The Biggest Loser

I'm not really a big fan of reality TV. For the most part I find it boring. However, the show "The Biggest Loser" is kind of intriguing to me. I relate to the contestants. But I don't really find the time to actually watch the show ;-)
Anyway, while surfing the web this morning, I ran across a video on CNN from Larry King Live, where he interviewed the trainers and finalist on the show. Anyway, the things they said really jived with me, so I figured I'd share it with you.

Big milestone week

Well, this is me at the end of a milestone week. I crossed 2 milestones this week, one academically and one with my weight loss.

On Monday (and not last Friday... long story) I took, and passed my preliminary examination. It was a grueling process and didn't go as well as I'd hoped, but, as my friends keep reminding me, I passed.

On Thursday, I stepped on the scale and found that I've passed the 100 lbs lost mark! 100.9 to be exact. I'm very excited that I've lost that much weight, but I'm a little embarrassed that I had that much to lose. Luckily, its gone now and hopefully, it will never come back.

The picture is from tonight, but the shirt and jacket were purchased for my prelim. My advisor told the people on the phone that were missing me looking "smart" in my green jacket. No, sister, I didn't wear jeans to my prelim.

I'm off to Florida next week for whats is looking like a nice quiet, relaxing Christmas. Like Thanksgiving, I'm not expecting many diet struggles. Though, I am a little nervous about my travel days.

Baking

Lately, I've been doing a lot of baking with my products. I have this recipe for lemon bars which i've started modifying for other kinds of baked goods. I've succeeded in one experiment and kinda failed at the other.

Anyway, my success was making pumpkin bars. I'm pretty excited about this because one of my favorite things about fall is eating pumpkin things. Because of this, I purchased some sugar free pumpkin syrup.

Anyway, to make pumpkins bars, I mix 2 vanilla packets, 1 tablespoon of cheesecake sugar free instant pudding, 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder, 2 tablespoons of the pumpkin syrup and 3 tablespoons of cold water. Then I bake them in a muffin tin (I make 6) at 375 for 13 minutes. You can eat them warm from the oven or chilled.

I also tried chocolate peanut butter bars, and apparently I need to tweak the recipe a little more...

Anyway, by baking, I've added a little variety and holiday cheer to my diet :-)

One holiday down

I'm proud to report that I did a good job on thanksgiving. I even managed to help with the cooking and not eat :-)

I followed my plan almost to the T, except for the Chili Mac. I was foiled because I didn't have any chili! Anyway, instead I made a surprisingly good Asian dish from the Chicken Creole and Savory Chicken.

May biggest struggle these days has been exercising. Its not that I don't like it, but I've been having a hard time finding time. Lately I've been getting home from my stuff and been just exhausted. Hopefully, though, I can get over it. The last two days I've done a pretty good job of finding time and energy to exercise, though I want to get back to the gym. I'm thinking about trying to go early again, if anything, just so I'm used to getting up at 630/700 when my 8am prelim rolls around in 2 weeks. But, we'll see...

A Thanksgiving plan

Well, its officially Thanksgiving. My first big holiday while fasting. I've given a lot of thought to my plan for today.

Food Plan:

• For breakfast, instead of oatmeal, I will make a vanilla chai.
• For appetizers/lunch I will make chicken soup crackers
• For the big supper, I will combine a Chicken Parmesan and Chili for Chili Mac
• For dessert, I will make oatmeal cookies.

Exercising is a little tougher, but I think I will DDR and exercise ball in the morning after I get up and then do some more DDR after I return from my grandparents.

Hopefully this plan will keep me on track and in the box. Luckily I have another thing going for me, my family is really supportive, so I doubt they will let me cheat even if I tried to.

My goal is to make it through the whole holiday season without cheating :-) And I think I can do it!

The march continues forward

Well, I lost another 3 pounds last week, which is very good. I'm kinda surprised the weight loss hasn't slowed down much. I'm sure I won't do as well this week though. I've been super crazy busy and it looks like the busy-ness isn't going to clear up until Dec. 7th (the date of my thesis proposal). The problem with being as busy as I've been is that there is that I have very little time to exercise, and by the time I might be able to exercise, its very late, and I'm exhausted. Not to mention the fact that exercising before bed leads to not sleeping...

Doing some traveling this week.
I'm off to Cleveland to visit my sister and brother-in-law and spending about 4 hours doing work related things in Pittsburgh. Then back home in time for some doctors appointments. And off to G'ma and G'pa for Thanksgiving. I'm still trying to decide what I'm gonna eat though. I kinda wanna figure how to make some sort of pumpkin-y thing, but I might make this cheese-cake thing in our recipe book. I think it will be nice to try something a little new for the special occasion.

Somewhere amid all this traveling, I need to write a 15 page thesis proposal...

Decisions Decisions...

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been thinking a lot about my goals. I've realized, I really need to figure out the rest of my plan... or at least the next step. To be honest, part of me wants to fast until, well... forever, because its easy. And another part of me is getting a little bored and a little jealous of the wonderful food I see other people eating. So, I've decided what my next step is.

There are two things that weighed into this decision. First) I want to fast through the holidays, and 2) my last body composition test suggested that I should probably be around 165 (that is high, mostly because it assumes no lose of lean muscle mass, which will definitely happen). Anyway, so I've decided I will transition to "Healthy Solutions*" after January 17th as soon as I hit 165. That means I will make it through the holidays (and my birthday) and the church mission trip while fasting (which is the easy part) and I'll be at a weight that I'm comfortable with, so the slow down in weight loss on HS won't be devastating.

I still have no idea what my final goal is...

*Healthy solutions is the plan that requires 2 entrees, 3 shakes, and 5 cups of fruits and vegetables. Its recommended for people who want to lose 30 or fewer pounds

Bugging yourself

Tonight i was reading The Slate when I ran across an interesting article about counting calories. The article was talking about using technology to aid in weight loss and calorie counting (hey, I'm all for that!). Specifically, it featured a newer product called The BodyBugg. Its this little arm band that you'd wear all the time and it counts how many calories you are burning. Its kind of like a pedometer on steroids...

Anyway, it seems like a neat tool for maintaining weight if you are also counting your intake calories. And it could be a fun toy too! that is, if it wasn't so ungodly expensive! It costs almost $500 with a nifty little watch thing...

Anyway, apparently I'm too exhausted to type anything more about it, except that you should check it out...

G'night!

New picture

I dressed nicer than usual today because I'm lecturing in my advisor's class, so i figured I snap a quick picture. I'll post something more substantive soon!

Goal met!

Today I meet my second goal! I'm totally excited. I am for sure under my pre-qual weight and even past a place that I usually plateau on every other diet.

Anyway I'm pretty happy with my weight loss this week, thought I'm feeling like I don't really deserve it. Since last Thursday I've only done 1000 calories worth of PA because school is totally insane. Every time I sit down to think about running around Azeroth, I just feel totally exhausted. Actually, my whole schedule has been really "off" this week. I've not really been eating on time so I'm usually trying to squeeze in my last 3 shakes in the same 2 hours I have to try to get in some exercise. And exercising right after a double shake would certainly make me feel sick. Anyway... things should lighten up a lot after tomorrow and hopefully I'll get back to exercising...

But for tonight, like the last 3 nights... sleep wins.

Busting right through the 75 lbs mark

After a rough week last week (I only lost 1 lb) I busted right past the 75 lbs mark and I'm closing in on an arbitrarily chosen "pre-qual" weight. I'm fitting nicely now into most of the clothes I bought before the qual (such as the ultra cute pants in the most recent picture) and I should have some really cute outfits to wear to the big family party at the end of the month.

Today also marks the end of the 20th week of my diet program.

The next few days are looking to be tough for me on the exercise front. I have a big school deadline Monday at midnight and then I start an experiment on Tuesday. My days are going to be packed, and I'm going to have a hard time squeezing in my exercise. I'm going to have to work ultra hard to use exercise for recharging my brain.

New picture!

I took a picture the other day, so I figured I'd post it.
In other news, today I put on a pair of jeans that claims to be size 16!

A Fall-Themed Disaster

So each week, I'm given two assignments that are meant to keep some variety and to keep things from getting to routine. Some of them I remember to do, but I often forget, partly because I like my routine.

Anyway, one of my assignments this week was to have a "Fall-Themed" meal replacement. With this in mind, I picked up some hot cider powder from the store and figured I'd mix it with a vanilla shake. So, today, while packing my food for the day, I grab a packet of cider mix and a vanilla shake to have after lunch.

I mixed it up and tried it... and it was pretty terrible... drinkable, but not exactly enjoyable. I don't know if it was the flavors, or I had too many expectations, or if it was that it was warm. But anyway, for future reference... cider mix and vanilla shake is something I will not do again.

Then again, I shouldn't be so surprised because spiced cider should never be a mix, or made with artificial sweetener. I guess I'll have to wait to have hot cider (or wassail) until after I'm done with this diet.

Sexy?

So a few months ago I read a book called "Sex God" by Rob Bell. Its a great book and I highly recommend it. Anyway, the other day my friend IMed me a link to this blog post about Illustrating BMI in pictures. (Flickr photostream) The post talks about beauty and BMI. In some ways the post is funny because it ranks about being obsessed with changing your BMI (and even makes me feel a little guily about caring). Anyway, this got me thinking about something I read in Sex God.

In the book, Rob Bell tells a story about his child ask his wife "What is sexy?" Her response: Sexy is being comfortable in your own skin.

I looked at the girls and guys in the pictures. Each one of them looks comfortable in their skin. I, on the other hand, am not comfortable in my skin... Unfortunately, I know losing weight won't make me comfortable in my skin (if I thought it would, I probably would have done this a long long time ago)

Oh, and the BMI thing isn't just totally random... There is scientific evidence suggesting that there are good good health reasons to get into the overweight/normal categories. (Oh currently, my BMI is 35, but it was 47 when I started the diet which means I've gone from "Morbidly/Extremely Obese" to just "Obese". My goal weight is in the "Overweight" category.)

In other news: HMR introduced a new option on their diet. Hot Cereal! I've decided to work it into my diet (I'm replacing my Mocha Coffee Shake with a cup of coffee and a bowl on hot cereal) and it is certainly a welcome change. Oh and now I can make oatmeal cookies!

I'll post a new picture soon, I promise.

Metrics of Success

This is my belt. I bought it when I started this diet. It started with 5 holes, and when I went home in July I asked dad to put more holes into it. I now need the ninth hole, which (assuming there is an inch between holes) means I've lost over 8 inches around my waist, which works about to be 3 dress sizes (I'm just about in an 18 and I started in a 24!)

Anyway, just another metric of my success so far.

In other news, the gym routine is going well, though now that the undergrads are back the gym is crowded :-( Luckily, I go early enough that I imagine it will get get less crowded as the semester goes on.

Photo comparison

I just compared my first photo with my photo today... Holy cow... I didn't realize that it was such a big change...
Check it out:

Milestone day!

Today was a milestone day for me.
Today was my 12th weigh in (ie the end of 12 weeks) and I did well in that first 12 weeks. Total, I've lost about 53lbs. I also meet my first goal.
Meeting my first goal meant setting a new goal. Currently I have 2 goals in mind. 1st is getting to my "pre-qual" weight, which is about 25lbs away. My goal is to get there by the end of October . I set it so far away because I need to mentally prepare myself to see my weight loss start to slow down. My second goal is 50lbs away, and when I get there, I'm going to start to transition to the Healthy Solutions program (currently I'm doing the Decision Free program.)

Anyway, in honor of meeting my goal daddy is getting me a PCGamerBike Mini, which I will order tomorrow.

And here is a new picture, just for you:

New picture

Today I fished out my tripod and took a new picture for you all. So far I'm lost almost 50 lbs (my rounding makes traineo think its 49 but oh well close enough)

I'm pretty happy with my progress right now, though I'm getting bored again. I'm not quite sure what to do about it yet.

Anyway, here is new photo:

So far the gym regime is good, except I'm having a tough time getting up. Hopefully next week will be better.

Updated!

Wow, I am bad at blogs...
Anyway, so I wanted to update you all on how I'm doing these days. Things with the diet are going pretty well. Today is the beginning of week 12 (and my last week of the core education program). So far I've lost 46 lbs (though that number will go up today after I get weighted) and I'm feeling pretty good about. More and more people have commented to me (and my friend E) that I'm starting to look pretty good. Its really encouraging that people are starting to notice, though I definitely feel like I have a long way to go. I'm only 7lbs away from my first goal which is exciting, but I think the real achievement for me will be when I hit my "pre-qual" weight.

In exercise news, I've gone to the gym on campus every day this week so far. Surprisingly, I love going to the gym. Its really relaxing, and is always a great way for me to start off my day. Unfortunately, I'm managed to catch a cold this week, which has made me really really tired. So... getting up "early" hasn't exactly been happening, despite the fact that I'm going to bed early.

Oh, and I'll post a new picture soon, but my camera battery is dead and I need to find the charger.

Obesity Epidemic

Sitting here eating lunch of chicken soup and pudding, I stumbled across an interesting article about obesity on the Washington Post.

According to the article, one's chances of obesity increases when someone in their social network becomes obese. Wow, crazy... I hope I haven't had a negative impact on my friends over the last few months.

Luckily, I know from person experience that the opposite is true. Among obese friends and family members, drastic weight loss also seems to be epidemic. About a year and a half ago, my mother lost a bunch of weight. Her weight loss has since influences several of my aunts and uncles, as well as me. So I guess mom deserves a big thanks!

And while I'm here, I figure I'll share my accomplishments to date: I have lost 40 lbs in the past 8 weeks (an average of 5lbs a week), and I'm really hoping to keep that rate up.

I'm still struggling a little with exercise, though I've been traveling a lot lately, which tends to get in my way. Every week I manage to meet the 2000 calorie goal suggested by the program, but I'd really like to be hitting 3000 (since research suggests that that is what people who successfully keep weight off do). So to help me achieve that, I've decided that I need to try really hard to do about 500 cals of exercise a day (which would work out to 3500 a week).
I think i need to set a "start date" for going back to the gym... I have a friend that has said she'd be my gym buddy 2 days a week, so perhaps we will start going soon.

Well, I need to get my traineo page up to date!

Pictures!

I finally got NN to take a picture of me the other day for the blog. Things are going well. So far I've lost just shy of 36 lbs (my traineo is confused because i don't use the decimal places ;-) ). Most of the pants I wore don't fit any more and I had to ask dad to punch new holes in my belt. (I bought a belt when I started and I could just get it to the 1st hole, now I need to use the 5th hole!)

It's been an exciting journey and hopefully you can really see a difference in the picture
Anyway! have a lovely day! I'm off to make a coffee and chocolate shake

Trips, Treats and lack of motivation

For fear that my friends may beat me up, I decided to update this blog.

So far things on the diet are going very well. After lamenting my boredom to my educator A, I started having 1 HMR entree a night. Its pretty nice to actually get to eat something once a day and then entrees are pretty tasty. I don't do much with them, except spice the hell out of them.

A also sent me a bunch of recipes to try. I intended on trying to make some (like brownies!) before I drove home to visit the 'rents because solid food is much better then liquid when driving. Anyway, for a variety of reason, it didn't happen, but now I have all the ingredients for a bunch of tasty things. And speaking of tasty things, I bought some of the little crystal light things to add to bottled water to try mixing in shakes, and they are great! Finally I've found an acceptable way to make fruity shakes! YAY! I've also taken a liking to the puddings.

Anyway, as I really get into my groove with my diet, I'm finding that I'm getting a little bored of my exercise program. I like DDR a lot, but playing it every day is getting a bit old. I'm thinking about buying myself a PCGamerBike. They seem pretty cool, and they mean that World of Warcraft could be my work out. Anyway, I'm going to deliberate over them for a day or too.

Speaking of new toys. I'm also really considering getting a Smart Phone (specifically, this one: Verizon XV6700). One of the biggest reason is to help me get better about keeping a food diary. I almost always forget my little ledger and I've already lost one since I started the diet. I figure I hardly ever leave my phone at home, so I slick smart phone might really help me improve in this area. I tortured myself over the past week researching the features and applications that can run on the phone, but I'll probably wait a little while on that purchase, but maybe not ;-)

Oh yes, and to save the best for last. I've finally broken the 30lbs mark! I still really need to get some pictures... Maybe tomorrow...

Accomplish and Proud

Its been a rough week, but right now I have a distinct feeling of accomplishments. Just 3 weeks into the diet and I have already lost 20 lbs. I lost nearly 5 lbs this week! And I only managed to exercise 1 day all week. I'm really looking forward to another successful week.

I did, however, make the mistake of starting my exercise at midnight... which means I'm not remotely tired even though its bedtime...

In other news, my TSH levels came back high again, which is a strong indication that I have Hypothyroidism. I'm not terrible surprised because there is family history, nor am I terribly upset about. I've suspected for sometime that I have some thyroid problems, though, I can be a bit of a hypochondriac. Anyway, I'm seeing a doctor about it all early next week, to we'll see what happens. I wonder if the reason it never showed up before was because I've always been sort of sedentary and my thyroid was functioning well enough for my sedentary life style, but as I kick it into gear its having a hard time keeping up.

Oh... and I just noticed... all of labels were either neutral, or negative... That was silly of me... so I added a positive one!

:-) Next week, I'll post my Italian Pancakes recipe! Go me!

Behind for the week...

For the first time since I started my diet, I'm behind... I haven't done any intentional exercise in the last 4 days... I was away at annual conference for three of those days, and did a lot of walking, but I don't count that a PA because the walking wasn't with the goal of exercising. As a result, I'm not going going to make 2000 for the week... unless I do something crazy, which is unlikely...

It is especially unlikely because upon return from annual conference, I got very sick... I had a hard time eating sunday and saturday and only had 4 shakes both days... which is below my minimum prescription. I'm gonna get in trouble for it though. The most difficult part was the shear amount of dairy that I'm required to eat and it really didn't sit well when I was feeling sick especially since I had a virus attacking my digestive tract...

Anyway... hopefully today will go better.

Weekly number and update

I'm at annual conference right now (its the legislative meeting for my district of the United Methodist Church) which I really think is my first real test on this diet. I think that I have managed to plan ahead well enough to make sure that I'll be ok during the weekend. I decided to make tons of chicken soup crackers, which seem to be a good way to make sure that I have something I can eat if I get hungry. I was really glad to get the recipe for them when I meet with A, my health educator in the program. All I needed to do was to just follow the recipe and it worked really well! And they are actually tasty and CRUNCHY! So nice to eat something that crunches!

Anyway, what you all really want to know is what my number for the week. This week (Thursday - Wed. Morning) I lost 6 lbs!! That means I've lost a total of 15lbs in 2 weeks! So cool and encouraging. Anyway, I'm sure that I'll lose less next week, especially because getting my PA in for this week will be tough.

Oh, and I hope to post a pancake recipe soon. I'm still getting it perfected.

This post is brought to you by the number 9!

If you happened to look at my traineo page you my have noticed that I lost 9 pounds in my first week of the HMR program. I'm really excited about it and I really wish I could expect that every week... but alas, that isn't the case. Anyway, its really encouraging, so I thought I would share the positive result with internet land ;-)

Week 2 begins: Exhausted, P.A., and goal update

For the first time since I started the diet, I feel physically exhausted. I did not want to get out of bed today and I'm definitely concerned about my ability to do anything that requires any kind of strength. Sleeping late today, however, was the not the first indicator that the diet is affecting my strength. The other day I was leaning over stuff (using my hand on the wall to support myself) to shut of my alarm and I fell... Like my arm couldn't support my weight against the wall. It was not a good start to the day... I'm assuming that as I exercise I will start to get stronger, but I also imagine that will take some time.

Also, in a similar vein, I'm trying to figure out how to get back into the groove of going to the gym. A few years ago, I used to get up early (6:30 or 7:00 am) and go to the campus gym. I'd spend an hour there 5 days doing weight lifting and aerobic exercise. I really need to start doing that again. I remember having a lot more energy when I did that. Though, I really wish the university had circuit training facilities like my undergrad did. Anyway, I figure that the summer is a good time to get back into that groove, but I just need to start going... Unfortunately, waking up at 6:30 or 7:00 am will be hard to do considering how tired I am... But I really want to start going again.

Oh, today I was doing some mental calculations to think about how much weight I should be losing to reach my goal. I calculated, that to meet my goal, I need to be losing 6lbs a week! As a result, I'm going to update my goal a little bit, to make it more attainable. It will still be a stretch, but more realistic.

Anyway, I've made it 6 days and offically start week 2 of the program today!

Day 3: Things are going a little better

I'm in the middle of day three now of this diet. The first day was particularly difficult. I ended up having 7 shakes that day and I had some serious cravings. I went to bed really early to try to keep myself from eating. NN was a sweetheart and tried to make me feel better. Yesterday went a lot better. I went a friend's baby shower, and I managed to keep away from any of the finger foods, though I left a little early because I was getting hungry and I didn't want to make a big deal of making another shake. Today is going reasonably well too.

Over the last three days, I realized that I really am going to have a hard time with eating, err drinking, sweet stuff all the time, and I'm definitely going to missing things that "crunch." Also, I'm a little worried about becoming the "center of attention" as I do that things that I need to do for my diet. I think that I will have a hard time going places with lots of people (esp. people I don't know) and having to go make a shake... I dunno... It's probably all in my head. Anyway... I'm looking forward to going to my friend's place for her memorial day bbq.

Day 1 - Photo documentary

I woke up this morning ready to get started. I made a coffee and chocolate shake, and Nick documented the whole affair, and took my "before" picture.

So, without further ado, Enjoy!

Before Picture

Coffee and ice

In goes the shake powder

Mmmmm Mocha!

Anyway, I've got my travel bag packed to take to work, so we'll see how my first day rounds out! Catch you later!

The countdown is over

I'm sitting in a coffee shop with a friend as I await heading to my Intro class for the HRM program. Tomorrow I start the diet.

This week has been fun, eating all the stuff that I think I'll miss and thinking about the consequences of being overweight that I'll be happy to be rid of. As the week has gone by since that initial appointment I'm getting more and more excited about getting started.

The greatest thing so far is the support I've been getting from my friends and family as I begin this incredible journey. I know that I'll have people to pick me up if I stumble or fall.

Anyway, here I go! Hopefully it'll be a good ride.

Test Post

I want to test how labels work. So... I'm going to put all the labels that I will use on this post :-)

go me!