609...

Today really feels like Thursday. I keep thinking tomorrow is Friday. Alas, it is not. Now that I am having a little success, I feel like I am getting more focused on my journey. It still is tough to know that I am pretty much (within 5 lbs) where I was last year at this time. At least most days, I weigh less than last year.

I am really struggling with insomnia and need to find a way to work through that. The good news is my appetite is at bay and has been for a while. I think it is in part the reduction in anxiety around food in the evening. This is a result of resetting my calorie allowance at 5 pm rather than midnight.

Exercise
Calorie Deficit
Sleep 6 hrs

*One year ago....

608...

So...it is still not Friday. I was so confused about which day it was, I screwed up my available calorie allotment for today. I caught the error earlier today and I was still on-track. For the most part, I am doing Calories In/Calories Out (CICO). There are many calculators on-line to calculate Total Daily Energy Expenditures (TDEE) and Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). I don't really use those.

I have my own calculation based on one that I found in a book. The book was one of the ones in the "...for Dummies" series. I think it was Weight Loss for Dummies but I can't remember. It had a super simple calculation. I had another calculation that was really complicated and in the end it gave the same number as the Dummies calculation. According to Dummies, to estimate your calories in a day you took a number (11 sedentary, 12 active and 13 very active) and multiplied it by your weight. It also said that 10 times your weight was the number of calories just to live even if you were just lying down all day.

To start my calculation on how many calories I can have, I take my weight and subtract 10 lbs. I do this to build in a bit of a fudge factor for when I have to estimate the calories in a food. Then I multiply that by 11 (sedentary). After that, I add in the calories I burn from exercise. Finally, I subtract 250 calories which is the calorie deficit I want to create each day. In theory, this would lead me to lose at least a half a pound a week. In practice, there is more variability. I'd say LOL but it is more annoying than funny!

Weight in lbs - 10= Adj Weight
Adj Weight*11= Base Calories
Base Calories + Exercise Calories - 250 Calories = Calorie Limit for the Day

It seems to work when I manage to stick to it. It is also really close to the calculator available on the NIH website.

Well, that is not at all what I intended to write about today. Hopefully, I'll remember the intended topic for tomorrow's post. Still having a lot of trouble sleeping and I am really tired. Fingers crossed for a good night's sleep tonight.

>>>Whew- my CTL+A, CTL+C trick really saved me tonight. I almost lost this whole post!<<<

Exercise
Calorie Deficit
Sleep 6 hrs

*One year ago....

607...

So happy it is Friday! Even happier that I have Monday off!! So I have a small notebook that I bought just to track my weight loss. It is 4 years old now and I am still trying to get this excess weight off. I use 0 as my starting weight because I don't want to admit how much I weigh publicly. It is simply too demoralizing to me. Plus, my scale doesn't have any numbers. It announces how I did compared to the previous weigh-in. May 28, 2017 was the first weight I recorded in my little notebook.

2017:+7
2018: +4 (A three pound loss for the year period.)
2019: +2 (My scale reset in Jan 2019 so this is actually an eight pound gain for the year period.)
2020: -21.5 (A twenty-three and a half pound loss for the year period.)
2021: -23 (A one and a half pound loss for the year period.)

What does it all mean? Well, I think it is fair to say the year long nutrition/wellness course I took in 2018, including weekly weigh-ins, was worthless. Especially considering that my scale reset in January 2019. My scale resets itself every 10 pounds whether it is up or down. 2019-2020 was great. 2020-2021 was definitely a struggle. I thought I was doing okay during the pandemic but it seems to have impacted my weight loss. I also got a full-time (vs. part-time) job in that time. So more stress? Seemly on a good roll now. We'll see if I can confirm my fledgling loss on Sunday.

Exercise
Calorie Deficit
Sleep 6.5 hrs

--One year ago....

606...

Seriously, the number of times I've woken up feeling rested and ready for the day that I can remember is easily less than a dozen. It takes me a long time to get going for the day. I've looked it up and this grogginess is called sleep inertia. It can last for 30 minutes- 6 hours after waking up. Clearly, I am on the longer end of the spectrum. I went to a morning skating session for the first and likely last time. It was a different experience and I felt so very sluggish. I have been extremely tired all day. I'll have to keep poking around to see if I can find a way to shorten the period of sleep inertia. So far, no luck....

So, I did it again. We had take out for dinner tonight and by the time I had settled on something, the restaurant had closed. I hurriedly picked an alternative and thought I was making good choices. I did not. It's looking like coffee and breath mints for breakfast tomorrow- UGH!


Exercise
Calorie Deficit
Sleep 7 hrs

--One year ago....

Hi Pipsicle. I want to say something about losing a post. This forum has a built in auto-save. As you type, look down to the bottom of the dialog box and it will periodically say "auto saved.". This means that if you lose your post for some reason all you have to do is click the cursed in the blank dialog box and your post will reappear. For some reason this doesn't always work but does most of the time.

Hi Carol- Thanks for reminder on auto-save. For me, it usually only brings back half my stuff so that's why I use CTL+A and CTL+C....

606...

I was calorie neutral today and just barely. I'll take it as a win though. The scale showed a confirmed loss for me this morning which is great! Although, it was spot on. I was really hoping for a pending loss waiting in the wings for confirmation next week. The keto test strips have been confirming I am on-track. The scale will catch up later.

Exercise
Calorie Neutral
Sleep 7 hrs

--One year ago....

605...

I slept a long time last night. I did get up two or three times though which is really unusual for me. Usually, I don't get up at all during the night. I am really tired this evening and hope to get some good sleep tonight.

A strange thing happened yesterday. All day I was fine. However, when I went to get out of the car yesterday evening my hip hurt really bad. Like it hurt to put weight on it and I could barely walk bad. It was sore all night. It did improve today though. It was well enough that I could still go on walks and workout on the elliptical. It is still a little sore and I have to be careful not to do any twisting motions. If I twist the wrong way there is a sharp pain. Hopefully, it will be all better by tomorrow.

This morning the scale showed I have a half pound loss for the month. I will see what the scale says tomorrow and then I'll pick between the two.

Exercise
Calorie Deficit
Sleep 11 hrs

--One year ago....

Recalculating....

Choose my own weight loss adventure:

If I pick my weigh-in from yesterday, my loss for the month is a half a pound and I have 658 days left.

If I pick my weigh-in from today, my loss for the month is 1.5 pounds and I have 644 days left. In theory of course.

Either way, I am pretty excited to have a loss this month. Hoping to keep the streak going!

Exercise
Calorie Deficit
Sleep 6.5 hrs

--One year ago....

658 (updated from the recalculation)....

Well, I chose the lesser loss of the two for my monthly weigh-in. I lost 0.5 lbs in May. This recalculation of the theoretical number of days left hurt a bit. I am worse off than I was last year. If I had stayed on plan, I would be sitting pretty with a mere 271 days left. My journey is the extended play one with a whopping 658 days left.

Note- I totally still feel how I felt last year. However trying and failing is better than not trying at all.

Exercise
Calorie Deficit
Sleep 7 hrs

--One year ago....

Pipsicle, how did you put in your spoiler?

657....

Had a great day and even had a few calories to spare. This has to show up on the scale eventually- right? I made a minor change last week and we'll see if it helps. If it doesn't seem to, I will make another small change.

I went into the office today and there were more people there. My company had what they called a 'soft opening' on June 1. Folks don't have to come in but those who want to can. They've also started restocking coffee in the break room.

Exercise
Calorie Deficit
Sleep 7 hrs

--One year ago....

656...

I am very happy with the 5-5pm calorie window. There is an added benefit. I go skating on Saturday nights. Those calories go on to my calorie allowance for the bulk of Sunday. Sunday is my rest/recovery day so the extra calorie cushion is nice.

I've figured out that I look shorter by losing a little bit of weight. My shirts hang lower so it gives the illusion I am shorter. The funny thing is I am functionally taller. I can get closer (smaller belly) to the upper cabinets to reach things higher up. LOL.

Exercise
Calorie Deficit
Sleep 7 hrs

--One year ago....

655...

Yesterday, my calorie deficit was triple what I had planned. My reward on the scale was a 2.5 lb gain. Seriously!?! What on earth! Add in the double whammy of weighing exactly the same weight as I weighed last year. Tomorrow is the important weigh-in day. Hoping it straightens itself out.

Skating was fun tonight but I was really tired. Walking for over an hour in 80+ degree weather is tiring. For the last 20 minutes of the skating session most skaters had cleared out. The only ones left were two really good figure skaters and a good hockey skater. And me, of course.

EDIT: I just remembered to update my side bar to show my current total loss as -23 (from -22.5). Last Sunday, I had confirmed the half pound loss.

Exercise
Calorie Deficit
Sleep 8 hrs

=One year ago....

654...

Ah yes, today was official weigh-in day. It was ugly, really ugly. I went back to bed for two hours because the scale reported a +6.5 lb gain since Friday. Yes, my friends, a +6.5 lb gain in two days. The scale never ever drops that much in two days! After two hours, it was reduced to a +4.5 lb gain since Friday. Generally, I like to think the upticks on the scale don't get to me. However, +6.5 lbs in two days is no mere uptick though and so discouraging. I was on-plan every day this week.

The cherry on top is I weigh more today than I did on this date last year. All of the good choices I made in the past year have amounted to nothing. How much would I have gained if I didn't make these good choices? Clearly, I will never know.

On-plan so far today and I will make some more adjustments when I set my calorie target tomorrow. A+ for tenacity!

Rest
Calorie Deficit
Sleep 8 hrs

+One year ago....

653...

I slept really well last night. Made it through another day successfully. The ketone test strips say my calorie tally is accurate. It is only a matter of time before it shows on the scale.

One of my cats had an adventure today. She was really talkative this morning. It almost sounds like chirping. We said a few jokes about what she was telling us. A little while later I notice it was really quiet. It was then I realized what the cat was trying to tell us. She was saying I went out the window and it was really fun.

One of our screens is pushed out by the dog. The window is really low and we have been leaving it closed since the screen is broken. However, my daughter opened it and I has forgotten about the broken screen. When I went to look for the cat she was laying down outside near the hutch the cats spend their outdoor time in.

This cat is pretty skittish so it is fortunate I have a taught her a greeting trick. I hold my hand in a closed fist, fingers down at about her nose height and I say "knuckles" in a high pitched tone. She'll run up to me and rub her body on my knuckles. I used that to round her up.

She then when into the cat hutch. It is a rabbit hutch over a basement window well so the cats can go in and out of it during the day. And she was mad! She ran from side to side scratching at the sides meowing! This is something she has never done before. I guess she liked her taste of freedom and wanted it back.

Exercise
Calorie Deficit
Sleep 8 hrs

=One year ago...