Even before school was out for the year, I knew one of my
goals for the summer was to lose weight. Everyone knows I’m obese. I have high
blood pressure, Type II diabetes, and high cholesterol due to my weight and I
take a total of five different medications just to deal with them (this is in
addition to the five medications I take for my mental illnesses – big pharma
loves me). I’ve finished the first week of my goal but I’ve felt like I need to
be more accountable and have decided to devote an entire blog to my weight loss
attempt. I’ll talk about my first week today but the goal is then to have an
entry for each day entailing my weight (I’ll actually share what it is!), my
blood sugars, what I ate, my exercise, and what struggles (or wins) I faced.
So, week 1.
I liken this first week to the Apollo 13 mission. It was a successful
failure. It was a success in that many good things happened and a failure in
that I’ve been eating crap since Friday. A good thing about that is that I was
able to compare how my body felt when I was eating healthy versus eating
unhealthy. I definitely prefer how I feel when I’m eating healthy. However, emotionally
the crap food sometimes feels better. This is something I need to work on as
emotional eating has been a problem for me since I was in single digits and I
talk about this often in my therapy sessions.
When I was eating healthy, I began my day with scrambled
eggs (yeah – I used my stove!) and a V8. Lunch was a big salad and dinner was
either fish and veggies or a Lean Cuisine. I knew after Monday I was going to
need to add a snack and despite wanting cake (lots of CAKE), I went and bought
some fruit. This was a good thing because when I was eating with hardly any
carbs, my blood sugar dropped like a stone. That was slightly scary. In
addition to fruit, I also tried trail mix and sweet pickles for snacks. I also
had tender beef jerky but that is so expensive so that won’t become an everyday
thing.
In addition to the eggs and V8, I also added Morningstar
Farms sausage links. They’re not bad and another source of veggies since it’s
difficult for me to eat veggies. I also bought some veggie burgers and pizza
burgers – both from Morningstar. I haven’t tried the veggie burgers but did try
a pizza burger (I was jonesing for pizza) and I liked the taste although it
wasn’t anything like pizza. There was a nice spice to it and I’ve decided the
next time I have them I’m going to add a little pizza sauce and mozzarella to
them.
What else have I learned this week? Diet Coke is a major
NO-NO. I have binge eating disorder and Diet Coke just feeds that like you
wouldn’t believe! They (the infamous they) are right when they say diet soda
contributes to obesity. I am a water drinker, although it must be bottled and preferably
Dasani, but sometimes I like to drink something with flavor so I have found I
like the Vitamin Water Zero’s (orange and lemonade). There are no calories and
the sweetener is stevia. I’m allergic to sucralose (Splenda) so that cuts out a
lot of zero calorie drinks for me.
Exercise-wise, this is where I’m struggling the most. I did
buy a mini-exercise bike (just the pedal parts) and that’s a challenge even to
do five minutes. I thought that would be a good thing since I’ve been having
problems with my knees and I don’t want to irritate the screws that are in my
feet (I broke both feet over a year ago). But I feel like I need something
more. Before when I’ve tried to lose weight, I’ve enjoyed walking and I kind of
miss it when I’m eating healthy so I think I’m going to try and do a little
walking unless it really bothers my knees/feet. Since they tore down my
favorite out-of-the-way track, I’ll just walk around the apartment complex. It’s
a little hilly so that will add an extra challenge. I think I need to get new
shoes, though. Although the pair I have now aren’t that old, they just don’t
feel as good as the usual ones I buy. I like Nike Initiators and these are
Adidas. Still thinking about that. I need to also do some weight work on my
arms to try and combat the granny arms I’m getting. (Granny arms – flabby biceps
that young children like to wiggle back and forth.)
On the weird side, despite eating like crap since Friday, I
haven’t gained any weight. Haven’t lost but at least I haven’t gained. Like I
said, I’m going to share my numbers. I’m going to be quite open on this blog.
Who cares if I actually show my weight? You can SEE that I’m obese and I want
to be accountable to my readers. I think that will help. So this morning, I
weighed myself and I’m 402.2. I never wanted to surpass the 400 pound mark and
when I did a few weeks ago, that’s when I started to really think about losing
weight (it was an eye opener). I have a goal for the summer and that’s to get
down to 354 and by the end of the year I’d like to try to get to 300. The
ultimate goal is to hit 208. There’s a reason for that number that I’ll blog
about later.
So, there you have it. My journey is one week old and I hope
you’ll support me on it.
Dana :)
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