July 23rd, 2008 - Losing weight
I’m doing a rather un-simple thing this summer, but ultimately, it should make life simpler. Like the majority of Americans, I need to lose weight. This is something I’ve never admitted to anyone other than my husband before in my life. I was always a pretty decent weight (well, looking back at pictures from 7th-10th grades, maybe not?) except at the end of grad school when I was underweight for a year. But oh so slowly, the weight crept up. Not excessively; I’m 5′6″ and 161#, BMI 25.something. But enough that it’s bothered me.
Part of it is due to the sciatica, which has decreased the amount of cardio exercise I can do. Until a year ago, I walked 10,000-14,000 steps every weekday. then I started realizing the sciatica disappeared when I was sick and sitting around the house a lot. Sure enough, I cut back on the walking and the sciatica got better. I tried pilates, yoga, and deep water aerobics at work, but they all exacerbated the pain as well.
So, since I’m not going to lose weight with exercise, that means I have to eat less. Which is really hard for me as I believe I’m a pretty good eater overall…although I do like snacks and dessert. So I’m counting calories at Calorie Count Plus (from About.com). And I have daily goals, rewards, and punishments set up. This post is to help keep me accountable and to get it written down on…um, the screen I guess.
- I must eat less than 1700 calories a day. We may drop that to 1600 after 1-2 months, still not sure on that. 1500 is what I’m aiming for, but I don’t want to kill myself just because I go a little over a few days.
- If I go over 1700 twice in a week, I pay for Eric and Maggie to eat at McDonald’s. This is the major punishment Eric thought up to keep me on track. Maggie has never eaten at McD’s and I never want her to. (I’ve watched SuperSize Me and other books/movies about the fast food industry. I have eaten at only one fast food restaurant since–the locally owned Culver’s.)
- At the end of the month, I have to pay the house $2 for each day I go over my calorie allotment. (Why $2? Because that’s about how much I’d get if I took my monthly allowance, less charitable donations, on a daily basis.)
- Whenever I lose 5#, I can go get a massage. I’ve only had one or two in my life and I’d love to get them all the time. They are the ultimate indulgence to me. I never ever spend the money for them, however. So now I’m going to. Eric’s gym specializes in rehab, and has a massage therapist available. I am hoping that she can work around my sciatica appropriately. (After it was massaged in physical therapy–granted things were pretty bad at that point–my leg cramped up and the area was blazing in pain.) Oddly, I will pay for this out of my spending money, which means I could do it or could have done it at any point in time, but it’s still a big huge treat that motivates me!
I started on the 12th. So far, I’ve lost 5 pounds! I’m going to go with the 5s (155, 150, 145, etc), however, so one more before I get a massage. And I have to keep it off, so one brief appearance on the scale doesn’t mean I go make an appointment for that very day. I recognize weight can shift (and scales can be off) so it has to be an honest 5#. It was relatively easy last week, but this week, I keep wanting to eat junk food and trying to avoid eating what’s good for me to save calories for candy and dessert. Not so good. :( But at least I recognize it happening.
The website is great–it has a huge database of foods, both whole/natural as well as brand name processed, with nutritional info. You select what you’ve eaten (or plan to eat) and it tracks the info for you. You can also put in your own recipes and it figures out the nutrition. This is great because I make a lot of my own foods. I didn’t realize it was there at first and almost when to other sites for this piece of things. Thank goodness I started reading the help pages! (Hello! What do I always tell my faculty to do? Read my help pages….) Turns out my fruit bread is worse than I thought but my veggies burgers are better than ones in the store. Too bad I like the fruit bread so much…so I’m trying to just have regular bread.
Oh my goodness! I just checked: The amount of fruit bread I have has less calories than having two slices of bread with butter. Aack. But I log the bread one piece at a time and the butter is also separate. So it *seems* like less than the fruit bread which is counted as a single serving. I should also figure out exactly how much butter I use–is it really a tablespoon?
Well, anyway, there it is. And yes, I’ll let you know if I have to pay for Maggie to eat McD’s food and am totally humiliated. Otherwise, what’s the point of doing it if no one knows?
July 28th, 2008 at 5:52 pm EDT
that sounds like a motivating plan! Especially the McD’s - that was a creative one.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:33 am EDT
[…] As promised, I scheduled my first massage after getting to 155#. (Not sure how I’ve done it this quickly, but I’m down 8 pounds already.) I tried to get one for the weekend, but she’s only available M-F. So I did it last night after work. […]