Friday, January 27, 2012

Thoughts

I can't seem to get into the gym habit. I'm just so exhausted when I get off work. A friend had a decent idea-- to work out right when i get off of work, before I have a chance to relax. Good idea.

And-- since I get off work about 30-45 minutes prior to my fiance, I could head straight to the gym after work and get my cardio in while I wait for him to get off- then we could do our weight lifting together. This is a good idea, and so I need to prep my gym bag and get ready to try this out next week. I'm excited.

Day 17

Yes, I know. It's been a while since I've posted. And I'd like to tell you that I've been so busy out exercising and living life to the fullest that I haven't had time to post. But this isn't true.

I remained at 173.2 until about Friday, January 20th. I went out and had a few beers-- woke up the next morning slightly heavier. Then Saturday the 21st came around-- went out on capital hill-- drank most of the night, and then capped it off with Dick's-- 2 deluxe hamburgers and some fries at 1:30am.  Sunday wasn't any better-- my dad's birthday lead us to JAKs grill, where I had a steak sandwich and potato pancakes, and later that evening we drank beer, watched football and ordered a pizza. NO GOOD.

I weighed in the next day at 181...and this continued for a few days. I immediately got back on track but it doesn't come off as quickly as it went on. Weighed in yesterday at 178.4, and this morning at 176.2...so moving again in the right direction.

I've been cooking these cheesecakes-- they are delicious--addicting--and I think if I can get the recipe right, might be the key to a successful weightloss journey.  Although I lose weight doing strict atkins, I always end up sick of the same meals, and I crave sweets. Since cheesecake is my favorite "bad" food, being able to eat it makes me feel like I'm not on a diet at all. If I can lose weight doing this "cheesecake diet"-- well, anyone can, and it will be the key to really sticking with something.

Right now, I'm just going to start with these two recipes. They are absolutely delicious.  Combining them makes a really great low-carb day-- I obviously need to make some other recipes so I don't get sick of these, but, in order to test out this cheesecake diet thing, I'm going to give this a go for 6 days, and on the 7th, I eat cheesecake for two meals, plus a lulu jimmy johns unwich for dinner.
Daily meals:

Breakfast:
1 slice of cheesecake
1 whey protein shake

Lunch:
1 serving of caserole

Dinner:
1 serving of caserole

Here is the cheesecake:

32oz cream cheese
2 eggs+ 3 egg yolks
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup granulated splenda

mix it all-- pour it all in an 8" spring form pan. bake at 400 for 15 minutes, then 275 for 1.5 hours. Then let sit in the over for 3+ hours before popping into the refrigerator.  Here are the nutrition facts:

fat: 47.49 g
protein: 13.05 g
carbs: 7.43 g

Total calories: 509.33/slice-- assuming 8 slices per cake.

Here is the casserole:

1 pound ground beef
1/2 pound italian sausage
12 oz pack of frozen spinach, thawed and drained
8 oz cream cheese
1/3 cup sour cream
4 teaspoons of taco seasoning
10 oz can ro-tel tomatoes (tomatoes with green chiles)
1/2 cup of slices jalepenos (I use canned)

mix all of these ingredients in a casserole dish. sprinkle 4-8oz of cheddar cheese on top. Then take 2 large chicken breasts, chop them into .25-.5 inch thick slices and lay all over the top of the casserole-- covering the whole dish.

Bake at 350 for 40 minutes, then move to the top rack, and broil for 10 minutes.

Here are the nutrition facts:

fat: 35.01 g
protein: 37.79 g
carbs: 5.94 g

Total calories: 490.01/serving-- assuming 8 servings per casserole.

This casserole is essentially the perfect atkins dish. The percentages follow the golden ration of 65/30/5 almost the tee-- the ratios are 64% fat, 31% protein, 5% carbs-- about as good as it gets.

The cheesecake is higher in fat, so the ratios are off, but this is why I combine it with the whey shake. The cheesecake alone has ratios of 84/10/6.  So you can see-- lacking in the protein-- hence the whey.

Overall, combining two servings of this caserole, and the cheesecake/whey for breakfast, we end up with the following nutrition facts and ratios:

total calories: 1549

total fat: 120
total protein: 110.6
total carbs: 22.3

Ratio: 67/27/6

As you can see, the carb count is a little high at 22.3.  I'll have to see what I can do about this. I think I can play around with the cheesecake recipe some and get those carbs down. Or I can change the serving size of the casserole from 8 to 10 per dish.

All-in-all, pretty good-- I'm really hoping this works well because these two recipes are delicious enough to actually prefer them over other foods-- like actually look forward to eating them-- awesome.

Friday, January 13, 2012

Day 3

Day 3.

Morning weight-- 173.2. First I got on and it said 173. Then I got back on and it said 173.2-- so who knows.

I also weighed in last night at 173 prior to eating dinner.  So it could be that I didn't weigh in lower in the morning because I ate dinner at 9:30pm.

Last night for dinner I made low-carb meatballs off of Linda's low-carb recipes site.  I also made the cheesy broccoli casserole from her sight as well. I ate 4 meatballs and a side of broccoli/cheddar.

Also, I went to the gym-- concentrated on biceps/triceps for weight lifting and then did some cardio:

2 minutes at 2.5
2 minutes at 3.0
2 minutes at 5.0
2 minutes at 3.0
1.5 minutes at 5.0
2 minutes at 3.0
1.5 minutes at 5.0
2 minutes at 3.0
1 minute at 5.0
2 minutes at 3.0
1 minute at 5.0
2 minutes at 3.0
1 minute at 5.0
2 minutes at 3.0
1 minute at 5.0
3 minutes at 3.0
1 minute at 2.5
1 minute at 2.0

For a total of 1.75 miles and 30 minutes.

Quite a bit more cardio than I did on Monday/Tuesday.

So far today I haven't had any food. I know, not good. It's already noon. I came to work with no lunch, just coffee. I thought I'd be going home at lunch-- that's why. I thought my boss would be gone for the day and i could work the afternoon from home. But he left his light on--which means he's coming back. The day has gone by really quickly though, because I've been working all day on developing a website-- nothing is more time consuming.

Chia for now.


Thursday, January 12, 2012

Thoughts

Although I want to have a daily post that reflects my progress and documents my eating/exercise habits, I'd also like to have a place to document how I'm feeling, my frustrations, my triumphs, my victories and failures. So throughout this blog there will also be posts titled "thoughts"-- where I just share.

Eight months used to feel like such a long time to me. I used to look at eight months and think that it was plenty of time to lose weight and get in shape. It seems that as the years go by, time goes by faster and faster-- and now with just eight months before the wedding, I feel like it is just around the corner, and I'm panicking. I feel as though it is way to close to make the full transformation that I'd like to make. I'm optimistic, but not like I used to be. I used to envision a fit/lean body at the end-- now I envision not what I want, but something better than what I have. Realism I suppose, but depressing nonetheless. 

I also worry day in and day out. I just think I waited too long. Wishing I'd have really dove into this process two years ago like I had wanted to.  If I had, I could just learn new healthy habits and not really worry about the progress or scale, so long as in the long-term changes could be seen. Now I feel as though it is so late in the game that I need weekly results or I'll fall behind.

For instance, when I weighed in on December 30th and was 172.2, I thought "great, I'll be in the 160's in a week!" But here we are, two weeks later and I'm 173.2-- something I hadn't planned on and suddenly my goals seem like they're unrealistic. If this is a momentary stall, then I can still stay on track. If it isn't and this is the rate at which I'll be losing, I have no chance at my end goal.

There's something I haven't mentioned about the wedding, either. Something that makes weight-loss more important than it probably should be-- it's a summer wedding, and it's casual, at a lake, and will involve swimming. This means I will be in a bikini at my wedding. A lot of pressure-- there's no slimming dress that can disguise these sins.  I'm sure if I lose any weight people will say that I look good. But I don't want to look "good for me," I want to look good in the grand scheme of things-- good in comparison with the world.

A three day weekend ought to do me some good. I'd like to get out and go hiking somewhere. Exercising outside just feels better. I feel like one of those REI-going, granola-eating, productive people who are healthy and live great lives--with their mud rooms and their german shephards-- their fruit bowls and french presses-- their bath robes and bike racks. I want to be one of THOSE people.

Day 2

mmmk. Day 2. I didn't exercise yesterday, my muscles are so sore from weight lifting on Monday/Tuesday that I just didn't think it was possible. It was to the point that I had to fall onto the toilet seat rather than lower myself...anyway, TMI.

I weighed in this morning at 173.2-- a number I've seen far too many times over the past week or so. I can't seem to shake this number.

For dinner last night, rather than 2 more packet of cream cheese, I had 1/2 cup of broccoli with melted cheddar on top, and about 4oz of steak with bleu cheese dressing.  For desert I had .25 cup of heavy cream with a splash of splenda and a diet coke.

My ketostix turned a dark purple last night, so that's good. I also feel like I'm smaller, regardless of what the scale says.

Current measurements:

Calves: 16"*
Thighs: 26"*
Waist above jeans: 38.75"*
Waist at skinniest point: 30"
Hips at widest point: 45"*
Top of chest: 35"*
Biceps: 13.5"

* over david kahn jeans and smallest black tank top

I read that eating at least half of your daily calories at breakfast is good, so here's today's breakfast:

4 slices of turkey, wrapped with 2 slices of swiss cheese and a packet of mayo
4 hard boiled eggs
2 oz cream cheese

Lunch for today-- don't know yet, will pick out at the store.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Day 1

This is day 1 of my blog.

The point of this blog is to document my weight loss journey until my wedding day. I'm starting later than I'd like, but the big day is September 1st, and I'd like to lose 48 pounds.

Okay, so I've been working on this for a little while-- let me give you my background-- I was scheduled to have my tonsils taken out on December 16th, 2011.  I knew that the recovery was 1-2 weeks and thought this a perfect time to jump-start my weight loss journey.

In the past, I've done Atkins with success and so I've decided to follow this nutritional approach this time as well. So, during my tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy recovery, I ate only the following:

-mashed up avocado
-tuna with 2-3 times the normal amount of mayo
-fried egg (yolk only)
-diet coke
-water

Prior to December 16th, I weighed in at 185.  This is a tie for the most I've weighed in my life.  By the end of my recovery (December 29th), I weighed in at 172.2.  Nice, right? Well, the second I was able to eat more food, I put on a couple of pounds (174-ish)-- then on new years I drank a ton and ate chinese food-- bad move-- up to 177.  So, between January 3rd and today (January 11th), I've done very well, and my cheat has been limited to one night where I had four beers (last Saturday, January 7th). 

I began my exercise routine as of Monday, so I have successfully completed two days.  This morning I weighed in at 173.2, and I've been hovering around this weight for a little while now.  Because of this, I'm doing a 1-2 day fat fast.

If you don't know what a fat-fast is, or anything else I'm talking about here-- I recommend you read DANDR-- Doctor Atkins New Dietary Revolution.  This will explain everything.

Anyway, I'm doing a 1-2 day fat fast, to sink me deep into ketosis and get that scale moving again. 

So, because I don't want to go over everything I've eaten and done over the past two weeks, I'm going to document yesterday and today in this post, only, and we'll move on in new posts from there. I'd document Monday but I can't really remember it. So here goes:

TUESDAY, JANUARY 10th, 2012:

Breakfast:
2 Jimmy Dean Maple sausage Patties
2 flaxseed oil supplements
1/2 avocado
2 tbsp flaxseed
coffee with 1/4 cup half-and-half
1 sugar free redbull

Snack:
4 slices of turkey breast
2 slices of swiss cheese
1 packet of mayo
1 piece of lettuce

Lunch:
1/2 avocado
Grilled chicken breast with 1tbsp EVOO, and 1tbsp Stir fry sauce
Couple of slices of bell pepper

Snack:
handful of almonds

Exercise:
7 minute warm-up on treadmill. 6 minutes of 2.5-3mph walking, plus 1 minute 5mph jog
Weight training-- all upper body/arm
19 minutes on treadmill--
3 minutes- 2.5
1 minutes- 5.0- incline 1
2 minutes- 2.8- incline 1
1 minute- 5.0- incline 1
2 minutes-2.8- incline 1
1 minute- 5.0
2 minutes- 2.8
1 minute- 5.0
2 minutes- 2.8
1 minute- 5.0
3 minute- 2.5


Dinner:
2 sausage patties
1 diet coke
2 flax oil capsules
2 ex-lax

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11th, 2012:

Breakfast:
2 oz creamcheese
1/4 cup half-and-half
1 sugar free rockstar
1 multivitamin
1 manganese
2 thyroid
2 Ibuprofin

Snack:
2oz creamcheese

Lunch:
2oz creamcheese

Snack:
2oz creamcheese

Dinner:
2oz creamcheese



Some other things I'm going to try to work on:  moisturizing for nice skin, washing face at night, massaging thighs in tub for less cellulite.

So my goal is 125 pounds by September 1st. I have not been this weight in my adult life, I don't think.  I did get down to 151 in 2008, but have steadily gained it back since then. Here are my mini goals and associated dates. These posts will be important, as they'll tell me if I'm on target for my goal:

Feb 1st- 164
March 1st- 156
April 1st- 150

I'm not going to post all of the goals, because we'll see how on track I am after the first couple of months. The goals are higher for these three months, as people tend to lose more weight in the beginning of a plan.