A little diet update...
While I got all my points in for week 3 on both teams that I am on, it was a horrible week. I was having issues with my food tracker. Mainly, that Spark People want me to eat between 1750 and 2020 calories and that is ENTIRELY WAY TOO MUCH FOOD for me, someone who is a post-op Gastric Bypass patient. While I am 5 years out and can handle more food than someone who is not, I STILL can not eat that much (Ok, well, I CAN. Two trips to Mcdonalds will cure that calorie range, but the point is to eat HEALTHY and I can not do that on that high of a range)
Anywho, I played around and lowered my calorie range. Now, I am a newbie here and didn't really pay attention to my other levels (like, where they were BEFORE I played around) and I ASSUMED (never assume...) that they automatically lowered too. Wrong. They don't. However, this brilliant idea did not occur to me until FRIDAY. So, I spent all week eating healthy. Working out. Finishing up dinner and settling in for the night FULL TO BURSTING, and still being short 80-100 carbs for the day. All the article I see on Spark talk about making sure you hit that bottom number because your body needs carbs for fuel, and if you neglect that, you are actually slowing your body down. After a 10 pound loss the first week and almost 2 more the 2nd week, "slowing down" was not what I wanted. So, I ate.
I ate when I wasn't even hungry to get those carbs in. Then, by the time I went to bed, I was either at the tippy top of my calorie range, or I was OVER, and I still was about 10 carbs short. Ugh. I upped my cardio to help make up for the higher intake of calories, and told myself that "Spark wanted you to eat 1750-2020. You lowered it to 1200-1800. So, if you go over, and are at, say, 1950, you are still in the original range, and that's ok, especially with all this cardio!"
Yeah, Come weigh in I was up 5 pounds. 5 POUNDS! Listen, I have been fat all my life. I know what sayings come out when you lose weight on a diet and then have a week where you gain.
"Listen, you've been working out! It's probably muscle! Muscle weighs more than fat!"
"It's probably water weight! Peee!! Maybe even do umm...#2. That helps!"
"You totally lost inches! Sometimes it takes time for the scale to catch up!"
These are all totally valid statements. However, they don't make me feel any better about a 5 pound gain. I had a small tantrum on Saturday morning. I gave up (I really wasn't going to, I just wanted to "say it".) I called myself names, I didn't even want to work out at that point.
After I was done, my loving and uber supportive boyfriend looked at me and said, "Are you done, Wendy Whiner? Good, now get your fat ass up, and work out. YOU want a change, YOU have to do the changing. Don't be "That" girl".
And he's right. We fall, we make mistakes. We chose the easy way out from time to time. It's ok. It happens. But, you need to pick yourself up, and work even harder to get what you want. In retrospect, my 5 pound gain was probably a combination of water weight (I just finished my "time of the month" a day or two before), Muscle gain, loss of inches (noticeable lost in my waist area), but also as a result of my numbers issues. I did allow myself the weekend "off". I still tracked EVERYTHING I put in my mouth, and I even was able to get in 2 miles on Saturday and one on Sunday, but I let myself have SEVERAL beers with my BFF who came out to see me (She lives an hour away). I did allow myself to have deep fried bar food, and chocolate, and chips. But I TRACKED EVERY BITE. I did manage to keep my numbers in their ranges Saturday, and Sunday, until the very end when I decided on Beer and chips, but now I feel it's out of my system and I am ready to get back on track.
Week 4 is going to be all about starting over. I am going to buckle down on my workouts. Increase my mileage, and add cardio whenever I can, even if it's taking the stairs instead of the elevator. I am also playing along at home with the Strength team to get some core workouts involved. This week I am also going to keep a strict eye on my nutrition and my portions. I am physically going to measure everything. I am going to do what I have never been able to do before....
MARCH ON FORWARD instead of giving up.
Goals for the week:
Hit all 5 points on Nutrition AND Cardio
Hit at least 3 points on Strength (I am not an official member of that team yet)
Do 4 miles a day
Every bite of food in my mouth needs to be of a good nutritional Value. For realsies.
1 comment:
I loved this post. Don't get me wrong. I feel badly that this week didn't go the way you wanted in terms of losing weight. But the fact of the matter is, and it's one of the reasons why I love your blog, you are so real. So many of us have these frustrations, but you wrote about it so candidly and openly, so that I could really identify with what you were saying. And the fact that you are learning from this past week, and are attacking the problems you encountered is so inspiring. Thank you for sharing this, and I wish you the best of luck in the week ahead!
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