Today I’m wearing an outfit that I wore about 4 weeks ago… and shouldn’t have. I stuffed myself into it, held my breath and hoped for the best. But today I put it on and it fits!! Loosely, even.
Finally some concrete proof that the weight loss is having an effect- I am super motivated now. I’m even planning a trip to the gym tonight!
Yep, it happened. A day of drinking water and I’m back up to 162. I considered not reporting it, but that wouldn’t exactly be fair, would it? 
I’m still pretty close to last summer’s weight. I went through my weight journal (I use an online service) and realized I’ve been fooling myself about my weight for much longer than I thought! A quick search through Flickr confirmed that… man there are some mega fat pictures of me out there.
I’m glad I’m finally doing something about it- regardless of appearance, it’s a serious health issue.
New weight: 160
Inches lost: .5
The inches thing is sort of discouraging but I’m glad to see the weight number still going down. Yay!
I kinda suspect the number may go back up in the next few days as I readjust to my normal eating habits (alchohol tends to have a dehydrating effect!)
I actually started dieting January 10 with a starting weight of 176.4. The last time I took my weight was June 2007 and I was 161- it’s taken me 6 weeks of hard work to undo all the damage I’ve done in less than a year! I tell you, when you start to slide it doesn’t take long to pack on the pounds.
My total weight lost (for the year, not for this contest) is 16.4 pounds in 6 weeks or about 2.75 pounds a week. I’m still on track to be bathing-suit ready by June. 
While I usually lose weight at conferences from missed meals and late nights, I’m not so sure about this one. I drank a lot more wine than I usually did… but I don’t remember ordering more than 1 a night. It seems they just appeared as the first one was about to be gone… but I did a TON of walking so I think it all balanced out. I may not have lost, but I’m pretty sure it’s not a gain.
I was happy to meet the very tall, very lean and very nice Simon Heseltine on this trip and catch up with Jenn. (We both tried a little subliminal sabotage on each other… ) I still don’t know why Simon thinks he needs to lose weight, but it’s fun having him on board.
Sooooooo….
What did I eat this week? Oh dear… a different nationality each night!
Night 1: Christine Churchill and I ate burritos. They were good! Not sure why we picked burritos- I think we were just tired of walking. (Reminds me of the last time I was in London and Jill Whalen and I ate pizza because we weren’t sure what else to try.)
Night 2: Thai food. You’ve seen the pictures on Simon’s blog…it was a lot of food. And a lot of fun. Poor John Marshall- he was sitting across from me and saw me pull out the credit card to pay and offered to pick up my dinner so we didn’t have to hassle with the card. Unfortunately, I was paying for Chris Churchill’s dinner (we kind of traded off who paid) so he ended up paying for both of us. (I tried to let him off the hook, but after a good laugh, he still insisted on paying.) What a nice gesture!
Night 3: Brazilian Steak House. Death by Meat. It was interesting… men walking around with big swords of various roasted meats and they would slice some off onto your plate. Andrew Goodman seemed to find something funny about my comments about meat on sticks… also it was Mikkel De Mib Svensen’s birthday. I did NOT eat the desserts someone ordered.
Night 4: Mediterranean with Chris and Mikkel. I limited myself to a chicken-tomato sauce appetizer. But I seriously needed to eat before we went to the SES after party, where I drank way too much. (Some people consider falling down twice to be exercise… leaving my purse behind at the bar was definitely additional exercise! Thanks again to Matt Paine for walking me back and finding the handbag. )
Night 5: Cuban food. I love cuban food, but settled on a chicken in garlic sauce appetizer. Who needs to eat when you have such interesting company? I ended up at a table with John Marshall and his sister and brother-in-law and we had a really fun and entertaining conversation.
Night 6: Indian food in Covent Garden. Mona Elesseily and I specifically went searching for Indian food. It took a while to find a place and even longer to get our food! When it finally arrived, it was very good. I ate too much rice but managed to avoid the bread and crispy things that come with the meal.
Breakfast was usually a skinny latte from Starbucks and lunch was picked out of the conference lunch bags- never very much there that I wanted to eat.
The moment of truth:
Weight: 164.8
Inches lost: .5
It could have been worse, since I had a bad weekend and a kid’s birthday party this past week, so I’m pretty pleased. While the dramatic drop last week was really exciting, you can’t expect to lose that much on a regular basis. 2 pounds is about right.
OK, maybe “dance” is too strong of a word. Before I go any further, Happy Valentine’s Day, all!
I read somewhere (that I can’t find now) that you burn a few extra calories by listening to music. Not much, but it stimulates brain activity and that can’t be bad, can it?
Since my MP3 player disappeared last summer I haven’t really done the music-while-working thing, but my oldest got a nice iPod for Christmas…
Putting on headphones is like going into your own little world and it’s been rare that I’ve had an opportunity to have my own little world. Either I’ve had kids to listen out for, employees coming in and out, phone ringing constantly or even officemates just talking to me the whole time. It’s a rare luxury for me to feel like I’m allowed to tune out and tune in to my own tunes.
But my new cubiclefarm job puts me in the middle of a large group of very quiet workers. Very quiet. Which makes it ideal for a little tuneage to accompany my day. I just have to hold back from singing out loud, which sometimes is very difficult to do.
I don’t think it’s going to show a significant change, but I know I’ve been toe tapping along with my music all day and that can’t hurt. Maybe even a little shoulder dancing when no one was looking. (At least I hope no one was looking.)
Tomorrow: Benchmark day.
Adults get to make their own choices. They don’t “have” to do anything, they choose to do it. I never realized taking a low-carb approach to dieting would fuel so much debate- add weight loss to the religion and politics ban on polite conversation. People get very passionate about it.
Here’s a tip for everyone out there who thinks they know best: Do what works for you. Thank you for your concern but I’ve read everything you are about to tell me about the dangers of low carb eating.
When it comes to losing weight, we all have our own quirks, weaknesses and cravings. We do our research, try some things out, and decide for ourselves what makes sense. That’s the beauty of being an adult- we get to decide what we eat, when and how much.
It’s great that you have an opinion, it’s great that you’ve watched the Today show and heard a nutrition guru speak, it’s great that you’ve read an article or two. Good for you! Go put all that knowledge into practice and show us all by example that you know the “right way” to lose weight.
How about this: You keep all your stories of your friends and cousins and aunts and husband’s co-workers wives dieting disasters to yourself and I’ll keep making my own choices.
Thank you for your concern, I know you mean well. Now shut it.
I’m not talking about yesterday. Suffice it to say, I had to bake a birthday cake and brownies for my youngest’s 6th birthday today and the temptation was too much. We’ll call it a bad day and move on…
My co-worker sent me a link yesterday to Gmap Pedometer a cool little mashup where you can set a route in your neighborhood or park or wherever you walk and get not only the mileage but if you input your weight you can get a calories-used estimate as well as an elevation map.
I find it motivating to learn that when I walk my little neighborhood route, I’m burning around 140 calories! And, keeping in mind that if I go faster I can burn more calories in less time, I can use this baseline to push myself a little harder when I’m out.
Ok now, this is why I’ve gotten so fat! A weekend at home with the kiddos and I’m losing it.
My weekends are usually just me as the kids go off to visit their Dad, but this weekend there was just too much going on with birthday parties and other happenings and to top it off, my sister’s 3 kids stayed over as well. (She and her hubby went off for the weekend and since she’s watching my kids for a week next week while I’m in London… it’s not like I could really say no!)
So first, there’s the PTO bingo friday night 
…. with pizza. 
Then there’s the being around the house all day with the kids snacking constantly and leaving open bags and containers sitting around the kitchen. 
When it’s just me, myself and I, I pretty much stick to the same plan I have during the work day- portioning out my food in the morning and pacing myself through the day eating every few hours. But something about having the kids around just kicks in the urge to eat.
I have no idea why. 
So, on top of everything else, I ran across a box of semi-sweet baking chocolate in the cabinet 
and decided that eating a half of one wouldn’t really hurt anything. But then I got to thinking, when am I ever going to use that other half? And I mean, the wrapper is open now… it was just tormenting me. 
So, I ate the other half.
I was surprised to find that the dark chocolate square was actually a lot better choice than the Weight Watcher’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Sundae I had later that evening. The semi-sweet chocolate actually has very few carbs (because it’s not that sweet) and a lot of cacao (34%). The almonds I munched on mindlessly were actually the biggest offender.
I hate to say that my day’s diet consisted of 3 slices of swiss cheese, a strip of bacon, a half a can of almonds, a couple Laughing Cow cheese wedges, a side salad, a Weight Watchers Chocolate Chip Cookie Sundae and a block of chocolate. I’m not proud of it. 
My exercise this weekend consisted of laundry. 
Lots of laundry. 
I can’t wait to get back to work tomorrow and get away from the 
jokes and the 
and the 
and get the weight loss routine rolling again.
Thank you, SEOsFightfat- without the contest I think it would have been a lot worse. I was really feeling like giving up and going on a carb binge this weekend… but I fought it off.
Now, it’s time for 
Every diet advice article you read emphasizes it: drink lots of water. 
(You did realize this post was about drinking water, right?)
Water’s never been very appealing to me, so I’ve had to dress it up a little to keep the momentum going. Every day when I arrive at the office, while my computer is booting up for the day, I take my 4 water bottles to the water fountain and fill them up. (If you aren’t aware of the controversy over bottled water, check this out. I recycle my bottles so I don’t feel bad at all about it.)
When I get back to my desk, my mix factory gears up. One bottle turns a deep orange with peach-flavored green tea. The second bottle looks a little foggy with a clear raspberry multivitamin drink. The third bottle gets a pinky-tan shade with apple-cranberry white tea and the last bottle is strictly for fun with either pink lemonade or raspberry Crystal Light.
By the end of the day, I’ve usually finished them all off and refilled at least one on my way back from one of my many,many trips to the rest room. 
The refilled bottle gets a black cherry fiber drink packet. Yum!
It’s really easy to keep track as well and make sure I get at least the minimum water amount each day. Since I usually have another bottle or two at home, my average is about 7 bottles a day.
