The Blerch.

I'm totally into the Blerch now. If you don't know what this is, please check out The Oatmeal's The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distances.  I'll be here when you get back. 

It's amusing, right? This poor guy puts his body through hell so he can eat whatever he wants.  He says he's like a trained circus animal. He does a trick, he gets a reward. This. Is. The. ONLY. WAY.
I can't get weight loss to work for me unless I grant myself food as a job well done. What does that say about me?

I have a Fitbit. It's awesome. Like Ferris says, "It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up." The Fitbit is a pedometer. That's it in a nutshell. The other more awesome thing it does is that it's got an app. This app takes into account your height and weight and then tells you how many calories you should be eating to lose weight.  Sounds simple enough, right?

I used the thing for weeks. Followed what it was telling me religiously. I got my 10K steps a day if not more and I was within my calorie range. I was not losing. I wasn't gaining but I wasn't losing.  This is when I noticed there's a "personalized" calorie range and a "sedentary" calorie range.  The personalized range assumes you're a good girl and you've burned the number of calories it wants you to for the day. My goal is 2338 for a calorie burn. I RARELY, if ever, make it to that goal which is why I wasn't losing anything. I was basically eating for maintenance.

I switched my calorie range to sedentary and all of a sudden the skies turned blue and cherubs started singing!  The way this works is it assumes you do NOTHING. Nada! If I woke up at 12:01AM it would tell me I couldn't have any food for the day. Obviously, I don't get up at midnight, so by 7AM when I get to work it tells me that (even without walking around) my body has used enough calories for me to eat 250 calories of something and still lose weight. HOW AMAZING IS THAT?!?!!!?

Then off I go to eat my breakfast of 300 calories and get on with my day feeling like I've accomplished a workout and I've. Done. Nothing. It's amazing, really.  On it goes for the rest of the day. Normally, I move around enough during the morning at work to allow for about 400 calories for lunch. I take a walk and try to get close to my 10K steps. When I get home, I can have another 400ish calories and sometimes, if I haven't had a 200 calorie snack... I get to have dessert.

Believe it or not, it actually works for me. I don't really understand why it clicked but it totally makes sense in my head.

Pandemonium

Yeah, let's start Weight Watchers the same week I start a major new job!  In a county where I have no cell phone coverage for the handy new WW app/trackers I downloaded!  CAPITAL idea!

Argh, I've been a chicken with my head cut off this week.  In addition to the new job (which I'm going to love love love, but which is stressing me out right now because I want to hurry up and know everything), I've been running around town every evening for one reason or another.  The good news is that I don't have time to overeat.  The bad news is that I don't have time to go to the gym or calculate all my stuff by the time I get home.  Okay, that's a lie, I do.  But I've pretty much been coming home after everything, reading a chapter of Harry Potter (I'm up to Goblet of Fire), and crashing.

This will be a big organization weekend!!!  And I'm curious to see how I'll fare at Sunday's WI.  I'm expecting a loss, though not the huge one I'd like if I were 100% focused this week.

*Side note*  Carrot Cake Luna bars are my new favorite thing in the world :)

Cautiously Optimistic. . . screw it, All The Way Optimistic!

Well, as of this morning I am officially a Weight Watcher.  I was going to type "again", but I'm not focusing on that part.  Seriously.  Although I will take one brief moment to state that I lost all this weight once and gained it all back once, and I am NOT doing THAT cycle again!  This time the pounds lost will be even more precious because I know not to take them for granted.  I am going to be like a grizzly bear guarding my weight loss!

I need to get my tracker going again, but right now I'm too lazy to go back through and do the math.  But here's some crappy news. . . my scale has been averaging 5-6 "step-ons" to get my 2 same readings in a row.  (It always varies slightly, so I wait until I get the same number twice to know it's *official*.)  So yesterday to honor my new journey, I got a new scale.  And holy crap, as of this morning my official starting weight for WW is 206.6.  I'm not even going to trip (well, maybe a little) because I know I didn't gain 6 pounds overnight.  I'm still the same, I still have the same work ahead of me, I just have a more accurate tool now.

WW set a first goal of 5%, so my next goalpost is 196.3.  I'm still sticking with my original rewards schedule (though my dates are going to be off), but as far as WW goes, this is my official focus right now.  I like it too, because it's more safely under 200 than 199.9 is.

I'm pretty excited.  Something about starting a new job and being close to actually getting my own life back on track has triggered something, and I feel more calm and ready to do this.  WW is a good tool because even though it's already stuff I *know*, it just seems easier to put the reigns in their hands and let them tell me what to do.  It's not up to me to make healthy choices, I'm just following the plan.  Less stress.  I am the 6-year-old of dieting, and I definitely need supervision.  When I have my own kitchen again, if I still HATE tracking, there's a "Simply Filling" option where I don't have to track, but I only eat foods off the "Power Foods" list (so they're still in charge, lol) - it's basically clean eating.  For now it's easier to stick to my Lean Cuisines and yogurts.

Sooooo here we go!  I still want to focus on FEELING good as much as LOOKING good along the way, so that will be something to think about and figure out as I go.

I'm doing it!

Today: 173.8 lbs
Last weigh-in: 174.4 lbs
Total loss from last weigh-in: .6 lbs
Total loss from highest: 10.4 lbs
July loss so far: .6 lbs
Goals Met:  N/A

July is going to be my month. I'm going to walk walk walk! I bought myself some lovely new shoes and I am going to wear.them.out! I am tired of being a fat girl. I am tired of being a "cute" girl.

I want to win.

Maybe it's a combination of the right time, the right people in my life and the right mindset. It could also be the oatmeal. LOL Whatever it is, I'm not going to take it for granted.  I found an old fitness site that I was using when I wanted to lose weight a looooong time ago. My starting weight was 153 and the year was 2006. It's 20.8 lbs. away. It's also considered "overweight" for me. I was aiming for 164 before I found this and I will still aim for 164 but I want to be 153 again so I can continue losing and show the past that I am not that girl. I have grown wiser and more determined to have what I want from my life.