Hot 100 Update #2

Goal #1 Blog Five Days/Week: Well, this is number two for the week, so . . . didn't happen. I did, however start writing posts on both Wednesday and Thursday, so, partial credit?

Goal #2 Walk Every Day: I didn't on Sunday or Thursday, but 5/7 is not too bad all things considered. Partial credit again.

Goal #3 Career-y Stuff: I applied to a job! I've found a few others I want to apply to but I'm still struggling with writing cover letters. I'm still totally making progress.

So, not the week one would hope for, but it could've been worse. Progress!

Tuesday Weigh In

254.0

In a word: yay! This is Tuesday, and thus my big official side of the blog weigh in. 254.0 means I lost 3.2 pounds this week, and have now lost precisely 10 pounds since I started. And it's a great weigh in. 3.2 pounds is above what I expect to lose in a week.

I went for a walk yesterday and Saturday, but I haven't really been exercising as I'd like. The lion's share of the credit goes to the relatively on point job I've been doing with food. While I did have a horrible Thursday night involving a pizza (and a Friday that, I admit, included pizza leftovers), I've been doing a solid job keeping calories to a minimum even on the pizza night. Other than Thursday (when I think I hit about 1800), I think most days I was right around the 1200 mark. All in all, numbers to be proud of.

The 254 weigh in also means I have now met my initial "super mini goal" of being 255 or less by the time I go down to North Carolina on Friday to visit one of my friends. This goal was originally invented as a stretch goal, and I'm glad I hit it. My mini goal is to get to 250 by 10/25 (which will mark having lost 5% of my starting weight), a goal I'm quite well placed for. I have four pounds to lose and 20 days to do it.

It will not, however, be as smooth sailing as it might seem. On Wednesday night, I'm going over to a friend's house for a movie and take out. Despite the added calories, this is worth doing: friends are important, and I don't want my diet to lead to locking myself away. A single meal is also easy enough to make up by just keeping the rest of the day low calorie.

This weekend, however, will be trickier. Friday after work I'm flying down to North Carolina to visit one of my best friends from college. He's an awesome guy, and he's currently down there getting his Ph.D. from Duke. If I were making a list of my favorite people in the world, he'd easily have a spot in the top three. So, going down to visit him is all kinds of awesome, and I'm very, very excited.

The visit, however, is going to be a diet disaster. He wants us to go to a Brazilian steakhouse (one of our occasional traditions out at Chicago), which, if you've never been to one, is basically a temple to meat. Just imagine a buffet, only the food is actually good and fresh and you don't need to stand up to get it. Waiters come around and bring you unlimited quantities of things like filet mignon wrapped in bacon. If delicious and gluttony had a child, it would be a Brazilian steakhouse. I'm not saying you should go, but if you ever say "screw the weight loss thing, I want a heart attack" a Brazilian steakhouse would be approximately the best way to make that choice. (For the comments: have any of you ever been to one?)

So, that's going to throw me off course. I'll talk more tomorrow about how I'm going to plan for the weekend and what strategies I'll use, but for now, I'm not going to stress. I lost 3.2 pounds this week, and hit my first mini goal. Today I think I get to be proud.

Hot 100 Update: Week 1

257.6.

Yes, yes, that number is moving in the wrong direction. I've been home sick yesterday and today (excuses!) and I may've ordered pizza last night.

My first week of the Hot 100 has been, well, probably best described as a hot mess. Let's take a look:

Goal #1: Blogging 5+ days a week. BZZT! Didn't happen. Wasn't even close.

Goal #2: Walking outside everyday. Again, no dice. I walked on Tuesday, and that was short. Other than that, this was an almost impressive fail.

Goal #3: Not letting weight hold my career goals back, with a practical application of applying to jobs. Didn't happen at all.

So, bleh. Bleh, bleh, bleh. I'm terrible and lost and not motivated and fail. Such is life. My goal for the remainder of the day is to get a bunch of sleep (in the interest of getting better) and to not go hog wild on food. Hopefully tomorrow and next week will be more back on trackish.

Tuesday Weigh In

257.2

This counts as my official weekly side of the blog weigh in. From now on, I weigh on Tuesdays. (Of course, me being me, I'll still start each post with my weight.)

I'm not faring too poorly in my wedding/weekend home recovery. This is .1 pounds lower than Friday, and 1.6 pounds lower than yesterday, when I shot up to 258.8. What's important is that I'm back into progress, and that my goals didn't get too horribly thrown off by the wedding.

Still, right now, I'm mostly feeling pretty blah. I'm squeaking along, but I'm just not accomplishing anything.

Let's be honest: the number one thing I need to do right now is apply to jobs. It's not that I don't like my job (I do!) but I've been here almost two years and it's time to move on. I need to get something that pays more and where I'll have more challenges and more opportunity for advancement. My current job is stale, and it's time for me to move on.

So, I've settled that. And I've actually found two jobs I would love to have and think I have a decent shot at. (Well, one I would love love love love to have, and one that would be a solid choice and improvement over my current position.) I've worked a lot on my resume and think it's currently at a place I like. But I just can't write the damn cover letters and get my applications out the door. I don't know what's wrong with me.

One of the jobs (the one I'd love love love) is in Denver. I have spent literally hours online looking at apartments I could get if I moved to Denver. I could get a place as nice, if not nicer, for about half of what I'm paying to live in DC. I've also spent hours looking at cars, dreaming about what my priorities would be if I were to get a car, debating if I'd buy purely from my savings or if I'd go wild and finance a nicer one than savings could buy. (Spoiler alert: I'm pretty cautious with money and there's approximately a zero chance I'd take out a loan to buy a nicer car.) Basically, I've just been daydreaming. Sure, I suppose it's better than, you know, eating, but it's really just not productive.

What I need to do is focus. Apply to jobs. Work out. Kick ass at my current job. Heck, even blog. I just need to not spend forever thinking about what I'd do if I got a new job without, you know, actually doing anything about it.

Of Weddings and Weight Goals

257.3

Holy progress batman! Since I'm not going to be able to weigh in tomorrow or Sunday (traveling for a wedding), this is going to have to go down as my weigh in. It's a loss of a very impressive 6.7 pounds for the week. In a word, nice.

The next weigh in that I'm planning on putting on the side of the blog is Tuesdays. I know, I know, I started on a Saturday, so Saturday should by normal logic be my official big "side of the blog" weigh in date. Let's be honest: Saturday is a terrible weigh in day. In addition to being one of the two days I'm least likely to blog (tied with Sunday), it's also the day I'm most likely to be away and least likely to have access to a scale. Saturday has all the qualities of a terrible weekly weigh in day, and it will not be mine.

What will? Tuesday, of course! I love Tuesday for weigh ins. 80% of this is purely sentimental, of course. I weighed in for months and months on Tuesday when I first started this blog, and with it I dropped over 40 pounds. There are other reasons why I think Tuesday makes a great weigh in day: it's close enough to the weekend to keep you on your toes, but far enough away that you have a smidgen of time to get rid of any sodium induced bloat. It's unaffected by most holidays and long weekends, meaning you're less likely to be away from a scale. It's a great weigh in day, and most importantly, it's *my* weigh in day.


I mentioned, yesterday, that I had weight goals that I was keeping separate from the Hot 100 challenge. And I do.

Sort of.

Obviously my intention, broadly speaking, is to lose weight, preferably at a reasonable clip. When I first started on the 18th at 264, I set myself up with what I thought to be an extremely ambitious "super mini goal" of being 255 by Friday, October 8th, when I'm flying down to North Carolina to visit a friend for the weekend. On that day, it required me losing a rather tricky 3.15 pounds a week: more than I'd normally shoot for, but I knew I'd get some help from first week losses. I also set myself up with what I viewed as a more reasonable mini goal of getting down to 250, which would mean having lost a smidge over 5% of my starting weight, by Monday, October 25th. That originally required me to lose a hard but reasonable 2.65 pounds a week.

Good, stretch yourself goals, right? Not so much any more. For 255 by October 8th, I now only need to lose 1.15 pounds a week. For 250 by the 25th, I now only need to lose 1.65 pounds a week. These are not the things ambition is made of.

Which might lead one to say "change your goals." The thing is, however, you don't really want to spend all your time shooting at a moving target. Part of weight loss has to be occasionally succeeding. I set my targets, and now it's time to head towards them, wimpy though they may currently seem.

My official, near term goals, therefore, are to be 255 pounds by Friday, October 8th and to get down to 250, marking a 5% loss of my starting weight, by Monday, October 25th.

What are we looking at long term? Well, my best friend from college is getting married this June (unfortunately, to a guy I despise) and I am on the hook to be a bridesmaid. Her mother is sewing the bridesmaid dresses for us, and has asked us to get measured and send the information to her by February 1st. This is going to be insanely tough for me emotionally, and I'd like to be as low as I can by then.

Depending on how things are going, I may end up just telling my friend's mom that I've been losing weight and am probably going to lose more before the wedding and just see how she wants to deal with it. If it means I need to get the dress professionally made closer to the actual wedding or even step down as a bridesmaid, that's life. If push comes to shove, I'm not going to put my life/health on hold for four months because of someone else's wedding (especially a wedding I think is such a terrible idea).

To get back from the bridesmaid tangent, what all this means is that February 1st is a goal date of mine, although I don't actually yet have a goal number. To get to 220, I'd need to lose almost exactly 2 pounds a week from now until then. To get to 210, I'm looking at 2.5. And for 200, I'd need an average of 3, which is almost certainly out of range.

I think my current plan is to shoot for 255, and then 250, as quickly as I reasonably can. From there, I'm likely to set a goal for either 237 (a bit over 10% of my starting weight) or 233 (no longer morbidly obese, and historically a big trip up point for me). The date will be determined by how soon I hit 250. If I do 237, my next goal is 233 (clearly), and from there I'll shoot for 220 and/or figure out where I can be by February.

This first week is the easy week. Weight falls off like water. Being at home tonight and Sunday, and dealing with food at the wedding tomorrow, are going to be my first real challenges. Let's meet them with aplomb.

In other news: 25th Happy Birthday to Mae Flowers of A Journey to Thin! She's amazing and has lost over 60 pounds.