Suze’s Status 1/5/12

Status: Gained
Mood: Determined

It’s the new year and Zee and I are getting back on track. Both with our “diets” and with the blog. Personally, I have 45-65 pounds left to lose, so hopefully this time I can do it. I lost 45 pounds before I slacked off back in April, and I’ve only gained about 5 of those pounds back. I know I can reach my goal this year.

The first two days were tough. I think the first week will be. I know it’s all in my head, but I feel hungry all the time. It’s rough. Trying to eat lots of low cal things to get me through. But if the first week I don’t do as well as I should, I’m not going to complain…too much. I think this first week will be mainly about readjusting to eating a lower calorie diet and trying to eat right again.

I have a love affair with fried and crunchy, which often are fried, foods. I need to learn to eat those in moderation. Or just on my free days. Haha!

When I begin to give in to temptation I will do my best to remind myself both of the goal I want to reach and how much better I feel when I do eat right regularly. Hopefully, it will help.

Zee and I hope to get some good articles and recipes up for you. Make this blog what we really envisioned from the start. Both a journal of our journeys and a resource and support place for you.

What types of things would you like to see here to help you with your own journey?

Suze’s Status 10/6

Status: Lost
Mood: Frustrated

I lost 4.2 lbs this passed week! I know it’s probably largely water weight and the initial big loss when you start eating right again, but I’m still excited over it and going to celebrate it.

The frustration is over working out, or rather the lack of working out. I was good Sunday and Monday last week and then dropped off. Lots of excuses, none of them great – tired, sore, no time. And now my dad is in the hospital again, which means I’ll likely not workout much, if at all, this week. So I’m frustrated at myself and life. Looks like I’ll be walking that 5K in a few weeks instead of running. Maybe I’ll find some time to run and workout though. At this point, I’d be happy with being able to run at least the first mile. Guess we’ll see how it goes.

Suze’s Status (9/29)

Status: Gained…lost…plataued…gained…
Mood: Determined…to run a half marathon.

Um, sorry for the lack of status updates? And the lack of articles and recipes as well. It’s been a busy couple of month.

Despite the busy month, I can officially say I’m back on the weight loss train. YAY! I have gotten back to tracking my food and calories, and I’ve managed to stay in the range I should. I have also done well with adding working out into my routine. To jump start my training for a half marathon, I signed up for a 5K at the end of October. I have mapped out my training through the date of the 5K and have done reasonably well with it so far. I may not be able to run the entire thing, but I’m going to do my best to run as much of it as I can.

Originally, my goal was simply to be able to run in a 5K next year. However, a few weeks ago, a friend sent out an email to me and a couple of others, asking if we would run a half marathon with her in October 2012. She wants to run in the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Half Marathon. That’s 13.1 miles. A 5K is 3.1 miles. So, basically, said friend asked me to add 10 more miles onto my goal for next year. And I agreed! Yup, I may have lost my mind.

In all honesty, though, I’m certain this is completely doable. If I stay on track with the weight loss, it will all be off by May 2012. So weight will not be an issue when it comes time for really hunkering down and training for this half marathon. Most training schedules are 12 weeks anyways, and I have an entire year! Yup, doable.

I’ve also done the research and, yes, fatties can run. We just have to pay attention to any muscle or joint pains, just like anyone else of any size who decides to start running. I will admit, I’ve added Glucosamine Chondroitin to my daily vitamins though. It’ll help with muscles, ligaments, and joints. (It also helps with skin, so I’m hoping it helps it snap back as I lose weight.)

My ultimate hope is this new goal will push me even harder and will help me to continue to lose weight and get fit, as well as getting me into a workout oriented mindset. I needed to workout regularly, not just go in spurts, and this will force me to do that.

Suze’s Status (7/13)

Status: Gain then Loss
Mood: Disappointed but determined

Sorry for no update last week. I gained a couple of pounds, going up to 220.8. It was depressing even though I knew a portion of it was water weight. I’m really not making excuses for the weight gain. My ankles and feet were swollen. I could see it. I’m guessing the culprit was the fried foods Friday night and the alcohol Friday and Saturday nights. (Which are also a reason for the weight gain, double whammy there.) I was actually surprised I had so much water weight though. I haven’t had a problem with retaining water since I went vegetarian, one of the many reasons keeping me a vegetarian.

Onto this week. I lost weight, going back down to 215.6. I didn’t do anything differently, but I suspect what I lost was mostly the water weight, and perhaps some genuine weight as well. I’ve been trying to eat healthier, although I haven’t been counting calories. Thus the reason I’m disappointed in myself – I know I should count calories and exercise, but I have not done either all week.

That brings us to determined. I am determined to exercise this week. My goal is to do 30 Day Shred before work, even if it means waking up at 4am, and then walking at least 2 miles once I get home from work, as long as it’s light out. I don’t know what my schedule is yet, but if it follows the same patterns I should be able to walk at least 4 or 5 times this week.

All that exercise may be a bit much, but I’m actually hoping it jump starts me into exercising regularly. Even when I was doing well losing weight by counting calories alone, I didn’t do so well on exercising. That’s not acceptable to me anymore. I feel I have to start exercising. Part of that determination is because I know with the free employee meals at work, it’s going to be hard to be specific when it comes to counting calories. It’s also going to be tricky to stay healthy doing it. Yes, I could and should take my lunch to work and it would solve my problems, but until I hit the grocery store to get some packable foods or start cooking and packaging leftovers, I’ll be eating at work…or Subway, my back up plan when the work meal is all meat.

So the goals for this week are:

• Workout to 30 Day Shred at least 4 days this week.
• Walk 2 miles at least 3 days week.
• Work harder at counting my calories. To that end, I joined SparkPeople, since they have an app for the iPhone (& a few other phone types) to count calories. It seems to be working for Zee, so perhaps it will work for me as well.

Suze’s Status (6/27)

Status: Gained
Mood: Tired

But it was only 0.2 lbs! Okay, still bad. Could be worse, but not good. I didn’t track what I ate and I ate a lot of junk food. Fried shrimp and pesto covered pasta salad as the employee meal at work Wednesday! YOU try to pass that up. Then breakfast bar with lots of delicious fried potatoes on Saturday as the employee meal. I also had a few drinks Saturday night and alcohol eats up calories like I eat fried shrimp!

As for tired, well I’ve had some early mornings at work, and I can’t bear to ever go to bed before 11pm, 10pm at the earliest. So not a lot of sleep. Being tired sucks for trying to eat healthy, at least for me. I tend to get ravenously hungry when I’m really tired. And I tend to go for what is easiest and fastest. That generally means high calorie, junk foods.

But today I’m being good. Had some strawberries and blueberries in the fridge, so I’m working my way through those today. Then I’ll cut up the salad stuff. Maybe a healthy start to the week will make me more successful throughout the week.

I’m also debating doing a juice fast for a day or eating raw for a week just to get the junk food addiction out of my system. There really is something addictive about junk food. Sometimes you need to take drastic measures to get over the cravings.

Suze’s Status (6/23)

Status: Gained
Mood: Glad this blog is getting launched. I need the accountability!

I have been so fail the past month and a half about staying on task with my weight loss. Can I blame staring a new job? We get free employee meals and so it’s sometimes difficult to take my lunch/dinner, when I know I could get something yummy from the restaurant, even if it is a risk I won’t be able to eat it because there is meat involved. Much better than my Smart Deli Smoked “Turkey” sandwich and carrot sticks! Although the carrot sticks are quite delicious.

Since starting in October, I got myself down to 210 lbs and then just stopped counting the calories and working out. Now I’m back up to 217, which isn’t horrible, but it’s a little frustrating. I’m really glad this blog is getting back up so I will have another measure of accountability. Hopefully if the world is watching me, I’ll actually do what I need to do to drop a pound or two a week!