Friday, January 11, 2013

Optimism and Realism

It appears my guesstimate of losing 5+ pounds by Monday might have been a bit optimistic; I'm holding steady-ish at the low-146 scale reading.  Although the "low-146" is moving ever closer to 145, unless my body does something terribly interesting over the weekend (which I will grant you is still possible) I'll be more at 4-ish pounds lost for the week.

It's still primarily water weight, and still nothing to sneeze at.

I've done the calculations and if I keep eating at the level I'm currently choosing and exercising at my current rate*, I believe it will take me about 100 days to get back to 135.  That puts my target date at Monday, April 22nd.  Okay it's more like 105 days if we're counting from this past Monday and 102 days from today, but I'm calling it an even 15 weeks just to keep my A/R tendencies happy.

Well, I've got to keep some part of me happy.  Because 100 days?  Holy cow.  The time it took me to gain this weight was only a month.  December 3rd I had a blog entry announcing my post-Thanksgiving return to 135, and today I'm still more than ten pounds over that.

Appallingly, I'm actually questioning if it was worth it.  Questioning it!  Shouldn't this be a no-brainer?  No, no Amanda, the food fest was NOT worth 100 days of a limited wardrobe, feeling bloated, and having your chest crushed (thanks to part of my weight gain being in bra-relevant areas).  It is NOT worth having to watch yourself so carefully you're pushing the office chocolates onto your coworkers simply because this way you won't eat them**.

On the good news front, though, I continue 100% on-plan for both food and exercise, so that's freaking awesome.  The guys were going out to lunch today at a new restaurant which we'd all tried to hit over the holidays but gave up because it was packed.  I told them I'd just take their review, and I stayed in and ate my salad (which was already paid for anyway, yay!).

Things are looking up.  We'll see what that scale says on Monday :)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

*1200 calories/ day averaged over the course of a week
1 hour brisk walking in the evening + 20-30 minutes resistance training in the morning.

**Yes, I was totally a food-pusher yesterday and worse yet I'm only mildly ashamed.  My coworkers are adult men.  They're big boys; they can take it in more ways than one.  If they don't want chocolate they don't have to eat it.  And their metabolisms still beat mine easily.

8 comments:

Christine said...

looks like you are trucking...100 days beats continued regain, right? onward and downward.

Amanda said...

Christine, there definitely is that! The scale is moving in the right direction, and that's absolutely a plus :)

Norma said...

My mother's old saying, "A moment on the lips, forever on the hips" is a truism for sure. For me, it ends up on the belly, but, same thing. :( Keep on truckin', mon ami.

Amanda said...

Oh don't I know it! And in my case it's definitely to the hips. My face looks normal again, and my bras are less offensive. But the legs... oh the legs! Yeeouch :(

Unknown said...

It's a cruel game isn't it? So easy to put on, so hard to put off...
But you know, weight comes off in fits and starts, so you may accelerate in some weeks, and it may take less than 100 days to get there.
Anyway, life moves so fast, April will be here before you know it!

Amanda said...

Jennifer, it could go more quickly and I'd sure like it if it would!

And yes, April will be here quickly. I'm be 43 on the 2nd of that month and I'm trying not to think about it at the moment, LOL. I'll like 43 much better at or near 135 ;)

Dr. J said...

If I am correct here, you want to lose 10 pounds and you think it will take 100 days?

Seems to me by doing fasted exercise in the AM and eating a little cleaner you could do that a lot faster than that.

Amanda said...

Well, my resistance in the morning is fasted. I roll out of bed, go out and put on the coffee, come back in, brush my teeth, then get to it. And thinking on it, the evening cardio is after 2-3 hours of no food (I'm actually not sure if this point is good or not).

My eating is also minimally processed.

I just know my metabolism, my mindset, and my physical limitations; it seems to me that in my particular case 100 days is reasonable. If it happens more quickly I won't complain :)