Weight In Work Out Wednesday

Well, we've come to the end of another weight-loss challenge over at Shrinking Jeans! Overall, I am happy with the results.

I am down last week's pound that I gained for an overall loss of 4 pounds for the challenge. It is 6, though, since the holidays and that is fantastic! I was headed down a really slippery slope for a while.

This challenge was really great, it was awesome having Beki as my teammate for Sass & Fury!! It was also really great getting back on the wagon and counting calories on My Fitness Pal (I LOVE the app for it, by the way!) I still am counting calories, but had to hit pause for my trip to LA because it just wasn't possible to count. It was barely even possible to eat, we were so busy, but I did the best I could. Also, I did squeeze in every bit of exercise that I could though beforehand; we used date night to ride our long ride, 30 miles, I did my long run (8 miles) on the treadmill and I saved my sprints for the hotel treadmill the morning of the premiere.

Getting the hang of "balance" is really a key to the whole thing. Too restrictive and you piss everyone (even yourself) off; too loose and calorie counting does you no good anyway. Not thinking you're a bad person for missing a day or for going over is also a really big deal. In the end, I am still being healthy and reaching weight-loss goals and that's what it's about, right?

In other news, FIRST TRIATHLON OF THE SEASON THIS SATURDAY!!!!!

I'm excited! I'm nervous! I have a purple cap! Hooray!

This is going to be really great; I have really reached a happy place in open water swims and our mock triathlons have been so confidence-building; my riding has gotten faster and I AM EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!

Escape from Ft. DeSoto HERE WE COME!!!

I just released our triathlon group's newsletter, so if you want, check it out! There are great tips in there for getting out on your bike and safety precautions, there are funny quips about race day superstitions and lotsa other goodies, so go check it out!  (Yes, written by me!)

I hope you did well this challenge!!!

Ps. Don't mind the weird image at the top, I guess Photobucket is working on something and yes it's annoying the crap out of me but it's supposed to be fixed today. 

Weigh In Work Out Wednesday: Calorie Counting Experiment #546

In last week's post at Shrinking Jeans, I outed my inner conflict with "calorie counting in public."

Because believe it or not, it's a thing. Calorie counting in public is not the popular thing to do. In fact, it sort of annoys people.

Half because they think, "GAWD, give it a break already!" And half because when you're counting everything, people (my mom) think you've gone crazy and you're headed to the nearest eating disorder or starvation.

I assure you I am none of those things, nor am I in denial of such things, nor am I in denial that I'm in denial about such things (and so on and so forth.)

It's just that I'm a little over-educated in calorie counting now and uber-aware of what I'm eating while I try to lose the last 10. Like, um, 4 ounces of steak is NOT what I had pictured. Nor did I have any idea that just one cup of pasta takes up like NO space on my plate compared to what I used to pile on there.

I can see when it annoys waiters and waitresses when I ask for nutritional information. It annoys managers of restaurants when I call ahead and ask for nutritional information. It annoys people when they know I've looked up the nutritional information online before I went to a restaurant and it annoys people when I'm at someone's house and I refrain from certain foods or when I measure food in front of people who are at my house. It annoys people on special occasions/holiday/eating celebrations. I don't really blame them.

So, this past week, I was in a few situations that I thought might require easing up a bit and finding balance between totally neurotic and just sort of neurotic. Because I don't really like being the crazyperson, it's just that when I do things only partially, I know I'm not necessarily doing it "right," and I like to do things all the way.

Anyways. The result? No loss this week. None. Not even a pound.

Gah. Sorry Team Sass & Fury!! (My dear love Beki!) We were on the top ten weight-loss team last week too!! Number 6!!

So, that didn't work.


The experiment as follows:

Thursday McDonalds:
What "neurotic me" would have done: Order nothing, eat at home.
What "laid back me" did: Ordered two cheeseburger meal, shared it with 3 year old, got coke. Followed by swimming a mile.

Friday Spring Festival:
What "neurotic me" would have done: carefully scrutinize food so as to try and gather recipe in my head for calorie counting, taking tiny portions or have eaten before hand and not tried anything (BORING!)
What "laid back me" did: tried it all!Tried to estimate calories but eventually stopped and called the day a wash. OH WELL!

Saturday Celebration Station:
What "neurotic me" would have done: drank the protein shake I brought.
What "laid back me" did: ate two teeny tiny slices of pizza and had some lemonade because I was famished and crossed my fingers that the laser tag would work it off! Also, ran 6 miles afterward. IN 59 MINUTES!

Sunday Cheesecake Factory:
What "neurotic me" would have done: suggest somewhere else. Or eat at home and get only coffee.
What "laid back me" did: ordered the 840 cal steak and eggs because it was the fewest calorie-d brunch item (yes, I looked it up beforehand) but also it was a kickass protein meal for after my swim bike and run from the morning! I didnt' finish the whole plate of food either.

Sidenote: Spoiler alert! As much as I love Cheesecake Factory, which I do, my inner calorie counter gets pretty angry that most of their items are more than 1,000 calories and there are pastas on there that are more than 2,200 calories. It's almost criminal, I'm sorry. In some other state, they were forced to publish their nutritional data, and someone in that state was kind enough to post it here. Definitely for me, only a treat, like ONCE A YEAR. (end of sidenote.)

And then my husband and I ordered takeout that night and had a nice night in.

So maybe a little LESS of all that perhaps. *snicker* Not to mention the very basic notion that pizza and Mickey D's really isn't the best for fueling a hard workout but that's neither here or there, right? Ha!

Anyway, went too far the other way and in this case, it didn't balance out like my few indescretions of the previous week did. The good part is, I could do that if I wanted to maintain. But I don't want to maintain right now, I am focused on losing this last little bit.

In non-scale victory news however, my swimming is really coming along and so is my running! Speedwork in both of these REALLY REALLY helps and helps build confidence too.

(Repeat after me: THERE IS NO SPOON!)

I'll just have to be a little more mindful of the food this coming week and I can't apologize for the calorie counting. I'll try not to be so flashy about it, but it's what's gotta get done and that's the end of it.

I know. It's an intricately detailed report of my week and very likely TMI but it's easier to write it all out so I can work through it in my mind, so this is what you get! You're welcome!

How did you do???

Weigh In Work Out Wednesday! My First Open Water Swim of the Season

There were lots of people at the beach last week when we went for our first open water swim of the season but only two of them were in the water.

I don't know why though because even though the water felt sortof cold, it was certainly no where near the unbearable I felt last winter when my friend Melanie and I literally ran in and ran out of the water. That was freezing.

It was a great 1/2 mile swim and with my good buddy Leona pictured up top! Hooray!! Tri season is almost officially here!



It's that time of week again, time to check in! And guess who checked in with me? A 1.5 pound loss checked in with me! Woot! The loss showed up this week! I'm so happy to see you, 1.5 pound loss! I was just hoping for 1 but you brought extra!

Lots of exclamation marks this week because it was sort of a struggle with eating.

First, there was St. Patty's Day, which was completely under control; I worked out and burned extra, I measured my corned beef much to the chagrin of a family member who called my measuring "ridiculous" but that doesn't bother me. Really. No it doesn't.

Then, came Friday. I was all out of calories for the day when we were headed out for date night, but I went ahead with the beer and the Veggie Patch Pizza at Applebees (oh, you say that 1 entire Veggie Patch Pizza is not a single serving? Oh, just 1/8th of it is? Or 1/6th? Well why didn't you mention that BEFORE I ate the whole thing!? But it can't be that bad, it has VEGGIE in the name! There's spinach! Oh, there are 900 CALORIES IN THE WHOLE THING?)

I went back to a voice I once heard that said, "One meal won't break you."

It won't. It just wont.

I worked out the next day, came under my calories, worked out hard on Sunday and came under calories again and ya know what?

It all equalled out.

Calorie counting is hard.

The choices are hard. Especially when food is everywhere.

Birthday parties are the hardest because everyone in my family equates celebrating with food.

So on Sunday, I ate before I left for a birthday party, said no to the hamburgershotdogsandbeans, said yes to the birthday brownie and went home and ate my own dinner. I came under calories, enjoyed the birthday party (does "celebrating" have to mean eating? No, "celebrating" is when my presents are a HIT and they scramble to open up the boxes of MY presents because MY PRESENTS ROCK! And all they do for the rest of the party is play with MY PRESENTS while their friends OGLE!! Now, that's celebrating.)

In the end of my weekly eating wrap up that this turned out to be, yes I enjoyed that pizza and that one brownie. No more saying "I'm bad" for eating. No more judging myself. Just choices.

Now, the hardest part about calorie counting is when I'm spent on calories and I'm STARVING still. The choice about what's the lowest in calories but the most filling is HARD when I'm blinded by hunger! But then I have a Chobani or a bowl of corn flakes and maybe I go over a few calories, but if I'm STARVING, I'm listening to my body about it.

Alright, enough about eating. (Can you tell I'm still trying to figure this thing out?)

The victories are everywhere in my week: conscious eating decisions, a reversal of an unconscious eating decision, all my workouts plus a great 6 mile run in the HEAT! Standing strong when people think I'm crazy for calorie counting, and in the end, 1.5 pounds closer to in shape for tri season!

Oh, wait! Have I mentioned I'm selling Bondi Bands? It's Bondis for Babies! If you buy one, the money goes to fight prematurity!!! Please check out my Bondi Bands here, they're great! (There's 26.2, "Looks like Walking, Feels Like Running," "FOCUS," SHUT UP AND RUN," and many many more!) Thanks to Deb for being my first supporter!!!! Love you!

How did you do this week?

Weigh In Work Out Wednesday: Calorie Counting that WORKS!

Well what do you know!? Calorie counting works!

I am down 1.5 pounds in the first week of the Spring In 2 Action Challenge, hooray!!! Go Team Sass & Fury! And there was a LOT of sweat in that 1.5  pounds, let me tell you.

The main difference? http://www.myfitnesspal.com/. Thank you MY FITNESS PAL! My lovely teammate Beki is also logging at My Fitness Pal and it's great to be able to cheer each other on. (My user name is christieo_7 so if you are on there, let's be friends!)

There is also a lovely free app for my new (large and complicated) phone. And the app is a life-saver. It even had the naked tenders from Buffalo Wild Wings already in it so I could get something after our date night swim without falling off track, so it is FILLED with a great database.

Here's my biggest problem with calorie counting: I never really know how much I should be eating. I calculate the calories I'm supposed to eat. But when I work out, I never know how much I should be eating on top of that or if my calorie intake should change.

I never lost weight with traditional calorie counting because I could never get the numbers right. Too many calories or too few calories, I would do one or the other and stay right where I was at. But... My Fitness Pal fixes that. You add in the exercises, it adjusts the calories.

And for someone who was not in math club or who did not run the concession stand in high school like my husband, the math geek who appreciates and celebrates Pi Day (March 14, ya know, 3.14...) that is what I need.

So my calories every day are 1200 (Gah, I want to eat my arm off just thinking about that.) However, I exercised every day except this past Monday which I had to take off, so I got to eat a lot more than that. And what do you know, it worked! I almost wanted to work out on Monday just to be able to eat more!

But exercise-wise my training last week was:
Wednesday: Run 3 Miles
Thurs: Trainer Workout 1 hour, Cycle 16-20 mph 1 hour (burned 1,300 cals this day!)
Fri: 1500m Swim (date night)
Sat: Run 4 miles,100 pushup challenge day 1
Sun: Spin Class 1 hour, Run 3 Miles (brick)
Mon: Off -- 100 pushup challenge day 2
Tues: Tempo Run 3.5 miles
Weds: Swim 1,500m + strength + 100 pushup challenge day 3, end week one.

The next week looks the same except the run mileage gets upped a little and there should be an ocean swim on Sunday!

After today, I'll be on week 2 of the 100 Pushup Challenge and to be perfectly honest, that one scares me! The numbers jump a lot! Shouldn't it get scary in week 4 or 5? I started the challenge last week and my initial test was 17 pushups, so I started on level 3 for week one. And week one had me doing about 50 pushups, not in a row but in the whole set and I was pretty proud of myself for being able to complete that. But we'll see how week 2 goes!

It was a great week. It takes a lot of work, I mean constant. The meal planning, calculating and choices, the needing of support from things that constantly try to derail me (#mbm!!!).

But it was worth every minute.

I really, really needed this victory.

Weigh-in - Work Out Wednesday

The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans, my favorite place in the world for free online weight-loss challenges and support is hosting a brand new challenge and it starts today! It's not too late to join! We're pairing up in teams of two so go grab a buddy and sign up here!

We are also doing the 100 pushup challenge! I started it a while back and it quickly fizzled but not this time! I'm at it again! So you might even see some more vlogs from me.

I paired up with my good online buddy Beki, from Wild Child Gone Good and our team name is Sass and Fury.

We're going to kick some butt this challenge. We are in the exact same boat, have the same amount to lose and both need a swift kick in the rear for some motivation, so I am hoping we can provide that support for each other.

My tri training is fully under way again and I am counting calories at My Fitness Pal. It says I should be eating just under 1300 calories a day. I get hungry just typing that.

You can see my handy dandy little helper at the top, I want to lose 12 pounds (10 would be good) in time for St. Anthony's on May 1st. 8 pounds would be fine too. Into the new decade is really what I'd like, the last few will come off as the season gets underway.

I'm also about to embark on spreadsheetorama so I can check off my workouts in an organized manner. I am already meal planning so that's a plus. And because all of this will be a matter of choices and making choices and all of the circumstances surrounding those choices can change moment by moment, we're also playing a little support game over at the Sisterhood through Twitter for the month of March. Go read about it here and play along!

Have a great day! Good luck to everyone on this challenge! Moment by Moment!