Week 1

Okay, so today make the end of the first week and I have lost 3 pounds, not bad since it's all water weight.  My goal for week 2 is to lose 2 pounds and I should be able to do so easily.  Yesterday I had 1305 calories and took in 1130.

05:30am Pudding (60)
05:30am Pringles (150)
-went back to sleep...-
03:00pm Lean Pocket (260)... can't you tell I love these, lol.
10:00pm Half a Cheese Pizza (660)

Also here's two pictures of me... I just took it today, so not really a start picture, but I really haven't changed much, lol.  So do not like how I look, but I know I will get to my goal and will feel good about myself!

3 Pounds off Total!

Sorry for not posting yesterday... I just lost track of time and such.  This morning I woke up to use the bathroom and then all of a sudden I had an extreme pain in my abs on the left side.  I thought maybe my body was telling me to feed itself that I didn't eat enough the day before.  Well it turned out that's wrong since eating and drinking water did not help me at all.  The only thing that worked was a heating pad on me for two hours.  I think I have Diverticulosis, which can be caused by not taking in enough fiber and makes the colon work harder than it should be.  This is why I recommend using sites like Nutridiary since it will keep track of vitamins, sodium, fiber, and all of that for you.  If you noticed it's becoming harder to go to the restroom and not going as normal... check your fiber intake as well as your water.  Increase them if they are low.  You can take Fiber supplements like Fiber Choice, but I would space them out throughout the day since it can cause bloating and gas issues.  Trust me, you do not want to feel the pain I had this morning.

Okay... so Friday my intake limit was 1,264 and I took in 1196, but walked off 218 calories:

8:00am Lean Pocket (260)
11:00am Jello Gelatin Cup (10)
5:30pm Buffalo Wild Wings Honey BBQ Boneless Wings (686)
9:30pm Fiber Bar (150)

The Saturday I had a limit of 1436 and I took in 1080.  Also not the best day... it was very much a snack eating day, not proud of that.

2:30pm Pudding (60)
3:00pm Pudding (60)
5:00pm White Cheddar Popcorn (160)
9:00pm Creamy Garlic Shells (640)
11:50pm White Cheddar Popcorn (160)

Right now I don't have Justin's list of foods for yesterday and Friday, but he lost 1.5 pounds.  He has a lot of water weight on him due to not drinking water in the past and high sodium intake.  He will lose a lot of weight at first, so not worries there with fast weight loss with him.

2 Pounds Off Total

I forgot to post yesterday, so here's what I ate on Wednesday, which I was allowed 1577 calories:

7am White Chicken Lean Pocket (260)
10:45am Beef Jerky (70)
2pm Jell-o Sugar-free Gelatin Cup (10)
4:50pm Jell-o Sugar-free Pudding Cup (60)
8:02pm Small Corn on the Cob (63)
9:15pm Smart Ones 2 Mini Cheeseburgers (400)
11:30pm White Chicken Lean Pocket (260)

I had a total of 1123 calories... and then yesterday I had, allowed 1310 calories:

5:30am White Chicken Lean Pocket (260)
9:30am Pudding Cup (60)
2:00pm Pudding Cup (60)
7:00pm Applebee's (924)

Then I burned off 603 calories with walking 22,331 steps and 10.6 miles... so I took in 1204, but with the burn off, my body kept 601.

I lost another 1.5 pounds, so I lost 2 pounds total now and down to 158.  I am figuring I am losing my water weight now since I am sure my body has stored a lot of it over time.  Here's a good site to read up on water weight and what it is and why your body stores it:  Time For Fitness

Justin just joined me on the diet today, so that will help me stay on the diet as well.  It's always great to have a diet buddy to help you stay on the diet.  To exercise with and journal things with and such.  Also since the other person will be concern about calories and the count it will remind you to pay attention what you are eating.  Tomorrow we are suppose to go for a mile walk at one of the parks and then next week we plan to do our walks on three days.  We are hoping to join the YMCA eventually to work on their machines and pools.

Umm.. well I don't have much else to say, so end of blog entry!  Oh and I will post a start photo tomorrow, I meant to take a picture before I started the diet, sorry!

Cravings

Okay... I hate walking around the mall for my walks, especially when I am hungry.  Yesterday I got a craving for Great American Cookie Company Red Velvet Brownie.  I broke down and got it... found out when I got home they are 500 calories in one of those.  I wished I ate half and saved the other half for later.  I worked my rest of my day around the 500 I ate and I did fine, I actually had 182 left over by the end of the night.

A number of doctors say if you are on a diet and craving something... eat it, it will make the craving go away and you will feel better.  I agree, I felt fine after having the brownie (though I felt bad afterward because of the calorie amount).  My stomach stopped craving sweets the rest of the day.  Now I will say this, if you are craving something that you know is very high in calories for your amount, try having half, a third, or a fourth of it.  It might just make the cravings go away and then you can eat something else that's lower.  You could save the rest for later in the day or the next day or when you have that craving again.

So yesterday I had:

5:00pm Red Velvet Brownie- 500 calories
6:11pm Wendy's- 450 calories
11:30pm Brussels Sprouts- 150 calories

So a total of 1090 and today I have a total of 1577 calories.  Since tomorrow is Trivia night at Applebees I am going to try to either switch day calories or whatever I have left over tonight to add in tomorrow's, so I can make sure I have enough calories for tomorrow.  I found Applebee's calorie information on their food, so I know how much I will be in taking luckily.  Though it's going to be hard to keep the count low since I wake up at 6am to work truck for my workplace.  I will try my best though luckily I usually walk like 10,000+ steps while on the truck, so calories are burned off, yay!

Half Pound Off!

So yesterday I took in 1030 calories and I weighed myself this morning to find that I now weigh 159.5.  I try to weigh myself at the same time everyday and wearing the same thing.  It's easier to see if you are truly losing weight.

My goal is to lose two pounds a week, so a good start with the half pound.  You should not lose more than two pounds a week.  You might be able to lose more pounds the first two weeks, maybe the third as well, but if you are still losing too much weight by the fourth, change something.  Eat more or exercise less.  It's hard on the body to loss so much weight at once and also it will be that much easier to gain it back if you go off track a little.  I try to keep my calorie count at least 1000 since I don't want to lose the weight too fast, I want to keep the weight off for good.

Since my overall goal is to lose 40 pounds and that may seem a lot, but I try to set small goals within it for 10 pounds.  It doesn't seem as bad and once you achieve it, you do another small goal.  I try not to add dates because that can be hard on the mind if you are just 2 pounds away when you come to that date.  It can be discouraging.

Here's what I ate yesterday: at 3:00pm a white chicken Lean Pocket (260 calories), 7:30pm a 2pk of cupcakes (360 calories), 10:20pm brussels sprouts (150 calories), and 11:30pm another Lean Pocket (260 calories).  I had 10 glasses of water and two cans of Cherry Coke Zero, which has no calories in it.  Justin and I walked a mile together at a park, so that probably burned about 100 calories right there.

Today I have 1272 calorie limit and as you can see that's doable for me.

First Day

Today is my first day back on my diet and I can have 1318 calories today.  I am doing what is called a seven day calorie cycle (also know as zigzag).  Each day is a different calorie count, but if you add up the week and average it out it should equal your fat loss calorie count. This tricks your body into thinking you're eating less and helps prevent plateaus or break them. I do this also so I can have a high day because Justin and I like to go out for trivia once a week.

This week my fat loss is averaged at 1318 since this week I am figuring I am not going to be able to do a lot of exercising.  If I had three days of exercising it would be at 1510.  I know a lot of people are thinking 1318 is really low, but it's doable if you eat smaller meals and more of them instead of three giant meals.  Eating five to six smaller meals a day will keep your metabolism activity level, which will help you burn calories off.  If I average out my calories for five meals it will be 263.6.  Not bad at all.  One meal I could have a sandwich, another soup, for dinner I can have a lean pocket.  Or I can make sure how many calories I will need by the end of the night to have a fourth of a tombstone cheese pizza, which is 350.

To help my metabolism (as well as the bloating of my stomach) I will be drinking cold water instead of diet pop/soda.  Pop/soda, no matter if it's diet or regular, causes your stomach to bloat, so I pretty much cut it all out, except for maybe one can a day or unless we go out for trivia.  If you are drinking pop/soda, you have to count its calories into your daily count.  It does add up and it will surprise you how much it does if you drink a lot of it.  If you are going to cut pop/soda out fully, do this slowly since if you drastically cut it out it will cause headaches.  Maybe cut a can out of your average intake for a week and then the next week take out two and so on.  This way your body gets used to the lower amount of sugar being taken in.  Nothing is excluded from the count, except for meds and vitamins you have to take.  Meds and vitamins don't usually have that high of a calorie count.

Oh!  If anyone is thinking of doing this diet, too, I would highly recommend the week or two before starting to keep track of what you eat normally everyday and the calorie amount you have taken in.  Then calculate on freedieting how much you should be taking in to lose weight.  If it's more than 500 calories in a day difference, I would just subtract 500 calories from your average before the diet.  You should not drastically cut down your calorie count because your body will starve from the giant change and you will gain the weight back faster and easier.

To note, a pound equals 3,500 calories... so if you make a difference of 500 calories a day, you should lose a pound in a week.

Another note for the women, unlike men our body has a cycle and it changes our body all through out the month.  This cycle causes our weight to roller coaster a little bit.  One site says for us to weigh ourselves once a week or once a month.  I still weigh myself everyday and try to notice when in the point(s) of time in my cycle that I seem to get heavier besides the actual 'visit'.  This way I don't get discourage by the weight gain.  To remember this I had kept a weight diary on my computer, I kept track of the dates, my weight on that day, how much I lost or gained from the day before, and the calorie count of the date before.

Well... I think that's it for my first day blog entry.  I will probably post later tonight what I took in today.

Introduction of the Golden Egg

My name is Noelle and I am a 26 year old woman that is only 4 foot and 11 inches tall. I have been straggling with my weight most of my life. Though at one point I was able to do a diet and went down to 120, which is the lowest I ever weighed. It took me six months and a lot of work to lose 36 pounds at that time.

Then I met my now ex-boyfriend, who always wanted to go to pizza places, especially buffet ones. I started to gain the weight again and I would get comments about how I needed to lose weight by him. I started to think I was ugly because of the way he would say it. He didn’t care about my mindset on my weight, it was more about how I looked to him. I continued to gain the weight and eventually left him for how he treated me.

I met Justin, my current boyfriend, and had gained all of my weight back. He tells me he doesn’t care how I look as long as I am happy. I want to lose the weight again, so I can have energy again and feel good about myself.

My goal, my golden egg, is to feel good about myself and gain energy. Justin will be sharing this experience with me as we work on the diet together. We will be doing a low-calorie diet, which we calculated with using http://freedieting.com’s calorie calculator. It’s the same one I used the first time I lost all of the weight. I have a spiral that I use as my diet journal where I log in the calories I intake each day. If I don’t do this I lose track how much I have left during the day. Along with the diet journal, I will be keeping track of everything on my Nutridiary account that calculates my sodium, vitamin, fiber, and more of my intakes, so I don’t go over or under the different percentages. We will be exercising two to three times a week to help burn off calories. My plan is to take a picture a week of myself in workout clothes to watch my body changing.

I am hoping this blog helps others to see dieting/life changes are not that hard for people of different eating styles from the normal dieters. I would recommend talking to a doctor about doing this kind of diet since some diets can be harmful to some people’s health.