Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Day 16 - One Tenth

Diet tip of the day: If you feel frustrated with a diet, change it up. If you try to force yourself to eat something day in and day out, you're more likely to break your diet completely than if you give yourself a little leniency from time to time. Allow yourself to have that really fatty thing you want, but have it as a side, not the main event of your meal. Plus, 1 cup of lettuce is only 10 calories, and you'll end up more satisfied with a plate full of salad than the tiny sliver of 5 cheese lasagna you'd get for the same amount of calories.

I am going through the moment I dreaded: the time that I realize I cannot and will not eat cereal for 14 of my 21 meals a week. It's funny this should happen exactly 2 weeks after we started the diet, and that they recommend you only do it for 2 weeks. Do you think they planned it that way? "Let's see how long we can get people to eat our cereal for the majority of their meals and then build a diet around it!" Well, I am certainly not complaining. My looser fitting jeans are a testament to how well the program works.

But I know how frustrating diets can be, especially when they are strict or monotonous. I think I was a senior in high school when my family tried Nutrisystem. My mom, my dad, and I would get our huge box of food for the month or two months or whatever it was, and every day we would pick out our meals from those boxes. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert/snack. This wouldn't have been a problem if they hadn't kept on running out of my favorites. I'd go to my box and dig for macaroni and cheese. (You saw my last post. It's my weakness.) And what did I find? Let's see... stir fry, stir fry, stir fry, dehydrated burger, dehydrated burger, rubbery chicken, rubbery chicken, stir fry, stir fry, black bean thing that explodes in the microwave every single time, stir fry. By the way, I hate peppers, so stir fry is my enemy.

At the time, I was also taking a medication for my PCOS that causes a lot of nausea. One night, I sat down in front of my box, trying to muster the strength to pick something, and I remember reaching for things, then pulling my arm back, knowing I couldn't do it. I felt absolutely sick to my stomach to even think about eating one of those meals for dinner. I was gaining weight from all the sodium in those prepackaged meals, and I was worse off than where I started. I just started crying right there on the living room floor.

When you feel defeated by a diet, it's the worst feeling. You wonder why you're torturing yourself and not getting results. It breaks you down psychologically when you can't achieve even the smallest of goals. I know what it's like, which is why this time I am refusing to let my confidence by shaken or to be deterred from my weightloss path.

And now for the weigh in. I don't know if I said this in an earlier post, but I was definitely thinking that I didn't lose any weight this week. So, I admit it, I prayed when I stepped on the scale today. Even after eating my big meal of the day (a salad w/ 1/2 slice of turkey, 6 whole wheat crackers, 1 Tbs thous. island dressing, and an apple), I lost weight.

My current weight: 271.6 lbs
Weight lost this week: 2.6 lbs
Weight loss total: 10.4 lbs
Pounds to lose: 96.6 lbs

As one of my roommates pointed out, I'm about one tenth of the way to my goal. I'm really pleased with my weight loss this week. I noticed today that I wasn't hungry when my break came around at work (I actually forgot about it and ended up having to take it 30 min before my shift was up!) and I didn't feel sore or tired after work at all.

My boyfriend and I are going to go for a walk tonight, either once around the block and eat cereal for dinner or a long walk to the center of campus to eat something healthy there.

For my exercise tip, I'm throwing you guys a question. My stomach is a problem area. I have a big ol' saggy belly and a big ol' droopy gut. How do I make sure I target my upper and lower abs? What is your best or favorite ab workout? How do you keep you prevent a tubby tummy?

10 comments:

  1. Hey! Congrats on the first 10! You have a great attitude about the diet. Next week I'm going to re-focus and see what I can do to kick mine back into gear. Thanks for the great insights. :)

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  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  3. Some slightly bad news - you can go for muscle gain in a specific area, but you cannot target weight gain in a given area. Your body takes energy from the most readily available fat - which is usually not where you want it to be! What I have heard is that the places you lose fat first are the places you put it on last.

    I'm not discouraging you from doing abs exercises - far from it! Building up your muscles there will do as much good in the long run as dieting, as far as losing weight goes. But you can't do anything to make the fat there go away faster than someplace else. I'm currently down 32 pounds of my 55, and I still can't see my toes without leaning forward. But everywhere ELSE the fat has come off rapidly. Thank you, LoseIt!

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  4. The following comment was posted earlier today by some friends of my family. I really appreciate the comments, but I'm trying to keep this anonymous, so I'm reposting it without my name. Thanks so much, Megan and Joe!

    "I just noticed you were doing this and just finished reading all of your blogs! I am excited for you and proud of what you have already accomplished. I hope you can keep up with it and I like your little tips of things you can do while watching tv and doing the dishes. Good luck with this journey and Joe and I are going to continue following your journey.

    Megan And Joe"

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  5. Yoga poses that target the abs & tummy: cobra, down dog, (chaturanga of course but that's pretty intense), bridge, plank, and boat!
    Most of those you can do a google image search for. Do a sequence of each for 30 seconds and you'll be surprised how good you feel.

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  6. Hi Shapeshifter! I'm thrilled for your 10 1/2 pound loss. Keep on keepin' on - and I'm loving your blogs... so honest and heartfelt

    KMM

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  7. Thanks so much for the yoga tips Anonymous #3. And KMM, I'm glad you're enjoying hearing about my experiences. I'm glad it's coming across as honest and heartfelt, because that's exactly what I'm trying to be.
    Thanks for the encouragement!

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  8. Yeah, unfortunately you can't target fat loss...
    However, your gut will look better, IME, if you build those muscles, because of the support, etc.

    I like an exercise ball for ab work-- various types of crunches. I also have found simple things like great posture while exercising can work the abs!!

    As far as diet, remember that those cereal diets don't do anything but control your calories! Have the same number of calories from any foods you want and you will lose just as quickly!

    You are doing great!! Keep it up!

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  9. Thanks for the feedback, Phoenix! And with the cereal, I wasn't aiming for a long-term cereal diet. I just needed something strict and scheduled to kick my butt into diet mode. It worked really well, and now I'm shifting into a long-term diet plan.
    Thanks so much for your comments, though.

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