22 lbs and counting!

I weighed in at 128.0 this morning, which means I am down 22.4 lbs since the middle of July. Yay! It also means I'm getting very close to the "healthy" BMI weight for my height. My goal is to weigh 127 lbs by the end of the year. Even though my weight loss has slowed down considerably since school started, I think this is doable. Here's to a healthy new year!

19.5

That's what my scale says I've lost since the middle of July. 19.5 lbs. That puts me at 3.5 lbs from a healthy BMI. Next stop... 127.5 lbs!

Slowing Down

Well, school has started and with it comes a slow down in weight loss, an increase in comfort fooding, an increase in stress levels, and fewer trips to the gym. I've still lost another couple lbs and am down 17.4 lbs, but the slow down is a little bit frustrating. At the same time, though, the slow down isn't frustrating, because I know that my change in habits has been the culprit.

All the same, I'd like to get back on track. Mind you, I have been doing pretty well at not eating sugars or too many extra carbs, but I haven't been tracking, so I know I haven't been doing as well as I was. I'd say tracking is the answer, but that gets harder during the school year. Still, I should try to climb back on that bandwagon.

Leif is out of town this week, so getting to the gym will be limited to the mid-day break I have. I'm going to try to go 3 times. Not sure if I'll make it, but that's my aim.

9 week IR

About 9 weeks ago I was diagnosed with Insulin Resistance. I weighed 150.4 lbs. My doctor put me on Metformin and a low carb diet. The day after I was diagnosed, I wrote a post detailing my goals of losing 9 lbs in the next 9 weeks.

So... here we are 9 weeks later. My goal was to reach 141.4 lbs. I now weigh 134.6. I've lost 15.8 lbs!!

My bmi is 26.3, which is overweight, but not obese. The upper limit of a healthy bmi for me is 127.6 lbs. So my new goal is to lose 7 lbs, hopefully by the end of October.

I have an appointment with the endocrinologist this week on Wednesday, so I'll find out how my numbers look then.

Hooray for progress and new goals!!

7 lbs down!

So far I am 7 lbs down in the last 3.5 weeks. Yay!

Back on Track

Today was a much more balanced eating day. Hooray! I ended the day with 1,211 calories, 61g fat, 81g carb, 99g protein, 31g fiber.

I didn't feel well today, mostly sluggish and headachy. I ended up taking a nap this afternoon. I still don't feel like I've recovered from the high fat diet of the weekend, so perhaps that contributed to my malaise.

Weekend Eating

My eating this weekend has been sketchy. I've kept my calories low (today was the highest at a little over 1200) and my carbs low, but not a whole lot in the way of veggies or scheduled mealtimes with well thought out meals. I'm looking forward to returning to normal tomorrow.

That said, I did eat out successfully last night (at Sweet Chili's) and avoid carbiness. I also experimented with some recipes today (sugar free avocado pudding) and that was fun.

Normalcy tomorrow, though, will be nice!

Weigh In

When I weighed on my home scale a couple days ago, it said my weight was 150.4. I started using that as my official start weight on SparkPeople. This morning I got up (before 6 -- weird) and weighed and it said 148.8. Woohoo! I don't know if that is the result of the low carb IR plan, or just normal fluctuation, but it's exciting.

I haven't been exercising much the past few days, but am hoping to start incorporating that in this next week.

It's a new day, and a new week, and it's going to be a great one!

Day 4

Ended today at 1,136 calories, 80g carbs. Trying to get my daily fiber up isn't going as well as I'd like. Still haven't heard from the pharmacy as to whether my Metformin prescription is done, so I'll call tomorrow.

I forgot to weigh in this morning before I ate anything, but I weighed in after breakfast, and it said I'd lost a little already. Tomorrow I'll do an official weigh. 

I've been adding in a round or two of Babybel cheddar each day, mostly because it's a good protein snack with no carbs. I'm going to try string cheese this week. I am seeming to do fine on it, so we'll see. Maybe my dairy issues were related to the sugars after all. Then again, I've been having headaches the last few days, but I think that's more carb and sugar withdrawl than anything. I'll keep up my cheese experiment and see how it goes for a week. 

In addition to my fiber intake being low (I tried really hard to get more fiber today and still only got 19g), my daily fat content seems high. Now, I realize that I am eating more "good" fats, but I'm still going over what Spark People recommends. So... That's what I'm working toward. More fiber, less fat. 

My fiber intake these last four days has been... 15, 20, 11, 19

My fat intake these last four days has been...... 61, 62, 71, 65

I'd love to get my daily dietary habits fine tuned before school starts. 

IR Day 1

Today I headed back to SparkPeople to track my calories, carbs, etc. I'm aiming for between 50 and 150 grams of carbs per day. I hit 75. I'm aiming for 1250-1500 calories a day. I hit 1037. Not quite there, but I'm over 1000, so I'm just going to leave it. I didn't eat the birthday cupcakes tonight for Eliana's birthday celebration with Grammee and Grandad. 

My vitamins make up 21g carbs daily. My breakfast protein shake makes up another 21. I suppose if I want to eliminate more carbs, I can switch to pills and make my shakes from powder and almond milk. We'll see if I decide to go that route to save a few grams. I might do that on the weekends, or on these summer days when I have time in the morning. 

I entered a new weight loss goal in Spark People. I want to lose 9 lbs by my birthday, in 9 weeks. That seems doable (I say with trepidation given my past results with weight loss attempts...) given my low carb and MetFormin changes. I'm going to try it. 

Hypothetically, if I could maintain a 1lb per week weight loss schedule, I could weigh 120 by New Years! I would be excited about that. Like.... Super excited! For now, though, I'm going to try for 9 lbs over the next 9 weeks. 

I should weigh myself in the morning and see what my scale says I weigh. The endocrinologist's scale says I weigh 70kg, or 154lb. That's what I put in Spark People and what I figured my goal weight on. 

As it stands right now, my BMI is 30.1, officially obese. Again. Yep, time for a plan. 

Insulin Resistance

Yesterday I had a follow up appointment with the endocrinologist after my initial appointment and lab work 3 weeks ago. My lab work showed that I am have Insulin Resistance. It is good to have some answers, and the IR makes so much sense given the struggles I have had over the years. What it means for me is more dietary change. I've returned to Spark People (today, at least... I have a bit of a spotty record when it comes to tracking consistently) to help me track my food.

According to my blood tests, my body requires about 4x as much insulin to process glucose as a normal system does. That insulin flooding my system does two things: 1) It tells my body that I need to eat more. 2) It tells my body to store the resources as fat. The more I weigh, the more insulin my body produces. The more insulin my body produces, the more it stores the food as fat, the more I weigh. It's a vicious cycle.

Fortunately, if we can get the upward spiral to head the other direction, it will be a vicious cycle that works in my favor. If I can get my insulin levels lower, I should start to lose weight. If I lose weight, my body will produce less insulin. HOPE!

I will be going on MetFormin to help lower my insulin levels, and implementing a low carb diet (in addition to the GFDF I have been on the last 2 years). That means limiting carbs and pairing them with protein when I do eat them. Taking sugar (the majority of sugar, at least) out of my diet is going to be difficult. I can do it, but it's going to take work to figure out which staples we use that need to be revised/replaced. My GFDF diet has been fairly high carb, so it will take some adjusting.

That's where I am today. I weeded some stuff out of the pantry, which needed to be done anyway.

The endocrinologist's office weighed me at 70 kg. That's 154 lbs. Official high. :( Boo. I'm going to start by working to lower that by 30ish lbs. I don't have a real plan at this point, but I need to come up with one stat.