Went well! Out of 5 meals, I would say 4.5 were on plan. I give myself 90% today. I changed a rice cake around for a wholegrain corn thin (less calories, and I always find that with rice cakes I want to smoother them in cottage cheese or whatever I’m having with them). I slipped a little on snacking and had some sakata potato rice crackers- crack is right. Those things are just too good! Nearly ready to sleep, full, no cravings, and I can still have a snack before dinner if I want 
So I’m thinking, since I have a dietary “guide” from my personal trainer, maybe I should actually use it. Its not terrible. It’s actually quite nice- berries, yoghurt, muesli, even low fat yoghurt. Its supposed to be a guide, some ideas and general suggestions to get the jist of a more whole foody diet, which doesnt rely on calorie counting. The only thing is that because I use it as a guide, I tend to gradually stray further and further from it, so by the end of the day my diet looks signficantly less like the diet suggested. So I thought, may be I should try sticking to it exactly for a week. See how it goes. Just a week. Its not that hard, right? I like these things. Berries. Fruit. Yoghurt. Nuts. Low fat ice cream (ok, so I’m over emphasising how much low fat ice cream I get to have, really its only a small scoop a week. We all have things we cling to in order to get through). So I might post what the plan is each day, and what I actually have each day and see what results I get (with exercise of course). Gonna give it a go
Back, almost 8 months later. Weight loss has slowed, but since I had a very long plateau from Jan to Sept I am accepting any loss and am happy. I am now looking not just at how many calories I have, but how I am getting them as well, developing sort of “whole food” tendencies. So I am going to use this blog as a food diary for a while, to post new things that work for me so I can come back and rediscover stuff in times where I find it tricky to make good choices.
So im back, again. Its incredibly hard to get back into the swing of things, both eating and exercising wise. This week I am aiming to get my eating under control (i failed to yesterday, but today is a new day and im sure its 100% possible) and just go to training 3 times a week. If i can manage to do that then next week i might throw in some gym trips, maybe even do some classes on the weekend since i have some free vouchers for my gym to use up before the end of january. I only regained a couple of kilos over the Christmas period, but its becoming incredibly dismaying not to see them move at all (except for upwards!). Im going to try sterlings trick of weighing in every day and using the site in her blog. Maybe i will be more put off evening snacking if i know that every day is weigh in day. I realise it may drive me nuts. But it might just give me a bit of a kick start. Plus i will be able to see movement a lot more- i think part of it now is that i am feeling a tad frustrated and impatient
The other day i was having a “fat day”. Im sure everyone knows what i mean, when you have no physical change but you just feel like you’re freaking enourmous. I didnt really think that this affected my behaviour much, but i went shopping with a friend and picked out a size 14 dress (these are NZ/Aus sizes i believe, i have no idea what the US equivalent is). The shop assistant looked at me, looked at the dress and said “Size 14? Size 12″ and swapped. And it fitted fine (even if it did look hideous in the end). So apparently having these mentalities does change our behaviour on those days, which is something that hadnt really crossed my mind. I also discovered that I assume people see me the way that i see me-if im having a fat day and see myself as being fat, then of course everyone else does too. Apparently not. Which is somewhat comforting, even if this may have people going “What the hell is she on about? of course thinking you are fat doesnt actually make you look fat to other people!” Well, phooy to you 
Picture is from http://www.humanillnesses.com I hope they dont sue me
Anyway, not much more to report here weight loss wise. I did pretty well this week to lose a bit more than i had lost since wednesday, giving me 900g lost over 2 weeks (since my battery died on my scales) which sounds spot on. So im pretty happy with that, especially since the xmas parties and lunches are picking up and it is becoming harder and harder to track calorie wise. I weigh in today at about 73.3kg (about 161.6 pounds?), 100g higher than the lowest weight i have ever been recorded at in my adult/adolescent life. Which is kind of scary to think about. I think i have been 72kg (prob around 159 pounds) before though, so once i get down to 71.999999kg i’ll be pretty damn over the moon. First things first, gotta hit 72.99999999 or lower. I would be totally stoked to see 72 point something this week. All i have to do is lose about 400g which shouldnt be too hard as long as i am disciplined in my eating and exercise. Which shouldnt be too hard, right? Right?? Since its summer i can go to the gym and then cross the road to the beach to have a swim 
Yes, my gym is that close to the beach. I should totally take photos for you guys. Just to make you jealous in your winter months
Not much else interesting. I was talking to a friend who is also trying to lose weight but finding sticking to her trainers plan hard. I totally sympathise. My experience with personal trainers is that they think they know what works, and any deviation from that absolutely wont work. My personal belief is that you have to find what works for you. Maybe having 5 meals a day isnt for you. If its not, dont do it! For me, having 3 meals a day would be impossible- im a grazer. I would rather graze all day and juts have one main meal of breakfast if it were entirely up to me. I understand that there are lots of arguments, and that not everyone can keep up to date with theories on weight loss and the psych behind it. Things like eating late at night- my thoughts on this are as follows.
1. A calorie is a calorie, no matter what time of day it is. You cant change that. Your body gets the same amount of energy if it eats a calorie at midday as it would if it ate it at midnight
2. Yes, perhaps the way the body stores energy is different at different times of the day. I dont know a lot about it, seems plausible to me that the body might be more inclined to hold on to fat and store energy late at night, because you’re not going to need that energy over night, since all you’re doing is sleeping. However, i also think (and i am aware i may be wrong here) that the difference in how you store energy at different times of the day/night is not going to be huge. Its not going to be the difference between losing 1kg and 5kg a week. It might be the difference between losing 400g and 500g a week. Perhaps thats important for some people. Its not for me, and its not something i worry about if i am eating at night within my calories for the day
3. Snacking, in itself, is not ” bad” or inherently evil. Maybe it boosts your metabolism to eat little and frequently, but again i doubt this is a huge influence on weight loss really. I DO believe that people can very easily go overboard on snacking without realising it. One almond leads to thirty. A handful of chips leads to a whole family bag eaten in a sitting. This doesnt mean that the snacking itself is bad for you. Its the moderation in which you are using snacking. It is the same as everything else- probably not too bad for you in moderation and when used with a healthy dollop of self control
I quite strongly believe that in order to be successful you MUST find what suits YOU. Thats not to say “eating McDonalds all day everyday suits me so i will lose weight doing that”. Of course not. Everyone wanting or needing to lose weight will have to make sacrifices of some sort that they wont like. Perhaps what i mean is that you must find or develop a plan that suits you best. If you dont tailor to yourself, your job is twice as hard.
And thats why i dont appreciate personal trainers who continue to take people’s money, keeping them on the same plan, and seeing that they arent making the progress that they should be, and are entitled to be, making.
This probably sounds very pompus coming from a person who has only lost about 11.7kg since feb. But this is my first attempt to lose weight, and this is what i have learnt so far. Perhaps i will look back on this in 6 months time and disagree with myself totally.
I havent blogged for a while, i know. I think ive been doing ok, but its hard to say since the battery on my scale has died >.< really must replace that battery…
Anyway, i have also been distracted. My distraction is called Molly, and she is gorgeous
“If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.”
— Hippocrates c. 460 - 377 B.C.
So im not looking forward to weighing in this week. I weighed myself mid week and was up to 74kg. Yesterday i was down to where i was at the begining of the week, today i was back up to 74kg. I had a bit of a binge midweek, but i would say it was 1800-2300 calories for the day tops, surely not enough to go up that much. I suppose i should have exercised more. I usually weigh in on sundays and mondays and take the lowest measurement, mostly out of vanity, partly to try and weed out the huge fluctuations i seem to have
Haha in fear of the scale, i thought i would measure my body fat using one of those highly reliable online calculators. I put in my measurements, and pressed calculate. “Your body fat is 105% according to the formula developed by the U.S. Department of Defense”. Well, i guess that just confirms what we always knew about the usefulness, reliability and accuracy of the US department of defense! I tried another calculator and it came up with 30.47% which sounds a lot more realistic.
Are really nice. Especially surprise ones.
image from http://modobs.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/an-overwhelming-moment/
i must report a splurge lats night. Well, i was hungry when i came home from training and so i tried to have a cup of tea and a biscuit since i was close to the limit calorie wise already. But that didnt work, so i figured if i was hungry then i should eat something. So i had some toast. Which lead to cheese, chocolate, crackers, and biscuits >.< Ouch. Well, today is a new day so i am moving on. I also start my new job today, yay! Time to work my way out of that overdraft
I was thinking today on the way to training about weight loss. And about overweight pets. I mean, take cats for instance. You have a fat cat, you put it on a diet and it loses weight, but you cant really make it exercise. You could walk a dog to burn some fat, but you cant really walk a cat. Unless its always been walked. In which case it probably wouldnt be obese in the first place.
Now, why is this important? Well, its not, its just interesting. I presume that as the fat cat loses weight it will naturally exercise more. Why dont people do that naturally? I have lost weight, and i still have to argue with myself to exercise. Not as much as before, but still at least i have to persuade myself. Just a thought.
I was also thinking about whether, if someone offered you the chance to lose weight without having exercise, would you take it? I know for a fact that at this point in time and this weight i can lose weight without exercising simply by limiting myself to under 1500 calories a day, which ive been doing relatively well. But i still feel the urge to exercise. I dont want to take the chance to lose weight without exercise, and i dont know why. Perhaps losing weight is not enough of a goal, not meaningful enough? I dont know
Yes this all made much more sense before i had that rum and coke…
