Back On Track

Ok, I can't remember for sure which day I weighed myself (it was either Wednesday or Thursday), but here are my numbers:

weight: 208.2 lbs
fat percentage: 45.1%
hydration: 37.7%
muscle: 27.0%
bone: 10.7%
cal: 2336

First of all, I have to say these numbers are rather better than I was expecting.  Like I said last time, I had a really bad period over the weekend.  What I neglected to mention was that I wasn't caring too much about what I was eating over the weekend...which meant I was sort of expecting to have gained some weight.  Looks like it turned out okay. My muscle is apparently up a little bit, too, which is surprising but good. 

This coming week is going to be interesting because I'm going away for a few days on a work trip.  I'm going to do my best to be as healthy as possible, but I can't really promise anything.  On the plus side though, the hotel I'm staying at has a pool so I'll be able to go swimming!  :)

Weekly Update February 23 2016

I have a confession to make.  I weighed myself around February 9th or 10th and promptly lost the sheet of paper I wrote it all down on.  I think my weight was 209 lbs at the time.  I can't remember the rest of the numbers.

Then last week, I knew my period was immanent so I didn't bother weighing myself.  It's just finishing off now, so I'll either weigh myself at the end of the week or next week.

Things have been a bit stressful for the last few weeks, mainly surrounding work.  The short of it is that I'm going to have more time in the immediate future because I will be working less hours (I knew this might be coming but didn't know when).  That's honestly not a bad thing right now, because then I can get caught up on all the things I need to....like sleep.

Thinking of sleep, this weekend was a bad one.  My period started on Friday night and I had the worst cramps I've had in years!  I am prone to cramps during my period, but have found that drinking raspberry tea really helps.  It also helps to drink lots of water and eat healthier foods.  Well, earlier that night I was eating Chinese food (which I don't normally do - it was a treat).  That ended up a lesson learned!  I'm going to have to be really careful about what I eat, particularly around when my period is going to start.  The cramps started around when I was trying to get some sleep (I think that was 2am or so).  I ended up having to get up at 4am and make myself raspberry tea.  I took an Advil at the time, too, just in case.  Between everything I was able to fall asleep around 5am, which was better than nothing, but it still made for me being tired all weekend.

On the activity front, I went swimming last week with my dad (as usual).  But he brought his flippers, which was awesome!  Having the flippers really propelled you through the water quickly, which was fun.  But it also meant your thighs got a crazy good workout; apparently it takes a lot more muscle power to move through the water with flippers on!  My dad and I are going swimming again tomorrow; I hope he brings the flippers again!

I also did a couple of excellent workouts with my mom over the last few weeks.  Last night we tried Ellen Barrett's Skinny Sculpt, which uses light hand weights.  I loved how the easy modification for that video was to not use the weights; I admit I had to drop them a few times, but overall I did better than I thought I would.  Prior to that we tried Ellen Barrett's Yogini Workout, which was also really good.  I've since ordered my own copy of the Yogini Workout and want to get Skinny Sculpt, too, because they were really good.  I've got to really work on my arms though!!!!

So yeah, that's what's been going on for the last few weeks.  Like I said, I'll get my weight updated soon on here.

Goodbye, Movie Popcorn

So I did something really dumb today: I went to the show with some friends and pigged out on popcorn with the weird buttered topping stuff on it. This in itself isn't the bad thing though. The problem was that I DIDN'T ENJOY IT! Even niw, a few hours later, it feels like the stuff is just sitting in my gut. Plus I can taste it a bit still, too. So I think I need to stop eating it.

Unfortunately, that's much easier said than done. I have a terrible habit of eating things that are in easy reach. And what's easier than a friend sharing popcorn in the theater? You can mindlessly munch while the movie is on. And who cares if you're still full from supper? (Yes, I totally was).

So what's the solution? Saying no is a start. But at the end of a busy day, what little willpower I seem to possess is long gone, so I'm going to need to rely on something better. I think step 1 is going to have to be not sitting next to my popcorn friend.

But if that doesn't happen, maybe I should just stop and think about the nutrition facts for a minute. According to their nutrition facts, 100 grams of the free buttery topping is 87g of fat! (Compare that to the butter you pay for, which comes in at 99.7g of fst for 100 grams). The buttery topping does a bit better in terms of saturated fat (8.7g compared to 99.7 for the paid butter), trans  (1.5g vs 2.7), and cholesterol (0 vs 267 mg). So holy crap, I so do not need to be eating this stuff! (Here's the link to their nutrition document in case you're interested: https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://mediafiles.cineplex.com/FoodDrink/CPX20Nutritional.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwi5_Ivj_u7KAhUEdx4KHbSwD5AQFggiMAE&usg=AFQjCNFO4QGM06uZxIjDfuOEAcF0CVf4tw).

I'm sure I'll need to come up with some more strategies for avoiding eating this stuff (and honestly for other foods and situations, too). I'll probably just add any more anti-popcorn strategies I come up with to the comments of this post.

Weekly Update February 4 2016

Okay, a bit late once again, but here are those numbers from yesterday:

weight: 208.2 lbs
fat percentage: 48.0%
hydration: 35.7%
muscle: 25.6%
bone: 10.7%
cal: 2336

Not amazing progress on the weight, but it continues to go down a bit.  For some reason my fat percentage increased a few points.  Not entirely sure why except for the fact that I've been going low a lot this week and so eating more than normal.

I've done two overnight basal tests so far.  They both made me realize I've been going low during the night (sometime around 3am-5am by the looks of it).  I adjusted things a bit, but will have to do another basal test to see if I need to do more.  Unfortunately that doesn't appear to be my priority right now.  Over the last few days I've been going low while at work.  Originally I thought it was from being more active than usual because we're in the process of moving things around there.  But it's looking like something else is going on so I'll be needing to deal with that first.

Hilariously, I think I'm going to have a bit of trouble with the weight loss thing at the moment because I've been going low too much (and so eating too much in response).  So at this point I'm going to focus on dealing with the lows (while still trying to eat healthy and be as active as possible!)