Back on the wagon

So, since the last time I blogged I fell off the wagon and it wasn't a pretty sight.

I am now 2.5 weeks back into dieting with some major changes from the last diet.

Here are the new outlines/ground rules:

• no chocolate (old rule new and improved resolution)
• I eat a tuna salad at lunch every work day and so I am not tempted by carbs (mostly pastas)
• I get on the treadmill 5 times a week for at least 30 minutes at a time
• drinking 12 glasses of water while at work
• Staying positive
• Blogging is not crucial and will not be done everyday but I will still try to update at least once a week

So, I hit the re-start button when I reached 115.2Kg (254 lbs), again. I actually weighed 116 Kg (255.7 lbs) a couple of days earlier but it was the start of the week and I was pleased to see the drop so I set it as the starting (restarting) point. That was 2.5 weeks ago which was August 24th.

Today I am 111.9 Kg (246.7 lbs) which means I lost 3.3 Kg (a little over 7 lbs) in two and a half weeks.

Here are the updated goals/rewards that I set for myself:

• By Rosh Hashana (September 29th) I would love to break the 110 Kg (242.5 lbs) barrier. If I do reach that goal on time I get to have an ice-coffee.
• When I get below 100 Kg (220.5 lbs) I get a lunch of sandwich and ice coffee from this place I love. I hope to get to that point by my birthday - January 31st.
• If I can get to about 90 Kg (198.5 lbs) by the time I fly to visit my brother I think my reward will be the look on his face as well as my own sense of accomplishment. :-) Also, I'll be able to do a lot more daring things while travelling which I would really love.

Long update this week.

See you in a week or so.

Week 8 - Monday

I did very well yesterday - no cookies or sweets. I had a nice sandwich for lunch and a salad for dinner (turns out I don't like the McDonald's salad). Throughout the day I also had a couple of yogurt drinks and two granola bars.

I also drank enough, always a good thing.

This morning's weight was 110.6 Kg (=~243.83 lb) so I'm trying to stay strong - it's a very good weight for the way I binged last Wednesday and Thursday.

Today I had a yogurt drink in the morning and pasta for lunch (pesto sauce with no cream). I also received a salad but I don't really feel like eating it. I may just put it in the fridge and try and eat it tomorrow. In the afternoon I ate yogurt with muesli and I drank 12 glasses of water (and a few glasses of coffee) so I'm doing pretty well.

I hope to get home before 9 pm tonight and get on the treadmill. I'm actually sort of looking forward to the treadmill. That's a disturbing thought! ;-)

Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with more news or at least a report that everything is the same. :-)

Week 8 - Sunday - Starting Over

As you may have guessed from lack of posts I've been less than great at following the diet and so didn't want to blog.

Went into the endocrinologist's office on Friday and my cholesterol and sugar are good (the cholesterol can go a little lower) and we've finally reached the correct dosage for my Thyroid problem.

I'm happy about all these things and I was, in fact, so cheered up by the results that I kept to the diet over the weekend and even went for 30 minutes on the treadmill on Friday and Saturday.

Due to over two weeks of neglect my weight as of this morning is 111 Kg (=~244.7 lb) so at least I kept 4.5 Kg off (=~ 9.92 lb), I hope.

I already talked to my mom about reminding me to get on the treadmill so I hope to keep at it.

That's it for now, I'm turning a new leaf.

Week 6 - Monday

Yesterday's weight was 110.2 Kg.

I haven't blogged in a few days since I wasn't very good about keeping to my diet and not snacking. It might have to do with the way I always diet - lots of dedication the first few weeks that fizzles out to nothing afterwards. It could be that I'm dealing with some emotional stuff and I'm falling back on my old routine of snacking sweets to feel better.

The only bright spot in all of these days was that I have not bought any chocolate although I have been to the supermarket a couple of times. I did eat a little chocolate since someone returned from the US and brought Hershey's Kisses and I was in no place to resist their siren call. ;-)

So, I snacked a little today as well - 5 cookies so far, but, I'm going to get my salad soon and I'll phone my mom to make sure that I get on the treadmill today.

Had a good meeting with my shrink yesterday which I'm still processing so I'm not sure the next couple of days will be snacks free. Still this is important, possibly life altering stuff so it's worth the delay/sacrifice.

No weight today as I don't have access to scales.

Something cool that I'm looking foreward to is Joss Whedon new on-line series! It has some great actors and I love Joss Whedon's work, the man knows how to balance fun, comedy, character development and thought provoking story lines.

So here is the teaser for "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog":


Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

Thanks go out for argh ink for showing me the way to this teaser and being a fun blog to read always. :-)

Week 5 - Tuesday

Didn't do to badly yesterday. Had my salad and my yogurt and muesli plus 5 cookies at work.

Got home and hate a sandwich with strawberry jam and then had dinner - cooked chicken and pasta.

I hope to do better today. Already had my yogurt drink and currently working on my salad (usually takes me about 3 hours to finish). Already had two cookies today and I plan and hope not to snack any more.

This morning's weight is 110.1 Kg =~ 2424.73 - which mean I lost 0.2 Kg =~0.78 lb.

I should really get on the treadmill today since that's a good way to remind myself in the evening that I'm on a diet and shouldn't eat another helping of dinner or that jam sandwich.

All in all, not bad but not great either.

The goal of getting another 5 Kg (~11 lb) off by the end of August suddenly seems a long way off and a little discouraging and that in itself is a bad sign. It's not an unrealistic goal it's that I lost my enthusiasm which kind of bums me out. :-(

I did make some progress. I told my mom about buying the ice coffee and danish on Sunday and I should really remind her to nag me about getting on the treadmill.

I want to buy an elliptical cross-trainer since I know I prefer it to the treadmill plus it's a much more intense and productive workout, but, I don't want to have it standing in the living room, unused, the way the treadmill is most of the time.

I also don't want to spend the money right now since I'm saving for my grand diet goal - the trip next summer to California.

I don't have the exact dates for the trip but I have roughly 52 weeks to go, I should really stay in the game and keep thinking of my goals instead of my sweet tooth!

Week 5 - Monday

Lost sight of the diet over the weekend and yesterday so I decided, while on my way home last night, to make it a detour to remember.

I bought an ice coffee and a danish on the way home and savored them as my 'however long I'm going to make it until the next time I crack under pressure' treat.

Other then that yesterday was pretty routine except for the cookies I ate at work and no salad.

So, today I'm back to dieting. Start weight today 110.4 Kg. I would like to get down to 109 by the start of next week.

Week 4- Thursday

This morning's is still 110 Kg but I'm OK with it.

I think my weight loss rate may be slowing down a little, but that was expected.

It's going to be interesting going shopping for clothes tomorrow. I'll do my best to get the bare essentials so that I don't 'waste' money on clothes that won't really fit me in a few months, let alone next summer.

I'm still well on the way to meeting one of my goals - reaching 105 Kg=~231.5 lb by my parents 40Th wedding anniversary which is on August 25Th. I'm sort of hoping to reach 100Kg=~220.5 lb but any weight between these two would be extremely awesome!

Last night I dinner and ate half of my second helping when I felt so full that I actually stopped and put the plate in the fridge. That's a first for me and I'm hopeful that it's a sign that my body may yet be trained to 'think' as a thin person's body. :-)

I'm going to get my salad now. So I'll post again on Sunday.

Week 4- Wednesday

This morning's weight is 110 Kg =~242.5 Lb which is really great as I managed in three weeks an a half to lose 15% of my planned weight loss.

My planned weight loss is 35.5 Kg =~78.3 lb, which would bring me to 80 Kg=~176.4 lb and a BMI of 27 which will still define me is 'over weight' but I think I'll be able to live with that.

Of course I won't mind losing more weight than the goal I've set but I want to keep this goal as it is far more realistic, it'll still be the thinnest I'd in over 15 years and it'll be a huge improvement to my health and my state of mind.

So, not a bad day today. I already drank my yogurt drink and I'll go and get my salad soon. Haven't eaten a salad in a couple of days so I need to get back into it.

I hope the loss of this half a Kg will give me a morale boost when I get home at night so that I'll get on the treadmill - haven't been on it for over two weeks which is really not good.

Friday, I'll go and buy some summer clothes at an end of season sale. Hopefully it'll be the last time I buy a whole summer wardrobe at a special store.

I tore a shirt yesterday at work and I though 'well, it's supposed to be way too big by fall anyway'. :-)

Long rambling post today, guess I was just in the mood.

Off to get my salad.

Week 4 - Tuesday

No change from yesterday which I guess is good since it seems I concurred my tendency to eat chocolate to battle my hormones.

Short post today since there's really nothing new to report.

Week 4- Monday

Not much to report today as it's Monday and I have no scales so no morning weight.

I did pretty well yesterday aside from eating about 6 cookies but since I didn't buy any chocolate and I was suffering from PMS I think I did pretty well.

I did OK today, as well, though I skipped my salad and had a couple of cookies. I did eat a couple of slices of salami but I didn't overdo anything.

Probably no treadmill today and the next couple of days but I'm still hopeful for tomorrow morning.

I'm constantly prowling a travel forum looking for tips for next year's trip to California so I'm hanging on to that in moments of crisis.

Week Four - Sunday

I'm trying to get back to normal after the last couple of weeks with the stomache bug and then the holiday and the short work week.



This'll be a short post as I'm not feeling so great, again. :-(



My weight this morning is 110.5 Kg =~243.61 lb. Not bed considering the weekend is my great volunrability.



Anyway, no weight tomorrow (no scales) but I may just get to a nice round 110 Kg on Tuesday, I hope.



Just to spice things up I'm going to upload a picture from last summer:

Week 3 - Tuesday

So I haven't blogged in a week but there's a really good explanation for that. It seems the way I felt last Monday night was a prequel to a serious stomach bug.

On Wednesday morning (5 am) things got so bad I was sweating and experiencing chills (the temperature was in the mid 20s Celsius = higher 70s Fernheit).

I missed work and ate two slices of bread the whole day and things didn't really get settled until yesterday.

So, let's do weights:
Wednesday morning: 110.6 Kg =~243.85 lb
Thursday Morning: 110.3 Kg =~ 243.2 lb
Friday and Saturday morning: 110 Kg =~ 242.5 lb
Sunday, Monday and this morning: 245.4 lb

Today I'm back to my routine and I intend to get on the treadmill this evening.

Still, including the weight bounce in the last couple of days I'm not doing badly at all. I lost 4.2 Kg =~9.25 lb in two weeks.

I'm happy enough, just really hate being above a round number again. :-)

Week 2- Tuesday

This morning's weight is 112.4 Kg (~247.8 lb) so in a week and a half I managed to lose 3.1 Kg =~ 6.8 lb! I'm really happy!

I was doing great yesterday and got home really early so I planned to get on the treadmill. I ate my afternoon snack (yugort with mousley) and a slice of bread with home made strawberry jam and started feeling really sick. Something happened to my stomach. So no treadmill yesterday. On the other hand I didn't eat dinner either.

I suffered through the night but felt much better this morning so I ate a littel breakfast (again a slice of bread with home made strawberry jam) which I don't do usually since I'm afraid to get car sick on the bus.

I'm back to my routine, so far, although my stomach is still not 100% back to normal.

I still want to get some sort of tracking visualization on this blog but haven't found out how to do it yet. Maybe I should check for other diet blogs and see if they have something I can use.

Week Two - Monday

So, I did very well yesterday and I'm doing great, so far, today.

No weight today - don't usually have available scales on Monday morning since I spend the night at my brother's apartment.

I hope to have a good result tomorrow which, to me, means anything below yesterday's weight of 113.9 Kg. If I'll be 113.5 I'll be very happy.

I started work early today so I hope to leave a little earlier than usual which I hope would lead to me getting on the tread mill and moving my butt!

Guess this'll be a short post. :-)

I Think I'll Stop Counting Now

As the title says I realized today that not only is it becoming confusing for me to keep track of the days I've been on the diet, I'll also get to an insane number (over a year) if I keep counting.

Instead of counting days I think I'll count by week and day of the week so the alternative title of this post is 'Week 2 - Sunday'. :-)

I weighed in at 113.5Kg (250.25 lb)Friday morning but the weekend was pretty tough and I didn't live up to the challenge fully, more on that a little further down this post.

So today's weight is 113.9 Kg (251.1 lb). Not as great as Friday's weight but I'm still happy enough to have lost 1.6 Kg (a little over 3.5 lb) in a week. If I continue at this rate for a few weeks I'll be ecstatic.

The weekend's hurdles were the restaurant Friday evening - I only ate the main course, no appetizers or bread and a sorbet (which my mom was very helpful with so I only ate about half).

I did eat more bread then I do on week days but I made my own salad and ate it so I felt pretty good about myself.

The really tough day turned out to be Saturday. I think what 'broke' me was a combination of the change in routine (hot meal in the middle of the day instead of in the evening), the fact that I love to eat Chala and possibly the fact that I hadn't really managed to get caught up on my sleep.

I'm going to try and do a lot better next weekend.

Today, up to this point, I'm doing very well. I'm eating my salad now and I've already drank 9 cups of water.

I just need to keep going as if yesterday didn't happen.

I am glad that this salad is no longer the chore it was in the first couple of days so that's a huge step forward.

I'll blog again tomorrow.

Oh, and I saw people have these bars on their blogs that indicate were they stand on their goals so I plan to search how I can add such a bar to this blog so that I have a visual representation of my accomplishments.

Days 4+5

So, I haven't posted yesterday and I'm late today. I guess it's because the day before yesterday didn't go all that well and I'm sort of starting to live with my diet instead of focusing solely on my diet which I always have to do the first few days of a diet.

No major transgression either day before yesterday or yesterday. Just some extra sweets but no chocolate which was a real challenge since a co-worker return from a vacation and brought a huge Milka bar that set in front of me for a couple of hours yesterday.

Yesterday I did pretty well and went on the treadmill for 45 minutes (5.5 Km =~ 3.4 Mi).

I weighed in at 114.4 Kg (=~252.2 lb) yesterday and today. I'm still happy that I lost 1.1 Kg but the loss 'sounded' better when it was 1.5 Kg.

I've been very good today and I will go on the treadmill again (for at least 30 minutes) tonight so I know that I will lose this weight eventually.

To cheer myself up I started planning my trip to the US - mainly I'm looking at the travelers forum and starting to participate and answer questions in hope that when I need assistance it'll be readily available and given in a very patient manner.

At the moment I'm considering either pushing the trip out or traveling sooner than I thought as I would love to miss as many lines as possible at the different theme parks.

I probably won't blog again over the weekend but I hope to keep my mouth mostly shut. I do have a family event at a very good restaurant so it may be a little difficult. On the other hand, I'll be there with my mom i.e. my personal support group. :-D

Day 3 - I guess it's getting easier

So,
This mornings' weight is 114 Kg (251.326 978 89 lbs) so I'm feeling good about myself. Just checked my BMI and it's also down to 38.5! {happy, snoopy dance}

Did the treadmill last night - 3o minutes and 3.75 Km (2.33 Miles).

I know this rate of weight loss won't continue so I'll be really happy with myself if I'll weigh in at 113.5 Kg on Sunday. If I'll weigh less I'll be ecstatic but I'm a realist. A hopeful realist but a realist nonetheless. :-)

I have another interim gaol (since a goal of 20 or 25 Kg can be intimidating) - I want to lose at least 7 Kg by my parents anniversary which is on August 25th. So that should put me at 108 Kg and would mean an average of about half a Kilogram (1.2 lb) per week.

Yesterday I ate:
Yogurt drink for breakfast, salad for lunch, a couple pf granola bars, a banana, one helping of pasta in tomato sauce, two schnitzels (chicken breast, home fried so not swimming in oil) and evening snack of two jam sandwiches.

I want to try and avoid the sandwiches from now on though they were my 'sweet' fix last night. The really bad part is that I didn't really need the second one but I'd cut the bread so I made the sandwich. I need to remember that this diet is about changing my eating habits and return the sliced bread to the breadbox next time.

Okay, all in all I'm doing great and I'll do my very best to continue on this path as I really want to start enjoying life to the fullest.

Day 2

So, day one went pretty well.

I drank a yogurt drink for breakfast, ate a salad for lunch, snacked on 6 cookies the whole day, ate two granola bars and a chocolate sandwich (the chocolate was left over from last week and has now been moved to the public domain at work so I won't be tempted).

Dinner included 3 turkey meat balls and white rice - only took one helping which is also me dieting in action.

I should have a weight to post tomorrow (no available scale this morning) and I hope to see a tiny change but I know not to count on it.

Today I hope to do better - no cookies (at least not anywhere near 6 cookies!) and 30 minutes on the treadmill when I get home.

I avoided the corner grocery store on the way to work but will have to go through it tomorrow morning as I need to replenish my healthy supplies. I just hope I won't go back on my decision and buy any junk food stuff - mainly chocolate.

The photo at the head of this post is, of course, me. I don't photograph much (gee, I wonder why) so it was taken at the end of July 2007 when I weighed approximately 108 Kg (again, using http://www.onlineconversion.com/weight_common.htm that translates to 238 lb).

I hope to get back to that weight by the end of August (that's August 2008) at the latest.

Off to buy my lunch salad!

Basic facts

My Name is Avia, I'm 33 years old and and I'm obese.

I was a really thin young girl but something got screwed up when I went through puberty.

Since then I've moved between being over-weight to being obese with a short two years (about) break when I was 17.

I have a couple of goals for this diet:

• In about a year will be celebrating my niece's Bat-Mitzva
• In a year and a couple of months (or so) I will travel with my niece to the West Coast for a few weeks.

So I'm starting this blog as another way to try and keep myself in line on my diet.

My current weight (as of this morning) is 115.5 Kg (according to http://www.onlineconversion.com/ that's 254.633 912 82 lb so let's call it 255 lb). My BMI (calculated online at http://www.whathealth.com/bmi/calculator.html) is currently 39 - the aim is to get to 'normal' which is between 18.5 and 24.9, though I'll be okay if I'm 27 too as that will signify a major improvement! :-)

The weight I'd like to be in a year is 90 Kg (roughly 198.5 lb) but I'll be very happy with 95 Kg as well (roughly 209.5 lb). So a quick calculation says that I want to get rid of 20-25 Kg in a year which can be translated to about 0.5 Kg (1.1 lb) a week.

This is not an out of reach goal and I'll do my best to achieve it.

Today is the first day so it'll be extra difficult and I'll only weigh myself again on Tuesday morning.

I'm also going to use this http://www.bobmayer.org/updates.html - even if it doesn't help it cannot possibly hinder me! :-)