Friday, December 21, 2012

Weight, Food, and Metrics

I started to become uncomfortable with my weight before we moved.  There was a photograph taken of me and I was very, very, very unhappy with the way it looked.  See below. (I really, really, really dislike this picture.)



I couldn't do much about it while we were still in Winona because I could still barely walk. Also, I had some oral surgery in June and the healing went well into July and I was told specifically to make sure I ate well because healing takes calories.  So I walked when I could, went to the gym, and didn't worry about food too much.

Then there was this day there was a Jenny Craig commercial where a woman started bitching about how she should never have weighed X pounds.  And I was X pounds.  (Incidentally, I looked up that commercial and that woman is also about six inches shorter than me, so maybe I shouldn't have freaked out quite so much.)  I started crying and refused to eat dinner and once we moved, I knew I had to make some changes.

I downloaded the My FitnessPal app to my phone and I tracked every morsel of food that went into my mouth. I am allowed to eat 1200 calories a day unless I work out and then I get to add whatever calories that burned off (usually between 150 to 200 calories).  What this means is that I am hungry and have been hungry since July.  There are four times since then that I have been fully satiated and feel full:

1. Labor Day brunch - I still have dreams about the yumminess of that cheese quiche.
2. Thanksgiving Day - enough said.
3. The Saturday after Thanksgiving when we at this place in the Quad Cities called Duck City and  it was so good I almost had a foodgasm.  Seriously, the lobster bisque is something I will be talking about for years.
4. When we went to Chicago with Bestest Friend and I ate the entire serving of Pad Thai.
5. I got a sandwich from the local market right before one of my classes and it was huge and I ate about 3/4 of it before I realized that I didn't feel good at all.

Otherwise, I've been slightly hungry for months.  But successful. The Wii charts my progress and you can see that I started out in the overweight area and I've slowly gotten into the normal zone.  Plus, the Wii no longer turns my Mii into this fat butterball which is offensive and not really encouraging (are you listening to me, Nintendo?).


After a workout, I weigh myself on our Wii. I have no idea how it's calibrated or how accurate it is, but it's reliable in that whatever bias it has, it has that bias consistently, so I use it while wearing my cross trainers and workout clothes.

I'm still working out consistently every single day and I still have about five pounds to go to get to my goal, but I'm pretty sure that the best I can do between now and New Year's is maintain without gaining any holiday weight and I'm pretty sure I can do that.  I'll worry about those last five pounds in 2013.

4 comments:

  1. Congrats! I'm uncomfortable where I am, haven't even started losing anything with my jogging, but I'm afraid if I start tracking how much I'm eating it will turn into "how little can I eat and survive" like I was in high school. Yay 97 pounds? Not worth it.

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  2. Those last 5 pounds and their 5 pounds before that cousins are the bane of my existence. I lost 60 of my 70 pound goal, and literally for the last year have not been able to lose an additional pound. Not one. I run 3-4 times a week, I eat super healthy (My FitnessPal really helped me recognize my nutritional weaknesses)and yet, those 10 pounds cling on. I sincerely hope you have a better time getting rid of the last 5 than I have!

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  3. You are doing GREAT! I lost 70 pounds five years ago and still track all of my food with MFP. I also got a FitBit to track my activity a bit mor accurately -- it syncs with MFP and I don't have to do any exercise tracking.

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  4. I hate that about the Nintendo Mii as well. I was honest and made her fat to begin with...i didn't need you to plump her up more! :)

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