Official Weigh-in

I am so bad about keeping up on my blogs! OK, I weighed in today and I lost two pounds this week! whee!

Very quick update

I know, I haven't posted in days or updated my log. I've been swamped with work!! I've been pretty good...a couple of bad choices, a lot of good ones, but plenty of exercise. The big news is that I'm giving up meat for Lent, which should cut down on my fat intake. Anyone have some good vegetarian meal ideas? Fish and meat extracts don't count as meat! Tonight we had stuffed acorn squash with tofu instead of the ground pork the recipe called for. Soooo good and satisfying! OK, I'm out.

Official Weigh-in

Well, after my accidental fat overdose yesterday, I stepped on the scale with trepidation this morning and found that I had lost one pound this week. Better to creep down than up, but I sure wish I was losing faster!! My clothes still feel like they're getting loser and my mother says I look skinnier so I must be.

Here are my averages for the past week (sorry about the formatting):

Grams Calories %-Cals
Calories 1,227
Fat 38.4 343 28%
Carbohydrate 140.1 549 44%
Dietary Fiber 28.2
Protein 84.8 343 28%

Still too much fat and carbs. I need to get more creative and stop eating what's easy. Fiber is much better!

I screwed up!

So, the good news is that after four hours of working horses at the barn, I still had enough energy to not only teach two hours of dance class, but then go west coast swing dancing for a while afterward!

The bad news is, I screwed up my menu in two ways. The first was that we picked out a frozen crock pot meal that had a reasonable amount of fat and carbs. The unfortunate part is we didn't look at the serving size, which is ridiculously low. I ate about a double portion! Suddenly, not such a good selection. Secondly, we were starving after dancing and I knew I had room for some calories (not having realized my first mistake yet), so we went to Del Taco. The chicken taco del carbon is really pretty healthy, but I wanted something more so I got a quesadilla. After all, it's just a tortilla and cheese, right? How bad can it be? 27 grams of fat and 500 calories, that's how bad!! I didn't realize it until just now when I did my log.

CRAP! With this double whammy, I ate 50 grams of fat and 161 carbs today! Calories was a bit over 1300, which really isn't bad considering I burned about 3500. The good part was that I had a whopping 39.5 grams of fiber, so if you subtract that from the carbs, the fat was the only bad thing today. Oh, and sodium was way too high. Processed foods are just not a good plan...but they're so convenient!!!

Boot camp, day three

Today was another long day and I worked a little harder, doing more grooming than I did the other day. Therefore, I should be more tired, but I'm not! I think I really am becoming more conditioned to it. My intake was also pretty good today...I realized the ground turkey we had yesterday and today was extra lean, so less fat than what I reported yesterday, so that's good. Still a little high yesterday, but better than I thought! I'm currently under 1000 calories vs the 3600 I burned, so I can afford a healthy snack later.

Tired, but not toooo tired

Today I spent three hours out at the barn turning out horses, then taught dance for three hours. I'm pretty tired, but surprisingly not horribly tired! I wonder if the weight loss combined with being more active lately is having some good effects? I did take a hot bath and a brief nap (about 10 min) in between, so that helped.

Somehow I ate WAY too much fat today and my carbs were pretty low, coming out at just under 1000 calories. I might go have some bread or a banana something to up my fiber since I can afford some calories and carbs.

Boot camp

This week, I'm in a sort of boot camp. I'm exercising horses for Ashley & Allyssa, which not only gives me lots of exercise doing something I love to do, but it forces me to be out of the house and away from snacks! I burned mondo calories today...think I can afford some fat free sugar free frozen yogurt?

Bad weekend

Ugh...I was bad this weekend. I had a couple of good-for-me meals, but I also had some really really bad for me, delicious meals, too. A combination of Valentine's Day and feeling sorry for myself for various reasons, none of which are actually good enough reasons to be going off my diet. What can I say...I'm a sinner. I did get some exercise, at least...I went to the West Coast Swing dance convention tonight and danced for a couple hours.

Tomorrow is a new day, and depending on your perspective, a new week. I will leap right back on that wagon and start losing some weight!

Official Weigh-in

Well, I lost one pound this week. I am beginning to feel discouraged...I feel like I don't eat that much and I'm pretty active, but I guess I'm still eating too much fat and carbs, not enough veggies and not enough exercise. I'm losing momentum and it's hard to stay on track. I need to go to a fat farm (or The Biggest Loser), where other people control my diet and exercise so I don't have to make decisions for myself! Since that's not an option, I guess I just need to buck up.

We found some vegan "chicken patties" at the grocery outlet and tried them today. Low fat, low carb, decent protein. They weren't bad!

Still too much fat

I'm still eating too much fat. I just can't seem to get away from it! Even though I eat low-fat foods, there are still too many low-fat foods in my diet and not enough non-fat foods. However, some of my fat today was from delicious, delicious guacamole...and that is good fat! Avocados have one of the Omegas that we need.

OK, OK...more veggies!!! For breakfast, I started eating these flourless bran muffins a friend gave me a recipe for. I'll share the recipe once I get her permission. It tastes kind of weird, but it has very little fat and 13 grams of fiber, so it's worth it!

NutritionData's Daily Needs Calculator

I just ran my daily needs calculation on NutritionData.com. For a woman of my size, age and activity level, here is what I need:

Your Recommended Minimums
Total Carbohydrate 130.0 g
Dietary Fiber 25.0 g
Linoleic Acid 12000.0 mg
Alpha-Linolenic Acid 1100.0 mg
Protein 72 g
Vitamins
Vitamin A 2333.0 IU
Vitamin C 75.0 mg
Vitamin D 200.0 IU
Vitamin E 15.0 mg
Vitamin K 90.0 mcg
Thiamin 1.1 mg
Riboflavin 1.1 mg
Niacin 14.0 mg
Vitamin B6 1.3 mg
Folate 400.0 mcg
Vitamin B12 2.4 mcg
Pantothenic Acid 5.0 mg
Biotin 30.0 mcg
Choline 425.0 mg
Minerals
Calcium 1000.0 mg
Chromium 25.0 mcg
Copper 0.9 mg
Flouride 3.0 mg
Iodine 150.0 mcg
Iron 18.0 mg
Magnesium 320.0 mg
Manganese 1.8 mg
Molybdenum 45.0 mcg
Phosphorus 700.0 mg
Selenium 55.0 mcg
Zinc 8.0 mg
Estimated Energy Requirement (calories): 2818...although on fitday I average closer to 2400 or 2500--I haven't found a calories burned average.

It doesn't give a recommended fat intake, but it does say the % of my calories that come from fat should be between 20 and 35% (that could be the same for everyone, I don't know). The % of calories from carbs should be 45 to 65%, and protein should be 10 to 35%. I ran a report on my daily average for the past week at fitday:

Calories 794.8
Calories from Fat 223.7

Nutrient/daily average/% of RDA (not quite the same as what ND suggested, because I'm above average in size)
Fat 25.3g 39%
Saturated Fat 6.1g 31%
Polyunsaturated Fat 4.6g
Monounsaturated Fat 8.7g
Cholesterol 170.7mg 57%
Sodium 1,514.1mg 63%
Potassium 1,982.0mg 57%
Carbohydrate 91.0g 30%
Dietary Fiber 15.6g 62%
Protein 53.3g 107%

Average % of calories come from:

Fat 28% (within range but could be lower)
Carbohydrate 44% (just below the range)
Protein 27% (well within the range)

I take a multi-vitamin, so I'm not worried about all the vitamins and stuff. So, I'm well under the RDA for everything except protein...and for that I'm less than what is recommended for me by ND. Of course, the fact that I'm short on Potassium and Fiber is bad, but we already know I need to work on the Fiber thing. Interesting stuff! I think I'll do this every week--I don't know that I'll post the whole long thing, but perhaps the highlights.

today's fitday entry

Just a quick note that I messed up yesterday and entered on today's log (because fitday changes over at 9:00 my time), so I put today's food and activities on yesterday.

Recipe Calculator

I found a new helpful site today--it has a recipe calculator on it, so you can figure out the nutritional value of your own recipes. You can then type the data into fitday as a custom food so you can track it! It's pretty cool; give it a try. Recipe Calculator

I didn't lose any weight this week. However, I really should be doing measurements, because my clothes are fitting just a bit better and I seem leaner than last week. With the addition of riding and more dancing in my program, I may well be converting some fat to muscle. I'll have to be really careful this next week and try to do better.

Energy

The past week or so, I have been really dragging. I feel sleepy all the time, especially after going dancing or to the barn. Like, not just kind of tired from exercising, but really, really sleepy. I was talking to my friend Michy about it, and went around and around a little bit...I've been taking a multi-vitamin and eating a variety of foods, so I should be getting everything I need. I get plenty of high-quality carbs, and my calories might be a bit low, but I'm not losing weight that fast so I don't know that I need more.

Michy said an iron deficiency can cause tiredness, but my multi vitamin has 100% of my daily supply. She said this is not always readily absorbed, but pairing it with vitamin C and copper help the absorption rate. Taking it with caffeine can block absorption, but I generally don't.

This made me think...I was taking an extra vitamin C pill when I was sick, but last week I decided to drop it because my multi has C in it. That's probably about when I started feeling tired, so maybe that extra C was helping the iron absorb, and now it's mostly passing through. Since I'm not eating as much meat, I'm taking in less iron than I used to.

Sooo....I'll start taking the C again, and I need more dark, leafy veggies and maybe some legumes. Right now, I really want a nap!

End of free day

Whew. I had a lot of fun today and ate a lot of crap! Now I feel kind of sick and have a headache from all the junk. I am definitely ready to hit the veggies tomorrow! Hopefully this will serve as aversion therapy to keep me on track for a while...if nothing else, I got my cravings for junk food taken care of! I did get some exercise working my horses, and I did eat some veggies and fruit so I got some fiber. I refuse to weigh myself until Friday...I want to give myself a chance to undo the damage!

I hope everyone had a great Superbowl Sunday!