kristi13618's Journal

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05 February 2015

I've been avoiding weighing in because I gained. At the doctor's office I had gone back up to 312 lbs. I know that I weigh differently there because it's a different scale, I wear different clothes, and I have my shoes on, but over the last few visits I had shown a loss regardless. I know that part of it is because I've stopped being active as far as walking once a week. I had done so during the spring, summer, and fall. I had vowed to replace it with yoga that I can do at work, for free. Unfortunately the last two classes I have skipped and the one before that was cancelled. Skipping was from my lack of motivation. This morning I skipped because it was "too cold." Yes, it was cold, but the effort would have been worth it. I did, however, get a yoga DVD today. So, my plan is to at least do a session at home on every day off and eventually transition into everyday. I have also made some progress with substituting good food choices from my bad ones. I'm sure, for those of you that have read, you know my previous diet was all fast food, then it was all frozen food that I could make at home, and recently I had started incorporating more water and less soda, more salad and veggies, but I still had a lot of frozen and unhealthy food choices. I went grocery shopping today (which, FYI, I saved $52 using coupons and deals) I substituted yogurt for pudding for my packed lunches and to have every morning for breakfast in addition to whatever it is I eat for breakfast. Which, at this point, is still a mix between off brand eggos and sausage wrapped pancakes on a stick. Not healthy, but so very good. I think my next goal will be to transition into a more meal like breakfast instead of frozen things. I found a great (and easy to change) recipe for a biscuit filled with eggs, cheese, and sausage. I want to adapt that to eggs with veggies, turkey sausage, and cheese. I will not be giving up cheese anytime soon lol! Then eventually modify it to egg whites. I am not a huge egg white fan, but I figure that the veggies, sausage, and cheese will help drown out the taste. To be perfectly honest, I'm not much of an egg person anyways. I never really make eggs at home. Hell, I don't have any eggs in the house! I will, from time to time, get scrambled eggs or a breakfast burrito at work, but other than that, unless I am at a restaurant, I don't get eggs. I actually like eggs over easy. I know they are easy to cook, but I just can't get it. Which is probably a good thing. Either way, I've had egg whites before, just as a scrambled egg, and it was not great. So, hopefully the added items will make it more tolerable. Plus the recipe says that the breakfast biscuit is easy to store and reheat, so I may even add it to my packed lunch. Currently I've been just taking cereal, and even more recently, bread and peanut butter for toast. So, it would be a nice change. As for other meals. I still have frozen food items incorporated into it, but I have substituted an actual homemade meal for one meal on the days I'm off. This time around will be slow cooked buffalo chicken. I've made this before and it's amazing. Yes, I'm aware not necessarily a healthy meal, but I'm looking at money costs and the fact that there will be a bunch less sodium compared to the frozen food products. I use just some boneless, skinless chicken, some buffalo sauce, and a packet of ranch mix. Then, when the chicken is done, I shred it. I will probably make a sandwich out of it and have a salad as a side. My goal is to up my salad intake as well. I am typically eating salad on the days I work. I'll have a salad and baked potato for dinner after I get off work. I am using store bought salad, but have plans of using produce to make my own salad. It should be more cost effective, but currently, I don't eat enough to salad to make sure that I'd eat a home made one before it went bad. I'm trying to balance cost and health. So, I have some goals for the next couple weeks. Eating my meal plan, doing yoga at home, and I am currently participating in this challenge at work called 100 miles before St. Patty's day. It started on the 1st and I currently have done 11 miles. I've been wearing a pedometer at work. I am a nurse in a hospital, so I walk a lot anyways. I didn't realize that in a 12 hour shift I'm probably clocking between 3-4 miles. I did an 8 hour shift the other day and got 6504 steps. So I'd say another 4 hours I would definitely get in another 2,000 steps. I looked up that the typical standard is 2,000 steps for every miles. I'm hoping this is right! They have also done a chart of equivalents for other activities like swimming, biking, high, moderate, and low intensity exercise. Yoga is low intensity and they have 20 minutes equaling out to a mile. My typical classes at work are 45 minutes, and my DVD is an hour. So, I hope to knock out a few miles with those as well. Something I'm worried about: My shoulder. I'm in the process of getting it diagnosed. My doctor feels like it's a torn rotator cuff. I had seen an orthopedic surgeon that told me "I was too young" to have hurt it. He prescribed physical therapy (which only improved my range of motion a couple degrees) and said if it still hurt after to come back and we'd do an MRI. I'm at the "time to get an MRI" stage. Now, it doesn't hurt all the time. I can use it to do pretty much anything. It hurts a lot after repetitive activities. Being a neonatal nurse, a lot of what I do are repetitive actions. I change diapers, bottle feed and hold, and chart on a computer every 3 hours for 2-3 babies. Even when I have the little 2 or 3 lb babies, my shoulder can get pretty sore after a couple of 12 hours shifts in a row. I do have some pain medication on board, but try to limit it to night time to help me sleep. The pain keeps me up or wakes me up pretty frequently. My worry lies more in the recovery. I know with yoga I can use it to the best of my ability and not push it. The recovery of a surgery (which I'm not sure that will happen, need the MRI first) will limit me significantly to what I can do. Driving will be difficult and, most likely, for the first few weeks after, impossible. Yoga will definitely be out until I've healed and done physical therapy. So, I will literally only be able to do walking. I'm not sure how a treadmill will do for me. I like to be able to hold on to the bars. Definitely at first I may not have enough range of motion or even strength to hold on. So, I've thought about mall walking (since I live in Ohio and it stays cold pretty much until June). I'll feel like such an old person, but I need to get over that. Just to note, the neighborhood I live in is pretty sketchy and isn't really safe to just "take a walk" in. I do, however, have a metro park about a 10 minute drive away. Once it gets a bit warmer (like consistently in the high 30's, low 40's) I can go back to walking outside. I just get worried that all I'll be able to really do is sit around, watch tv, and try to heal....leading to a significant increase in weight. Plus the fact that I'll have to do meal prep before surgery and live off of whatever I have made and frozen for a few weeks. I believe the first week or two they have you keep your shoulder/arm bound or in a sling to prevent moving and damaging the repair. Of course, this is all up in the air. I'm just trying to get some good weight loss in now, just in case I do gain. I have hope and I am encouraged.

Weigh-in: 306.6 lb

lost so far: 0.4 lb

still to go: 26.6 lb

Diet followed reasonably well

add comment losing 0.2 lb a week

27 January 2015

I have a "small victory." I have completely stuck to my meal planning. Like I've said before, my food choices aren't the best, but I've been sticking to my plan. I hope to incorporate better food choices over the following weeks. I think my main problem has been a previous pattern of eating out all the time. I know I could blame it on my ex husband, but ultimately I agreed to the choices and I need to take ownership of the fact that a point in my life I survived, literally, on fast food and food from the work cafeteria. So for me, looking back, I have improved. I need to find healthier food choices and recipes. Money is an issue, so buying some things will not be a top priority. However, I have used that as an excuse for far too long. I think it is completely possible to eat healthy and maintain a good budget. I need to start buying more fruits and veggies. I have incorporated more fruit into my lunches at work. I have also started eating a lot more salad. I love, love, love veggies, just don't ever think to incorporate them. I've started looking at some of the recipes on this site. There are definitely some that I love and am excited to try. I am also trying to keep up on an exercise routine. I have a yoga class tomorrow. I'm pretty excited about that. I can't wait to get some yoga DVDs and do it at home. I do have a yoga app on my phone, but it's pretty difficult to do the poses and watch a tiny screen. The classes are nice because I can see clearly the instructor and other students. The best part is that it's free!!!! I get all these free classes through work and for three years I have not taken advantage of it. So, I need feedback (and some more friends to be accountable to!!!!). What types of recipes do you guys use? I know there are a lot of fashionable diets (low carb, gluten free, etc...) I have no desire to use those types of diets. I want to just eat healthier in general. I don't want to cut out things I like and have "cheat days." I want to be able to just balance some not so great choices with fantastic choices! I'm not saying there's anything wrong with these diets, but I just don't see myself sticking to them. Maybe later on in my weight loss journey they will be something I'm willing to do, but for now I want to eat just basic, balanced meals. My extra challenge to finding new recipes is that I'm cooking for just me, so I want to have meals that I could freeze. Feedback welcome!!!!

(3 comments)

24 January 2015

I obviously have fallen off the wagon many times with this whole dieting and losing weight thing. I'm done with "diets." I'm on to changing my lifestyle. When I was married (Divorced for almost a year), we only ate fast food. No wonder I gained weight, felt depressed, and was very unhealthy! I have converted to eating most of my meals at home. This has been very hard. For 4 years I always ate out. I guess the hard part is cutting in out completely. It's a much welcome change to eating at home, but there are just days where I get cravings. I will often give in and then I get angry and discouraged with myself. I have the will power to do better, I'm just very convincing when I want something. I have decided to cut down to eating out once a week. I'm sure many people would find that insane, but I know me and I need to phase things out and develop better habits. I have been meal planning for a few months now. Instead of cutting it out completely, I designate one day a week where I can eat out. I also have significantly cut back on soda and have started drinking mostly water. I hate water though, so I do add flavoring. I know that it's not as good as just water, but it's better than only drinking soda, which I was doing! I'd go through 3-4 12 packs in 2 weeks. I also have some difficulty with this, as far as completely giving it up, so I am also phasing it out. I will have 3 a week, which I have also placed on my meal planning calender. Now, the meals that I have "planned" aren't completely healthy either. They consist of a rotation of corn dogs, frozen pizza, hamburger and french fries, grilled cheese, and spaghetti and garlic bread. However, on the days I work (usually 3-4 days a week, 12 hours shifts) I will have a baked potato and salad. Sounds healthy, but I put cheese and ranch and croutons on the salad and LOTS of butter and cheese on the potato. I have also transitioned from eating solely at work on the days I work (we have a cafeteria, since I work in a hospital). I pack every day. This has helped saved TONS of money. I've noticed a significant increase in my take home pay. $1,475 I spent last year on eating only food from the hospital when I worked. This was breakfast, lunch, and a snack. I did start packing my lunch toward the end of last year, like I said. I usually bring cereal, a sandwich, cheez its, a piece of fruit, 3 bottles of water, and a pudding or yogurt cup. I know all of these things aren't great, but it's a huge improvement. I hope to continue to improve. I do love to cook, but have difficulty finding things that keep well for a period of time and then also getting burnt out on the food I made. I have been looking for great menu ideas that are affordable and healthy, but am having a rough time. I'm hoping to find some great ideas here. I also need accountability. Someone that will keep me motivated without making me feel like a loser when I fail. I know I'll have times where I fail. I'm human. I think the changes I've made are great, but not where I want/need to be. I also started walking once a week at a local park over the summer and into the fall. Now I'm taking yoga classes that are offered free through work and will be getting a dvd or two so that I can also do it at home. I do have a gym membership to the gym at work, but have little to no motivation to go. I have worked out in the past and know that I love it and it can be addicting, I just need to start slow and build up. My goal would ultimately be to do some type of fitness activity 5-7 days a week. Right now, my short term is once a week. I have lost a bit of weight between the almost 2 years since my ex husband left. Some of that was because I didn't eat and some of it was from so much stress just leaving. He was a huge source of stress and him leaving was the best thing to ever happen to me. I just want to keep up with the losing trend. I think my biggest fear is the fact that I'll have loose skin when I hit my eventual goal weight. I know that certain exercises can help with that, but I'm just not at the point where I can do sit ups lol! I know I'll get there. I just need the right tools and right support.

(8 comments)

23 January 2015

Weigh-in: 307.0 lb

lost so far: 0 lb

still to go: 27.0 lb

Diet followed N/A

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07 March 2012

I did another yoga class today and boy did it kick my butt!!! I could feel where my muscles were weak and where I had worked them from yesterday's yoga. Tomorrow I'm contemplating taking a break from working out...but I'm not sure yet. I may make it for a cardio session. I also made a new recipe that was fantastic!!! I'm really enjoying the suggested recipes from slim fast. I think i'm learning enough now that I can really branch out and make different things. It's really been me calorie counting. I'm trying to get just the 1200 a day (which is surprisingly hard to do when you're eating all healthy...) My recent loss has really motivated me, plus having my friend "P" going to yoga and the gym with me is also motivating me. She wants to do pilates on Monday. I think she may be trying to kill me!! LoL I'm up for it though. I need to do more research on different foods to make. Although having the slim fast shakes are just sooooooooooooooooooooooo helpful. They are easy and barely any planning. Plus only making one meal that last for 4 days is great. They are easy to freeze and defrost. It's really working for me. I'm just feeling the motivation and determination today. :)

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