Saturday, February 16, 2013

Catch up, things went South

Since my last post, whenever that was, things changed, and not for the better.

I moved, for work of course. Prior to the move, I worked 2 jobs, was always exhausted, slept just about any chance I could, was always moving around, and pigged out on donuts, danishes, and anything else including actual food. And somehow, in that situation, I was stable at 190lbs, 30 pounds over the skinniest I've ever been. Just prior to moving I had gotten up to 200.

After the move, my job was to sit in front a computer and program. Problem was, I retained all the bad habits. I ate anything and everything because I hadn't been able to adjust at all. I slept at odd hours. I gained 20 lbs and shot up to 220 by the time five months had passed.

I'd tried working out, but it wasn't happening. I live in a higher elevation, I have a sedentary job. I almost ended up pulling my back twice before I just gave up. Exercise was clearly not going to work to get me to lose weight like before. To make matters worse, 5 years of chowing down at a bakery had given me a nigh insatiable sugar craving.

For Christmas, my sister got me a cookbook: Eat This, Not That!

The general gist of the book was low calorie but still fulfilling meals. I didn't have to starve, I didn't have to restrict my meals to something the size of a ramekin. In fact, the meals looked just as big as any I'd eaten before, but far more delicious and far less calorie intensive. My recent favorites are Shrimp or Chicken tacos. I do want to try Chile Relleno at some point though.

Using this cookbook, my general eating experience has been much better than before, although buying the ingredients has lightened my wallet a bit. To balance that, I've lost about 10 pounds since starting use of this cookbook and its recipes a month ago. I'm now at 210 pounds.

Keeping on the straight and narrow with the recipes has been hard at times. I have gained a pound or two back on a few occasions because of it. One particular week I gained back all the weight I had lost the week before, and I promised myself I would never eat sauteed food again until I was set with my weight, which is unfortunate because of how delicious zuchinni carbonara can be.

However, despite that, I've managed to lose 10 pounds, and that's a good sign. I've been giving myself encouragement as often as possible by writing down my new weight every morning at work, if I've dropped weight from my previous low. For example, one day I was 211.4, then 212.0, then 211.8, then finally back to 211.4. I didn't write any of those down. Today was 210.8, and I'll be writing that down monday. Hopefully tomorrow I hit 210.3 or, then 209.7 monday morning.

As before, my ultimate goal is 160, if I can attain it with just eating properly. My average weekly weight loss is about 2.5 pounds on a diet of approximately 900-1000 calories daily. I don't exercise, so I can't afford to eat more than 1200 calories a day, or I'll start gaining weight again. 1200 a day will actually result in sustaining my weight. Losing 2.5 pounds per week means that in 10 weeks, I should be back to 190, and at 20 weeks I should weigh around 165, assuming my weight doesn't plateau anywhere.

So, my first month has actually been pretty successful. I can't believe how much better I feel just weighing 10 pounds less. I never realized how miserable I actually was. I'm going to keep with the trend, and I'll update every two weeks until I'm done.