Apparently I've had an account with Blogger for quite some time. I chronicled time in Japan both during and after college on here. Blogged some time in college. I also had two posts from 2008 when my relationship was getting serious, documenting my unhappiness with my weight and my recently unmotivated work ethic.
Well, now I've been married for almost two years. And after 2 years of taking up bellydancing, my weight, according to Mr. Scale, is about 10 pounds heavier than my blog post in 2008 whined and complained. WTF? Granted, my arms are a little ridiculous from two years of holding my arms up in a "W" (part of standard bellydance stance) - sometimes I just flex and fondle my shoulders because I just don't remember those muscles being there! And did I always have a collarbone?... But my point is that although I've been exercising (at least two hours every week), the scale hasn't moved in the correct direction (unless Mr. Scale is capable of independent thought and is secretly a bastard). Clearly my diet is an issue.
So two weeks ago over IHOP pancakes (yup, diet is clearly an issue), one of my sisters in dance (and assorted other craft-y activities) told me about how she and another of our fellow ladies had been calorie counting using the SparkPeople app. As I had recently entered the world of the smartphone (someone please tell me how I got by for so many years without one of these marvelous contraptions?!), I thought I would give it a try. So I started a profile and shared my trackers with my ladies. Let's see what that first day and my trip to IHOP looked like, shall we?
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| SparkPeople Diet Tracker from 8/18/12 |
Holy mother! It wasn't what I had at IHOP, but my delicious, supposedly-good-for-you, I'd-already-cut-half-the-oil-from-the-recipe granola bars were a lot more like eating a candy bar once I actually did the math! Eek! I'd been eating 2-3 of those tasty things a day for the past few weeks since I discovered the recipe! Add that to all of the other not so terrible, but not all that great either choices I'd been making, and no wonder Mr. Scale was not my friend!
So what did I do? Start eating right on Sunday? You bet your sweet jiggly ass I did.... not.
...
On Sunday, I instead decided it would be a good idea to order the Pizza Hut meal box (it's only $10! And comes with Cinnastix for cryin' out loud!) for dinner. I can't even blame it on The Hubster, as I'm pretty sure I'm the one that came up with the idea - but I could blame him anyway, that mean lean mass of muscle that he is he doesn't have to worry about what he eats. Infuriating.
So what did that mean for my diet tracking?
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| SparkPeople Diet Tracker from 8/19/12 |
Ouch. Not the best decision, but darn tasty! But that tasty tasty decision, compounded by my friggin' candy bar masquerading as a granola bar, meant I was off to a really awesome start (I need a sarcasm font...).
So on Monday (of course - isn't that when most people finally take action?), I got it together, made a quinoa recipe for dinner, and clocked in at a respectable 1,721 calories for the day. Hooray! The rest of the week went pretty well:
Okay, with the exception of Wednesday. Apparently work functions with a buffet are an issue... will have to work on that. But otherwise, not too bad. Mr. Scale says I lost 5 pounds that week, but I think some of that was womanly water retention, to be honest.
I followed up Week 1 by being more vigilant in Week 2:
Mr. Scale rewarded me with a rousing loss of 0.4 pounds. Really, Mr. Scale, you couldn't even give me a full pound?! Phooie.
So now I'm on Week 3, and I'm pleased with the degree of control tracking my calories affords me. For example, my bro invited me out to lunch today (can't turn down free lunch!), but insisted on pizza. By taking a look at my day foodwise, I was able to accomodate fitting in some pizza-y goodness into my plan by adjusting what I would have for dinner, coming in at a tad over 1,720 for the day.
Future goals are to incorporate drinking more water (I tend to top out at 4 glasses most days, even less others) and more exercise (two hours one day a week just doesn't cut it, from both a weight loss and improving my technique standpoint).
So let's do this thing. Not only will I make Mr. Scale my bitch, but I will also make Mrs. Sukaeru (aka Mrs. Scale, aka the Wii Fit Balance Board) say my name as well. I would like to step on that damn thing and not have my Mii hang her head in obese shame. <insert "failure" noise here>. Just geting into the "overweight" part of the scale would be an achievement!
So on Monday (of course - isn't that when most people finally take action?), I got it together, made a quinoa recipe for dinner, and clocked in at a respectable 1,721 calories for the day. Hooray! The rest of the week went pretty well:
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| SparkPeople Weekly Progress from 8/25/12
Start Weight: 202.1
End Weight: 197
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I followed up Week 1 by being more vigilant in Week 2:
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| SparkPeople Weekly Progress from 9/1/12
Start Weight: 197
End Weight: 196.6
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So now I'm on Week 3, and I'm pleased with the degree of control tracking my calories affords me. For example, my bro invited me out to lunch today (can't turn down free lunch!), but insisted on pizza. By taking a look at my day foodwise, I was able to accomodate fitting in some pizza-y goodness into my plan by adjusting what I would have for dinner, coming in at a tad over 1,720 for the day.
Future goals are to incorporate drinking more water (I tend to top out at 4 glasses most days, even less others) and more exercise (two hours one day a week just doesn't cut it, from both a weight loss and improving my technique standpoint).
So let's do this thing. Not only will I make Mr. Scale my bitch, but I will also make Mrs. Sukaeru (aka Mrs. Scale, aka the Wii Fit Balance Board) say my name as well. I would like to step on that damn thing and not have my Mii hang her head in obese shame. <insert "failure" noise here>. Just geting into the "overweight" part of the scale would be an achievement!
