Stagnant

Okay, so first the good stuff. I finally surpassed Louann  (and almost everyone) on Fitbit. My average number of steps for the past week has been 17,500. Nice! I'm in 4th place on the leaderboards, and now I'm thinking how nice it would be to have one week where I'm in the lead. I would have to beat out the guy who averages 26,000 a day. (He's a cyclist, and I'm inclined to believe those aren't "steps," as much as they're pedal revolutions.) The #2 spot is occupied by a woman who gets in 22k a day. So it's possible.

The weight loss is stalled though. And this isn't just some "plateau" I've reached because my body's adjusting to the level of exercise I am doing. This is me "eating back my calories" after burning off quite a few. It needs to be changed. I burn about 3000 calories a day (including my BMR). There's no reason I shouldn't have a 1000 calorie deficit each day.

I've been experiencing a lot of fatigue and brain fog lately (I'm assuming related to the thyroid stuff.) It's really hard at the beginning of the day (getting out of bed, getting going, etc). Hopefully, I'll be able to get some of that straightened out with the doctor, because it really is a struggle to do most stuff. I keep up with the steps and such, because I'm afraid of falling into a huge rut. But I feel like 90% of what I call "motivation" is really just caffeine.

Okay...so I'm going to forget about trying to set a weight loss goal for the immediate future. What I'm going to focus on right now is getting the 20,000 steps a day for 7 straight days. Hopefully if I can stop having a ginormous bowl of cereal before I go to bed, I can get the calories under control, too.

Waist size? New goal.

I just read a CNN article that says that waist size is a big predictor of diabetes. Basically, anything 35" and above for a woman spells trouble. I just measured mine, in the usual place--across the belly button--and came up with 38, but according to this article, you should be measuring the narrowest part, or if you don't have a "natural waistline," where your elbows are. I had kind of suspected I should be using the "narrowest" part, but for me that falls kind of high, and I thought it might be cheating. Not so, apparently. My "natural waist" is 36.

So, my new goal--in addition to getting into the 160s this month--is to get my waist under 35". I don't know how long that takes, so I'll say it's a summer goal.

Still keeping up

Wednesday night I said I'd run a mile nonstop, and I did. I was winded and I was only running at 4.6 miles an hour, but I set out to run a mile and I did. Hooray for accomplishing stuff.

Also, last month I set out to beat a woman named LouAnn at fitbit.com. I just checked, and by an average of a mere 46 steps a day, I'm beating her. Trouble is, when I set that goal, she was averaging 15k steps a day. She's currently in 11th place, just below me, with 10,953 steps a day. So, I'm beating her, but she's also not the fierce competition she was a month ago. Right now I'm in 10th place, so my goal for the week is to be in 7th.

Is this thing on?

Okay...there's less than a month until the big four-oh. Yippeee! At one point I was down 22 pounds, but somehow (I'm talking to you, beerwinesushicake!) I am currently only down 17 pounds. I'm back on track now. The past two days have been pretty good, and I am back to logging my food and making sure I exceed 10k steps. Tonight Bup and I are hitting the gym, and I am going to attempt to run a mile nonstop in addition to the 10k steps and the upper body workout. (I ran a little during a 5k the weekend before last, and even though it was hot out, I held in there longer than I thought I could.)

Okay, so right now, 177 lbs. Goal for June 24, to be in the 160s. No more silliness.

Another thing

On Fitbit.com, you can add friends and compete against them. When I first started, I was number 1 in my group. Then I started adding more and more challenging people. Then I stopped really challenging myself. So now I'm in 20th place. I'm pretty sure I'm never going to beat ericks37 who has an average of 33,000 steps a day (what the eff? Is he a professional runner??), but I can at least do better than the 65 year old women who are currently schooling me.

Right now my average is 10,000 steps (in past weeks it was around 8-9k). There's a woman named Louann who is currently in 9th place with an average of 15,021 steps per day. I'm going to make it my mission to beat out Louann in the next week. (I have no idea who Louann is. I'm sure she's a perfectly nice lady. I just want to beat her.)

I'm back!

I did a lower body strength workout Tuesday and I did arms/shoulders today. I went over my 15k steps Tuesday and yesterday, but fell short by 4k on Wednesday. I think I'll have a chance to average it out before the week is out. 

I worked from home today and I decided to create a stand-up workstation. I put a chair on my kitchen table, then my laptop on that. Then I decided to put the trampoline in front of that. There's a whole study about how if you sit for long periods of time, you're going to die a horrible, untimely death. Who wants that? Here's one story about it. 

So now when I'm reading some lengthy boring piece of something, or thinking of the thing I'm trying to type next, I can bounce lightly or kind of march in place. It's nice. I had the boyfriend (Bup) take a picture of it. It's quite silly, but if it keeps me moving and from sitting, hooray! 

Also, I've kept up with the food logging. So, so far I'm keeping up my end of the bargain. The scale, however, is being a total bitch. 

Ummmm......

Yeah, checking in once a month wasn't REALLY how I intended to be doing this.

I've sort of strayed from all of my goals. Logging food? Mostly. But I've missed a little bit here and there (usually when it's something so atrocious I don't want to admit it to myself!)

Exercise? My average of like 18k steps a day has dwindled to about half that. I think I went to the gym twice (although, in  my favor, I have developed a pretty nice arm workout at home).

Breakfast? Preparing meals in advance? Eeeek, not so much. When I work from home, I usually get a smoothie or a hot breakfast, but when I go into the office, I'm usually rushing around and then I just get lunch at 11:30.

Weight? Well, it should come as no surprise that today's scale read +3 lbs over last month. 176. I have a feeling that some of that weight will be gone in the next few days. We've got a few hormonal and digestive issues going on here that should resolve shortly.

So here we are, new month, and about 7 weeks away from the big 4-0. So let's renew our our commitment, shall we?

1. Breakfast every day. No excuses.
2. Log everything. No excuses.
3. 15,000 steps minimum. You get the idea.
4. Check in here at least 2x a week. Weight included.
5. Strength training 3x a week. (Actually, I can log it here when I check in...how convenient.)

I'm not upset with myself, or feeling all crappy. Overall, I still look and feel good. I'm down a total of 18 pounds, and that's a great accomplishment. But it's time to get the scale moving in the right direction again!