Week 7 in review, middle of week 8

On monday at the end of week 7 I gained a pound. This brings me to a total weight loss of 3.2 pounds. I was pretty pissed off about this, and I really haven't been the same since. That week was bad. I didn't workout as much, I ate more than I was before and I was obviously stressed. This week isn't much better. I don't feel like I'm really sticking to my workout regimen. I feel like I keep cutting corners and thinking it's ok. Granted, I have been working out this week so far, and I'm going hiking tomorrow. My calorie burn is better, but my diet isn't as good. It's not that I'm not eating healthy, it's that I'm not eating very often, which results in bigger portion sizes at dinner, and slower metabolism. My schoolwork has been going slower, and my house isn't as clean as it used to be. I'm not sure if I like this new sleep schedule at all. I need to find a way to live with it and still be productive, I can't rely on my evenings to stay up and do work, I really need to hit the ground running in the morning, so I can relax in the evenings. That kind of thing is hard to change though.
I wanted to post after my weight gain just to say, I'm still here, I haven't given up. The physical therapist gave me the go ahead to start running and hiking. I want to mark tomorrow as a new start for me. I want to eat healthy, be neater, be more motivated and disciplined with schoolwork and workout in the mornings. I'll post again tomorrow with an update.

ending week 7

I haven't posted updates in a few days, and this week has been very difficult for me. I decided to implement another positive habit in the next step to get my life fully functional, and it was waking up at a reasonable time. I decided to start sleeping at 11 and getting up at 7. Although I've been getting closer each day with making this schedule permanent, it's put a strain on my ability to get things done. My days were generally long, and I'd push my schedule back each day. Naturally I have more of a 18 to 20 hour day and I sleep for 9 hours or so when I sleep, so my schedule constantly changes. I decided I wanted to stop this, but the consequence is a much shorter day, and I'm not quite used to it. It's affected my diet and exercise. I haven't worked out very much this week, about 2 days of real workouts and some walking, and no swimming (although I still need new goggles...) and my diet hasn't been the best either. I've been eating more based on mood than on nutritional needs, although today and yesterday were a bit better. I'm a little nervous about my weigh in tomorrow. I just hope I can lose enough to get below 145. I'm worried I won't lose any weight like the week andy was over and we ate pizza during the superbowl. I'll update tomorrow with my weight. I think I'll still try to make this schedule stick, and hopefully I'll get my shit together as time goes by...

Week 6 in review

I lost another 1.2 pounds! Very happy about this, since this week wasn't easy at all. having weight loss with school and everything feels like a great accomplishment for me. This makes 4.2 total, here's to hoping next week I'll get under 145! That'll be exciting. I haven't been that light since the first year I was in Pensacola.

The diets getting easier, and I find I have to make myself think about it so I don't overeat. I'm eating very healthy, but portions are something that require constant thought, so I'm still working on that. Working out regularly isn't so bad either. I enjoy getting a good workout in, it's very satisfying.

so, nothing left to say but on to week 7! If I keep up this weight loss, I'll average over a pound a week in all, including the weeks where things weren't working well, that would feel great. I think in week 7 I want to focus on eating more veggies and less carbs, and pushing my workouts to the next level. I'll post an update :)

A day of food

So I wanted to post a typical day of what I eat. I actually missed taking photos of two of my meals and had to make due. One was Jamba Juice so I just grabbed some stock pics, and the other got photographed when most of it was gone, oh well. Still, I wanted to show what a typical day for lauren is:

Breakfast: Greek yogurt (cherry flavor,) a grapple, two egg whites (from a carton,) and a fourth of an avocado.

After my workout, I stopped at Jamba Juice to get a smoothie for joe. I got myself a MediterreneYUM flatbread and a small all fruit strawberry smoothie. Total calories for this was 470. It's a little higher than usual, but with lots of fruits and veggies, I'm ok with it. BTW, this image actually isn't what I got. Mine didn't have cheese on it.

Some orange juice while making dinner. i was getting pretty hungry. It's from a Dole carton (no preservatives.)

I forgot to take a picture of my plate, so this is the much less pretty version. I baked sausage, potatoes, squash, onions, and mushrooms seasoned with paprika, red peppers, and pepper. It turned out really good. I had one link of sausage cut up and lots of veggies.

Desert. I was doing homework and was feeling out of it. I had some coffee with honey and sugar (watered down Americano style, we were out of milk and my coffee is espresso style) The spoon has peanut butter, a little honey and some dark chocolate, a new favorite desert for me :) I don't have coffee that often but it helps me focus as long as I drink it really slowly. It provides a steady flow of caffeine. I generally only drink coffee when I know I haven't had any caffeine in a few days and it won't make me freak out because I've worked out, which I did today. Now I feel completely normal, the effects of it have worn off.

So that was my day. The general estimate from my calorie app I use is around 1400 calories today. I'm pretty happy the flatbread was the only bread product I ate today. I'm a big carb addict and I've been trying to break myself of the addiction. I eat carbs after working out because it helps me recover and it's a nice reward. It's been tricky eliminating it from dinner, but baking makes that easier.

So I hope this helps someone who happens to see this blog. I know when I first tried to diet, seeing what other people ate helped me. I may do this again sometime and try to take a picture of my plate each time, so you can see the portion size.

Things are going well though, I'll update again when I weight in!

Middle of week 6, fine tuning

I'm doing a little update since it's friday and the weekend is a good chance for me to mess up my diet.

I've been finding that the diet is more challenging than working out. As long as I get myself to the gym, I burn enough calories to be satisfied. I burned about 300 today and most of it was walking, it's really not so hard anymore. I consistantly burn 280 at the pool. My counter is up to 1700 burned in the last 7 days. It's really the eating part that's difficult.


Next time I go to the store I seriously need to stock up on fruits and veggies, I'm running really low and it's affecting how I eat. I burned through the last of the veggies today, all I have are clementines, apples and other fruit left, oh and an avacado. This has led me to eat other things although they aren't bad. I had some whole grain pasta today and with dinner we had rice. It's fine, but I'd like to have the option of having only veggies without carbs, and I didn't really have that option because I was too hungry and there wasn't enough. Breakfast foods are pretty well stocked though, just need a little more milk. I also need to find a new kind of bagel to buy, since mine has high fructose corn syrup in it despite being wheat.

yea, I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to nit pick. My cravings aren't as bad, and I've started really liking my new, whole foods diet but if bad food is available or introduced in my head as a possibility it's a downward spiral. The reason I didn't lose weight last week was because instead of going somewhere healthy, I welcomed the idea of going to california pizza kitchen, and then didn't order something healthy. I agreed to make pizza and wings instead of suggesting a healthier meal, I treated myself to ice cream at cold stone instead of treating myself to frozen yogurt at Menchi's. I'm still in the beginning stages of this change, and I have to be careful about the food that surrounds me. The next grocery trip will definitely be a godsend.


Good news: My knee feels great. I'm really anxious and eager to be able to do things I haven't been able to do since October. I want to hike, run, climb, swim at beaches with strong currents, I want to be able to do Zuzana's workouts on bodyrock.tv. I want to start building up some ass and leg muscles! But it's not there yet, and in fact my therapist said I can't even do yoga yet. it's cardio bike, walking or swimming and that's about it, but I can feel my knee getting stronger. I better do what he says though, I don't want to mess this up.

Also good news, I've discovered the joy of baking. I made a lemon and caper chicken last night and baked a fish and teriyaki veggies tonight. The food's a little bland at the moment, but it'll get there. I'll be introducing a little fattier food for dinner tomorrow: sausage and potatoes, not ideal but it's what we have and I can have fruits and veggies on the side (we still have some all natural frozen veggies.) I think if I make sure to eat whole grains and fresh fruits all day the dinner won't outdo me. I may bake this dish too, but we'll see.

I want to do two things with this blog in the near future. I want to start measuring my waist and posting it, so I can have as accurate a progression gauge as possible, and I want to post photos of every meal I have throughout a day, maybe just for one day, but we'll see. I think if I can see it, it'll help me assess just how healthy I'm eating, and if something comes to this blog, maybe it'll help them lose weight and motivate them.

Overall I feel things are going well, but I'll need to step it up and eat right the next two days to see good results on the scale. I'll post again when I weight in on monday.

week 6 in review

So I weighed myself this morning and I was still 147 pounds. This makes me realize two things: one, superbowl sunday homemade pizza and wings will indeed fill up my stomach and little more than necessary, and two: I need to start measuring my waist. Also, I didn't workout as much this week. I think all in all that "week 2 syndrome" is a pretty good way of explaining this. I've heard for a while that the second week of a new diet plan can really hit hard and be hard to stick by in the second week. So going into week 7 I need to workout more, which I succeeded in doing today, burning almost 500 calories actually, and I need to watch out for treating myself too often. The pizza was a good treat, but two slices was enough, I had four slices and a few wings, which was too much food. I could have had two slices, a little wine, maybe a little bit of dark chocolate and it would have been way less calories. Lesson learned.

I'm looking a little skinnier. I think when I get down to 140, which should be in about 3 weeks, I'll take another picture of myself. I think the ten pound mark is a good chance for rewards, like a new bathing suite and workout outfit, maybe some home equipment, or maybe if my knee is better, I hiking trip.


My swimming is getting much better. I'm paying much more attention to form than to my breathing now, since I pretty  much have my breathing down. I may have to start swimming for longer periods of time. Actually that's not true. I've been overdoing it a little with swimming, because I don't feel worn out, and I end up doing other things throughout the day, and it makes me eat more and lounge around because I'm tired. I think 30 minutes a day is fine for now, we'll work our way up when I'm not as tired.

I may weigh myself again tomorrow morning, it's possible that the food from sunday was still in my system and that's why I broke even. After a full day of healthy eating and some green tea, that sodium and water weight may dissapear, so we'll see.

ending week 6

I wanted to give an update although there isn't much to say. I've been sticking to the healthy diet and working out. This last week I think I haven't dieted quite as well as I did last week, and I'm curious to see if I'll see that on the scale. I decided I should probably measure myself since my weight may fluxuate in the future. With my steady workouts, my muscle may begin to build. I've been eating more bread products although most of them are whole grain, but the amount of carbs in my diet has gone up. This may not matter at all, but we'll see. Tomorrow is superbowl sunday. I know my husband and our friend want to do something like make wings and dip. It'll be a challenge keeping it healthy. There's a chicken place here that has healthy rotisserie chicken, and I think we'll be getting some of that. I may be called upon to make pizza and five layer dip, so I'll be looking around for healthy ways of doing that. Pizza can be made healthy.  Making wheat bread from scratch and keeping the toppings traditional (tomato sauce, mozzerella, basil and olive oil) would be the best way, but I'm not sure how my friend will feel about that combination. Wings I won't be eating, there's just too much fat and skin compared to good meat on those, not including the sauce, that it's just not worth it. A dip would be fun to make but a five layer dip will be challenging. I'll have to make my own quac and be very selective about the layers, I'll also probably need to make a huge amount of pita chips, although maybe I'll be the only one eating those.

So speaking of healthy food, this morning I made outmeal from scratch which turned out very good. I used non fat milk, whole grain rolled oats, a banana, blueberries, a little bit of sugar and cinnamon to add to the flavor. I'm not an oatmeal person, so I was apprehensive about the taste but I liked it. I also tried my hand at homemade chai tea, which turned out a little bland. I'll have to experiment with flavors, and definitely let it steep for much longer next time.

for the most part though, I'm just keeping at it, and enjoying the feeling of a new lifestyle. It feels great to be healthy.

Week 5 in review

I am very happy to report that I've lost 3 pounds in the last week! I think I've definitely found what's working for me now. I'm currently at 147 lbs, and I'm feeling really good going into week 6. My goal was to lose 1.3 pounds and I guess my new diet just kickstarted my weightloss. Even though this is week 6, there is a possibility that I'll experience the "week 2 syndrome", since my new diet started last week, but we'll see. I'm pretty happy right now. I'm eating healthy, and not paying attention to calories, and I've gotten great results from it. I've always known that a "common sense" diet would be much better than counting the calories in every food, and I always knew that focusing on health first would naturally bring about the weightloss, but I'm very happy to find the results I was looking for.

If I can get the same results in week 6, I can honestly say that all the measured diets out there are bullshit. All you really need to do is find out what works for you, and what is healthy for you, and eat that. My diet has consisted mainly of fresh foods, fruits and veggies, meats, and a some grains. I don't eat organic, I don't stay away from pasta, I've just cut it down a bit and eaten it in more moderation.

So, there's not much to be said I suppose. I'm not problem solving anymore, I've found what works and I'm going to stick to it. Now, the challenge will be diet and exercise while being in school, since I've started my new semester :) I'll post updates soon!