I swear, I have been exercising a LOT and eating well. Seriously - I haven’t really overeaten or pigged out in weeks.
But now the scale is going back up. In 2 days, I have gained 4 pounds back.
Why??!! What did I do? Is it muscle? I have been doing a much higher-intensity workout on my stationary bike. But… 4 pounds in 2 days? Wtf.
Grrrrrrrrrr. I hate the scale. I hate my metabolism.
… your scale moves and you notice physical changes as well.
Starting weight: 172 (April 2007)
Current weight: 162 (May 28th, 2007)
I’m getting there, slowly but damn surely.
I’m finally able to shed the zip-up hoodie jackets I was wearing every single day for the past couple of months. Truth be told, I was wearing them even on 70-degree days because they hid my stomach bulge well.
However, it’s been in the 80’s here an humid, so I had no choice but to take them off. And… I can now wear a shirt without my tummy bulging out disgustingly. Granted, my stomach isn’t flat, but at least now I can wear shirts without looking 5 months pregnant! (I’m one of those types who gain a lot of weight in the stomach area when I’m overweight). Yay!
In order not to let my stomach get too bloated-looking, I’ve also been eating small meals and cutting way back on dairy. Dairy products - for some reason - really make my stomach bloat up for a couple hours. I hate it.
Anyway, I’m off to hang out with friends for the day. I will have to be super-strong because I’ll be spending time with that girl who always offers me junk food, plus tries to get me to do shots of Goldschlager constantly. But I’m feeling confident today that I can turn both down with no problem!
Thanks for your kind comments about the heart thing. I notice it doesn’t do it when I don’t eat or drink hours before bed, so that’s my routine from now on. I’m almost positive that my blood pressure has gone down as well from all the exercise I’ve been getting.
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it here before, but for the past couple of months, when I go to bed, my heart beats really fast and very strong. I’ve been diagnosed with tachycardia a couple other times in my life - even when I wasn’t overweight. They’ve never found any actual physical problems with my heart, but I have begun to notice something myself. At night, I go to bed, and as I’m lying there, trying to sleep, I can hear and feel my heartbeat throughout my body. It sucks. But I’ve also detected that my heart actually seems to either skip beats, or take a quick pause after every few beats. It’s odd but I don’t know if I should worry about it. I mean, I’m working to get my weight down, in case that’s causing it.
Anyway… last night was the FIRST night I can recall in recent months that my heart actually didn’t do the fast, hard beating. I don’t know what may have helped it out, but I’m thinking it was one or a combination of the following: my cutting back/stopping drinking; the fact that I didn’t eat 6 hours before going to bed (for a change); and the exercise I’ve been getting.
I don’t know what fixed the problem, but I’m going to do all three of those things again tonight/today and see if once again, I don’t get the rapid heart rate!
Onto other news… I’ve lost another pound on the scale, and I’m noticing a difference in my figure, although very slight. Exciting! I’ll weigh myself again Sunday with the new number. Maybe it’ll go down a couple more by then.
Official start weight: 172 (April 2007)
Official current weight: 164 (May 22, 2007)
Yep, I have gained back 2 pounds.
However, for the past week, I’ve gotten tons more exercise. Every single day I’ve gotten at least 20 minutes of cardio in. (Most days it’s been more than that). I’m doing walking, speed walking, hiking, and of course, the stationary bike. As for eating, I’m doing a lot better still - eating mostly organic and healthy food. The carbs I eat are mostly complex carbs (very little sugar) and I haven’t given into drunk munchies at night in quite some time. For the record, I am nearly positive that drunk munchies and lack of exercise were responsible for at least 15 of the 30 pounds that I gained over the past 7 months.
Every time I start exercising regularly like this, the scale stops moving for a while. I’m not sure why, but I’m not going to panic, because once it does start moving again, it moves pretty quickly.
Anyway, all I can do is keep trying. I already got a grueling 30 minute workout in on my stationary bike today. I plan to get another 20 minutes of walking in. I’m actually headed to the mall shortly in order to buy some brand new sneakers so that my walking and working out will be more comfortable.
You may notice I put a “Weight Goals” list in the sidebar. The 135 is a significant goal for me because that’s when I start looking really, really good weight-wise. Not to be vain or anything, but before gaining weight, I have always had an amazingly great figure - hourglass and all. So at about 135 I start looking really good again. At 125, I appear downright slim. If I go too much lower than that, I lose my boobs, which I definitely don’t want.
My ultiimate goal will be 120 because I want to have a 5-pound range to work to stay in. At 120, my BMI will be exactly 20, which is perfect as far as I’m concerned!
I went to Trader Joe’s today to get a bunch of healthy, organic stuff.
Let me tell you - looking at labels for sodium content along with the usual calorie and sugar content just really takes the fun out of shopping. I already know the calorie content of most food (the general amount, at least), so now I have to read the label on every single thing now for sodium. What a pain!
What I discovered is, most foods we eat have tons of sodium in them. Or at least enough to add up to “too much” for someone with my blood pressure. A person trying to lower their BP is supposed to have no more than 1500mg of sodium per day. Many frozen meals have more than half of that (some even more than that!) Prepared meats, boxed potatoes and other foods, and almost anything canned also has tons and tons of sodium.
I did find some things today that weren’t bad, however.
Now if only this damn headache would go away…
Sorry I haven’t updated… I decided to wait until THIS Friday (or Saturday) before officially weighing myself.
The good news is that I’ve been crazy busy and getting lots of physical exercise lately. I’ve forced myself to walk everywhere around town and I’ve gotten back on the stationary bike, not to mention just keeping active in general. Today, for example, I walked at LEAST 3 or 4 miles through a fishing area/park with a friend who made me also carry a heavy bag of supplies. I’ve been eating roughly 2 meals per day and taking calcium and fiber supplements, too.
My teeth are almost healed although there might be a complication with the procedure I got in the front area. I’ll know more about that later this week.
I’m waiting to weigh myself officially simply because I’m PMS’ing (well, it’s almost done) and I know now for certain that I gain around 7 pounds this time of the month. Horrible, yes. My body is so screwed up. I’m just glad I caught it all in time and am working to get back in tip-top shape! I am positive that by this weekend, I will be down to the high 150’s. I’ll keep you posted!
