Week Forty-Four: No Strings Attached Weigh-in

It's weigh-in week!

It's time to tell you about that little surprise I bought myself- I got a bonified tape measure!

Image by Mahesh Patel from Pixabay 

Now I know that doesn't seem that exciting, but when you've measured yourself with a string and a ruler, this thing is fantastic. It's soft like a tailors' tape, but it retracts like a toolbox tape measure! It took me half the time to measure myself as it usually does, and I don't have to worry about how accurate the measurements are because my string is a bit more stretchy- especially since it's forty-four weeks old!

I switched to smaller bowls and ate less this past week, and I feel so much better (and thinner) than in previous weeks. I'm also starting to see that salt is affecting me more. Though my blood pressure is still low/normal, I tend to bloat more when I have really salty foods. My feet make excellent bloat detectors. When they're fluffy, so is the rest of me.

Let's take a look at those numbers!

Original numbers:        4 weeks ago:            Now:              Difference:

Weight 363 lbs.                328                      326                      -2

Biceps- 23"                    19-3/4"                   20"                   +1/4"

Chest- 61-1/2"               58-3/4"                   60"                   +1-1/4"

Waist- 58"                      57-1/2"                 55-1/4"               -2-1/4"

Hips- 69-1/2"                 62-1/2"                 62-3/4"                +1/4"

Thigh- 32"                     30-1/4"                 30-1/2"                +1/4"

Neck- 18"                      17-1/2"                 17-1/2"                 same

That's interesting. I gained in almost every category but had one slight loss in weight. But look at the loss in my waist! 

The one thing I wanted to do but didn't was to reread my FFR book. Although I got a few walks in this week, walking further each time, which does a body good. 

It just shows that many minor accomplishments can significantly impact you more than those huge ones that don't happen as often. Yes, it was only two pounds, but it's still a step in the right direction!

This weeks' goals are simple. Reread the FFR book. No seconds. Smaller plates and bowls. Less salty foods. Walk more. Move around the house more. 

I'm one pound away from breaking my next plateau!

Week Forty-Three: Making Adjustments

It's time.

Next week is my weigh-in, but I feel I need to make some additional changes. Not drastic ones, mind you, but changes in my food choices and quantities.

Image by John Hain from Pixabay 

It's hard being home. You want to eat when others do. You want to eat earlier because someone else ate breakfast at the crack of dark, and you can still smell the wonderfulness three hours later. 

Staying upstairs still works, but I can't hide up here until my eating window opens in the afternoon. I have things to do!

I need to get tougher on myself. 

I need to reread the FFR book.

I need to find better ways to distract myself from eating too soon.

To identify the problem areas, let's go over my windows.

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are my down days. One meal a day. I was trying not to eat until at least 3:30, but I found that really difficult since staying home, so I moved it to 2:00 instead.

The downside to this is I eat by myself, and it's usually a pretty big meal. I'm still a little paranoid about not getting enough nutrition, even though I know I get plenty. I didn't get this big and still remain healthy by eating junk all day...right?

The upside is the next day, I feel great! I feel thin, vital, and more positive. 

Tuesdays and Thursdays are my up days. Of course, they aren't as up as my weekends, but I have two meals a day as well as a snack. Sometimes more than one snack. I usually have one big meal and one smaller one, and I try to start about 1:00, but find myself starting closer to noon instead- sometimes earlier.

The downside to this is I often eat much bigger portions in the first meal, then give myself almost no break before I eat the snack. By the time the second meal is ready, I almost don't want it, but I eat it anyway because my family is home, or I should eat it because I don't want to tank my metabolism, and sometimes simply because I can eat it since I allowed myself two meals. 

I try to keep the weekday up day window within a four to five-hour period, and sometimes it's less than that because I want my fast to be longer during the next down day.

The upside is I usually save the foods I want to eat for this bigger window.

On weekends I open the windows wide. I try to keep it under eight hours, but that's not always possible because my family likes a nice, big breakfast, at least on one of those days. So as long as I hit the eight or less window at least once, I'm okay. I still try not to eat after 7:00pm, but on occasion, I break that rule if we're doing something special.

I've been breaking more rules than I've wanted to for the past few months. I know it, and my body knows it. You've known it too since I promised to tell all in this blog.

That 'one serving' of rich and creamy soup is in a bowl that carries almost two servings, and sometimes I get another half of a bowl. So I've changed the bowl sizes back to the larger size. It's partly because it's delicious (we make awesome homemade soups here!) and because I'm still a bit afraid the leftovers will be gone by the time my window reopens. 

I've had seconds. I've even looked for extra to eat because I still had time in my window. 

The adjustments are going the wrong way! Food is starting to become a major part of my life again. Is it because I'm home most of the time now? Possibly.

I'm not blaming my home life. I'm not blaming the world, my family, or God. This is all me, baby, and I need to make some serious adjustments in the opposite direction. I need to be able to control myself in my own house, for goodness sake!

I can't even blame the weather. We've had a heatwave for weeks now, so I haven't been going outside like I'd intended. Why? Because I hate to sweat. I hate getting sticky, itchy, and stinky. I'm also lazy because I don't want to jump in the shower again. 

You'd think it would be easy to break down barriers you've put up in the first place!

Do you hear the common issues in this blog post? Fear and Laziness. Two of the Big Seven Sins of the bible. These lie at the core root of my weaknesses. I have to break away from these if I want to move forward. 

Like me, I'm sure you have your own set out of the Seven to fight.

We need to help each other to fight them together. Doing this on your own might work. Doing it with others will work. At least with others that support you and love what you're doing. I admit I need help; a lot of help. This blog is one way to discover my weaknesses and be accountable. To be honest, I never plan my blog posts. I don't write them ahead of time. I write them in the moment. 

I'm amazed at what I discover about myself when I write off the cuff!

Next week is weigh-in day. I don't expect much, though I hope the scale numbers will go down this time. I'll reread the book, go back to smaller bowls, and remember that hunger pangs mean I'm headed in the right direction. This is a lifetime change; each adjustment gets me closer to a better me. 

And isn't that the ultimate goal?

Week Forty-Two: The Chips Are Down

There comes a time in your IF journey that you realize you must start cutting down or cutting out certain foods. 

In the beginning, you learn to listen to your body while still eating your regular diet. However, when your body starts screaming at you to make changes, you need to make them, or else your body will respond accordingly.

For instance, bananas and beets cause certain effects for me that clear out the plumbing. Great when the pipes are clogged, but not so great if you plan to go outside or do errands for long periods of time in the next day or two. Mischief managed, lesson learned. I've adjusted and moved forward.

Now my feet are regularly swelling during the day. Yes, it's because I don't walk enough, but there's also another factor I hadn't wanted to consider this food, though I did suspect it. It was confirmed when I stopped eating them for a few days.

My beloved chips.

Image by Werner Weisser from Pixabay 

The salt content was fine as long as I was walking and sweating a bit, but now that I'm not mobile, I've been swelling up. My feet look like balloons by the end of the day, and even by morning, the swelling doesn't completely dissipate.

Alas, my fair chip, I must ignore your calls for now.

I love potatoes in almost any form, so this isn't farewell forever. I'll just have to stop buying chips for a while and find alternatives. I'll also be cutting down on my salt intake by cutting these out. I'm not salt-free, nor do I intend to ever be, but I've cut my salt down by at least half since I started forty-two weeks ago-and that was before I stopped eating chips.

I'm starting to wake up earlier, which means my energy levels are rising. I'm still working on buying an exercise bike, but I still want to walk outside when the weather breaks. The bike is just a means to keep me active when it's blazing, freezing, snowy, or soaked outside. 

I love Mother Nature, but I'm not dealing with her during her menopausal stages.

Two more weeks until weigh-in day! I'll share a little surprise I bought myself to help with the monthly weigh-ins. This is going to save me oodles of time!

Week Forty-one: Up in Flames

Just when things are getting back to normal, We were off on a camping weekend.

Well, sort of. We had a room with a bed, bathroom, and AC at the campground. Some people call it Glamping. I call it I-ain't-sweat-sleeping-with-the-dirt-and-bugs-and-peeing-outdoors-in-the-dark-with-bears camping.

We took our whole family of young adults (and a few 'adopted' ones), so I planned a menu accordingly. I love cooking over a campfire, but my husband brought his camping stove because breakfast for six can't be made one campfire pan at a time-not our breakfast, anyway.

Breakfast was scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, bacon, and pancakes. Lunches were either sausages or bacon-wrapped chicken on a campfire fork, roasted over the embers of a crackling campfire. Dinner was hamburgers with all of the fixings, and we had smores for dessert.

Image by manseok Kim from Pixabay 

What is it about a crackling fire that makes food taste so good? Everyone else did the smores thing- I'm not into them. But I indulged in everything else, including the chips that went with lunch and dinner.

I spent most of the weekend enjoying the fresh air in the shade of a tree, reading a book. I miss books. I've been too busy with life to just sit down and read. Not good for a book junkie like me! But we also went for walks, and one, in particular, was a challenge. In fact, Challenge was part of its name.

It's called the Thousand Step Challenge. It's actually twelve hundred steps total, but the entire set of steps are etched into the mountain itself. My husband did this challenge when he was up with his Ironmen Ministry group before the pandemic, and he wanted to show me part of it.

We both knew I was in no shape to tackle this challenge. Not yet.

But there was a stony-staired trail going to the base of the challenge where a natural spring flowed. And that was my goal. The trail was a hint of what the actual thousand steps were like, and just looking up that trail was scary. Not because it was pretty high up (which it was, and I'm deathly scared of heights), but because the steps were a little steeper than what I was used to. 

With a deep intake of breath, I started up those steps. I had to see if I could do this much smaller challenge.

There are no rails like I expected, which didn't help when the side of the trail dropped off into a ferny abyss of plant life. The steps were wide, though, so as long as I stuck to the mountainside part of the stairs, I was okay. I used my husband for balance on some of the more uneven steps and had to stop for a breather halfway up. 

I could hear rushing water- I was almost there.

Please understand this was only about a hundred feet up, just a few hundred yards in an upward slope. For me, this was extremely taxing on a body that hasn't seen much exercise. The weight loss helped, but I knew I had a long way to go before I could conquer even this little trail with any kind of ease. 

By the time we reached the spring, I was panting like an overheated Saint Bernard, taking a seat on the rocky wall that kept the spring at bay while my husband climbed over it to fill our water bottles with the clear, crisp water spouting straight from the rock.

It tasted fantastic!

After drinking and refilling our water, we made the descent back down. Unfortunately, gravity isn't a friend of the calorically challenged, and I found I had to brace myself from moving forward too fast. My husband had to provide balance again as I had to step down from each stair, for my knees protested with every harsh bend of the joints.

By the time I arrived at the beginning of the trail, my legs were shaking a little. It was a relief to walk at my regular pace back to the van and sit on a seat that wasn't stone and covered in moss.

I learned something important. IF really isn't all about the weight loss, though that's the reason most people start. Losing weight is only the first step to living a better life-I mean, look at me! I went from considering a wheelchair to walking a small mountain trail within forty weeks! My accomplishment is anything but a triumph to those athletic few, but to me, it's a monumental step for a better, healthier life. I never would've considered walking that trail last year, but this year I not only walked it, but I also wanted to walk it!

My eating windows were wide open for the entire trip. So today, I'm back on my eating window routine, and as far as I know, no more long trips requiring me to adjust my window for at least a month or two. Let's hope there's a significant change in the scale by the end of summer.

Hot and humid days make me melt in an ocean of sweat, so when the days are this hot (heat advisories aside), I stay in. Not good when you're supposed to be walking. I'm contemplating getting an exercise bike-a new one this time-so whenever I decide to sit down for a video break, I can at least work on my mobility. 

As for my swollen feet, they're a lot less swollen after the camping trip. Putting on shoes and walking works wonders for the circulatory system, and I'm a lot less bloated. I'm hoping for the same results with the exercise bike if we decide to get one.

I started planning meals a few weeks back, and that's working out really well! There's almost no wasted food now, and I'm buying various veggies to create a more versatile and tasty menu. Soups and casseroles are still regular items, though I'll make an actual dinner on occasion when the portion sizes are a bit too small for the pan or stockpot. 

I've scheduled cooking dinners during my up days, so I'm not a starved, raving beast when the food hits the table. 

There's still a ton to do to get this house in order, but I'm progressing slowly towards the goal. This has been a great week with many self-revelations- I'm looking forward to the days ahead!