One of my favorite guilty pleasures to watch on t.v., considering I don't really like to watch a lot of t.v., is The Biggest Loser. For the first time in 5 Seasons, two females (Ali and Kelly) are in the finals, and the two guys that were 'below the yellow line' are up for elimination. I knew that if it was left up to the women, they would have kept Mark and gotten rid of Roger. Roger is someone they've been wanting to get rid of for awhile because he's just an arse. Everyone on the show was surprised, to say the least, when it was announced that the viewers would vote which of the two men would go to the finals. I put my vote in, and I hope the viewers do the right thing by voting for mark. As I was browsing the website after voting, I noticed that there was a widget. It tracks your weight loss. So down below, on the bottom of my blog, is the widget. Check it out. It's kind of cool, and it's free.I don't know whether I'm brave or stupid, maybe both lol, to post the embarrassing number that is my weight. But how can I expect to talk about weight loss with doing so?
Dance 4 Fitness class was fun. There were only 4 people for today's class, 2 were uber thin and another lady and myself weren't (I'm the heaviest :( lol). I managed to keep up with today's workout and only wheezed a bit after. I'm sure each class is going to get more intense which is good, but we'll see if I can keep up. Seems the older and bigger I get, the less coordinated I've become. Calling for an appointment with my doctor tomorrow and see if I can't get in on Monday. I want to just be checked out to make sure that my getting winded after intense exercise and going up steep inclines (like in Yosemite) isn't more than just my asthma. I'm going to post my first weigh-in next Saturday. Unfortunately, I'm still 217.4 lbs. You would think I could at least lose 5 oz to get to the 216 mark, but NO! LOL
Tried to adjust the treadmill belt yesterday, but it's still slipping. I read the instructions on how to 'oil' it, but I'm confused. : / I'll have to let Stinky do it, because I think it actually requires more work than just oiling it. LOL
Finally got back to my belly dance workout this morning. The show "Shimmy" comes on at 10:00 a.m. here, and it's on Fit TV. Tuesdays usually have a few of the episodes on so I might do two sessions on those days. You can see a short video here.
I signed up my girls for hip hop dance with a teacher's aide who happened to be the school's cheer coach, too. She is trying to start her business here in our small town. She was a cheerleader with Oakland Raiders, San Francisco 49ers, and the Golden State Warriors. She's also offering an adult hip hop aerobics class either as pay-per-class or $30 for the month (it's $10 per class). I decided to sign up for one class to see if I can handle it. Only problem now is having to get up early on Saturday to make the 8 a.m. start time!
Here's the current photo of me taken during a trip to Yosemite just about a week ago. Can you see the swelling? Another lovely symptom of thyroid disease LOL
O.K., here goes a photo of me now and one of my goal. I had lost about 40 or 50 lbs before when I was 28. I had gained all this weight by being lazy and having a diet of many, many sodas, and chocolate (this went on about 3 or 4 years). I didn't watch what I ate. I never had to before, but after having my first child, that's when my metabolism decided to start playing tricks on me. LOL
Here's my goal photo. This is when I first lost weight. I weighed about 120 here. I'm going to be realistic and try to go for 130 (which is a good weight for a person my height with my frame).
Anyways, I'm not 28 anymore (nearing 42 now), and I acquired an under-active thyroid. So, like I said before, it's not easy for me to lose weight, and it was HELL when the pounds packed on in only a span of 3 or 4 months. Not only that, I gained about 40 more pounds in the last 2 1/2 years of the 3 years since I moved to California. I think I can attribute it to not being active, not working (I'm a SAHM), and even though I still don't eat a lot, I can still gain weight. Everything is an uphill battle.
I decided that eating 1600 calories is still too much for me to effectively lose weight. With no thyroid function at all, which controls metabolism by the way, it would be hard to burn that off. It takes burning 3500 calories to lose ONE pound. I'm not completely sedentary, but I'm not very active either. I bought this book called The Supermarket Diet. I am doing a variation of this diet with other things to try and see if I can lose more than 1/2 pound a week. Right now I'm not losing any. But, I've maintained what I've lost so far.
This is how the plan works: First, you do two weeks at 1200 calories. It gives you a shopping list, menus, and recipes. They way I'm going to variate on this is through the menu. The second week you up to 1500/1600 (can't remember exactly) for a few more weeks. Last, is the maintenance plan. To be honest, the second phase will probably what I need to do for maintenance.
Can I do 1200 calories? Probably. Though I tried before and got so light-headed, but I'm determined. If anyone else has some other tips, I'd love to hear them.
Haven't really gotten back on my exercise routine since coming back from Yosemite. It's amazing how just a couple of days of vacation can take me an entire week to recover from. I've been exhausted. I've noticed a change in my body, and I'm not quite sure if my TSH levels are going haywire again. I've been trying to take my meds at the same time everyday, but with brain fog, I'm lucky I remember at all. Not only has my need for naps come back, but I've been shedding like a long-haired dog everywhere in the house. Just this morning, I noticed that I had tons of hair on the sheets when I got out out of bed. Not only that, I had tons on my shirt earlier in the day as well. This is how I know that something in my body is not right, and I need to figure out how to get it back on track. Hopefully, now that Stinky's moved my treadmill out to the garage, I can really get back to my exercise program. It wears me out, but I do feel better. I've also got more room in the office so I can rearrange things to have room for Pilates. And hey, I've kept the weight, that I've lost so far, off.
Remember in my effort to declutter the body, I wanted to try to get the recommended 10,000 daily steps? Well, before the fall, it actually happened. I kept getting close most days averaging between 7,000-8,000 steps. Of course I haven't hit 10,000 steps since then because my fitness routine was shot due to the injuries and my body's recovery time. The fall really got me back to that place where I was tired all the time. Everything hurt. Even things that I didn't bump or bruise in the fall.
I stepped on the scale this morning and was surprised to see my weight up. I do tend to fluctuate through the day or sometimes over a period of days. I'm also surprised at the amount of swelling my body has been going through lately. My socks actually indent my cankles. My feet look like they're just dangling from the leg with almost no ankles. What's weird is that it's more prominent in my right ankle than my left. The swelling gets bad enough that I can't wear my wedding rings most days. Most people have to drink loads of caffeine to get this kind of swelling. It just takes one soda for me. My thyroid is being a pain in my ass (and has also cause the spread of the aforementioned ass).
I'm tired of the swelling, and though I can't cut out the sodas cold turkey, I am going to start back on my routine tomorrow. It's back to keeping track of everything in this:
When I went to Barnes & Nobles, they had so many of these journals to choose from. I picked this one because it had pages for goals, food tracking, weight tracking, exercise tracking, and a few other things. I really love it.
I'm also going to put on the pedometer and try for those 10, 000 steps per day.
I haven't done my belly dancing workouts either. :( So I really need to start back, and throw pilates into the mix as well. The treadmill is having some belt issues, but I need to sort them out. Maybe I just use that as an excuse....
It's amazing how long it has taken my body to recover from a fall that I had about 3 or 4 weeks ago. I still have a little sore spot in my left cheek, a hardened swollen area on my shin that still has no feeling to it, and I've been feeling unusually rundown.
Ever since I started the Cytomel, I had been feeling pretty decent. I was taking naps maybe only once or twice a week, sometimes not at all. But since that fall, almost everyday since, I have been so tired. It has thrown me off my whole exercise/diet routine as well. I was doing pretty well with it, but now I'm just maintaining the weight that I lost. At my heaviest, I was 223 lbs. and now I'm at 216 lbs. Who knew that I would even get over 200 lbs.? I used to have super metabolism, never went over 115 lbs. in my younger days, and when I had gotten big before, I lost the weight in 3 or 4 months just like that.
I joined up with thyroid.about.com not too long after I was diagnosed to better understand the disease and get options on how to deal with it day to day. They had a special sign up called, "4 weeks to weight loss", and I signed up for that. The patient advocate, and thyroid sufferer, Mary Shomon answered emails through this site. I was quite surprised that I had an answer. I had mentioned that I lost 1/2 lb. a week. This is when I was told that that was pretty good for those with thyroid problems. Normal people can lose about 5 lbs. a week on average. She mentioned that if I really wanted to lose weight with this disease, I would have to go down to around 1200 calories a day and eliminating all carbs, sugars, and fats.
I actually tried to go down to 1200 calories very slowly. First, 1800. Then 1600. I figured if I could do 1600 calories then surely I could do around 1300 next. I ended up getting very light- headed and had to eat the extra calories to feel better.
Before the fall, I had been very diligent at recording everything I ate in my weight-loss journal. But now, I'm back to square one. Hopefully, I can get back on track soon.
