Quick Catch-up

I've been quite busy and haven't had a chance to update as I should have but I am finally out from under the immense pressure of deadlines and such. So I will be updating soon.

Weighting For Skinny Progress Report - Saturday April 7, 2007

Late posting. I am so tired. I had to force myself out of bed this morning and workout. I did take a four hour nap - ridiculous. Thankfully it's Saturday. I've had a busy week which means limited sleep. I think I averaged about 4 1/2 hours of sleep each day this week - so I guess I was bound to crash at some point :(

My weight has been bouncing all over the place this week - From a low of 137 LBS to a high of 140.5 LBS. It's been very disappointing and frustrating. I continue to work out even while discouraged about the weight reading on the scale because something must be changing as my clothes are much, much loser fitting. My measurements overall also show progress (see below). That must be a sign of progress, or at least I hope it is.

Anyway to the progress report:
Start Weight- 144 LBS
Height - 5'
Current Weight - 138.5 LBS - No Change

Goal Weight - 110 LBS (28.5 LBS to go)
Starting BMI : 28.3
Current BMI : 27.2

Neck : 14 inches - No Change
Upper Arms: 12 inches - Lost 1/2 inch
Waist : 32 1/2 inches - Biggest overall loss, 1 1/2 inches.
Lower Belly: 35 inches - Lost 1/2 inch
Hip/ Butt Area: 39 1/2 inches -Lost 1/2 inch
Upper Thigh: 21 1/2 inches- Lost 1/2 inch
Chest: 36 inches - Lost 1 1/4 inch

Increasing Weights

Yesterday, I finally moved up from lifting the five pound dumbbells to lifting the seven pound weights! I'm quite excited that I can lift seven pounds during my workout now considering that when I started a bit over six weeks ago I was fatiguing after working out with just the three pound weights. Anyway, that's a major milestone for me.

And if being able to work out with heavier weights wasn't enough to get me all giddy, I can happily report my waist area is slimming down. My jeans actually don't fit snug there anymore! Just two months ago I couldn't get my rings off unless I got my fingers all soapy. Even wet and soapy removing the rings was a painful struggle and today my rings are twirling on my fingers (all by themselves). My fat fingers are slimming down with the rest of me :)

I'm becoming a true believer in strength training as the optimum form of exercise for those transitioning from a very sedentary lifestyle to a more active lifestyle. The "8 minute Workouts" are easy to manage and I am actually sticking to the program. In the past I started off with long, hard aerobics and found myself quickly getting injured, feeling exhausted and eventually quitting the program and regaining the weight. Now I am taking it easy. Slowly building up my exercise program one day at a time. I plan on adding some type of aerobic exercise to the mix by the end of April. I like swimming, so I might do that. I also have several Denise Austin and Gunter Core Training DVDs I can workout at home with, so I might go that route if I'm still too bashful to be seen in a bathing suit come end of April.

Addiction to Food

While researching the subject of emotional eating - which happens to be my biggest obstacle to losing and keeping the weight off - I came across this particularly insightful passage discussing the Twelve Step program for compulsive over-eaters:

The third step of the Twelve Steps suggests that “we made a decision to turn our lives and our will over to the care” of a Higher Power. Compulsive eaters may believe that they are relying on their will power in all aspects of their lives other than in their relationship with food. However, if challenges and obstacles in day to day life are encountered, the likely source of comfort may continue to be food, not the illusory “willpower.” Recognition that food has become the default Higher Power in all of our decision making processes is a profoundly humbling experience. Therefore, surrender may entail the realization that the preoccupation with food has a much greater degree of influence in making decisions that seem at first glance to have little to do with mealtimes or waistlines.

- source Rudd Sound Bites

Without a doubt I use food as an emotional crutch. I can't explain why. I know when it started - as a young teen but I can't understand why. I guess some people become needy and hang on to others for emotional support ( I mean the crippling neediness that some exhibit), others find comfort in a bottle of whiskey or drugs - my addiction is to food. Eating when I'm not even hungry. Eating when I'm stressed, eating when i'm happy, eating when i'm sad and eating for every moment I feel that my life is spinning out of control. I just eat and in a crazy sort of fashion it brings me comfort even while I despair about my weight and my health.

Starbucks Grande Mocha Calorie Fest

If you're dieting and the weight isn't coming off at the rate you expect then I would highly recommend taking a look at those "little extras" in your diet (like my grande Mocha) for their actual caloric value. I googled "Starbucks grande Mocha" and in five seconds I learned the awful truth about my daily indulgence.

My research indicated that my daily addiction to Starbucks grande Mocha - added over 600 extra calories to my daily intake. Let me repeat that - over 600 calories!!! I thought that at most it would contain about 250 calories. Coffee is calorieless, fat free milk should be well fat free ( I know it has some calories but at most it's 90 calories for eight ounces). Yes,I cop to adding the whipped cream but for all that's good it's only a tiny bit not like 300 calories worth of bad fat. Could it be the mocha? I don't know but my Starbuck runs are over.

Those 600 or so calories are possibly the culprit for my very slow weight loss. I anticipated losing about a 2LB a week based on my South Beach Diet and my consistent "8 Minutes in the Morning" workouts instead I've only been losing weight at the rate of one pound a week.

I can't be without my Cafe Mocha so I figured a way to have my daily indulgence without having to pay such a high caloric price. I went to my local grocery store, bought Starbucks Espresso coffee (0 Calories), some Hershey's dark chocolate syrup (110 calories for two tablespoons), Splenda and regular Half & Half and fat-free milk. I use 1/4 Half and Half, 3/4 fat free milk, 1 TEASPOON of the chocolaty stuff and voila for under 275 calories I have the same size drink and it's just as tasty. Oh, and I save almost $4.00 a day - not bad. I should be getting skinnier while my wallet will be getting fatter not a bad trade-off. I will put those savings aside for the purchase of my skinny clothes :)

Tape or Weigh?

I've been researching several diet and health sites today regarding the best way to measure my weight loss success. And truth be told I'm left a bit confused. Some sites say tape don't weigh because the scale isn't the best (most accurate) method specially if your exercise program is heavy into strength training (aka muscle mass increase). Other sites say the scale is the best indicator of your success and yet a handful of others believe that both the tape and the scale are needed. To be on the safe side I will start using both and reporting my tape measurements in my Weighting For Skinny weekly updates.

Weighting For Skinny Progress Report - Saturday March 31, 2007

I started this blog a month after I decided to make changes to my lifestyle so here's a quick recap of where I started on February 10th 2007:

Height : 5"
Weight: 144.5 LBS

I've been using a modified South Beach Diet since that diet seems to be the least restrictive and easier to stick with. For exercise I started out walking 30 minutes to 1 hour a day but soon grew bored with it. Specially since walking alone seemed to have little effect on my weight loss goals. I simply wasn't losing weight and on one occassion the weight jumped to 146 LBS - which left me devastated. So at the beginning of March I decided to look for an exercise program that would both be effective and one that I would stick to.

I have dozens of exercise videos and DVD's that I have accumulated over the years of my yo-yo dieting and exercising so I looked through them all and decided that the best for me (for now) was the relatively easy to do "8 Minutes in the Morning with Jorge Cruise". I've
been consistently working out with the "8 Minutes..." tape since March 1st. The work out is simple enough that I don't find myself dreading doing the exercises. The focus of "8 Minutes..." is strength training which helps develop muscle while reducing fat. Basically, from what I read increasing muscle density increases your Resting Base Metabolic Rate (RBMR). By raising the RBMR your body is buring calories even while you are resting - which is a good thing. I like to think of it as "your body is still working out long after you've physically stopped working out" :).

Anyway, back to my progress report for March 31, 2007:

Height - 5' I don't anticipate that changing :)
Weight - 138.5 LBS ( Down 6.0 LBS since Feb 10, 2007)
Goal Weight - 110 LBS (28.5 LBS to go)

I know that it's not much of a loss over seven weeks. I would have loved to see a 2LB a week drop for a total 14 LB loss but I am in this for the long haul and if slow and steady means I stick to these health and lifestyle changes then so be it.

UPDATE: 2:22PM
I forgot to add my Body Mass Index. (To check your BMI visit the Body Mass Index Calculator)
Starting BMI : 28.3
Current BMI : 27.2
Yet another UPDATE: 2:52
After some additional weight loss research I decided to also include tape measurements as part of the Weighting For Skinny weekly updates. The start date is now: March 31, 2007. I have no idea what the measurements were before I started this lifestyle change.

Neck : 14 inches
Upper Arms: 12.5 inches
Waist : 34 inches
Lower Belly: 35.5 inches ( I have what they call the belly pooch :( )
Hip/ Butt Area: 40 inches
Upper Thigh: 22 inches
Chest: 37 inches

This is going to be lots of information to track so I will be asking my husband to show me how to put the data into Excel - otherwise I think it is going to get messy and confusing.

My Virtual Model

I guess this is what my virtual representation looks like. I think she looks a heck of a lot better than what I see staring back at me in the mirror :( I think my tummy, butt and hips are huge but this is what I get back after putting in my weight, height and body type info.






I think that it's a useful tool if you need help figuring out what type of clothes look best on your body type. I certainly learned that long shirts (used to cover my fat lower body) are a mistake. They make me look worse based on the model.


Thanks to Larisa's Diet blog for the tip about Virtual Models.

Lying Behind The Fat

I finally hit rock bottom at the end of February. Even my fat clothes stopped fitting around my ever increasing fat belly. I could no longer hide behind the easy lie "It's water retention from PMS". That little lie used to work when it was used one week a month but now I was using that precious gem every damn day. So there I was, sobbing in my closet, desperately searching for any skirt or pants that had an elastic waist because none of my other clothes would button or zip up over my fat tummy. I finally did find a pair of pants that I could fit into but then came the task of finding a shirt that would cover up my extended tummy. No luck in that department but I did find a black sweater which made my tummy look smaller - from the front. From the side I looked like I was six months pregnant and the tears poured out again as I wondered "how in the hell did I get to this point?"

The Atkin's Diet and My Emotional Eating

I used to be so tiny. Ten years ago I weighed about 105 pounds which fit my five foot frame just fine but over the years I kept getting bigger and bigger. Of course I noticed that my weight was creeping up. When I was 25 I wore a size two. At 30 I wore a size four. By 35 I was uncomfortably squeezing into a size six and now in my late 30's I can barely zip up a size ten skirt.

I remember the first diet I tried was the Atkin's Diet when I was 29. I had noticed that my clothes were feeling quite snug (actually uncomfortably so) and I asked my friends to recommend a quick and easy diet. All of my friends raved about how much weight they had lost and that they were never hungry while on the Atkin's diet. So I decided to go on the Atkin's diet and see what it could do for me - mind you I did intersperse some exercise as part of the weight-loss regime but it was more of an after thought because I really didn't like to sweat, deal with the pain from working out and I didn't have much time because I was working full-time in a high stress career in addition to pursuing a masters degree. I wanted easy and Atkins fit the bill.

I loved being able to eat bacon, salami, pork rinds and just about anything that was high-fat and low-carb. I did get horrible headaches from cutting out the five to six cans of Coke I used to drink every day. I think that had more to do with caffeine withdrawl than Atkin's. I stuck with the diet for about two months and lost an amazing 15 pounds without really working out. But as with any lose weight quick diet (hindsight is beautiful isn't it?) it was a short term solution that stopped working once I was happy at my new weight. I soon started eating all the Atkin's prohibited foods and the weight gradually came back.

I don't blame the Atkin's Diet - I am sure it would have worked great if I was serious about lifestyle changes instead of a quick fix but I wasn't. Around this time I also noticed that the more stressed I was the more I would want to eat anything salty or sweet. I remember being stressed out of my mind at work, sitting at my desk eating chips and other junk food and then I would feel a comforting sensation as if everything was going to be okay. Now I realize that I was using food as an emotional crutch and that habit went back to my highschool days.

In junior highschool I used to take my lunch money and instead of buying a healthy lunch as my parent's expected me to I would go to the snack bar and load up on Gummi Bears, Sweet Tarts, Cokes, chocolate chip cookies and salty chips. I know that it sounds like a typical teen girl diet but I was eating this stuff on a daily basis and I was eating it because it brought me comfort when I was very unhappy.

I remember one particular episode in which I ate six giant Sweet Tarts, a bag of Gummi Bears and drank two cans of Sunkist Orange soda as I sat on a playground swing crying because I was feeling ostracized by my classmates and friends, my parents were constantly fighting and threatening divorce and I was doing poorly in school. As I devoured the junk food I felt better and better. My problem's certainly didn't vanish but while I was eating they seemed a distant memory. I think that on that day, on that swing I learned to find comfort in food.

UPDATE: March 31, 2007
Beth Rocchio from Rudd Sound Bites (an excellent blog you should book mark) posted the following :

In my practice as a family physician specializing in bariatric medicine, I frequently observe a strong connection between food and mood. Though many of my patients see this connection as well, most of them find it ”embarrassing” to admit. Lately, I have found myself using food advertisements to help my patients appreciate the connection between feelings and eating. Some examples I have found in junk food ads are:

• "Hello, happiness... Betty Crocker cake mix."
• “Every taste has a feeling.”
• “Temporary ecstasy. It tastes the way it feels to fall in love,” (read the rest)

I can attest to the power of food to provide comfort however I don't know that I would go so far as to blame the corporations for marketing and selling food the way they do but I do see how their marketing can be a bit insidious. I think to those susceptible to emotional eating the food commercials and ads may as well be the drug pusher in the dark alley promising us our next high. But I'm the type of gal who really BELIEVES in personal responsibility and as much as I'd like to blame anybody but myself for my problems I don't. Yes, Starbucks Seven Layer bar beckons me each and every time I start to feel stressed but in the end only I can make the final decision that will ultimately affect my well-being. Eat the treat, feel momentarily elated and then crash immediately as I am overcome by the disgust of my emotional eating or do I act responsibly acknowledge the stress, deal with the problem best that I can and eat an apple or go workout? I'd like to tell you that I choose the apple, workout and deal with the stress but I'm not there yet. I am working on it and the day will come when I will make the healthy choices but in the mean time I won't be blaming my poor decisions on any one but myself but by the same token I will definitely be following Beth Rocchio's advice and will begin closely examining the marketing messages attached to the foods I crave.

About

Weighting For Skinny is the trials and tribulations of a thirty-something gal who's desperately searching for her previously skinny, happy and successful self.

She knows her old self is hidden somewhere under thirty pounds of fat, depression and her completely out of control addiction to emotional eating.

The question is will she find a way out of the depression, get healthy and find happiness again or will she continue on the path to self-destruction on which she embarked on four years ago?