Day 6...What Blister? Pshhh

No that doesn't mean the blister is gone, or even smaller... Lol. But basically I just didn't let it stop me from having an active day. Since I know this may be the beginning of a long road for me (the bump will keep growing and I may need surgery on it again).... I went ahead and bought some Crocs so I can have my heel exposed and nothing rubbing it.

So with my crocs on my feet... Hubby and I set out to do some geocaching. Seems we always start doing this again in March every year :) Today's weather was GORGEOUS! We found a trail around a lake not too far from home that had a whopping four geocaches right along the way. We found all of them in the beginning part of the walk and the just finished the trail as a nice brisk walk after that.





Ian along the trail to the first geocache.





Pretty spot!





The third cache was cleverly hidden in a log!





The lake and mountains :)

So that was our geocaching walk. Since the actual geocaching part slows you down because you're looking for the cache, writing in the log, putting it back, looking up where the next one is, etc... Our walk time is long compared to if we were just walking.

We were out there for 1 hour, 4 minutes. Total distance 1.8 miles. My calories burned, 340-something.

We were really craving pizza today, so after our walk we went to the nearby shopping area and finally tried Marco's Pizza which they offer by-the-slice. MyFitnessPal said 1 slice of pepperoni there was 290 calories. So Ian and I each ordered 1 slice of pepperoni. Problem was.... The slice size seems to be somewhat... Uh.... Haphazard? Unplanned? Undefined?





One slice was almost twice as big as the other!! Well I took the smaller one because I knew it would fill me up anyway and Ian ate the bigger one. Everyone has said the slices there are HUGE and mine was more average, what you would pull out of a pizza normally. But I still went with the 290 calorie count because who knows. By the way.... It was delicious!! I think it's my new favorite pizza. As long as I only eat 1 slice (which I always do) it will fit into my day. I think going out for a slice is so much better than ordering a pizza at home because.... No leftovers!! That's the key. When we have leftovers I end up having a slice for breakfast the next day... Then lunch.... Then snack.... Lol. This is much more reasonable.

After this we walked across the shopping center so I could go to Lane Bryant. Unfortunately, I had to buy a new pair of size 16 jeans even though I'm a mere 5-7 lbs away from fitting back into my size 14's... Why? Because it's my ONLY pair and today it finally wore all the way through on my inner thigh where my thighs rub together. Grrr! And even when I was in my 14's, I would wear the 16's on period week and stuff.... So yeah I definitely needed to just suck it up and by them. I also found a few v-neck t shirts there with sleeves at the elbow!!! That is SO hard for me to find, I bought it in 4 colors. Definitely want my arm surgery someday but for now, I have to hide the upper arms.

After all that we came home, hung around a while and decided on a nap. We had a few obstacles though...





3 cats on the bed!!! Sheesh!! But we kicked them all out and took our nap :) I am finally starting to sleep better than I was earlier this week. The nap felt so good!

And FINALLY.... An update on the FitBit. It worked today! Something must have fixed it when it reset itself at midnight, because this morning it was working AND filled in the stuff from yesterday that had been all 0's. Same for Ian's, his was working too. So today has been really fun and interesting seeing everything the FitBit says. However I think this post has been long enough already so I'll save more FitBit details for tomorrow!

But here are the basic stats from my day today...

11, 881 steps taken today
(I went for an extra walk tonight just to be sure I went over my 10,000 steps!)

5 floors climbed

5.41 miles traveled today

2702 calories burned


FitBit calculates calories a little bit more accurately. According to them, I sit ll have 570 cals I could eat today (but I'm done eating). It says "at your current pace you should reach your goal weight of 180 lbs by July 3. 2012"!! That would be awesome, but it's hard to believe right now!

Food today 1505 cals, burned 507 thru exercise, net 998 cals (well under 1200 goal).

TODAY'S FOOD DIARY     TODAY'S EXERCISE DIARY

Day 5... Snowhoeing & FitBit Drama

Well... today has been interesting!!!

First of all, I weighed this morning. I should have waiting a full week (Monday morning) but I had to peek. After just 4 days of tracking, I lost 2.6 lbs!!!!! So I will definitely say, this works. However... I have been hungry on just 1200 cals and I think this shows that may be a little low for me, so I will definitely consider bumping it up next week.

My workout today was snowshoeing. I met up with my friend Laura and we went up to the usual trail I've done. It was 45 degrees!!!! The snow was all melty and slushy... and on the trail was very hard-packed. I've never snowshoed in those conditions. We managed to do it though!

A couple pics from the beginning...

 

She is in a lot better shape than me, so she took off and found it pretty easy. But I liked it... I enjoy a challenge and did my best to keep up. We only went a little over 2 miles in 80 minutes... but at my weight I managed to burn a whopping 945 calories according to a few online calculators. Snowshoeing is very high calorie burn. I wish I could have gone more. My back & hips felt good!

 However... I had a bit of a problem. I have a bump on my heel (a bone spur) that tends to cause me problems. I had it "removed" surgically in 2003, they cut my achilles tendon to get to it... it was quite a healing process. Well a few years ago I saw a new podiatrist here in Colorado and I asked her about it  because I felt like it was growing back. She did Xrays and said yes it was growing back... and I have a bunch more in there too, they just aren't causing problems  yet. She said eventually it would grow back to the point it would start causing blisters again. Today, I think that may have happened...

Yep. I got this huge honkin' blister from just 2 miles of snowshoeing. :( Now... so far, I haven't had this from walking or regular workouts. Whereas before my surgery in 2003, I could no longer even wear shoes for a normal day of not doing much... I'd get a blister. So I don't think it's as bad yet as it was before my surgery... but I am definitely getting into problem territory. This is directly on the bump, and my other foot is fine... so it is completely a bump related issue... not my shoes or anything else. Moleskin padding might help next time I snowshoe but it might not. This bump is pretty big again. I'm afraid having the surgery redone is in my future. I am terrified of this because it means no working out for a few months. But... I'm not going to worry YET. Once we have insurance again next month, I'll make an appointment and see what she says. Not sure how I'm gonna put a shoe on and walk tomorrow.

Anyway enough about that.

We had a tasty dinner tonight. Hobo meatball stew. It was delish! Hubby made it in the crock pot since I was out snowshoeing. It was really really tasty.

 

It has meatballs (made with 97% lean beef), potatoes, carrots and onions in a ketchup-based broth. I got full pretty fast. What's interesting is I have a HUGE calorie deficit today... but haven't really eaten anymore than the other days. So I guess that's good!

TODAY'S FOOD DIARY     TODAY'S EXERCISE DIARY

Last but not least... my FitBit arrived today.. Not before snowshoeing though :( So tonight I worked on setting it up.

Initial impressions... it's small... I like it. Got it set up. Got it synced with MyFitnessPal. I like FitBit's website and dashboard. I take some steps around the house... get up to 353 steps. Sync it with the computer. 0's. Steps 0. Miles 0. Everything 0, even though it is successfully syncing. Leave the house for an errand. Come back with over 1,300 steps. Sync again. 0's. My calories burned are changing!! But everything else is 0's. Between a friend's reccommendation and some forum post suggestions... we tried everything... reset the base station. No change. Unplug the base station and replug. No change. Unplug again, uninstall and reinstall the computer software. No change. Ian bought his own fit bit because he wants to try it. He installs on HIS computer. He is getting the same thing, all 0's!!!! So right now he is doing research to try and figure it out. Other people with Macs and the newest Lion OS aren't having issues so we know it's not that. I hope we can get these to work :( I just don't get it!!


Finally, today's ending stats:

Ate 1518 calories, burned 946 through exercise, Net 572 calories (goal is 1200)... LOL!! it says "if every day were like today, you'd weigh 197.7 lbs in 5 weeks." IF ONLY I could snowshoe every day......

Day 4

 TODAY'S FOOD DIARY    TODAY'S EXERCISE DIARY

We were up in Estes Park most of today. I packed a couple meals in my lunchbox and didn't eat anything unplanned. Yay! That's the kind of thing I really need to get back to... being more dilligent about those things.

When we got home I crashed and took a nap, then got up and went for a walk with the hubby.
Walk stats: 38 mins, 1.84 miles, 243 calories burned.

We saw a pretty sunset as we were on our way back:

Dinner tonight was a tuna melt on a small tortilla (just half) and a really tasty orange. After dinner I put on my nerd pants and organized a charging station area in my office:

 

Very pleased with it. I have here the chargers for my two cameras, my work phone, rechargable batteries, iphone/ipod, ipad... and soon there will be one for my FitBit when I get it.

Now I wanna just say a quick blurb about my calorie intake. I am managing, but it's hard! I can't believe that even with my surgery, it's this hard and I'm this hungry. So far I'm getting by but only because I'm working out every day. I'm not sure when I have a day off of working out on Sunday, if I'll be able to stay at 1200 cals.

There is definitely going to be some experimenting because I am honestly feeling hungry most of the day... and I think I've been making really excellent choices and it's still this hard. I am giving it a full week on this, but next week I think I might bump up to 1500 cals and see how that goes. The most important thing will be tracking and creating these better habits. But I need to listen to my body, too. Right?

I don't have my exact total for today yet because I'm going to eat one more small meal tonight... but I have 300 cals left so I should still be under.

Mostly, I'm just really missing my Mom tonight. Can't get her off my mind. This pic made me smile and cry. It's from Christmas 2009.

Day 3

I think this might be a short one... I'm SO tired! Is it strange that I haven't been able to sleep this week? I don't know if it's the extra exercise (maybe I'm revved up?) or the change in eating habits or WHAT. It takes me forever to fall asleep, I wake up a gazillion times, and I lay awake for a good hour or two in the morning before my alarm goes off. I don't know what's up.... but I hope this phase passes soon. I'm TIRED!

So today was just one workout - Curves. My other days have been two workouts. Tomorrow will be just one workout as well because we will be gone all day. I'm really looking forward to getting my FitBit so I can see more accurately how many calories I burn when I do Curves. The lady who runs it thinks she is pretty sure I burn more than the 240 MyFitnessPal is telling me. They also have a chip thing you can use at Curves that will track that... and I might still get it because it helps you work harder and work toward goals on the machines. We shall see!

Food today was OK... just a weird, weird day. Dinner ended up being a disaster... recipe gone awry. I couldn't even eat it so only had a few bites. We then had to be out of the house for the evening because my dad had a photoshoot. (He is a model photographer). So anyway.... Ian and I were both so stressed after dinner. I had eaten some almonds before and ate a string cheese after since I didn't touch my dinner... so I wasn't starving.... and I decided to splurge on a Mocha at Caribou. Freaking 370 calories for a medium... but I wanted it and I sure did savor it.

Earlier in the day, Ian wanted to go to L&L Hawaiian BBQ. I thought... YUM a Loco Moco!!!!! But even the mini size weighed in at a whopping 900 calories. So I went to chick-fil-a while he and my dad enjoyed the hawaiian food. Had half a chicken caesar wrap with just a teensy bit of dressing on it and half a fruit cup.

Then dinner, since we were out for the evening and I was hungry... I ended up at Taco Bell. But I didn't do so bad there.

All in all, my calories for the day came out fine. Ate 1290, Burned 240, Net 1050.

TODAY'S FOOD DIARY    TODAY'S EXERCISE DIARY

I spent my evening out at Caribou surfing iTunes and downloading new music for my workout playlist. So I'm excited to go to the gym next! Which should be tomorrow unless I end up doing a class or something where I don't listen to my own music. Then Friday I get to go snowshoeing!

Day 2 of 30 Day Challenge

Thanks everybody for the comments!!!!! It's nice to know I'm not alone here :)

I have a few things to share today.  I did two workouts - this morning I went to the gym and did 40 mins on the Arc Trainer, hill intervals level 3. It said I burned 448 calories.

In the evening, hubby and I went for a walk. I tracked it with my Walkmeter app and it was 1.51 miles, 32 minutes, and I burned 179 calories.

 

I feel like eating went pretty well today. I ate more of my exercise calories than I did yesterday though. I ended up eating 1,653 calories, which with my exercise leaves me at NET 1026 cals.

TODAY'S FOOD DIARY    TODAY'S EXERCISE DIARY

I'm sort of on the fence with this. I don't know if I "should" eat my exercise calories or not. I read a big long forum post about it and everbody's input. Most people do eat those extra calories and it actually helps them lose. Some swear they can't lose if they eat the extra calories. Some people have a more middle of the road approach... eat what you want to of them, depending on hunger level. So that was what I went with for now. I'll have to see how this goes for me for a few weeks and then reevaluate.

I made a yummy dinner tonight:

Brothy Chicken and Rice Scampi

We used Uncle Ben's 5 min rice instead of plain white rice. This was really tasty. I only ate 1/2 cup of rice (actually a bit less) so that was 100 cals and the shrimp was about 77, and about 20 for the veggies. So it turned out to be a pretty low calorie dinner.

With my surgery I tend to eat 5-6 times per day so although my meals are smaller, they do really add up throughout the day. I'm surprised I can eat as any calories as I do, considering I don't ever really eat more than 1 cup (when the food is solid). 

I can't help but think... if I ate 1600 today when tracking and paying attention, I must have been eating well over 2,000 before. Sheesh!

In other news, we had BEAUTIFUL weather today. 75 degrees. I got to wear Spring clothes for the FIRST time this year and even wore sandals :)

 But... it's supposed to be in the 30's and snowing tomorrow!!!! For crying out loud.... you never know what you are going to get here in Colorado.


I got a fantastic recipe from my friend Sheila...... and I had to try it out today. This is her photo:

 

I got the sugar free syrup from World Market... a nice older lady looked in back for quite a while to find me some. Very sweet. I got the coffee and protein drink at Target (got a different brand than the one pictured). Wanted to try small quantities until I knew if I liked it. Well........ I LOVED IT!!!!!! It's delicious and satisfying and..... I cant believe I'm saying this... I liked it even more than a Starbucks drink!!!!!!!!!! AHHH!!!!!! And I got 17g of protein out of it. Will get 30g out of it once I get the protien drink pictured here but I have to get that in a big case at Costco, so I wanted to be sure I was going to like this first :)

Love love love. Can't wait to have one tomorrow and try it blended... see if that works :)

One last thing. I ordered a FitBit!!!

After all the great things I've heard, I thought this would be a really good investment. I should get it in a few days. I'm excited!!! I'm hoping it will make my calorie intake/expenditure more accurate and easier to understand. We'll see :)

Im Back & I'm in Wieght Loss Blogging Mode!

Hello friends! I'm officially back to blogging. It will be consistent this time. I don't know how/when/if I will catch up on everything that has gone on... but I would like to. However this post is about weight loss (and a lot of my posts coming up soon will be too.)

There's a lot to cover. But this is where I need to start:

My current weight: 216 lbs.

:(

My lowest weight was 198 which I reached in June 2011. I went up to 201-203 range shortly after and stayed there for quite some time, even through my mom's death in August and the busy busy times right after that in Sept/Oct of buying the vacation home and renovating it.

Even after my trip to Hawaii, I was "only" 206 which I thought wasn't too bad for vacation.

SOMEHOW, since then (mid November), I've gained 10 more lbs. WHAT?

I know generally how it has happened.

Bad habits creeped back in. I got more and more lax about allowing splurges more and more often. We ate out a LOT in Nov/Dec/Jan because of moving and being busy, not being settled in at dad's yet. I got to where I was having Starbucks DAILY, and sometimes 2-3 times a day if I hung out there for long periods of time.

I also wasn't exercising regularly... and that is true for the last like, 6 months, since my mom passed away. At first it was because her hospital stay, her death and then all the family around afterward, interrupted my routine. Then, we bought the house and renovated it. I was going back and forth to Estes Park (1.5 hour drive) several times per week, spending tons of time there etc. I was eating out almost all the time... but my level of physical labor was so high, that I maintained my weight pretty decently. Once the house was done.... i was "used" to not really making an effort to exercise.... but I wasn't getting that physical labor anymore. So that combined with the poor eating habits I developed made my weight go up a lot.

I started to notice my clothes getting tight. I had to stop wearing my 14 jeans and put my 16's back on. Still in same shirts but they are tighter. So I weighed.

Once I saw my weight was 215 at the end of January, I knew I needed to start making changes and get back to basics and good sense.

For the whole month of February, I exercised 3-5 days per week... I started cooking dinner at home almost every night.... I cut my Starbucks down to 2 per week instead of daily (or more!).... I drank more water... I cut down junky snacks and desserts and the stuff I just don't need to be eating.

After a whole month of this.... I gained a pound. :(

This was discouraging. I mean I was trying and I made a LOT of changes. I don't get it. Yeah building muscle, yeah it takes time to see change, I know. Blah blah blah. But after a month, I should see SOME sort of change if it's working. So... it's not.

Then I freaked out a little. I mean... I have had surgery... but this isn't that much of a help anymore. Yes it helps in the fact I still can only eat about 1/2 the quantity I could before surgery. Which should make following a diet plan much easier than it used to be. BUT... I'm just like anybody else now... and if I don't pay attention, obviously I can eat enough calories in a day to gain weight.

I started thinking... okay, I need to get more serious again. Track my food and workouts. Weight Watchers? Spark People? SOMETHING. Then I started to immediately feel stressed out.

I feel like I have PTSD when it comes to dieting. PTDD maybe... Post Traumatic Dieting Disorder. LOL... the thought of tracking my food and writing it down and staying within a calorie/points range just makes me feel stressed and trapped. And usually as soon as I try this, I start to feel that way and then I want to just eat EVERYTHING. It's usually counter productive. Which is why last time I thought about doing this (tracking) I ended up stopping because it was making me worse.

So this time I tried the common sense approach... eat better... move more... but obviously it hasn't been enough!!! So I just have to accept that AT LEAST FOR NOW, I need to track in order to make progress.

I have decided to commit myself to tracking 100% faithfully for 30 DAYS. I am hoping that by making it a short term commitment, I can quell some of those stressed out feelings because I know I have an "out" coming. At the end of 30 days, I can reevaluate. I may choose to go for another 30 days, or I may feel it has helped me refocus on proper habits and that I don't HAVE to count every day. Or I may decide to keep tracking until I get back to my low of 198, or until I get to 180 (my current goal). Right now it's wide open... but I will be dilligent for these 30 days and see what comes of it.

I've decided to use MyFitnessPal... mostly because a friend is using it and we can support each other. I used it today, however, I had eaten my first two meals of the day before I decided to do this... so they were higher calorie. I guess that's proof I need this LOL.

Some likes about MyFitnessPal so far:

- I can edit it online, from my iphone app OR from my ipad app. Versitile.
- It's easy to add my own foods and exercises.
- I was allowed to modify the meals and also rename them. So I have my 6 meals a day (labeled meal 1 through meal 6) instead of being limited to 3 meals, 2 snacks, or whatever.
- They've made it somewhat social. It makes a 'status update' kind of thing when you exercise and when you complete your food/exercise diary for the day. Your friends on there can comment on these. Nice motivation.
- When you complete your food/exercise diary for the day it tells you "if every day were like this, you'd weigh xxx Lbs in 5 weeks. LOVE this! Really motivating. On a good day it makes you feel like you have reason to keep going... and I'm sure on a bad day it's a good reminder. I'd imagine if I went way over my cals and it told me if I did that every day, I'd gain 10 lbs in 5 weeks, well that would be a VERY good reminder. lol


So... here is the MyFitnessPal stats that it came up with for me.

I entered that I currently weigh 216 lbs and my goal weight is 180 lbs, and I would like to lose at a rate of 2 lbs per week. I put sedentary lifestyle because the next one up says you are on your feet most of the day at work.... which I'm not. So it says in order to lose at the 2lb per week rate, I need to be at 1,200 cals per day.

Today I ate 1,351 cals (mostly because as I mentioned, I wasn't thinking about this when I had my first two meals today).... however I also worked out twice and burned 536 cals... so my net cals for today is 815.

My workouts today were - 30 mins Curves circuit (burned 240 cals), 49 min walk (burned 296 cals) for a total of 536 cals burned.

This will be an experiment. A good friend of mine who also has the sleeve says she has to stay at 800 cals per day to lose weight. I wonder if this will be the case for me. And I wonder if NET 815 will work? We will just have to see how this month goes and I may try tweaking things if it doesn't go well.

MyFitnessPal said to me at the end of my day today:

"If every day were like today, you would weigh 202.8 lbs in 5 weeks"

EDITED TO ADD: TODAY'S FOOD DIARY LINK
TODAY'S EXERCISE DIARY LINK

Wouldn't that be something??? After months and months of not losing anything, the idea of being able to lose over 13 lbs in 5 weeks sure is appealing. But we will see if it turns out to be true or not!!!!

Hope you guys will stick with me. I will try to update every day about my food end exercise tracking. I will also work on updating other regular life stuff that has occured over the time I've been away.

XOXO

EDITED TO NOTE: Hi guys, so I think it just needs to be said... this isn't supposed to be negative against myself or beating myself up! But at the same time if I keep letting myself make excuses I could be 310 lbs again. Just trying to face the music and move forward with positive goals.. please don't think I hate myself or I'm soooo mad at myself for being 216. I'm just realizing I need to pay attention and work hard to be where I would like to be and take care of myself :)

Dear Mom

(I thought I should share this here. I wrote this before her funeral and it went into the pamphlets that were handed out before the service.)

Dear Mom,

It is so hard to believe you're gone. Your presence remains so strong and I think that's because you made such a lasting impression on every person who knew you. If someone knew you for a few minutes, they were already a friend. If someone knew you a little longer, they quickly became family. You didn't just touch lives… you held them until you found a way to make them better.

The love and support you have shown me are so beyond measure that most people have never experienced an unconditional love like yours. People just don't know what it's like to have someone see the best in them immediately - and always. But I do, because you have always seen me in that light. I have been lucky enough to know this love my entire life and watch joyfully as you spread that love to anyone I welcomed into my life. It's amazing to watch what happens when someone who has never been loved that way gets the chance to experience it with you.

You are the epitome of love. You defined it, as it defined you. Our dreams became your dreams. With you, no dream was ever too big…and no achievement was ever small. You believed in us enough to convince us to believe also. Selfish was not in your dictionary… your concerns were always for everyone else's happiness. You were absolutely devoted to us all and selfless almost to a fault. I am glad you pursued this surgery in hopes of a better life. It may be the only thing you ever did for yourself. We support your choice and accept the outcome because we know you just couldn't handle the pain another day and needed to take this chance at a future.

There are simply not enough words to express how much I love you and how much I will miss you. The loss is indescribable. However, I will find peace because I know your suffering has ended. All the pain you have dealt with for 30 years, the worst of it unfortunately being at the very end… it is all gone now. Your body always held back your spirit, but now you are free…free to fly with the angels. I love you, Mom, forever and always.

Love,

Your Daughter, Christie