kingkeld's Journal, 28 February 2012

I'd like to personally welcome back the blue bar. Please, blue bar, be my friend. Don't ever leave me again. The world is SCARY without you. If you ever leave me again, I promise I will be the creepy stalker sitting in my car outside your house until you come out and promise to be with me until the end of time. :) LOL!

Yup, another 800 grams gone, I am almost out of the 80's again. Maybe tomorrow if I play my cards right? I hope so. It seems the excess weight is coming off, and it's pretty clear to me why. I see where my faults are, and what I am doing right - for me.

1. Less snacks. These last few days (Sunday and Monday) I have had no real snacks. I have not been grazing on all kinds of things through the day. Lately, it's been a lot of fruit, candies and other things that I would snack on. Sure, I'd register it, and think it was okay, but somewhere down the line it turned out that it wasn't. Maybe I wasn't estimating it right? Maybe I was too lenient on the weight of it? Exactly how big is a medium pear vs. a large pear? Which is which? Anyways, Sunday and Monday I only had ONE snack, it's registered and I've lost a lot of excess weight these two days. Is this related?

2. Exercise. I'm back to doing the bike for 30 minutes in the morning. I feel GREAT doing this, MUCH much better than doing the HIIT. I'd much rather just bicycle in a good, steady pace. Yesterday and today I have upped the weight on the bike, and I can tell that it's a lot harder. I'm still managing 30 minutes, but I get a LOT hotter doing it. No 3 hour marathon at this level - at least not yet!

It's amazing to see that I am down 1.5 kgs in just two days doing this. I know, a lot of it is fluctuation, a lot has to be water that I'm getting rid of, but I think it's really interesting that I AM getting rid of it this way.

Also, I have noticed that the snacking (or lack of) is not really a problem. I think it's a mental state that I have to be in. I have to be in a place where I see that I don't need them or want them. When I feel like one, I am trying to reach into myself and ask if I really need the snack. Do I really want it, versus do I want to wait losing the gained weight? The answer is, of course, no I do NOT want to wait. I want to lose the weight, and get back to where I like to be, around the 77 kgs. That's my motivator. It bothers me when I am heavier than I should be, even at a few kgs. I know I can do better, and do better I will.

So, yesterday was a day full of meetings and challenges at work. I had decided to stand up all day to burn some extra calories, but didn't take the meetings into account. I did end up doing it though, as I simply stood against the wall in the back of the room, as my back was aching. I'm not sure what that's all about, but it gave me some trouble yesterday. It didn't feel like it was too bad, just felt very tired. Maybe I just slept wrong. Wife and I sleep in two twin beds put together, and sometimes one of ends up in the crack between them, "looking" for the other. I think that might have been what happened.

The results were that I was aching, and didn't go to the gym. I'm perfectly okay with this, as I had already put in exercise in the morning. The gym would just have been icing on the cake - an extra MANY calories burned. I decided to go home and get on the bike, but that just exhausted me. I decided to call it enough for the day, and skip. Looking at the scale today, it turns out I was okay anyways. :)

Yesterday I did dig into Wife's non-low-cal ice cream. It was planned and I did fine. I wanted something chocolaty, but I didn't want to go for full chocolate and potentially break my streak here. I'm on a mission, but I felt like I wanted something good. So instead of obsessing about it, I registered 200 grams of ice cream, and went for it. Turns out that 120 grams was a nice, large portion - so I stopped at that and changed the numbers in my food journal. It was good ice cream, but honestly not much better than the one I normally buy - and that one is less than half the calories! However, seeing my RDI I had plenty of wiggle room for it - I just don't want it to suddenly take over half of my calories.

I have actually considered to put a calorie limit on snacks, to better control them. Like, if my RDI is 1600, then make it a rule that max 300 calories in a day can be snacks or treats. But then again, I'm kinda scared that I might end up WANTING to have 300 calories of treats every day - which is of course NOT necessary. It's something I'll have to ponder a little upon. So far, I will do what I'm doing now - be focused. Focus is essential, and I think that's the drive I have. I think this is the drive that I've had all the way - the eyes on the prize.

I have gotten a lot of new buddies lately, and I'd like to say thank you to you all for requesting me as a buddy. Some of you have - like I did - a long way to go, and it's a big scary world out there with so many potential detours along the way. I'd just like to tell you guys (and everyone else) that keeping your absolute focus on the goal helps so much. Dedicate to this. Get a phone that can download the Fatsecret app (blueberry, iphone, android) so you can sit at a restaurant, or a friend's house, and register your food. Let people in on your weight loss journey and you'll be surprised to see how many will help you and support you and simply adjust around you. If they don't know that you're on this journey, they won't accommodate you, so let them know what you're doing.

Trust me - it's worth it. It's worth being stubborn. It's worth it rejecting some awesome dish for something that might look slightly less interesting. The life at the end of the weight loss tunnel is AWESOME. I can honestly say that I had no idea how good it feels to be here. It's ALL worth it.

Oh, and one more thing. It gets a LOT easier to do this after a while. Of course, there will always be challenges, but once you get all the essentials down, it's really not that complicated. You soon find the new foods you like, you find out how to register them right, you find out what works for you. It takes a few months to really get into the groove, but once you are there, you'll have the confidence that you're doing right and that you can keep doing it. Make sure that you choose a weight loss journey that will work for you EVERY day. If you can only see yourself doing it for a shorter time, then it's the wrong journey you picked. Find one that you can live with, one that won't drive you crazy, once where you can eat some of your favorite foods. Once where you can fit it into your schedule. One where you can be realistic about what you're doing.

I found this in counting calories, using this website and even more importantly the phone app. I check that app MANY times every day. I know at all times exactly how many calories I have spent, and how many I have left. It takes the whole guessing game out of losing weight. To me, it's essential to know this. If I only write down the foods when I come home at night, then it'll be too late to adjust if I did bad. If I register the foods in the morning, and adjust during the day - then I am on track. I know what I have done and what I will be doing, and I know if there is room for something else. Simple as pie. Or carrots. :)

Anyways, look at me babbling. I better get a move on.

Today, I am thankful for:
- BLUE BAR! Oh, how I missed you!
- Rockin' out with the kids tonight.
- Wife being awesome as always.
- New buddies! Welcome! ...and of course all you other buddies too. You know how I love you! :)

Happy rockin' Tuesday! Make someone smile today! Life is good!

EDIT:
One last, important note. I have a LOT of buddies on here. As a general rule, I don't refuse anyone requesting to be my buddy, but I have so many that it's really clogging my feed of journals etc. It's very hard to read everything and generally "feel" you guys. So therefore, one of these days, I will clean out my buddy list. I will look at activity on this site as the most important factor, along with communication with me. Old time friends will of course stay, along with newcomers who have just started. In-betweeners will be evaluated and I'm sure most will stay. Basically, if you use the tools here, if you write journals, if you put an effort, you will remain. If you don't - then you probably won't notice that I took you off.
I'm writing this to let you know that if I did delete you, it's nothing personal. If you feel that I shouldn't have, just request me again. I don't mean to upset anyone, I just need to de-clutter. I hope you guys understand.
END OF EDIT.

177.0 lb Lost so far: 164.7 lb.    Still to go: 0 lb.    Diet followed 100%.

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1292 kcal

Fat: 58.50g | Prot: 87.11g | Carb: 105.73g.   Breakfast: Rye Bread (Reduced Calorie), Sliced Ham (Extra Lean), Egg. Lunch: Chili Oil, garden salad, chicken, pita bread. Dinner: mixed vegetables, Meat loaf. Snacks/Other: Chocolate Ice Cream, Mustard, Sliced Ham (Extra Lean). more...

3236 kcal

Activities & Exercise: Bicycling (slow) - 11/mph - 30 minutes, Sitting - 4 hours and 15 minutes, Standing - 6 hours, Walking (moderate) - 3/mph - 45 minutes, Sleeping - 8 hours, Music playing - 2 hours, Desk Work - 2 hours and 30 minutes. more...