Lickety Split

Another week is coming to an end. Where does the time go? Ever since I’ve gotten into the Health Groove, time has been flying. It’s actually pretty scary. I’m not sure if it’s because my life has transformed into a ‘well-oiled machine’ (prepping meals, logging food, scheduling activities, etc) or if it’s because I am constantly waiting for that next weigh-in day to arrive to see just how well I’ve done that week. Either way, time has a rocket attached to its ass and I don’t like it one bit. I have a feeling things will change as soon as Spring and Summer takeover. I hope so.

Things have been going well this week — no major hiccups in terms of overeating or lack of exercising. I haven’t been perfect in the food department, but I consistently fall within 95%-97% of my weekly caloric goals. Workouts are on target (although taking place rather late in the evening). Ah, the days of rejoicing after completing a mere ten minutes on the elliptical have subsided. Now? I barely bat an eye when I chug along for thirty-five minutes followed by twenty-minutes with the kettle bell or a ten minute cool down on the rowing machine. Yes, it’s true — working out has become part of everyday life aaaand it’s pretty anticlimactic.

In an attempt to regain that sense of accomplishment, I came up with a ‘set schedule’ for this past week rather than flying by the seat of my pants. I thought setting a schedule would give me something to shoot for and complete — especially on those days where I didn’t feel like working out, etc. After tonight, I will have completed everything on my list. It feels pretty damn good.

Tomorrow is weigh-in day, but I’m riding the cotton pony again. I’m not expecting to see a good number, but there’s always next week I guess weight-loss isn’t just about the numbers.

Big freelance week coming up. Should be a challenge and a half.

Kettle This

My weekend went well. I hung out with my sister, saw a total of two movies, and lost three more pounds in the process.

FINALLY! The thirty-pound mark is mine.

My workouts have been going well. I’ve been averaging about 4.5-6 hours of exercise per week since the beginning of January. Rather than having set days off, I take my weeks in stride. If I have the energy, I’ll workout everyday. If I feel like I need a day off, I take it. I ended up taking both Thursday and Sunday off this past week, but I think I’ve earned it. Sunday marked the fourth day I’ve had off this month. I don’t plan on taking days off this week since my new workout DVDs arrived today and I want to get crackin’ on them.

I want to minimize days off on the weekend since I can workout anytime on Saturday and Sunday, but have a much smaller window during the week. I get through the week pretty well, but as soon as Thursday rolls around, I hit a wall. Friday is typically a high-energy day since the weekend is dawning and I can workout as late as midnight if I wanted to.

I promised a friend of mine that I would take a cardio class with her on Thursday nights, so I will have to plow through those walls until at least mid-April. I am admittedly nervous about said class, but know I need to push myself if I want to keep seeing results. What better way to push myself then in public?

Perhaps ‘nervous’ isn’t the right word.

Terrified is more like it.

The idea of being stuck in a room with thirty-somethings in Brookline is absolutely terrifying. I will stick out like a sore thumb in my ratty gray sweatpants, Johnny Cupcakes t-shirt, and plethora of jiggly-areas. Ah well. I can only hope that I don’t accidentally ‘rip one’ doing a leg kick.

My Kettlenetics kit finally arrived today! I popped it in at 9pm and was moving and shaking before I knew it. It didn’t take long for me to realize two things:

1. I have absolutely no rhythm
2. I am going to hurt tomorrow morning

In other news, small children in make-up and tiaras scare the shit out of me. Just say no to child abuse.

A Note to Mother Nature

Dear Cold Weather,

Go to hell.

Love,
Rachel

Pants Fail

I hope to hit the thirty pound mark tomorrow. That would be pretty great. Yes siree, Bob.

Since all of my pants are practically falling off me, I decided to buy a new pair today — just the one since I plan on losing a lot more weight in the coming months (reminder: my goal is to lose eighty-one pounds by November 3rd, 2009).

New pants = bad idea. Can someone tell me how it’s possible to lose 27+ lbs and yet, not drop an effing pant-size?! I didn’t measure myself before embarking on this journey, but I know for a fact that I have lost crazy inches everywhere — especially in my thighs and stomach. YET! I wasn’t close to fitting into that smaller size. Liiiiike, I couldn’t even pull them up. They were the same cut/style/brand as I currently wear! MOTHER EFFER.

I cried in the car.

And then did JM’s 30-day Shred (which is available On Demand) and twenty minutes on the elliptical as soon as I got home. Aaaand I might do more at some point tonight since it’s Saturday and being up all night due to midnight cardio isn’t such a bad thing.

Seriously, though. PANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHAT THE.

The Myth of Loose Skin

I found this article to be incredibly interesting (although extremely blinding with all that orange!):

The Myth of Loose Skin

Burning the Midnight Oil

Woo! I am doing well again. I came in under the calories for the past two days by roughly twenty calories each day. Not a huge deficit, but one nonetheless! Yesterday also marked the tenth consecutive day I’ve exercised. Since the beginning of February, I’ve taken just two days off. That is definitely something I can build on emotionally.

In other news, I had the unfortunate ‘pleasure’ of  freelancing from 6:30p to 10:10p last night after work. I was a bit worried about working in some exercise, but I managed to get in a good forty minutes of strength-training circuits with Jillian before playing a few minutes of Uno on the xBox and calling it a night.

I am beginning to accept my late-night fate. Going to bed at 10p is but a distant memory. Instead, I now shoot for 11p and hope for the best. Lately, I’ve been crawling into bed at 11:30p or 12a and I’m OK with that. Sleep is very important to me, but if I am able to fall asleep right away, I can get in a solid seven hours during the week even if I don’t hit the sack until midnight.

In addition to calories and sleep patterns, I have two potentially lame confessions….

1. I weighed myself again today. Honestly, what is the deal with being obsessed with the scale? It needs to stop. S-T-O-P. I will probably have to resort to asking The Girl to hide it from me. A little embarrassing, but it could be worse.

2. I purchased the Kettlenetics kit from Amazon a few days ago. Why? Because it looks fun and I need to start working on strengthening my body rather than just doing straight up cardio. I like the idea of incorporating a total body workout while moving and keeping the heart rate up. It’s a system that dips into both worlds and I’m excited to try it. I have no doubt that it will take me a while to get into the groove and learn the moves, but I hope it will kick my ass and keep be engaged and pumped for a while.

I will be sure to provide details when it arrives.

My Magic 8 Ball

I’ve been feeling pretty crappy for the past few days because of my ability to make poor food choices with such ease. I have dined out so much in the last week that it’s embarrassing. I lost zero pounds and felt like dookie because of it. Now, I am sabotaging myself for doing ‘poorly’ by eating like crap. Endless cycle #29384573.

In an attempt to cut the cycle at its knees, I decided to go into my Fit Day account and crunch some numbers. Is it possible that I am being too hard on myself? Absolutely. I needed to find out once and for all.

I keep a daily exercise log in Google Docs so that I can monitor my routines. I decided to add a ‘calorie +/-’ column to track how I do food-wise on a weekly basis since I am hardly perfect when it comes to sticking to my caloric goals. I went through my food logs and calculated how much I over/under ate since mid-January and was pleasantly surprised to find out that last week was one of my better weeks food-wise!! How is that even possible?

The breakdown:

1.18 – 1.24 = 4.8 hrs (exercise), +629 cals, 2 ote (‘out to eat’), -3 lbs
1.25 – 1.31 = 5.91 hrs, +271 cals, 4 ote, -3 lbs
2.01 – 02.07 = 4.08 hrs, -104 cals, 3 ote, -4 lbs
2.08 – 2.14 = 4.16 hrs, +206 (not 100% accurate), 7 ote, 0 lbs

Although my calculations are not 100% accurate for last week due to that stupid Turkey Wrap Debacle, it’s as close to close as close can get. And that’s good enough for me.

Yes, I am getting crazy with the numbers again, but numbers seem to keep me grounded. If I don’t have something concrete to look at, I easily fall victim to these endless mind games I use to torture and undermine myself. That is NOT cool. Not cool, Rachel.

To me, numbers are the Magic 8 Ball of weight-loss — they are fun and float around and can be shaken up to quell any bad juju infecting my mind. Instead of beating myself up over what seemed like a crappy week because I went out to eat seven times, I can look at it and say, ‘OK, I need to get that number down, but otherwise, it wasn’t too bad.’

I NEED THAT. Yes, I most certainly do.

It’s all about getting back to basics for me.

Breakfast of Champions

Today has been better. No chocolate! But I did weigh myself again this morning. Clearly, I have mental problems. On the upside, the scale was nicer to me this time around. Back down to 244. Whew! I am not expecting the same number tomorrow due to the poor food choices I made yesterday (…I ended up washing the Milky Way down with cheese puffs…) and the poor choice I made this morning.

What happened this morning? Um, I finished the bag of cheese puffs for breakfast…

…and then waited for The Girl to wake up….

….for her Valentine’s Day beating.

NEW RULE: IF YOU FEEL THE NEED TO PURCHASE THESE CHEESE PUFFS OF DEATH AT THE CORNER STORE, EITHER EAT THEM WHEN I AM NOT PRESENT OR HIDE THEM AND HIDE THEM GOOD.

F’cking a. Who leaves cheese puffs in the cupboard? And why do I like them? I mean, what is so appealing about inflated corn rolled in cheese powder? The shit sticks to my teeth like peanut butter on steroids and coats my fingers for days. What is so appealing? At least there’s a reason why I fall weak at the knees for pizza. IT’S SO DAMN GOOD. But cheese puffs? I don’t get it. I don’t crave them, but when they’re around, they taunt me. It’ actually quite frightening when food starts talking to you.

NO MORE.

The foot has been firmly placed.

Fumbling Toward Cloud 9

I think I set myself up for failure this week during last week’s weigh-in. Before I took the train north last Saturday, I weighed myself. The scale read ’247.5′. Reaching my goal of ’245′ by the end of the week (Sunday) was looking glum.

I remember talking to my mother and telling her I had to somehow lose two and a half pounds in one day on top of heading up to visit a few of my friends. Friends = going out to eat and consuming adult beverages.

Even though I ended up going out for dinner and having a few drinks afterward, I was at least 600 calories under my allowance for the day. I wasn’t trying to conserve in order to shed the pounds. I just wanted to free up enough to splurge on drinks.

I didn’t eat after 5pm, but drank five rum & diet cokes (yum!). My friend and I were up until 4am slurring our speech and rambling about the meaning of life without a thing to eat. I eventually fell asleep and woke up at 9am. I was starving, but decided to hold off until I got home so that I could weigh myself.

I made it home without eating and weighed myself just before noon (after not eating since 5pm!). What happened? ’244′ popped up on the scale. Needless to say, I was stoked — stoked, but skeptical. How was this possible? Was it because I hadn’t eaten for a jillion hours? Had dehydration set in? These questions vanished into thin air before I knew it and were quickly replaced by pride,  accomplishment, and STUPIDITY.

Ever since, I’ve had this gnawing feeling in the back of my mind. Not only does it gnaw, but it talks as well. It says, ‘You didn’t really lose four pounds, asshole!  You were quick to dismiss the circumstances!’ I was right. Realistically, I probably lost two pounds. Two pounds would have been a victory! Instead, I’ve spent the week dreading my Sunday weigh-in because I know it won’t be pretty.

I wanted to weigh myself a few times this week to see if my hypothesis held water, but I’ve been pretty strict about not weighing myself before my ‘weigh-in day’.

Well! I CAVED. When I got home from work,  I weighed myself like a moron. Not only had I just eaten, but I had also consumed 80oz of water throughout the day. That’s a lot of water. The scale was mean (very mean) and shoved a ’248′ down my throat without a care.

248?! What the CRAP.

Goodbye glee, hello Milky Way bar.

Ah, well. It’s good to know that poor choices aren’t isolated to food! They can be made across a myriad of mediums. With that sad, I simply cannot beat myself up over this mini set-back. Otherwise, I might eat a box of Milky Way’s rather than just the one. Instead, I must learn from my mistakes.

This week’s lesson: Be honest with myself. No more sabotaging and no more lame attempts to reach Cloud 9 in a hurry!

To Infatity and Beyond

I JUST AT AN ENTIRE MILKY WAY (the bar, not the galaxy). On the bright side, at least it wasn’t deep fried.

What the eff, Rachel?!