Well, no Wonder My Jeans Don't Fit Right: the beginning of a weight-loss blog

[aldersprig]

Okay, so, my original goal (when I thought the scale was going to say 166 or so when I stepped on it) was to get to 140 by my father's birthday, July 15.

My current goal is to get to 150 by July 15 and to 140 by October 1st. (Data point: I'm a broad-shouldered five foot eight woman.)

So, I'd been noticing for the last week that my jeans were uncomfortably tight, and finally stepped on the scale - 176.6 lbs. Um. That's a bit higher than I'd been expecting. That's a bit higher than it was last year at this time. :-(

I'm not going to panic, however. I am NOT going to panic.

What I am going to do is try to go at this like I did when I had over 50 lbs to lose.

I'm going to track everything. Everything. I know I've been mindlessly snacking on pretzels at work, and I'm going to count them now.

Exercise: I joined the gym again last week. 2x a week in the gym, 3x if I can wrangle the time, and something physical at total of at least 6x a week.

I am not going to panic.

I'm still pondering /what/ weight-loss/food tracking system to use. Using Weight Watchers worked for me; using Weight Watchers new-system with someone else figuring the points didn't work nearly as well. So do I go back to old system? Do I buy a membership? Do I try something free?

Food tracking is only half of it; I've discovered that I need concrete numbers and limits. And, of course, I need to remember to stay active.

Here we go. 26(ish) weeks, 26(.6) lbs. Let's go.



Note: Please do not suggest or tell me 1) I don't want to get down to xx weight, 2) xx is not a healthy weight, 3) anything else suggesting I don't know what weight I might want to get to/look good having reached.

Comments

[purplecat]

Have you got a smart phone? I've been using an app called TapAndTrack (it lets me log all food and all exercise and gives a nice visual for how many calories I have left in hand for the day) - though I believe MyFitnessPal is very similar. I've been losing weight fairly steadily at about half a pound a week since October and am now within 2 lbs of my target. It has helped that my partner has been losing weight at the same time so we can support each other and are both working out the calorie content of anything we cook, but even so the convenience of a logging app on the phone (with a database for quick look up of food and a place to store as favourites anything regularly eaten) has made a huge difference to my ability to actually keep track of how much I eat and how much I burn.

[aldersprig]

No smart phone, sadly; I barely have a phone.

On the other hand, I do have almost continual computer/internet access (Desk job)

I'll look into MyFitnessPal. Thanks!

[clare_dragonfly]

Don't panic! ::hugs:: And good luck. Be healthy. I'm sure you will, but I wish the best health for you anyway. ♥

I wish I could offer suggestions, but concrete numbers soooo don't work for me.

[aldersprig]

Hugs and support are good! I have to remember to stick to it, primarily.

[inventrix]

You can do it~

Is the someone-else-figuring-the-points part of the new system? Because if not, I think that's probably the part that was making it not work as well, rather than the system change. I've found personally that reducing one's level of personal involvement in... improving one's daily living patterns? let's go with that phrase, is almost invariably a guarantee for backsliding.

Anywho, I dunno how helpful it would be for you, but one idea I've always loved is keeping a data log. Not just food tracking, but treating food tracking like an observational experiment or something. Then again I love data logs. 8D

Or maybe, each day gets a specific number of slots in Food Category X and you have to fill in a data point for each serving of Food Category X into the appropriate slot before you eat it. Then if you don't have a spot then you can't have it, and your goal is to fill up all of your primary food slots every day. (I think that sort of tracking would work well with Weight Watchers, as well, along with your goal to Eat More Veggies.)

The biggest thing in that suggestion is that you have to record it before you eat it. I think that might help break any bad eating habits you might have and also avoid bad slips by forcing you to think about what you're about to eat. And then having to fill up all of the primary slots would make sure you're eating enough nutritional variety and also not under-eating. (Secondary slots would be like, I dunno. Elective courses. Free time. Optional slots you can use as a reasonable degree of wiggle room or that don't count towards, say, daily point goals.)

[inventrix]

p.s. is it bad that I thought 'oh too bad it wasn't 177.6 because that's 1776 and the year the declaration of independence was written and that'd have been kind of cool'

>.>
<.<

p.p.s. come to think of it, I would probably aim for 144 because it's a square because I'm a nerd xD

[aldersprig]

144 is like my favorite number (I blame the Hobbit)!

And the 177.6 is amusing at least. :-D

[aldersprig]

The someone-else-figuring it is mostly because Ri bought the new system and I did not. I think you're right - yes, that's probably a lot of the fail.

Data log?

Also, recording before I eat it is brilliant. And I'm liking the Food Category Slots idea too.

[inventrix]

Hmmm~ In that case, I would say whether you should use the old system or the new system is really dependent on whether you feel using the new system is worth spending money on? (I definitely recommend continuing to use WW though, since you've had past success with it and it's familiar, which makes it easier to adopt.)

Data log! So basically you enter each of your food items like an experimental observation, recording the relevant details to said experiment in a chart. I'm not completely sure what the details would be as I don't have the foggiest clue what your diet actually looks like, but if I were ever to get around to doing it for myself (someday) I'd record, say... the time, the protein rating (from a predetermined list of which foods get which protein rating), quantity of starch/sugars, quantity of vegetables (by volume?), maybe a calorie count because I've always wondered how many calories I eat per day. Oh, and volume of water.

It'd all be numbers!

You can even make graphs from it every week/month!

[aldersprig]

That... is lovely. And not too far off from the WW way of tracking things, too.

[inventrix]

Oooh, awesome. :D (GRAPHS!)

[aldersprig]

GRAPHS why did I never think f making GRAPHS of my food by type?