Weight loss and exercise #2

159 this morning. Still flirting with the top of my range. Went over again yesterday, but not by much.

I didn’t eat anything until 12:30 this afternoon. I went to ihop for lunch.. I had the chocolate pancakes and fries. I ordered some cupcake pancakes for tommrows lunch. I ate the fries and half of the pancakes. I came home and around 2:30 had a can of artichoke hearts. The can had 140 calories. I finished the pancakes for dinner. My calculator said 1,060 calories today. I think the pancakes might have had a bit more. So I’m probably more at 1,200 or 1,250. I only drank water today. Not even anything diet. I’m guessing my weight is at 155 but as I said I can’t weigh myself for another week.

No exercise today again. This inactivity needs to stop. I will exercise tomorrow. I will go to the gym soon tonight. My target is 2200, which I reached almost exactly. I must remember to weigh myself tomorrow morning.

159 again this morning; still high in the range but still in the range. I will weigh next on Tuesday.

My calculator says 1,170 calories for the day. I didn’t measure or weigh my dinner. I doubt my chicken was 4oz and I think I only had about 5-6 shrimp and the serving was 11. I felt self conscious weighing and counting my food in front of everyone. We are having a large party at my house. So I’m probably way under. I’ve had no energy mentally lately so I didn’t really care tonight.

I ballpark chicken a lot and I am usually pretty close. I always guess before I weight it, so that when I can't I feel pretty confident. Converted to calories, my guess is probably within 50 well over 90% of the time. I would worry more about guessing with something more calorie dense and unusual (in terms of logging it and knowing calories) like a dessert. I don't eat mammals, so I eat a lot of chicken and a fair amount of seafood. You want to weigh things when you can, but guessing shrimp and chicken every now and then is not likely to get you off course.

I ate too much yesterday and returned to one of my old habits of rolling forward today. I am hopeful this will help put a stop to my recent overages. I really can't remember now what made me think it was a bad habit. I started the day with close to 500 calories already logged and it did make me think harder about breakfast choices, eat healthy but light and not have that last cupcake. The "just try and do better tomorrow" approach really isn't working. I still have not gone over my maintenance range, which is 150-160, but I have been 159 the last couple of times after moving in that direction for the last month or two. I was down around 155 with a few lower dips not all that long ago. I need to get back in weight loss mode and go to the bottom of the range.

I am going to yoga again on Tuesday.My diet is not going well this week,I ate chocolate biscuits and ginger biscuits,usually I never buy biscuits and I also had two packets of jam tarts.Today at the cinema I bought candy and ate a whole packet of Jaffa cake biscuits.Not the way my diet should be and I need to make improvements and change my diet so I am losing weight.Not to mention I am a type 2 diabetic.

I ate a 430 calorie bag of chips today for my first meal at 10. But then I had 8oz of grilled chicken in a flour tortilla for lunch. That was 410 calories. Dinner was a turkey and stuffing Stouffers TV dinner. That had 280 calories. It was only 1,120 calories for the entire day but I have barely left my couch at all today. I doubt I’ve done more then a thousand steps.

Zero exercise today except maybe vacuuming. I will do a little TRX and pull ups in a few minutes, but it won't really be enough to log or count towards anything.

The good news is that I am 15 below calorie goal and because I rolled all but 49 calories of the overage from yesterday into today, I averaged 1517 for the two days this weekend. It's a little early to say I got my mojo/discipline back but I am hopeful. I really think rolling forward again is the best idea. Knowing I have to pay the piper and not just try to make it up knowing I have some room to slide a little helps. I have to keep doing it even after I get back room to slide a little again. One motivation I have is that some of the ab work I have been doing is starting to pay off, but I need to lose to the bottom of my range to really make them pop.

I will weigh next on Tuesday.

Lets start with yesterday, Saturday. 13,212 steps. Exercised 4.17 miles. Burned 460 calories. This made for a target of 2660 calories. I had only consumed 1677 calories. So I was woefully short by 993 calories. I just was not hungry enough to finish off something like a piece of mega-calorie pie.

Now for today, Sunday. I weigh 171 pounds. I slipped a little. I did not exercise. So I have a target of 2200 calories. I think the shortage from yesterday was so outrageously low that I could not do any wrong. I ended up with a dessert that I made myself of around 1000 calories. So I ended up consuming 2848 calories. This makes for an overage of 648 calories, which still makes me short net calories. At this point, I am not seeing this much of an issue, but I will eat a bit more tomorrow.

I am finding out that if I push myself for my running exercise one day, I may need up to three days to recover. I waited three days by happenstance this time and found myself to have noticeably much more energy. I think recovery time can be just as important as time spent exercising. So I need to keep this in mind for the future.

When I am not running, I go to the fitness center. I focus mostly on my arms and back and midsection. My arms are scrawny. This will take time. So if I do not run tomorrow, which is actually later today, I will go to the center. As I get better, I am actually beginning to enjoy running. I think what may begin to happen is weight loss due to calories spent at the fitness center that are difficult for me to assess.

I did get the chance to weigh myself this morning around 5AM. On Friday I was 156.8 but today I was 155 exactly. In just 10 pounds I’ll be a normal BMI for my height. I had a burger today and I’m not sure on the calories but I was just going to have soup for dinner and I should be fine.

Pretty much right at goal, though I might have under logged dinner due to eating family style (with the family) so I didn't weigh things out. The other wild card is exercise this morning. 45 minutes of full on cardio that the machine pegged at over 500 plus 30 minutes of circuit training that was more toward strength training than cardio. I took 475 total. Worst case might be a wash instead of a deficit. I will weigh in the morning. I am not too stressed about it, though a nasty surprise is not out of the question if I am retaining water. I think I will be 158 or 159.

Surprised in a nice way this morning - 157. I am not kidding myself about being able to slack off though. I want to see a few low 150s before I believe I have it back under control.

I am at 169 pounds. What are the reasons for this? Before I can determine this, there are a few things that I need to do. I need to work on discapline. I need to more consistently log here my calories consumed and burned every day. I need to more accurately move over to the next day my overages and days that I am short my target, and make up for them. About once a week on average I am short by at least 300 calories. Not good. Lazy. I need to start my meals earlier in the morning, and make sure I meet my targets. This may require snacking if necessary, something I have not done in some time. What can I snack on that is inexpensive?

Once I have done the above for at least a week or two, then I will reassess my situation. I may be overestimating the calories consumed when I have to guess the amount. I may need to adjust my determination of calories burned, or attempt to determine the calories burned on those exercise machines.

I attended yoga class again today and I enjoyed it again,though some of the positions are tough....I had tea at the cafe after...it feels good to do some form of movement with my body...and I am learning to pay attention and improve my inner awareness too.
I still have to improve my diet.

I had a string cheese for a snack at work at 10. That had 80 calories. I also had a large thermos of diet Lipton green tea. For lunch I had a mini Stouffers cheese lasagna at 340. Then I went to McDonald’s and got a 6 piece nugget and small fry which was 500 calories. Dinner will be 4oz of a Cornish hen. Thats 220 calories. That’s only 1,140 calories for the day. I’m too stressed about the cat and my dentist appointment and work to really care about reaching my calorie goal.

Right at goal, so no after dinner snack tonight. Only a little TRX exercise today. Will be at the gym bright and early tomorrow. Next weigh in Thursday.

It seems my forever changing baseline caloroes probably helped to make my weight yo-yo. I started losing some weight when I stopped using MFP calories. When I used my watch, that caused some problems with weight too. However, when I performed better, the calories indicated by the watch went down. When this figure was too high, I frequently adjusted downward. I imagine this helped for better assessment of calories. When I went to MET, my calories burned went down a bit. I also think moving my base down to 2200 helped in the weight loss. As I have said before, I need to be more discaplined and consistent with my calories consumed and burned, and meeting my targets. I need to stick with this approach. I do not know how to determine calories burned on the machines at the fitness center. This is a difficukt to determine variable. However, I have not begun to use the machines to any significant extent.

No exercise. Target of 2200 calories. Consumed about 2243 calories. Exercise tomorrow.

@Tucson - How big is your maintenance range? What is the bottom and what is the top? Even though I obsess every bit as much as you, it's a lot easier to play with the numbers when you have a big range.