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Good morning!
I am now an expert on alternative pizza recipes! :)
Thank you for your many suggestions to do nice, low calorie pizza - I really, truly appreciate it. It's so much fun to see when the Fatsecret Army gets together to help. This is what I love about this community.
Still, for me, the end solution was the BOUGHT pizza.
What I was craving was the pizza from the local maker. They do great food, and every now and then I just want to lean back and enjoy. This is what we did, in control and all calculated. It's all good.
I DID go 500 calories over yesterday. Consider it Indulgence Day. The only reason that it's not "all good" when it comes to the calories is the fact that it was also a very slow, and very lazy day so there was no calorie burn worth mentioning that could compensate for it.
I consumed 3,000 calories yesterday, and according to the fitbit I only burned 2200.
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This is something that I actually LIKED seeing.
Oftentimes, I wonder whether the fitbit gives me accurate stats. I often wonder if it gives me too much credit and whether I actually have a calorie burn as high as what it assumes.
Well, after yesterday I actually feel safer using it as a guide.
It was nice to see that it could actually plummet down to 2200 when I am not moving.
It's so rare that I have days where I literally don't move, and I never really get low reading like this. And still, with two days in a row of now meeting my calorie burn, and one where I didn't meet my exercise goals, I still met all goals when I average it over the week. I reached an average of 3,085 calories burned per day, which is just fine.
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Yesterday TRULY was lazy. I had 3 "very active" minutes according to my fitbit. I think I even walked slow when I went to pick up pizza! :)
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Today is a different story though.
Right now, I am basically writing while I am waiting for it to be time to go walking. I'm out of here in five minutes.
The reason I am delaying it instead of just getting going is that I am timing it so it fits with me arriving at the gym when they open. My walk takes 50-55 minutes, the gym opens at 7 am (usually 10-15 minutes before) so I know that if I leave home before 5:45 am I usually get to stand there waiting. Then my body cools off, and the workout gets harder. There is no point in doing that.
That said, it's time to go.
I'll be back writing when Mission:WALK'n'WORKOUT has been accomplished. :)
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Mission:WALK'n'WORKOUT has been accomplished!!!
Not only that, I reached my daily 10,000 step goal, my distance goal and my "very active minutes" goal before even leaving the gym to walk to work! As we "speak", my step counter says 11,709 steps! Not bad.
The weights felt HEAVY today, but I managed to do all I needed to do. I did lower the weight on ONE machine though, as I have noticed that I don't have the correct form lifting it. Lowering the weights makes my lifting technique better, it pulls the right muscles better, and actually feels a LOT heavier than it did before. I think this is WIN.
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Today, I'm teaching my weight loss classes. I have yet another client starting up today.
I like these opening sessions. I get to talk a little about myself, and I get to start people up using calorie counters and other tools, and I get to get a peek under the hood of the person to see where the initial challenge lies. It's a lot of fun.
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So, I now have 8 weeks to go until I go in for surgery.
I'm not too heavy for a Monday, though heavier than I normally would be. Fat% is 10, so it isn't all bad. This is generally what my new Über Smart Smartscale says, and it is clearly higher than the "less than 5%" error I used to get all the time. I have been down to 8.0% on the gym scale, which is the same brand and type (though older) as my new scale. I should probably compare mostly with this one.
If that is the case, then I have 2-3% bodyfat to lose to be back where I want to be. That should definitely be accomplishable, and pretty quick too. We're talking 5 lbs here. Not bad.
It's just a matter of focus.
This week's goal is simply to stay away from the candy and sugar, just like last week.
Last week I have to claim that my mission was accomplished on this. Sure, I went over my allowance three days, one A LOT, one just a tiny bit, and one moderately. I came out of the week having consumed 250 calories more than I was allowed. Then again, I am set to have a 500 calorie deficit on my calorie counter, so I am still down 3250 calories, which is a success. I shouldn't be much lower anyways.
This of course pushes a question forward: Why am I still slowly getting heavier then?
I am honestly not sure.
I do see that my bodyfat% is climbing just a little bit. But I also see my muscle mass climbing.
My belt is as tight/loose as it always is. I feel no change here. I do feel a change lifting weights though. I work harder and heavier than ever before. I feel that I wear myself out on a different level when I do my circuit training, and this is definitely a good thing. I push harder, slower, with more weight. I get stronger, slowly and very efficiently.
The extra muscle build is not a whole lot though. I don't know what to expect in this department, so I can't really evaluate on it. To me it seems that my muscle mass is pretty much unchanged, if we disregard the water fluctuation days where the fluid sits in my muscle mass. I don't really regard these days as "more muscle" days, but should I? On average, this WOULD give me a larger muscle weight number. :)
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I don't really care all that much about the actual weight. I care a LOT more about the feel, and how I see progress.
The two things I do care about, in regards to my weight, is that I don't want to slowly be gaining fat, and of course - I want to be thin enough that the surgeons can perform optimal skin adjusting surgery on me in December. This is super important to me. If they're gonna cut me open again, I want the results to be optimal. Duh.
I gotta say I'm very comfortable with the way I am eating these days. I really like it. I feel that I have a good amount of control. I feel that I have the extra calories to splurge for something fun, and I feel that I know when I will wake up the carb monster, and when he will stay sleeping and put away when I want to treat myself to something with sugar.
The sugar cravings are decreasing, slowly. I think that I can make them go (almost) away if I can live through this week without giving in to them. So far, there really aren't any issues.
One of the things that I see makes a huge difference in this, is my choices of OTHER foods. I don't really need the sugars when I eat enough protein/fat rich foods. It makes it a lot easier. I feel full and satisfied when I do this.
Of course, it also makes a dent in my calorie intake, but this is not a bad thing in general. According to my scale and fitbit, I need around 3200-3800 calories to maintain my weight.
My scale indicates 3800 calories. It sounds like A LOT.
It should know what it's talking about though. It's basing the facts on the measurements it does, and it does a LOT, along with gender, age, height and activity level. Gee. I wish I could be more specific on the activity level on it. I get to choose between activity level 1, 2 and three. 1 being "no moving", 2 being active and 3 being active/athletic with more than 10 hours of intense training weekly.
I set my scale to activity level 2, but the estimated calorie burn seems so high to me. I mean, 3800 calories?!? Could it really be safe for me to consume 3800 calories to maintain weight?
I set it to activity level 1 just to compare, and here it gives me 3500 calories. I find this to be more correct, but I don't agree with the activity level setting. Hmmmm... Maybe I should just leave it at 1, and feel safer. :)
If the scale is right, even at level 1, then my Fitbit shows numbers that are too low, and I find them high! I have trouble believing that I can consume 3200 calories per day, which is safe according to fitbit.
Maybe I am simply more active than I think I am?
It's not like I do a whole lot of heavy duty activies, but I do think they all add up.
By far the most of my activity is standing and walking. As much as I realize that this isn't anything will, it all adds up. I walk one hour every morning. I stand up probably 8+ hours per day. Other than that, I do my three-times-per-week workouts, heavy lifting sessions, working all muscle groups.
Does that really justify 3000+ calories? I don't know. Things to ponder... :)
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Today, I'm thankful for:
- Wife!
- A small drop in weight after pizza day!
- Pizza!
- Less stress today, I think.
Have an awesome week! Life is good!
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187.8 lb
Lost so far: 153.9 lb.
Still to go: 0.4 lb.
Diet followed reasonably well.
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losing 4.6 lb a week
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