1/19/18

My super awesome weight loss blog

I am trying to lose a total of about 45 lbs. This journey started in August when I weighed myself after a week long vacation in California and realized I was as heavy as I had ever been! Time to fix that. 

8/7/17 - I weighed 184.5 lbs with a fat % of 41.3. Heres are 2 'before' pics from the vacation.

Over the past 5 months I have fought to lose 20 lbs. I will admit I am not great about sticking with a strict diet - there have been so many cheat days I can't believe I even lost the 20. But looking back I see that overall I've averaged 1 lb per week. My goal has always been twice that - which explains why I am succeeding albeit slowly; The days I stick with it I'm able to maintain a 1000 calorie deficit and then probably break even on my many cheat days. 

Here is what I know after 5 months:

• 1000 calorie deficit per day = 7000 calories down per week = 2 lb weight loss
• my scale is a lying whore
• ok maybe not but fluctuations in water weight/bloat/etc = many sad days standing on the scale
• weighing myself every day has been really stressful
• snacking destroys me! once i start snacking i will continue indefinitely
• it's always easier to resist starting to eat sweets than it is to stop eating once i started
• I got a lot of great info from Physiqonomics - most of all that I don't eat as much protein as I need to; I fill my calories with carbs a lot of the time
• I have not bought new clothes except for a couple of shirts because I want to wait until I reach goal. However, I can definitely feel and see the difference after 20 lbs. (current pics will be on next post) 
• My running time has improved to the best ever. 6 months ago I was running mostly a 12:00 mile pace. Now I can even do a 6 mile run under 11:00. 
• I have kept my running length capped at 6 miles. Last year I struggled so much on the 2 half marathons I ran that I decided to stick to 10ks this season. I would like to think that once I lose another 25 lbs I might be able to train for a half again... but honestly the 6 miles is still PLENTY tough for me. I don't know how easily I could ramp up the mileage. I feel like my asthma is still limiting me. 

Here are things I've tried:

• the whole time I've used Fitbit to track calories and macros. macros out of curiosity mainly; my sole focus has been on calories
• sometimes I try to set a known calorie goal such as 1200 on non-workout days, 1400 on short run days and 1600 on long run days
• sometimes I let Fitbit calculate my calorie deficit. the problem is when my run isn't until the evening, I end up having to estimate future calorie burn so that I don't close out the day with 1000 calories at dinner just because that's what I earned
• if Fibit is accurate, I typically burn 2200-2700 calories a day. 
• On December 10 (just over a month ago) I quit drinking. It's a huge deal for me! I was definitely a heavy drinker, even while dieting. For a few weeks I didn't keep track of calories because I was allowing myself to just 'settle out' without the alcohol. I lost a few pounds in that time, but now I have plateaued out again. 
• because the winter weather has made it so hard to run outside regularly, I joined planet fitness and memphis fitness kickboxing so that I can keep up my exercise and do more strength training. I like to eat so the more I want to eat, the more I have to exercise. 

So that's where things stand as of today. 1/19/18 I am 163.6lb and 36.1% fat. I am also super frustrated because over the past week I had a 5222 calorie deficit which should = 1.5lb fat loss. What did i weigh a week ago? 163.6. Ugh. In my next post I will discuss the next step in my journey, which is to totally binge this weekend because fuck it, and start a ketogenic diet on Monday.