The Weight Battle

The positive side of that little rotten organ is losing 35 lbs. I'm really perplexed at how the weight came off, after so many years of working hard to lose. This time I sat on my butt and did nothing exercise-wise for 5 months. I cut all fat I could out of my diet, and ate slightly less than normal.

As per my usual pattern, since I've started exercising again my weight has started to climb. I'm up between 3 and 4 lbs now, though I've been stable the past week. Yes, I've brought a little bit of fat back in my diet, but overall my diet is excellent. I've also been taking a beta blocker for the past 4 weeks, and it was a beta blocker that helped me put on those 60 lbs in 6 months 5 years ago. Those 60 lbs that 5 years later I'm still trying to budge. I see the cardiologist on the 2nd, and will bring this up!

So I'm trying something new. Steve has an old palm pilot that he hasn't been using for a few years and I found a little weight loss program that I really like called FitnessPlus. What I really like about it is you enter your current weight, your goal weight and target date, and it calculates the number of calories that you should aim for to reach your goal. You log your calorie intake and exercise and the calories adjust accordingly. I've been tracking since March 19th, and each day that I don't lose brings me closer to my goal date, so each day it takes away a tiny bit more calories to try to reach that goal. I've known for a long time that the magic 3500 weekly calorie deficit to lose a pound doesn't work for me. This program will keep adjusting and doing the calculations for me, and eventually MY weight loss numbers will show themselves, whatever they may be. I've done a rough calculation of my intake when I was sick and not exercising or even moving, and it averages 800-1000.

The best part of it is, I find I'm not stressing over numbers or intake, I just log and look at the number at the bottom of the screen. If I'm hungry and have some to spare I'll eat something. If I'm not hungry and have a lot to spare, I will drink something to top up. I'm thinking that my problem over the years was under eating. Being vegetarian and a low fat eater to begin with, I always struggled to get even 1200 calories in me per day.

In other news, I got my work bonus yesterday, which after taxes worked out to about 45% of gross. Better than a kick in the butt I guess!

Yesterday's schedule called for a run, and my legs were a tiny bit tired from Thursday's ride, but not sore as I'd expected. I had a great run, the last of my 2/1. My naughty bits are still sore though. Should have worn my bike shorts under my pants.

This morning Steve and I hit up MEC and lo and behold they had my running shoes, trail variety, on clearance! I've never bought them before because I couldn't justify the purchase of a trail shoe unless I was going to really spend a lot of time on the trails. I couldn't pass them up, and can't wait to try them. I'm always turning out my ankles on the trails and feel the rocks and twigs more than I'd like with my regular running shoes. I think I will buy some gaiters too, as I'm always picking up stones and debris, but I don't like my shoes very tight!

We also bought the SPD pedals for the mountain bikes, and a couple of clip on fenders, for the really messy days. I'm not a fan of a lot of mud in my hair!

Well, I'd better get off this thing and get the cleaning under way. No running on the schedule today, just a 30 min walk and a 20 min strength training session. I hate strength training, and never found it something I could get into the habit of, so I figure I'll start with 20 mins. I can do 20 mins!