Hometown 20 Report - Week 7

Last week's weight: 174.5
This week's weight: 176
Change: +1.5 lbs.

Details below.

Another gain. I'm getting really tired of losing the same 2 lbs over and over again, but I should just own this one. I exercised less this week than last (9:25 v. 10:10 last week), and ate more. The more I ate consisted mainly of empty calories and refined sugary goodness. It was not a good food week, and I know it. Therefore, I can grumble about the amount of the gain, but not the gain itself.

Food

Can we just skip right through this part by saying that I met none of my challenge goals? I thought so.

They are the same this week--1700 calories, 3L of water, free-for-all (yet controlled!) Saturday.

Exercise

This week's schedule includes 108 bike miles, 11 walking miles. At an average speed of 14 mph on the bike and 3.5 mph on the walks, that's 10 hours and 51 minutes. I ended up with 90.45 miles on the bike, and 10.25 miles on the track, for a total time of 9:25, give or take a minute or two. There was one walking workout where I didn't wear my HRM, so I don't have the exact number.

Why the discrepancy in bike miles? Well, because I have trouble with wraparound scheduling, apparently. Those 108 miles were Mon-Sun, not Fri-Thurs. Fri-Thurs scheduled miles were actually 90, which I did with a half-mile to spare. I have no excuse for the 3/4-mile shortage in walking miles, though...well, unless you count laziness. I didn't feel like walking the extra mile yesterday, so I didn't.

This week (like, this Fri-Thurs weight-loss week, not this everyone-else-in-the-world week) bike distance should be 112 miles, plus 11 walking miles. Total workout time should be right around 10-11 hours.

Accountability

My training journal is meticulously and lovingly maintained, while my food journal is gathering dust in a corner(or would be, if it was a paper log). Enough said.

So, we're off to Week 8. Who knows...maybe if I do everything right, I'll actually lose a quarter of an ounce or something.

("Bitter"? I don't know what you're talking about.)

Hometown 20 Report - Week 6

Last week's weight: 175.5
This week's weight: 174.5
Change: -1 lbs.

Details below.

Week 6...man. I'm over halfway through this thing. Counting from the estimated 185 pounds that I was the last time I was in my hometown, I'm also over halfway through the "Hometown 20". Unfortunately, only 3.5 of those were actually lost during this challenge, with 9.5 left to knock out in the remaining 5 weeks. To meet the goal, I'll need nearly 2 lbs/week now. I'm still optimistic, though. :)

Let's see how it went this week.

Food

1. No more than 1500 calories per day, Mon-Fri. 1000-calorie limit before 6 pm, Mon-Fri. 3/5 days, if my journalling is accurate. Both of the other days were under 2000, which is also pretty good...for me.
2. Free Saturdays. ONLY Saturdays. I'm mostly good with this. Sundays are hard. Friday nights I have pretty much under control.
3. 3L of water daily. I'm pretty sure I met this every day but Sunday. Saturday requires more than 3L with the long ride, I'm discovering. I'm getting a little dehydrated, and it takes me a couple days to start feeling normal again.

Exercise

This week is 4 16-mile rides, 4 2-mile walks, one 3+-mile walk, and one 35-mile ride. Good God, that sounds like a lot. :) I know right off that the 35-mile ride is going to be 33 miles... And so it was. My mileage ended up at 95 miles or so, give or take some fractions of a mile. (I could tell you the exact number, but I left my training journal at home. Yes, I have one.) I may have skipped one 2-mile walk, but I don't think so. I ended up with, as previously mentioned, 10 hours and 10 minutes of exercise.

This week's schedule includes 108 bike miles, 11 walking miles. At an average speed of 14 mph on the bike and 3.5 mph on the walks, that's 10 hours and 51 minutes.

Accountability

1. Journal everything Mon-Fri. No, really--everything. Mostly good. I may have skipped a bite here and there. I also rocked the exercise log, thanks to the addition of a paper training journal (really just a freebie spiral notebook from some office machine company).

So, the week wasn't too bad. I lost a whole pound, which was less than I wanted but more than I expected. I also discovered some unpleasant truths about limiting myself to 1500 calories/day. Namely, that I want to eat the world when I try to do that. So I'm not going to try this week. I'm going back to 1700, not because I think I can lose 2 lbs/week at that number, but because that target doesn't make me want to dive headfirst into a sea of Doritos. It's all psychological at this point.

Hometown 20 report - Week...4? 5? Five.

Last week's weight: 176
This week's weight: 175.5
Change: -0.5 lbs.

Details below.

Food

1. No more than 1700 calories per day, Mon-Fri. 1000-calorie limit before 6 pm, Mon-Fri. Pretty close. My calorie average was 1715. But as I detailed in my math post on Friday, the distribution wasn't the greatest. I have gotten very good at keeping calories around 1000 before 6:00, though.
2. Free Saturdays. ONLY Saturdays. I'm mostly good with this. Sundays are hard, and Friday nights are not much easier, but I'm getting there. Blah, blah, 21-days-to-a-habit, etc. Since I've said this exact same thing three reports in a row, I should get to habit status any day now. :)
3. 3L of water daily. This week was light on the water. Not catastrophically(sp?) light, but a liter or two short of the goal most days. I rallied at the end of the week (with weigh-in looming), but not a good hydration week overall.

Exercise

I changed the workout schedule week before last to accommodate the century training. All cardio, all the time, baby. Last week, the plan was one 30-mile ride, 4 14-mile rides, one walk, one 2-3 hour ride, and one off day. And I did it! I even threw in an extra walk. 3410 calories burned, just over 7 hours of exercise. Woo!

This week is 4 16-mile rides, 4 2-mile walks, one 3+-mile walk, and one 35-mile ride. Good God, that sounds like a lot. :) I know right off that the 35-mile ride is going to be 33 miles, because I'm going to use the same route I've been using for the past 2 weeks. I don't feel the least bit guilty about shorting those two miles, because I was riding longer than the schedule before this.

As an aside, I have put 172.47 miles on my bike since 7/25. When I retired the hybrid after 4 years, its odometer read right around 750 miles. If I keep up this schedule, Amelia's odometer will roll past that number sometime in the first week of September. :)

Accountability

1. Journal everything Mon-Fri. No, really--everything. Mostly good. I may have skipped a bite here and there, but last week was the first in a long time that had every major meal and snack documented. I also rocked the exercise log, which was why I was able to (over-)analyze my calories in/calories out so thoroughly in that math post.

2. Monthly measurements. Did 'em. Lost 3 inches in July!

So, it was a pretty good week. I wish the scale had thought so, but you can't win 'em all. This week, as noted in the math post (man, how many times am I going to reference the damned thing!), I'm reducing my weekday calorie target to 1500. The end of the challenge, she draws near. Time for more drastic measures.

It's going all right so far, though I've planned a 1800-calorie day today. It wasn't unavoidable, but my mouth hurts(slowly healing, at least!) and I had two workouts today, so I'm cutting myself some slack. They're mostly good calories, anyway. I just opted for easy comfort food in some places.

Week 6 ahoy!

(Guess who forgot the) Hometown 20 Challenge weekly report, Week 3

Last week's weight: 176
This week's weight: 174.5
Change: -1.5 lbs.

Details below.

Food

1. No more than 1700 calories per day, Mon-Fri. 1000-calorie limit before 6 pm, Mon-Fri. My records are sketchy. It's safe to say that I succeeded on the 1000-before-6 thing, but the 1700-total thing is not as clear. You'd think it'd be the other way around, eh? Anyway, of the 4 days I recorded, I was under 1700 for 3 of them.
2. Free Saturdays. ONLY Saturdays. I'm mostly good with this. Sundays are hard, and Friday nights are not much easier, but I'm getting there. Blah, blah, 21-days-to-a-habit, etc. (Yes, this is a copy/paste from last week. It still applies.)
3. 3L of water daily. I bumped this requirement up to 3L this week, and did pretty well for the first week. There were a couple days that were short as much as a liter, but the goal was mostly met.

Exercise

1. Three short cardio workouts (30-45 minutes) A squeaker, but yes. One of them was my 20-minute ride after I brought the bike home Wednesday, which doesn't technically meet the requirement.
2. Two long cardio workouts (1 hour or more) I think there were two, but I may be double-counting one 1:15 elliptical/treadmill workout. Sigh. I need to keep better records.
3. Two strength workouts, with abs One. I skipped the class on Thursday...just wasn't feeling it. I'm going to be bringing this requirement down to one workout for next week, because I'm shifting my focus to HR training. I may do just one sculpt class each week, or do an upper-body Kathy. Haven't quite decided which way to go.

My HRM numbers were less impressive than the week before--I didn't write them down, but it came out to around 6 hours, 3300 calories. Unsurprisingly, my weight loss was a 1/2-lb less impressive as well.

Accountability

Journal everything Mon-Fri. No, really--everything. Not so much. I have 4 complete food days--Friday, then Tues-Thurs. Exercise was worse--I'm making guesses based on half-remembered workouts. Journaling was not my strong point this week.

So, last week? Marginally less good than the week before. I'm going to do my best not to turn this into a slow landslide of steadily decreasing numbers. This week? Game (back) on.

Hometown 20 weekly report

Last week's weight: 178
This week's weight: 176
Change: -2 lbs.

Detailed reporting below the fold.

Food

1. No more than 1700 calories per day, Sun-Fri. Still a 1000-calorie limit before 6 pm on weekdays. I got 2 days out of 6, plus one squeaker that came in at 1719. However, this Sun-Fri business is just not working out. It's a good idea in theory, but in practice? Just doesn't happen. So, since I am getting results and this doesn't seem to be necessary anyway, I'm dropping Sunday. But you saw that coming, right?
2. Free Saturdays. ONLY Saturdays. I'm mostly good with this. Sundays are hard, and Friday nights are not much easier, but I'm getting there. Blah, blah, 21-days-to-a-habit, etc.
3. 2L of water daily. This, I did. I had some issues with not drinking enough on the weekend ride, and I was slightly dehydrated for a couple days. I made up for it at the end of the week, though, when I bumped myself up to 3L/day. I think this was another major factor in losing 2 lbs this week, so I'm making it permanent.

Exercise

1. Three short cardio workouts (30-45 minutes) Yup. 2 walks and an elliptical.
2. Two long cardio workouts (1 hour or more) One. But it was 4 hours, so I think I'll give myself a pass on that.
3. Two strength workouts, with abs I had a tiny epiphany about this last week. I've been struggling for weeks to get motivated to do the Kathy Smith DVDs. I couldn't understand why it was so hard--I liked them fine, I was feeling stronger...what was the issue? Well, I finally realized that the issue is that I don't like working out at home. Or with videos, really. So this week, I went back to the sculpting class at work, and I feel right about it. The upper body/lower body exercise ratio isn't always consistent, but it's worlds better than skipping workouts entirely.

As a side note, my HRM numbers were fabulous this week--7:16:40 total time, 4112 calories burned. Rock. On. What a difference 50 miles makes. :)

Accountability

Journal everything Sun-Fri. No, really--everything. I actually did pretty well this week--I have complete food journals for Friday, and Mon-Thurs. Sunday? Well, you know.

So, this week was much better than last week. Next week should also be really good, since I have the metric century on Sunday. Hopefully, it won't get rained out...it's been thunderstorming in the afternoons here lately, and I've been watching the weather forecast like a hawk for days. I'm going to be so disappointed if it's still storming on Sunday.

Hometown 20 Weekly Report

Last week's weight: 178
This week's weight: 178
Change: none

Detailed reporting below the fold.

Food

1. No more than 1700 calories per day, Sun-Fri. Still a 1000-calorie limit before 6 pm on weekdays. I only missed one day...of the ones I actually counted. Of which there were only 3. (Bet you can guess whether I met the journalling goal.)
2. Free Saturdays. ONLY Saturdays. Yyyyyeah. No. Stupid holiday and total lack of self control!
3. 2L of water daily. It was almost too hot to do otherwise, but I managed somehow. I'm going to say 6/7 days were fine on this one.

Exercise

1. Three short cardio workouts (30-45 minutes) Two. But it's not really a missed goal, since it only came up short because one cardio workout lasted over an hour, thus bumping it to #2.
2. Two long cardio workouts (1 hour or more) Woo! Unconditional success! A spinning class and an 1:15ish elliptical/treadmill session.
3. Two strength workouts, with abs Not even a single one. Could not get motivated.

Accountability

1. Journal everything Sun-Fri. No, really--everything. Ha! Hahahahahaha! *wipes eyes* Not even close. I journaled 3 days, and one of those is incomplete.
2. Weekly progress reports That's what this is. In the future, I won't be including this in the reports, because the report is the goal.
3. Monthly measurements July is done. This won't be included in all reports either--just the ones on which measurements are required.

So, this week was hit and miss, and I have the weigh-in to prove it. I'm hoping to make up for it this week, and I'm off to a good start.

the Rob race and the Hometown 20 Challenge

Okay, this is the 4th time I've tried to write a post today, and I'm hoping this one won't turn out to be another incoherent babbling mess. I'm going to post it regardless, so I apologize in advance if it doesn't make a lot of sense. Or if I repeat myself. Or if I edit it twelve times after I hit post.

As you may or may not know, I am currently in the middle of a weight-loss race with my husband. It used to be a three-person race, but Jarrod dropped out to go to Cancun and lift weights or something. ;) So it's down to us, and I am losing quite handily. Rob's got 7 lbs on me, and even though his lead will soon be shrinking, I'm not likely to make any stunning comebacks. And that's all to the good, really. Even if I don't win in the end, he's still 20 lbs lighter and we have an XBox (his prize of choice).

That doesn't mean I'm giving up on 165...just means that I feel safe turning my attention to another challenge, one I'm calling The Hometown 20 Challenge.

You see, I'm going to my hometown in September for a friend's wedding. When I was there in February, I weighed more than at our wedding (which was the last time I saw my family before that). What this boils down to is that my family hasn't seen significant changes in my size in two years or more, and hasn't seen me below 180 since Noah was a baby. On this trip, I think I'd like to get a "holy shit, have you lost weight?" or two. I'm thinking 165 will get me there. Depending on whether the scale says 177 or 178 tomorrow (AND IT WILL SAY ONE OR OTHER, OR THERE WILL BE KILLINGS), it's either 12 or 13 lbs away. With the wedding on 9/17, that's 12-13 lbs in 11 weeks. If I stay on track, that's totally doable.

Now, you may be asking yourself, "Why 'Hometown 20'? There's no damn 20s anywhere in there!"

Well, I've pored through my archives, and found that I was somewhere in the neighborhood of 185-187 the last time I went home. I don't have a weigh-in post from that week, for whatever reason, but I do have a post about being at 187 a couple days before the trip. IIRC, I dropped some water weight, so I could have been at 185 by the time we left. 185-165=20. Even if I didn't lose those 2 lbs before we left, I like numbers that are multiples of either 3 or 5. (Or in the case of 165, both!)

So, in short, it's called The Hometown 20 because I like the sound of that better than The Hometown 22 or Maybe 23. :)

Anyway, every good challenge has guidelines, and these are mine:

Food

1. No more than 1700 calories per day, Sun-Fri. Still a 1000-calorie limit before 6 pm on weekdays.
2. Free Saturdays. ONLY Saturdays.
3. 2L of water daily.

Exercise

1. Three short cardio workouts (30-45 minutes)
2. Two long cardio workouts (1 hour or more)
3. Two strength workouts, with abs

Accountability

1. Journal everything Sun-Fri. No, really--everything.
2. Weekly progress reports
3. Monthly measurements

I may have to tweak the calories if I'm not losing fast enough. I've lost 2 lbs this week on a 1700 average, but I think it's more because of last week's freak gain than a true 2-3 lb loss. Since I'm only going for a little over a pound a week, though, 1700 calories and a full exercise schedule should do it.

This challenge starts after tomorrow's weigh-in. The Rob Race also continues.

(And this probably goes without saying, but if I get pregnant between now and then, all bets are off. I don't foresee that, but I keep hearing that it happens as soon as you give up trying, sooo....)

The 14 Challenge

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've decided to go with a new challenge for the next two weeks, which I've dubbed the 14 challenge. Here are those details I promised.

The Goal

To be a size 14 at the company holiday party, held December 3rd. (14 days from now.)

The Method

Food: I'm going to try to stick with a low-carb/low-GI carb diet for the duration of the challenge. I have at least 5 lbs to lose before I can swing a size 14, and the only way I can successfully lose more than 5 lbs in 14 days is to lose the carb bloat in the first week.

The way I plan to do this is to avoid all starchy and/or sugary foods, as well as super-mega-processed foods, for the next two weeks. Adding a level of difficulty is the fact that these two weeks include Thanksgiving. This means no mashed potatoes, no stuffing, no pie. But I'll survive.

Exercise: Two strength days, 3 cardio days. Minimum.

Documentation: The diet and exercise logs are coming back here, at least temporarily. I need to be conscious of everything I'm doing, and even if no one's reading the logs, they hold me accountable.

The Incentive

I'm going to buy a size 14 dress for the party. If I can fit into it on December 3rd, I'll wear it. If not, I'll wear the one from last year.

I don't hate the dress from last year, and I'm not really a fashionista or anything, but I like to look different from year to year. Which, come to think of it, is why I'm doing this challenge in the first place--at my current weight, I am the same size as I was last year. This is unacceptable.

So that's it. Size 14 in 14 days. I can totally do this.

BMC update

Note to self: Make a challenges category.

So, week 1 was both good and bad for me. I didn't meet all the goals, but the challenge did help by holding me accountable. Even on the goals I didn't meet, I came closer than I have in the past couple of months. Here are the stats:

1. Follow the Flexpoints, and don't eat the activity points. This didn't happen. Not a single day. One day I was close, but the rest I was ridiculously over. The good news, though, is that part of the reason I was ridiculously over is that I didn't "forget" to enter things into the points tracker like I (let's be honest here) usually do. Since I wanted to be straight with the other challengees, I was honest with myself.

2. Cardio 5 days per week. This is the only goal I met unconditionally. In fact, I would have had 6, if I hadn't eaten myself into a food coma Sunday night and gone to the gym as planned.

3. Strength training 3 times per week. I did both sculpting classes, but nothing else. See also Sunday food coma, above.

4. Water. As is my custom, I did really well with this on the weekdays, and practically dehydrated on the weekend. It's all about the routine. I think I did drink 3L on either Saturday or Sunday, though, so I think I met this one 5 of 7 days.

5. Vitamins & Meds. If my pillbox is to be believed (it's pretty sad that I don't actually remember), I only missed the vitamins one day. The glucophage, I got one per day consistently for every day I took any pills at all, but only took both daily dosages on 2 days of last week. As for the Clomid...if I HAD GOTTEN MY DAMNED TOM at all, I would have started it. Since I SO haven't, I didn't. So no foul there.

Yeah, so the stats aren't looking so good...though I did show improvement in all areas from my pre-challenge habits, so it's not really as bad as the numbers make it seem.

My goals are staying the same for the rest of the challenge, with one small exception--I'm going to let myself eat the activity points. It's not a concession I really wanted to make, but this week made me realize that maybe baby steps are in order. First, let me get through at least one week without eating MORE than my allotted flex & activity points...as long as I'm losing weight that way, I see no reason to restrict myself further. Removing the activity points from the equation was a little too drastic for my little backsliding self.

So anyway, week 2. Here we go!

BMC update, and some random notes

Well, here we are on day 3 of the Bahama Mama challenge, and my stats are like this:

Food: 0/2 days on target, but day 3 is starting out well. However, I have exactly 3 flexpoints left until next Monday, if I don't count activity points. Which I'm not, since they don't exist in Joyworld.

One good thing, though...both days of the challenge, I have logged absolutely EVERYTHING that has gone in my mouth. I haven't done that in so long, I thought I forgot how.

Exercise: 2/5 on cardio, 1/3 on strength training. Woo! Right on track.

Water: 3L on Monday, barely 1L on Tuesday, with 1L down on Wednesday and four more bottles sitting on the desk.

Vitamins & meds: Took them late monday and tuesday, so I could only take one glucophage. Last night, I discovered the wonders of the reminder option on my cell phone, so I set a reminder to buzz at 6:05 to tell me to take my pills...and I actually did! (I also set an alarm to tell me at 6:01 that "yes, you really DO want to get up this early. Gym, remember?" I listened to that one, too.)

So I'm on track with exercise, but everything else is lagging. Still finding my groove...

Now for the random notes portion of our program...

If you're the sort of person who packs a workout bag with various toiletries so that you can shower at the gym, and you're also the sort of person who occasionally brings a paring knife to work to cut fruit, it's not a good idea to throw the dirty knife in the same compartment of your workout bag as the shower items. Because someday, you're going to feel like slacking for 3 weeks, and the bag will go unused long enough that you will forget there's a SHARP FUCKING KNIFE in with your shampoo. And when you scratch yourself on the tip of the knife, you will sit on the floor of the gym locker room for 20 seconds thanking your kick-ass guardian angels that you didn't slice a 5-inch gash in your hand instead.

Or maybe that's just me, but still...knives in gym bag are bad, mmmkay?

When I got to the gym this morning to do my 35 minutes on the precor, 3 of the five machines were in use. This meant that I couldn't have a buffer machine on both sides, so I had to choose one immediately next to someone else. So, when I got on my machine, there was a guy on my left...probably around 30, pretty fit looking.

Like many or most, um, worker outers, I set my pace according to what song I'm listening to. I have about 70 songs on my workout playlist, and I put it on shuffle play all the time. The song tempos are varied between 120 and 200 precor strides per minute, so I get a different workout every time. Today, the ipod decided to kick a little ass--the first 3 songs were between 150 and 180 spm. I poked around at 130 or so setting up the machine, and then I finished the first song at tempo--about 165 spm.

About a minute into the second song, I notice that the guy next to me is glancing over at me. And speeding up. I guess he didn't want to be outdone by the fat girl.

I upped the resistance just to mess with him. :)

Also on a gym-related note, it drives me absolutely CRAZY when people don't zero the locker room scale when they're done with it. It takes two seconds to slide the little weights back to the left, people!

(182.)

I don't know if I mentioned it, but I haven't ordered from Diet Gourmet again. It's not that I didn't like them...I did. Their online ordering system went down the second week, and they emailed a different link, but I didn't order. And then, much like when I miss a TV show I like for a week, I lost all interest in it.

I may go back to it next week, when I'm sure I'll have the money for it. On the week between paydays, spending $45 all at once for a week of lunches is a little scary.

Someday, I hope to grow up and stop living paycheck to paycheck.

I'm working on dividing my workout playlist into several shorter ones designed for specific types of workouts. I've discovered that some of the songs that are perfect for walk/running are too slow to really get my precor on. And most of the BNL stuff varies in tempo throughout the song, making any kind of cardio difficult. I like varying my speed during a workout, but not every 30 seconds. Some songs also are on a different...meter? (note: I haven't read music since my HS choir years) than the traditional 4-count. Some seem to be in 3:4, or 12:12, or 72:65, or whatever that beat is that makes it nearly impossible to find a good pace and stick with it. So those would need to go on the strength training playlist. Upbeat enough to take your mind off the pain, but you can't dance to it.

I foresee posts about this later. Be forewarned.

I still haven't gotten my TOM. I took the last provera 3 days ago. I'm a little worried. I only mention this because usually, things happen immediately after I whine about them not happening. So bring it on!

I had more to say, but I'm hungry. Let's see if I can stay on track with the food today...

UPDATE: I drank all my water today! By 3:30! Go me!