Confessions of a Recovering Chocoholic

Overall, this week went well. It’s the best week I’ve had in the past 9 weeks as far as staying on track with diet and exercise. I ate fewer sweets this week (although still a lot) and diligently tracked my food Monday through Friday. I had a strong calorie deficit each day and came in at or under my calorie goal each day.

I continued walking quite a bit throughout the week. I logged at least two miles on 4 of my lunches plus some additional evening walks. I got in three more intense workouts including actually dragging myself out of bed for my 5am workout on Thursday! I know it was only once but that’s better than I have been doing. If I could up that to two 5 am workouts this week, that would be serious progress.

I wasn’t overly creative in the kitchen, but I did tackle some homemade applesauce this weekend! It made the whole kitchen smell so good. I left the peels on to make it easier, and it still turned out fine.

And so how did all that turn out on the scale? I’m up 0.6 pounds! Yes, the silly scale seems to have no clue how hard I’ve been working. I’m trying not to get discouraged by that. Probably my 2.2 pounds loss last week was more of a fluke and and it’s evening out this week. Either I’m not working hard enough or my body just isn’t cooperating and most likely a combination of the two, but the bottom line is still the same: I’ve been holding steady for the past 9 weeks, and something has to give if I ever want to lose this weight.

This week was definitely an improvement over last week! I tracked each day except Saturday. Not tracking was mostly because it was a busy day and I wasn’t too sure how many calories I ate, not because I was pigging out and didn’t want to face it. Although I did track, I was over my calorie goal on many days. I experienced a lot of cravings, some eating out, and reacted to some stress/emotion with eating. However, I did the best I could and didn’t allow one poor choice to lead another. All that resulted in a calorie deficit for the week!

I also, yet again, got caught waking up on Monday morning totally unprepared for the week. I hadn’t finished cleaning the house (close, but not quite), hadn’t gone grocery shopping, and didn’t have food prepped for the week. I think we all know how that goes. It’s so, so important to plan. Although planning won’t do much for unexpected cravings or some stress eating, it does ensure that I have an easy, ready, healthy option for most meals, and helps me to feel less stressed. I’m happy to say that I actually did get ready for the week this weekend, so this week can be even better.

On the exercise front, I walked quite a bit and did a couple more intense workout DVDs. I still haven’t gotten myself back into the the 5am workouts or running. I’m not sure whether or not I’ll return to running since after 3-4 weeks I’ve lost everything I worked up to. I would like to up the number of intense workouts to at least 3 a week (and ideally 4) instead of my usual 2. That’s much more of challenge when I’m not fitting them in at 5am.

So how did all that turn out on the scale? I lost 2.2 pounds this week for a total 13.4 this year. I’ll gladly take it!

I can’t believe I’m almost a week late with these results! It’s just been a crazy week. I always have the best of intentions of slowing down, getting organized, and pulling myself together, but then life happens.

The beginning of the week (last week, not this one) started out quite well. I recommitted myself, tracked every bite, exercised, and cut back on the sweets! I had 4 solid days of tracking, eating fairly well, and good calorie deficits Monday through Thursday. And then there was Friday.

Friday was Good Friday and the first work holiday of the year! I had an entire rare day off work, and I was determined to use it well. Therefore, there was definitely no reason to fall of the wagon, for sure. For once I actually had time to exercise and prepare healthy foods without rushing around. So of course I had a wonderfully healthy day. Unfortunately nothing went quite as planned, I got frustrated, and so I ate what I wanted. Oops! I also didn’t exercise telling myself I “deserved” the day off. Here’s the funny thing, though. I didn’t really even enjoy taking the day off from exercise. I would have felt much better if I had just forced myself to get out there and move!

Saturday I really couldn’t get back on track too well, because we travelled to a wedding. That eliminated both my time for exercise and when is wedding food ever healthy? By Sunday, I was on a roll, so why not take that day off as well? Because don’t we all know that the best way too counteract a couple days of poor eating is to add on another day of poor eating? Sometimes I astound myself at how I can’t seem to figure out the simplest things.

I will say that not all was lost. Even though I didn’t track and didn’t exercise on Friday and Saturday, I did some good things as well. I really did work to improve my eating on Sunday even though it still wasn’t stellar. I also went for a walk on Sunday. I got some of my tempting foods out of my sight on Saturday when I realized how easy it would be for me to overeat them. So I didn’t just completely run away from the wagon even though I fell off.

Also, I snapped out of it by this Monday and pulled myself together. You’ll have to wait for my week 15 report to hear how all that went.

Remember that frozen rice idea I shared recently on my Facebook page? We ate it this week with some stir-fry, and it turned out pretty well. The rice tasted the same as it did when it was fresh. I just took the ziploc bag, ran it under warm water, then dumped it frozen on a plate, and microwaved it for a couple minutes.

All in all, I probably had a small calorie deficit for the week, and I gained 0.6 pounds, bringing my total loss for the past 14 weeks to 11.2 pounds. I lost 10.6 pounds in the first 7 weeks and have been maintaining for the past 7 weeks. That may not sound like much of an accomplishment and of course I still have a long way to go, but maintenance (instead of gaining) during a rough time is no small feat for me. I’m in the midst of writing a longer post to share my thoughts on all that, so stay tuned.

I recently got the opportunity to review the audio version of The Money Saving Mom’s Budget: Slash Your Spending, Pay Down Your Debt, Streamline Your Life, and Save Thousands a Year. So, what does a budgeting have to do with losing weight? A lot more than you might think!

• Budgeting really is a lot like dieting. I’ve often thought about the similarities between taking control of my finances and taking control of my eating. Both involve perseverance, lots of self-discipline, some willpower, and some good fortune doesn’t hurt either. One question I’ve often asked myself is why I tend to do so much better and show so much more self-control when it comes to spending money than I do with food. I would encourage you to do the same. Is there an area in your life in which you do well and exercise a lot more control than you do with your eating and exercise? Try to figure out why and what motivates you in those areas and apply that to healthy living. I’m writing a whole post on how I can apply my lessons learned in budgeting to dieting.
• I love how the first two chapters of the book really have nothing to do with finances. Chapter one is about goal setting, and chapter two is about decluttering and getting organized. It’s so important to recognize that a good foundation needs to be established before embarking on any major change. The goal setting chapter was inspiring. The whole time I was listening to it (while on the treadmill, no less) I was thinking about how I needed to apply those concepts to my health efforts. I need to set small, achievable goals that I can actually meet so I can gain confidence and traction. I really need to create the habit of following through on my goals.
• The second chapter talks about getting organized and getting rid of clutter. It’s amazing how much disorganization and clutter can affect your daily life, and I’ve found this to greatly affect both my finances and my weight loss efforts. A cluttered, messy kitchen is so de-motivating when it comes to preparing healthy recipes. There’s something so freeing and inspiring about relatively clean and clutter free surroundings. I find when I’m disorganized that general attitude creeps into my eating habits. Also, being organized helps me find the time to exercise, blog, cook healthy foods ahead – all so critical to my success.
• This point really deserves a whole post of it’s own, but at one point I was running on the treadmill on about minute four of my six minute run feeling like I was about to die! I hear something to effect of, “You can accomplish anything with a can-do attitude.” Really? All I need to lose 100 pound is a can-do attitude? A can-do attitude would keep me running on this treadmill for 10 minutes straight? I wanted to throw something at her (but lucky for her she wasn’t actually there and even if she had been, I didn’t have the energy to throw something after running 6 minutes straight).  I mulled those words over in my head the rest of the day. I finally realized that you probably can’t do everything with a can-do attitude, but what can it hurt? You can certainly go a lot further with that than you could with a doubting attitude, so why not? Go ahead and tell yourself that it’s possible. You can succeed. Knock down all the doubting thoughts when they enter your head. See what happens.

If you’re considering buying the book (by the way, she’s donating all the money she makes from the book to very worthy cause – Compassion International), here’s my overall take on it: I really loved the first two chapters of the book (about goal setting and getting organized) and was certainly motivated by those chapters! The rest of the chapters (except the last chapter on contentment) focused on the details of budgeting, financial principles, and ways to save money. Crystal gives good, solid advice in these sections, and she won’t steer you wrong. However, if you already read her website (www.moneysavingmom.com) regularly and/or are already pretty frugal and in control of your finances, you probably won’t find anything too new in those sections.

However, while that information might not be new to you, it will still challenge you to rededicate your financial efforts. She does issue a pretty strong no-plastic (credit or debit) challenge that I imagine most people have never done.

Tomorrow night Crystal is hosting a live webinar about the book, and she’s giving away a free iPad 2 (details below – you have to enter the giveaway today).

Celebrate with Crystal by entering her iPad2 Giveaway (a GREAT tool to keep track of your budget!) and RSVPing to the Live Webcast Event on 4/5!

One savvy winner will receive:

• A Brand new iPad2
• The Money Saving Mom‘s Budget by Crystal Paine, audio edition

Enter today by clicking one of the icons below. But hurry, the giveaway ends 4/4/12. Winner will be announced at The Money Saving Mom’s Live Webcast Event on 4/5. Crystal will be hosting an evening of chat, laughter and encouragement – bring your friends! She’ll share tips and advice and her husband will be joining her to share how the principles Crystal outlines in her book have dramatically impacted their family life. She’ll also be giving away some GREAT prizes: gift certificates, books, and much more!

So grab your copy of The Money Saving Mom®’s Budget and join Crystal and friends on the evening of April 5th for an evening of fun of learning, sharing and encouragement.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of the audiobook for this review.

I’d consider week 13 an okay week. Food wise, I think I improved over previous weeks, eating slightly less junk food. I also faithfully tracked all my food most days, even though some days I was over on calories. Going forward, I need to track 100% of the time and I also need to get in a better habit of tracking before I eat something. A couple evenings I came home from work, snacked on several things throughout the evening (instead of eating a true meal) and then tried to remember what I’d eaten at the end of the night. Obviously, I should have logged each food before I ate it. I will say that simply tracking my food helped keep me in line somewhat, and I did make better choices.

On the exercise front, I totally bombed the morning workouts! I only did the morning thing once. I did, as promised, drag myself out of bed at 4:45am on Tuesday morning and get in a decent workout. By Tuesday night I was completely exhausted and hoped to go to bed early and be able to fall asleep easily. Well, I didn’t get home until about 9:15, had to take 15 minutes to wind down, was indeed sleeping by 10, but then got a phone call at 11 that completely wound me back up. I didn’t really get to sleep until after midnight and two nights in a row of such little sleep just wasn’t going to happen.

So, did I wisely go to bed early on Wednesday night when I was home all evening and totally could have? Nope! I got so wrapped in everything on my to do list (none of which was as important as my health, by the way) and made the mistake of starting to think about going to bed at the time that I actually wanted to be sleeping. I’m sure you can imagine how that goes. I wrapped up the post I was writing, checked e-mail again, tidied up the house a bit, prepped my breakfast and lunch for the next day, and so on. Therefore I slept in on Thursday and you know how the rest of the story goes. I told a friend that I think I need a personal assistant to follow me around and tell me what to do to keep me in line. She said they probably have an app for that! Maybe I should look into that.

However, I still did exercise some in the evenings and on my lunch break. I took walks when I could and did a more intense workout one evening. In total, I did two more intense workout DVDs, and a lot of walking, sometimes on hill. Those walking calories really do add up and it’s an activity I really enjoy.

Before I get to my weigh-in results for this week, there’s a question that’s been on my mind a lot recently, and I imagine you’ve wondered the same thing as well. If you look back on all my weekly report posts for this year, you might notice that the past 4 weeks I’ve been really struggling (also notice the frequency of overall posts corresponding with that), and I’ve not actually lost any weight despite claiming to be trying to do so. If you’ve been reading for a really long time (like years) and have an excellent memory, you may also notice that this is my pattern. In short: I do well for about 8-12 weeks and lose weight steadily, then I really struggle along and barely maintain for another 5-12 weeks, and then I fall off the wagon completely, regaining most of what I lost. So the million dollar question is this: Have I really, truly made progress in changing myself? Will this weight loss attempt really be the “last time” as I so desperately want it to be? What can I do to make this time different? Well, I’m so glad you asked! That’s such a deep and long subject that I’m saving it for another post. (I would hate for this one to get so long that you fall asleep reading it.)

Now, what did the scales say this week? I lost 1.4 pounds for a total of 11.8 this year! I’m very happy with that considering my lest than ideal eating this past week. I think the fact that I kept on trying and (mostly) looked at every food choice as a new opportunity to make the right decision helped me maintain somewhat of a calorie deficit, and the all the spontaneous exercise adds up.