Day 28 — still on track

Yep, today is day 28, and I'm still on track. This morning I was at 160.2, so that's 9.8 pounds in 28 days, which equates to about 2.5 pounds per week so far. I had a bit of a stall for a week or so there, where right after my last post, I stayed at 161.4 for a while no matter what I did. Nothing seemed to matter; it was exactly the same for about a week. Then I didn't weigh myself Saturday or Sunday, and when I hopped on the scale this morning, I was down to 160.2 (at first it said 159.8, but I gave it another go).

I'm definitely planning on continuing with the challenge until my birthday. It's really not that tough, and I don't want to mess up now. I do have a few fun cheats planned for my birthday, but I'm going to try to keep it in check. It don't want to end up spending my birthday feeling sick and gross. So, about 15 more days to go, and I think the first thing I'll do is chug a Coke Zero. There's one sitting in my fridge from this weekend, waiting for me. Of course, having been without caffeine and artificial sweeteners for so long, it'll probably give me a headache. It's tough — part of me is looking forward to some "cheats" and the other part of me doesn't want to undo all of the good I've done over the past month. I bet by my birthday I'll be ready for a little fun, though :)

Day 16 -- Back on track

So, after a short-lived blip on the scale helping me mark the time of the month, I'm  back down to 161.4. Before this lovely increase, I was down to 161.0, so hopefully I'll have another big loss tomorrow to make up for that :)

Even if I don't have a big loss tomorrow, in 15 days I've already lost 8.6 pounds, which is an average of almost 0.6 pound per day and 4 pounds per week. Not too shabby. I hope the next two weeks are as successful.

Coming up, I've got a trip to Charleston, so I'm going to have to redouble my efforts and not forget what I'm working toward here! :)

Day 15 -- halfway there!

It's been a while since I posted, but I'm still on track 100 percent with my Whole 30. I'm halfway through the 30 days, and I'm not going to record my weight because my period brought with it a couple of extra pounds that don't count. But I'm still on track and looking forward to my period being over so that I can have a real weight to report :)

Day 10 – 1/3 of the way there

I can’t believe it’s only been 10 days. It seems like I’ve been eating this way for such a long time now. I’m feeling good, energetic in the afternoons, which is nice. And I lost another 0.8 pounds, so as of this morning, I’m at 162.2. That’s down 7.8 pounds in 10 days and only 2.4 pounds until I get to my lowest. I have to say, this is definitely the longest I’ve sustained a losing streak in a while. I think that has something to do with committing to 30 days … it doesn’t mean I can never cheat or eat out again, but it does mean that I have a special reason for saying “no” to going out or to eating something that isn’t compliant. That’s what I need — a kick in the pants to just stick with this and maybe FINALLY reach my goal of 150.

That’s about all that’s new. We got a delivery of produce yesterday, so I’ve been trying some new things like kale and eating yummy local organic blueberries, which taste awesome.

You know you’re really cutting back on sweet stuff when even your TOOTHPASTE starts to strike you as really sweet J

Day 9

Well, this morning was the first time I saw only a teensy loss on the scale (except when I was eating strawberries and almonds out of control), but I expected that my weight loss would begin to slow down some. This morning, I weighed in at 163 even, which is down 0.2 pounds since yesterday, which is on track for 1.4 pounds per week, a realistic goal.

Everything is pretty much the same. Josh made a crockpot full of chili last night, and that was PERFECT. I got home and it was time to eat right away. Plus, the chili was delicious. I think next time I’ll make an even bigger batch (this was two pounds of ground beef) and possibly add in a pound or so of beef stew meat. It was so good, I even had it for breakfast (and I’m looking forward to having it for lunch as well). Josh threw in the first squash from the garden as well as a zucchini or two, so there are some veggies in it as well. Yum!

Tomorrow, I’ll be 1/3 of the way finished with my Whole 30. I decided not to restart the 30 days even though I had the disastrous Sunbutter situation. I suppose I could, but that would be so disheartening. As it is, I’m hoping/planning to keep it up until my birthday, so if I do and I don’t have any other lapses, then I’ll have completed a 100% clean Whole 30 by then. Hopefully that’ll give me some motivation to stick with Whole 30 for 43 days instead of discouraging me to the point that I want to give up tomorrow.

The only major challenge on the horizon is Oliver’s birthday party, which is a couple of weekends away. I’m going to be making food for it, but I’m trying to limit the amount of sweet stuff in general … Oliver doesn’t need to eat a bunch of crap, and neither do the other kids. I’m going to have a “make your own sandwich (or salad) bar” filled with fresh fruit and veggies, natural meats and a variety of cheeses. Oliver LOVES salad bars, picking what he wants to put on his very own salad, so I think it’ll be nice. We’ll also have a birthday cake, of course, and possibly some other treats that fit the rainbow theme, but hopefully I can keep the focus on fresh, unprocessed, no-added-sugar foods.

Dude. Reading Labels FAIL

I'm so mad at myself (and food manufacturers) right now! I can't believe I did this.

So, the backstory is that I'd heard that sunbutter (peanut butter-esque food that is made with sunflower seeds) was a really tasty replacement for peanut butter, better than almond butter, which I had been buying. So I decided to look for it. For starters, it was $6 for a 16 oz. container, but when I got it home, I actually READ the label, and it had evaporated cane juice, or, in other words, SUGAR in it. So, I set it aside and decided to investigate a good brand of sunbutter that doesn't have added sugar. I looked on the Whole 30 site, and folks were talking about Sunbutter brand as being a good choice. So I went on the Sunbutter site and checked out where I could get it, then made a special trip to a sort-of-out-of-the-way Target to buy it. I looked at the label to make sure, and although it did contain some additives to prevent separation and preservatives, there was no sugar on the label. So I bought it and tried it, and it was OK, but it tasted overly sweet and seemed really thick, since I've gotten used to the somewhat-runny texture of natural peanut butter and almond butter. I didn't really like it THAT much (I couldn't eat much of it, since it tasted so sweet to me), but I thought I was doing better than eating my regular almond butter. I read the label again every time I picked it up because it tasted like it must have sugar in it. So probably four times. Then tonight, I was reading the label to Josh AND SUGAR IS THE SECOND INGREDIENT!! RIGHT AFTER SUNFLOWER SEEDS!!! How did I miss this in all these label readings and in all of this research?? So for the past two days, I've had probably three or four servings of the stuff, so it's not TRAGIC, and at least I realized it NOW. But I hate how food manufacturers just can't leave well enough alone! Why do they have to put a bunch of CRAP in everything they make??

OK, so I'm not going to worry about it any more, but I'm PISSED that even when I think I'm reading labels and being careful, I still get TRICKED into buying things. I mean, that's $12 worth of CRAP THAT I CAN'T EAT that I've bought just trying to try something different from my regular almond butter. And do you know what the ingredients in that are? ALMONDS and SEA SALT. What do you know. Exactly what it says on the jar. Whoda thunk it.

Whole 30 Week 1 Wrap-Up

Well, let’s do the numbers first, even though the number on the scale isn’t what it’s all about, yadda yadda. I started out last Tuesday at 170. This morning, I weighed in at 163.2. That’s a loss of 6.8 pounds in a week. And it would have been more if I hadn’t spent the whole weekend gorging myself on strawberries and almonds. But, those things are out of the house now, I recognize them as triggers to overeat, and I’m going to try to keep that in mind when I go to the store and the strawberries look so delicious. Although, their season is about up anyway, so I should be OK when the strawberries are sort of tart instead of so perfectly red, ripe and sweet.

Anyway, other than that, I’ve been having some intestinal discomfort lately. I thought that taking basically everything out of my diet would help my digestion, but apparently it’s somewhat common to have a digestive adjustment period, or so I read in the comments on the Whole 30 blog post. It could also be the five or so pounds of strawberries that I ate over the past few days. Just maybe.

My headaches are gone, and after several days of feeling exhausted and going to sleep early, I think I’m back to normal. I stay up until 10:30 or so fairly easily now (I was hitting the sack around 9 at the latest for the first few days), and I actually am waking up earlier (before my alarm goes off), refreshed and wide awake.

So, I’m looking forward to the next week. I’m all but certain my serious weight loss won’t continue at the ridiculous rate, but I’m hoping to maintain the downward trend and possibly get to some “new” territory by the end of this experiment. (That would be anything below about 159.8 or 159.6, maybe.) I don’t think three more pounds in three more weeks is TOO much to hope for. And it might set me up to be fairly CLOSE to my goal of 150 by my birthday, even though I recognize that that’s not really a realistic goal anymore.

Anyway, week 2, here I come!

Day 4, feeling better

OK, so, day 4 on tap, and I’m finally feeling like my head might not explode. So that’s a positive improvement. I’m still struggling a bit with my energy levels, since I’ve been relying on caffeine for that. I’m thinking that I might start drinking black coffee or maybe even unsweetened tea to get a little caffeine boost, since caffeine isn’t really the enemy here, artificial sweeteners are.

This morning I weighed in at 164.4, which was down 1.8 pounds since yesterday and 5.6 pounds since Tuesday. Not bad for three days. If only I never regained weight, I probably would have lost 100 pounds by now. And I certainly would have long since been at my goal weight.

I’ve said it before, but it seems like my body really LOVES sticking at around 164 pounds. I mean, the first time I hit 164 was in early DECEMBER, and I’ve been hovering around it ever since, VERY occasionally breaking beyond that barrier, but never staying there for long. Seriously, looking at my weight chart, I’ve only been below 164 for a week or two since December, and most of that time was when I was fasting, and that didn’t seem like real, permanent weight loss, just like a lower number because I had an empty stomach.

Anyway, I’m very excited to have hit 164 and to push forward into real, solid weight loss. I’m sure, though, that my weight loss will begin to slow down now that I’ve hit 164 and I’m basically back to where I was before I starting eating badly once again. I hope I don’t get stuck, but either way, I’m feeling great, and I feel like I’m getting healthier, which I’m sure is partially psychological, but either way! I’ve been through the tough headaches (hopefully they’re gone) and I’m heading in a great direction weight-wise, and I definitely don’t want to give up four days of hard work (13% of the way there!) just to eat something that’ll make me feel sick and/or compromise my progress.

I’m  considering, depending on where I am at the end of this 30-day adventure, extending it for another 12 days to my birthday. I feel like it would be a great present to myself to complete 42 days of this challenge, BUT I don’t want to push it. I may be fed up with this whole idea by the time 30 days rolls around, but I’ll plan on evaluating it at that point and see whether or not I feel like continuing.

EDITED TO ADD: I checked my weight loss record, and according to it, I've lost a total of 95.1 pounds. If I hadn't gained weight in between losses, I would currently weigh 105.4 pounds. Not that I want to weigh that AT ALL, but it's crazy to think how many times over I could have reached my goal by now if I'd just had a little bit of focus. Looking at the chart, I also see that after my initial loss (down to around 170), I've only strictly adhered to the diet for about two weeks at a time, then I'll be lax for a while and start gaining or just treading water again. Hopefully this month-long challenge will help keep me on the right path.

Day 3, still missing caffeine

OK, today is day 3 of 30. I’m 10% of the way there. My head is still killing me from lack of caffeine (I assume). According to an article I read, the headaches can last anywhere from a few days to several weeks. So that’s fun. I’m really excited about continuing to feel my head pounding out of my skull.

Last night, I was in a scroungy-hungry mood. Like there’s something I want but I just can’t figure it out. And I feel like I’m hungry, but I know that I’m not really hungry. So, I ate a few things (an apple, a small second helping of dinner) and then just stopped and moved on.

This morning, I was at 166.2, which is down 1.2 pounds from yesterday and 3.8 pounds since I started. I know it’s basically just water weight that I gained from eating badly, so I’m not getting too excited, although I’m definitely glad to see it go. I’ll be excited when I get back into the low 160s, and I’ll be ecstatic when I hit the 150s again, for real this time.

Josh and I have also agreed to really limit how much we eat out for the next 30 days. It’s going to be tough, because sometimes, all I want is to go out to eat at night or go out to eat with friends. But I know that if I want to do this Whole 30 thing 100 percent by the book, I really can’t eat out very much. In fact, I can’t really think of a place that would be 100 percent compliant … veggies are probably cooked in butter and steaks and other meats often are as well or are seasoned with something unsavory. I’m not really the kind of person to ask a bunch of questions about my food at a restaurant, so it’s probably best just to steer clear of them for a while. And if we’re not eating out, that means we have a little more flexibility in our budget for buying top-quality foods.

Oh, and yesterday, I was looking at the bottle that my multivitamins come in, and apparently they contain all sorts of crap, like glucose and sucrose, artificial colors and artificial flavors. I didn’t take them this morning, and I’m going to go to the store at lunch to see if I can find a less crappy vitamin. They were cheap, so I should have known better than to assume they would be healthy too.

Whole 30, for real this time

So, I recently decided that I was really, really going to actually do the Whole 30 program, for real this time. (Except I'm not going to wait until the end of the 30 days to weigh.) And so I started yesterday.

Yesterday morning, after a weekend of poor food choices, I started at 170. This morning, I was down to 167.4.

I haven't had any caffeinated beverages since Monday night (since my caffeinated beverages of choice all contain artificial sweeteners), and I've been 100% on the plan otherwise as well. I think the no Coke Zero portion of this 30-day experiment will be the toughest, since my head is currently pounding and I was tired at 10 p.m. last night. However, I think that once I break through this initial withdrawal period, it'll make a big difference in how I feel. And I know that much artificial sweetener every day wasn't doing good things for my weight loss efforts.

Also, I'm trying to break the whole "dessert" idea. They talk about it some on the Whole 9 blog, about how people get used to having something "more" after they eat dinner, and even when it's something like an apple and almond butter or some strawberries, if you're not actually hungry and you're just looking to satisfy a craving, you shouldn't eat it. So, I'm trying to break my "habit" eating and just focus on eating when I'm hungry during these 30 days. Food definitely has an emotional/psychological component for me, so if I can work on that for 30 days, hopefully I'll come out ahead, beyond just whatever weight I lose.

Update

OK, so. It’s been a while since I last posted. My weight has gone up and down a bit, but it has pretty much stabilized in the 164/165 range.

I’ve decided to do something radical — I’ve decided to stop focusing so closely on weight and start worrying more about being healthy. I have been very frustrated by how hard it has become to lose weight … to the point that it has begun to overshadow my achievements thus far. I mean, I’ve lost 40 pounds and have kept it off. I’m still eating low-carb, and I’ve encouraged Josh to the point that he’s at his lowest weight ever and looking great. (Not that I take credit for his success.) So I want to focus on the positives. I’m not going to change anything I’ve been doing EXCEPT I’ve been exercising every day for about a week now, and I want to keep that up. I want to be strong and healthy and comfortable … I don’t want to fast my way to a weight that isn’t sustainable in the long term.

So, if I stay at 165 for a while or even forever, it’s a weight in the “normal” weight range, it’s easy to find clothes that fit, and I’m comfortable with myself. And if I’m eating healthy and exercising, I have everything to be proud of, even if I never make it to that mythical 150 on the scale.

That’s my new goal – feel happy and healthy, focus on whole foods and exercise and not overindulging, and move beyond reliance on a number on the scale. It all sounds well and good, but I imagine it will be hard to find the balance between not focusing solely on the scale and not letting my weight creep too far up again. Essentially, I’m going to try to maintain this weight that has become my “new normal,” this 164 which constantly plagues my life and which my body seems to feel comfortable with, for a while.

I’ll still probably weigh every day, since it’s a habit, but I’ll make an effort NOT to let that number determine how I feel about myself that day. It is, quite simply, an unhealthy way of living.

Week 2 weigh-in

Ok, so it's been a while, and I'm a day late with my update, but I'm still on track. Yesterday I was at 162.2, which is down 1.8 pounds down from last week. Not too shabby, but I do wish I could get back to my lowest a bit faster so I could move on to losing new weight and not this same old stuff I've been losing and gaining back a million times over.

I'm still doing a combination of low-carb and intermittent fasting, but I haven't been fasting as much as I once did. That works so well when combined with low-carb.

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Week One Results

So, I’m at 164 this morning, which counts as my official weekly weigh-in. That’s down from 174.2 last Wednesday, so I’ve lost 10.2 pounds over the past week. GRANTED, much of that is water weight from my extreme swelling, but I’m happy to be back below where I was before we left for the beach. I was 165 the Wednesday before we left, so technically I’ve lost 1 pound in two weeks. Not great, but at least it’s a downward trend!

I’ve pretty much lapsed into a way of eating that I’m comfortable with and which seems to work for me. On days that I fast for a full 19 hours (or more), I give myself a LITTLE more latitude as far as what I eat. I’ll eat a few extra servings of nuts or a biscuit when we go out to dinner or something like that. On days that I feel like eating multiple meals, I keep them small and very low carb. Usually, I still don’t eat breakfast on those days, since I’ve really gotten out of the habit. I may grab a few nuts or a piece of cheese or something, but it’s fairly small.

This morning, I ate a more substantial breakfast – with a few bits of leftover roast chicken, some nuts and a slice or two of apple that Josh was cutting up for Oliver’s breakfast. Josh and I are going out to lunch, and I’m going to get fajitas or a tortilla-less burrito, I suppose. It’s not my favorite place to try to eat low-carb because I’m always tempted by the chips. Maybe we can do lunch kind of early, and I can skip dinner. We’ll see.