Tag: weight loss

The Wandering Hermit: Itty Bitty & Shrinky Dinky

   27 May 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: Itty Bitty & Shrinky Dinky

This morning was all about itty bitty tiny little goals.  For whatever reason, I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night and woke up a little late… honestly, it could have been even later.  I wouldn’t have minded so much getting sleep and having to walk later in the day.  I wasn’t very motivated as a result.  But I just kept setting goals as I went.  I was expecting to only get in about half a mile, but I just kept telling myself to just get to the next tree, to the next driveway, to the top of the hill…. that works pretty well for me when I just don’t want to walk.  And I ended up getting in my 2 miles that I like doing first thing.  I still might do a little more later when I go out to the cemetery.  It might be nice to do a walk around it while I’m there.  I almost feel like I’m only going out to get out of the house.

As of yesterday, my legs seem to be deflating the way I had hoped.  The infection probably helped actually; as long as I keep my legs elevated as often as I can, I think they should continue getting smaller.  They’ve been so big for so long, I almost don’t know what to do if they shrink to a normal size.  I don’t even trust that they will do that at this point.  We’ll see.  I was pretty obsessed with the smoothness of the back of my left leg.  It had been such a weird bumpy texture, so having it smooth out yesterday was almost emotional for me.

My broccoli break continues, but everything seems a little up in the air with my food.  I feel like I need to reevaluate and figure out some things.  It’s not that I’m bored with things; it’s more like I’m so disinterested in food lately that I don’t care what I’m eating, and that is making it hard to want anything in particular.  I am actually happy with that feeling in general, but it does leave me not eating for a long time and then getting so ravenous that I make unwise decisions.  It would be better if I was making sure to eat enough throughout the day.

[Walk #71]

Daily Log: 25 May 2024

   25 May 2024  Leave a Comment on Daily Log: 25 May 2024

Weight: ?

Exercise: 2.75 mile/4.43 km walk (6:57am–7:59am, ☀️58ºF/14.5ºC)

Mindfulness: 5 minute outdoor meditation (7:59am–8:04am); 11 minute outdoor meditation (1:37pm–1:48pm)

Mood: Excellent

Food: 690 calories

  • Chocolate Salted Pretzel iced coffee
  • steamed green beans, lettuce, jalapeños, Tofurky Hickory Smoked Deli Slices
  • steamed green beans, lettuce, tomatoes, jalapeños
  • steamed cauliflower
  • Happy Belly SF Pink Lemonade

The Wandering Hermit: Who Needs Sleep When You Can Walk?

   8 May 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: Who Needs Sleep When You Can Walk?

I had a very early morning walk, so I made it last as long as I could.  I’m starting to get impatient, but I need to let things take their course.  I will improve as quickly as I naturally can.  There is no need to rush anything.  While it was still just slightly too dark when I started, I really appreciated doing my walk that early and it might be the right time to get the steps in until the end of August when it’s still just night at that time.  I almost feel like anything done before 7 is good with me, so when I start at 6:30, I’m only getting in 30 minutes, but 5:45 gives me 45 additional minutes and I don’t really mind walking them.  I didn’t last that long this morning.  I did get in 40 minutes, which felt pretty good.  My shoes are holding me back a little bit.  They are fine, I guess, but they wore out years ago and they are being held together with hope.  The sole is so thin that they offer me nothing, so I really should switch.  I’ve been reluctant to switch because this place turns shoes red and I wouldn’t mind clean things when I move.  If I want to get those steps in, I might just have to deal with it.

Sleep was elusive last night, but that’s because I slept until 3pm yesterday.  That’s going to make today a challenge, but if I can get myself to stay awake until 7 or 8 this evening, I can just catch up and be back on track.  That’ll be frustrating though.  

It looks like my weight is starting to trend down again.  I keep hitting these two week long plateaus followed by dramatic drops.  I don’t mind a plateau; I was fully expecting them when I started.  But two weeks can feel like an eternity.  I miss the simplicity of that fall when my weight dropped steadily.  It might end up being the same pace, but it was more encouraging.  I’m glad it’s headed back down.  I’d really like to see 270 by the end of the month.  I’m shooting for 10 lbs a month right now, which should let me see 250 by my birthday.  I won’t be upset if I can see more, but I’m not doing anything drastic to encourage weight loss I won’t be able to sustain.  This has been very manageable so far.  

[Walk #46]

Daily Log: 8 May 2024

   8 May 2024  Leave a Comment on Daily Log: 8 May 2024

Weight: 277.8 lb/126.01 kg

Exercise: 1.77 mile/2.85 km walk (5:44am–6:24pm, 🌙65ºF/18ºC)

Mood: Excellent

Food: 1320 calories

  • French toast iced coffee
  • French toast oatmeal with blueberries
  • steamed broccoli, vegan fish filets, black beans, jalapeños
  • steamed cauliflower, vegan fish filets, black beans, jalapeños
  • steamed green beans, vegan fish filets, black beans, jalapeños
  • Happy Belly SF Pink Lemonade

The Wandering Hermit: Getting Up To A Mile

   3 May 2024  Leave a Comment on The Wandering Hermit: Getting Up To A Mile

It’s a beautiful day.  Cloudy, cool… great for my morning walk, even if that was a little late.  I was so tired this morning; I decided to just sleep a little longer.  I thought I had gotten enough, but my watch says 6hr48min, and I have no reason to say it is wrong… that does not include the extra hour and a half though, so maybe I have a reason to at least be suspicious.  

I’ve gotten lazy with my calorie counting.  That was always meant to be temporary, but lately I keep forgetting to record everything as I eat it and then you’ve got me trying to keep my eyes open as I’m going to bed trying to recall how many kidney beans I had with lunch.  In general, I’ve been trying to work on getting to everything.  I wish I could let go of a lot of things to make room in my brain for just my daily habits checklist.  All of the stuff in life can start to weigh us down and I feel burdened by it all sometimes.  I mentioned recently that I actually love how chaotic I can be, and I still think that.  I love that when I want to do something, I spend hours watching videos and collecting materials and familiarizing myself with the ins and outs of it all, even if I don’t ultimately retain that hobby.  I still love that about me, but I need to work on coupling that with the self awareness required to purge and let things go that I am no longer interested in.  I usually see that as a failure of some kind, and that’s not something I’m interested in any longer.  It isn’t a failure to move forward.  Learning new things is the hobby, and I think that is great.  But if I’ve already learned everything I want to know about a topic, it is more than okay to let someone else have the materials I collected.

My walks are going very well, but I do wish I could get my heart rate up more.  I’m trying to remember to have patience with myself; a year ago I struggled to get through a shower without needed a rest, so it will just take some time to get to where I need to go.  I had been doing at least 20 minutes a day in exercise (walking unless it’s just too muddy), but I think after the past few days I’m going to change that to at least 1 mile of walking.  That currently takes me roughly 25 minutes, but if I can get that down to 20 minutes that might help me keep that heart rate up.  It’s worth trying at least, and then I’ll revisit my goals after that.  I’m still looking forward to Brad getting cleared to do exercise, although by that time it’ll be too hot to continue on outside and we’ll have to start meeting at the gym.  And that is just fine too… maybe preferable.

[Walk #40]

September 2023 Update

   30 September 2023  Leave a Comment on September 2023 Update

So, as I had predicted September was not as euphoric as August had been.  Part of that was due to my own dabbling in various ways to see what would and would not work in terms of adding back in foods that aren’t terribly compliant (as well as using up some foods already in the house), but some was a general bit of frustration when either my weight loss seemed to have slowed or more notably when exercise felt difficult.

The month started on a high note, and I’m so proud of the progress I’ve made with my weight.  I am very impatient about it all of course, but it is hard to complain when I’ve lost as much as I have.  Hopefully this coming Monday’s weigh-in will put me over 50 lbs of total lost weight.  I’m apprehensive about it, but I’m always apprehensive about weighing myself.  I don’t know if that feeling goes away at some point.

This month has been all about simplifying my meal planning and getting down to the most basic foods that I would enjoy eating for my life.  I like to make soup with many ingredients, but I’ve really tried to hone in on the least number of ingredients to make something I still love.  That is going well, and there have been no surprises.  I need to learn to trust myself.  I know what I works for me; I didn’t really need any big experiments to tell me that.

I’m planning to focus on food costs in October.  I want to see how much I can lower my grocery bill and still feel just as satisfied.  It will be similar to September, but I already know that my walnut milk might have to be replaced by soy or almond.  I might need to switch from lemonade to water, especially seeing as I go through so much these days.  What I want for this next chapter in my life is to simplify everything.  I want to live cheaply and gently.

I want to have all of the extra weight gone yesterday, but I just need to keep reminding myself that none of these things happen quickly.  I put in a lot of time gaining the weight; I need to give myself time to lose it.

Five More Pounds!

   4 September 2023  Leave a Comment on Five More Pounds!

Weight: 385 lbs

Okay, okay… so I was wrong.  I’ve lost another five pounds.  I’m so pleased with that.  I’ve been working at this for about a month now and I have lost about 25 pounds.  While I cannot be sure of that number, losing ten pounds in ten days of a fasting mimicking diet is completely normal and I assume it was around that.

I worried that increasing my calories would have hurt my progress, but it seems to have not slowed me down at all.  To be fair, I’ve had so much energy that I’ve been up cleaning the house a lot more than I had been.  Still, If I can keep this up I should be able to set some goals that I thought seemed unreasonable and now feel obtainable.  I’m being cautious about those kinds of goals still.  I want to see the weight headed in the same direction over the next month to really trust that I can rely on losing weight.  Dr. McDougall always tells people that if you are eating this way you should be able to get to your ideal weight in a year.  Most of those people are starting out significantly smaller than I am, but it is still encouraging to see numbers today that suggest that he isn’t wrong.  Maybe more like two years, but still.  I’m doing almost no exercise still.  I need to work on that and stop being scare of my own legs.

While I’m not ready to set dates for goals, I have already decided to set some achievement gifts to myself.  That should serve as just another way of keeping me motivated.  I’m working on that now and I’ll post it when I have it outlined better.

Discouraged

   21 August 2023  Leave a Comment on Discouraged

I lost 4 lbs.  While that is more than reasonable weight loss in a week, I still felt discouraged when I saw that number.

One thing I am used to when losing weight is the initial extreme loss, which granted is normally water.  Because I was heavier than my scale could record, I was  unable to get my weight until 14 August.  By then, I had been working hard on my plan for more than a week, so I imagine I missed out on some of that initial loss and the excitement you feel on seeing the numbers decrease so quickly on the scale. 4 pounds is a good amount of loss in one week.  It just is.  And I need to remember that.  That is a week with almost no exercise.  That is a week when I felt full everyday. 

I’ve felt generally discouraged.  Emotions cycle all the time and I understand that they will constantly change while I’m trying to lose weight.  I feel just as motivated as I did, but just somewhat less optimistic.  I’ve had too much time to sit think about food and dieting and my plan.  I have a tendency to obsess over whatever I’m working on, but to the exclusion of everything else.  Focusing on losing weight just keeps me reminded that I have so much weight to lose.  It is a reminder of my failures.  I need to get back to other things in my life, but hopefully the way I’ve set everything up will allow me to be successful without too much effort.

Today I’m finally getting my exercise bike set up, so that will add at least 30 minutes of exercise daily.  That should help see these numbers continue.  And I’m going to try and keep reminding myself that losing 4 pounds in one week is still pretty good.