally got myself down to the gym to weigh, though, I was surprised; the number wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.  After all, I haven’t been a very good girl, lately.  I’ll be sharing that number, as well as my other stats, in another post.

In this post, I’m laying out how I’m approaching this journey.

Having already lost 140 pounds once, I learned some valuable information from that experience.  Here are some of the things I learned, and what I will take to heart this time, which I am determined to make my last time.

Acceptance.

I have to accept where I’m at, right now, right at this moment.  My current situation, whether it’s today or a year from now, was a result of my past, but my past keeps happening at every moment, and I am capable of changing.  What I am, today, is not what I am capable of being ten minutes from now, ten months, ten years.  Accepting myself and doing my best to remain objective will do me more good than bitching and carrying on about how fat I am.  That solves nothing, and just makes me feel bad.

Diligence.

Habits are formed by repetition.  I must be diligent about each day, about taking the care to do it right, and in the long run, diligence will show results, whether it’s in feeling better, a loss on the scale, the ability to walk further, the ability to walk away from something unhealthy.  Diligence creates strength, and the stronger I am, the more likely I am to succeed.

Diligence also means planning and record keeping.  For me, that means approaching weight loss as a scientific experiment, and a willingness to see what is working, and what isn’t.  No diet plan will work unless you’re willing to work the plan, and that means evolving as your body adapts.

Discipline.

Hand in hand with diligence, discipline will make me mentally strong.  With discipline, the constant internal fights decrease in volume.  The little voice that says sleep in! You don’t really need to exercise, now, when you can do it later in the day! doesn’t win. The reasoning that says just this once won’t hurt goes away, because with discipline, as with diligence, comes habit.

Honesty.

If I fudge on a serving of something so it appears I’m within my calories or carb count for the day, who am I kidding?  I have still put in more fuel than my body can use for that day.  If and when that happens, I have to be honest with myself, because lying to myself or anyone else does not change what I just put in my mouth, or the exercise intensity I backed off on, or the water I didn’t drink, or the vitamins I didn’t take.

That also includes being honest with myself about the reasons why I’m fat, and not making excuses.  Yes, I have metabolic issues, but they are not insurmountable, and they are not an excuse for having let myself slide. Making excuses is just a way of trying to get around the hard work involved in getting healthy.  Regardless of whatever problems are present in my body, I can either sit around and bitch about them, or do something about them.  I’m choosing to do something about them.

I can choose to better my situation, no matter what that situation is.

Hard Work.

There’s nothing easy about losing as much weight as I need to lose.  There’s no short cut for building the muscle I need to build.  It takes hard work, and most of us want to take the easiest route possible.  Believing that there’s some magic bullet, some pill that will help, some hormonal treatment that will magically just melt off the pounds — well, that’s just so much BS.

Ever notice how most of these miracle supplements come with the recommendation of a diet plan and regular exercise?  My goodness.  That negates the reason for the miracle pill, doesn’t it?  One popular diet has people taking a hormone and eating a 500 calorie a day diet.  500 calories!  My bet is that if you just ate 500 calories a day, that would produce the exact same weight loss with or without the hormone.  And honestly, there’s nothing even remotely healthy about eating 500 calories a day.  Get into enough of a calorie deficit for a long enough amount of time, and your body will act to protect itself and weight loss will come to a screeching halt.

Food As Fuel.

Understanding food’s actual role in fueling the body means being selective about what you choose to put into it.  I will be choosing “whole food” options as much as possible.  There may be times when this isn’t feasible, such as when dining out, but whenever possible, I will choose the whole food option.  This means staying away from “frankenfoods”, or highly processed foods, including foods designated as diet foods.  That also means cutting out diet sodas, artificial sweeteners, and the like.

This is the plan.  My base diet plan is low carb in nature, because my body seems to respond to it best.  I’ll be posting specific goals along with stats at a later time, but for now, this is the first step on the journey.