Tuesday in Texas - Reflections On Week 1 of Our Weight Loss Journey

I am no stranger to the weight loss routine.  Once I became a real adult with a family and a job, I stopped riding my bike a hundred plus miles a week; unfortunately, my appetite didn't didn't adjust to that more sedentary lifestyle and those numbers that once accumulated as miles ridden changed to pounds gained.  I first got serious about losing weight twelve years ago when I joined Weight Watchers.  I was diligent and it worked.  After letting the pounds again slowly find their way back, I again followed the WW plan in 2011 and again was successful in losing the extra weight.  So why am I here again?

The fact that I keep finding myself in the same undesireable place is not the fault of Weight Watchers.  I am fully responsible.  Basically, I can't multi-task.  I tend to focus all of my energy and interest in one direction.  If that one place is not making healthy choices about nourishing my body, I make mindless choices and find myself exactly where I am now - once again working to shed those pounds that I don't want.  As I mentioned in my Friday post, I am not using Weight Watchers this time.  It has changed and so have I, so something new it is.  The big difference this time is that I am counting actual calories rather than "points."  Wow!  Has that been an eye opener!

I walk home from school every day.  It is a 1.3 mile walk.  Thanks to the app Map My Walk, I know that I walk at a pace of four miles per hour and that 1.3 miles is covered in approximately 2600 steps. This is all good information to know.  My walk puts me a quarter of the way there to the recommended 10,000 steps a day.  The shocker came when the app told me that my walk only burned 118 calories.  I sent a message to Tracey saying that my attempt at exercise only earned me a banana, which is 110 calories.  Lol!  A cup of black coffee is 2 calories. The handful of peanuts that I often grab between classes is 130 calories.  The crackers that I snack on when I get home from school add another 200 calories to my daily intake.  Though none of these things in and of themselves has a particularly high caloric value, taken collectively and added to the calories from three meals a day, the number starts to soar.  Even on the days where I did not snack or have any extras, like bread with my meals, I have had no problem getting to my alloted number of calories (1200-1500) per day.  I don't even want to think about how many mindless calories I have been consuming for the past few years.  I can tell that it has been a lot now that I am tracking every little thing that I eat, even those mints that you pick up on the way out of the restaurant.  They count too!

I lost four pounds last week.  That is not a healthy loss.  I am shooting for 1-2 pounds per week.  I do know that the first week of any positive change in eating habits usually causes a higher than average loss.  With this same discipline, I look for things to level off this week to a healthier 1-2 pounds  As Tracey said, we'll be happy as long as there is no gain though at least minimal loss will be most welcome!

Once of the things that I have done this time around, that is suggested by Weight Watchers bit I have never done, is to take a "before" picture and body measurements.  FYI.  All of this documentation is securely hidden away in an undisclosed location!  I certainly don't want to look at these things on a daily basis, but I do think that they will help me to see improvement along the way that perhaps the scale doesn't show.  I also have a designated pair of jeans for "the pants test."  We all know when our jeans are getting too tight.  We also know when they start to feel better.  Once a month I'll try "the pants" on and see how they feel.  To me, that may be a better indicator of where I am than any number on the scale.

Here is another observation from this week:  Though cooking meals from scratch at home is certainly healthier, it makes calorie counting much more tedious.

The SparkPeople app is great in that it gives you the tools to enter your recipe inbformation ingredient by ingredient and it will then supply you with all of the pertinent nutritional information, which can be stored. This process is not hard, but it takes time and depending on the recipe's ingredient list can be considered tedious.  This is especially true when the app also contains a barcode scanner for packagaed food.  Hold your phone up to the product's barcode and "boom" the item and all of its detailed information are logged in for you.  You don't even have to push the button on your camera.  Once the scanner has a clear read it's done.  Scanning my prepared chicken and rice burrito is a whole lot easier than measuring out all the ingredients and then typing everything in.  Boy do I sound lazy!  Please don't answer that!  I prefer to think of it as being too busy, but I could be a bit lazy, too!

All in all, I'd say we are off to a good and positive start.  I've already learned a lot about my habits, both good and bad, and have made some positive changes to help eliminate the bad ones.  One mindful step at a time and we'll get there.

Bring on week two!