Weight Loss Report #5 + Re-Thinking Blog Goals

Sorry for the late update. It’s been a busy week in my household — moving house and all. Fun times. We’ve almost settled in and now I have to get ready for the return of Uni. But this time I’m not that excited but instead glum resignation of my upcoming fate that involves stress, assignments and obligations. I admit… what I was studying, it’s somehow lost its charm for me. I still enjoy it, but I’m not as passionate about it as before and over the last year I’ve been slowly developing new interests which I get passionate and excited about, and love studying.

Anyway, measurements: 38.5″/31.5″/36.5″. Nothing to see, I have gained a little as I’ve veered off a little in my diet thanks to moving/cleaning/doing other new house things. Although perhaps all that box-carrying and running around town doing errands made sure I didn’t gain too much 🙂

I’ve also gotten digital scales. They are funny little things. I weighed myself 4 times in oneday and was anywhere between 59kg to 61kg. Way to go for accuracy. It also taught me not to take those things too seriously, except as novel curiosity every now and then. Like reading your horoscopes.

I’ve also been re-thinking my weight loss goals, especially after reading some women’s weight loss threads on Mark’s Daily Apple forum. The general idea I got from the threads is that eating primally is firstly for health and general wellbeing and secondly, weight loss can be a restrictive and narrow-minded way of seeing the big picture of health.

I’m sure I stated at the beginning of this blog that my reasons for losing weight were largely vanity-based and also for the experience of being a member of the flat belly club. Often I would eat and exercise and live life with the frequent thoughts of ‘If I don’t do X, Y or Z… I’ll be part of the fat belly club forevaaaaahhh!!111!’ — so my mentality felt narrow, flat, controlled and fear-based. I would also have thoughts of ‘Can’t eat sugar, sugar is BAAAAADD. Makes you look old and gives you arthritis!!’ or ‘Bread’s bad. Bread’s poison.’

So it was a mix of ‘Must do this to look and feel good or else’ and ‘Bad for health. Avoid avoid avoid.’ – there never was a clear or concise mentality or motivation but a muddy mixture inside my mind. To me, it seems that eating right and do things right is more than actually doing it and going through the motions, but having the actual spirit and mind behind your work. A clear, strong spirit… not something muddy and confused.

What do I want? Do I just want a flat belly? Or do I want lifelong good health? What are my driving reasons? My current actions? I feel like I do a lot of things in my life out of obligation and for shallow reasons like prestige, social respect/popularity, vanity, because ‘it’s the right thing’ (whatever that means)… and most of what I do consequently feels empty and pointless and I soon forget about it. I feel like having a re-boot, but I have to be careful. Too fast and enthusiastic and I’ll come crashing down like Icarus, but too slow and cautious and I’ll never get there and lose motivation.

WUT. Foiled by the body fat machine.

Well, today I got a chance to have myself expertly measured up by a body fat machine – well that’s what I think it is. You put your feet on two metal plates, press your thumbs on these metal grooves whilst holding these odd handles. Anyway, discovered my body fat was 27.3% WAH. I must be using those calipers wrong. I weigh 59.5kg — so not much change from two weeks ago either.

I admit I was quite disturbed to learn my body fat has hardly budged since I first measured it. Also I learnt that I (obviously) carry most of my weight in my trunk or belly. Well, of course. It seems to me as if I can never budge weight off that area either. I know I’m losing it everywhere else, except there. It seems to happily swing anywhere between 31-32″ in circumference. My thoughts have immediately turned to my IUD – 4 weeks and I’m still 27%. Am I not working hard enough? I feel like blaming myself, and sometimes the IUD.

I feel like my joy at what I thought were successes last week weren’t really real at all, and somehow I was seeing the wrong thing in both my head and the mirror.

Well I’ve still got another 4 weeks left to see if it is the IUD and to see if I can lose anymore weight. It’s also another 4 more weeks to plan my game better, but at the same time I have to make concessions for uni, especially now that I will be living further away from it. I will look at my diet first… I can’t really say I’m screwing up in the exercise column – I spend most of the days doing aikido, going for walks, running around on errands, sometimes house cleaning, and doing bodyweight exercises (I did one two days ago and my shoulders are still a bit sore!) — so no fault there. Of course, other factors could be stress (and Uni will be no help in that area!), lack of proper sleep; yes despite being on holidays, I find it hard to fall asleep — I get tired but as soon as my brain/body clicks on that I’m going to bed, it suddenly decides to wake up again like some errant 5 year old child. Or it’s the IUD *dun dun dun*.

When the next four weeks roll by and there’s been no measurable improvement, I’ll say I get down to 56kg/123lb or I lose another inch off the waist, or my body fat goes down by 1.5% — I will definitely start thinking about getting the IUD pulled. But of course this is determinant on me creating a tighter plan for eating and maybe exercising too and really sticking to it, and this will make sure my results can be more clearly attributed to something else besides lax attitudes.

 

Weight Loss Report Week #4

It’s been about a month now since I started my blog and I’m happy to report some new measurements this week, plus some other little findings. My measurements now are 38″/31″/35.5″. Here are some photos:

Sorry for the slightly crappy quality. My regular photographer, BF, has been a bit sick lately and needed his rest. So here are some selfies lol. Unlike last week, I can definitely see a bit of difference now. Stomach looks less flabby and smaller. Boobs look a touch smaller too 😦 I wish you could direct where you lose fat, I tend to lose it off my boobs/bum/legs and pretty much everywhere else before my belly. I also see that my body has more shape, or definition perhaps? Whereas before my body fat would throw off my shape and if I wore the wrong clothes, it could look a bit unflattering.

So I’m pretty happy this week, I’ve finally started to lose some off the belly. I do think this is related to the fact that I’ve really stuck to not eating any grains, ate a lot of fat and protein and said no to most of the food when I’m out – as most food outside my home is grain-based or full of “God-knows-what”. I’ve also only had a little bit of dairy, mostly in cups of teas and coffees. I feel because I was more dedicated this week than the other weeks, that I’ve been able to make more progress in shaping up and now I’m finally starting to see that diet really is connected to weight loss. It probably helps too that I’ve been making good gains at exercise too, mainly aikido.

Well hope you guys have a good day, I’m off to have brekkie 🙂

Fat loss report week #3

Well today I have some interesting results. I measured myself this morning and  I got: 36″/32″/38″. Why is my belly stuck in neutral?? I’ve lost 2kg and my body fat is now 25.40%. A 2 percent loss!! My bf’s been complaining of shrinking boobs lol, so I guess I’m losing something even if when I look at my photos I see little difference. He’s also been saying since I’ve been going to aikido I’ve gotten very strong in the wrists and arms, he compared me to when I began aikido with this terrible little pantomime of “I’m sooo weak, my arms are floppy” *tears of self-pity*. Haha whatever. Well, he won’t be saying that anymore now >:)

Photos:

Okay, so comparing my very first photos with these ones, there is slight differences. Stomach doesn’t stick out as much, posture is a bit better. Ass looks a bit flatter. Um, yay?

But regardless of flat ass or not, I am making some progress but I do need a rethink on my food. I need a food plan which is planned 2-3 days in advance, anymore and I know I’ll want something different or food will go off. Also I have a bad habit of getting really stuck into a meal and think it is the be-all and end-all of meals. I did this with sushi once. Sushi everyday for breakfast, lunch and sometimes even dinner! It was great… for about a week. So I wanted a change, problem was now I had stacks of nori sheets, rice vinegar and tuna cans everywhere. You’d think I would have learnt, but no… I’m still doing it now, looking for my miraculous meal that will be the only thing I will want and need food-wise. Haha.

Lastly, I need to buy better underwear. I’m amazed I’ve gone this far wearing pretty daggy stuff 😛

And house-hunting? Still looking sketchy at the moment. Otherwise I’m having a good day so far 🙂

Lost an inch or so off the belly – surprise, surprise!

Still house-hunting. We had two leads that looked good, but for whatever reason are ignoring texts/forgot about us. Sigh. Waiting to find out if two applications we put in the other day are successful. On the upside, getting paid tomorrow so I can refill my fridge and cupboard again 😀 and also working on a small project with a good friend. It’s very interesting and exciting, it keeps my mind off my shitty housing situation lol and hopefully if it’s a hit, it could lead to some really good things later on.

Another good thing that happened was that I checked my waist and oooohh it measures 31.5″. But must keep up diet. Exercise can be easily covered, it’s the discipline to stick to eating right which is really quite hard. Like I said, my main temptation comes when I’m with friends. It’s hard to eat out and you feel like a sore thumb sticking out when you’re not gulping down vast amounts of sugar, etc.

Lastly, the boyfriend and I have decided on a little deal to lose body fat both and get fit. He wants to get down to 12% by years end (though I suspect if he really pushes himself, probably a whole lot faster) and I want to get down to 20%. Lofty goals, but whoever gets to the finish line first gets the privilege of having their feet kissed by the loser, declared King/Queen of the Universe and the loser must buy the winner a treat of their choice under $40. Perhaps I should up the odds, make losing more painful. Maybe something under a $100, a $150? That’s more ouchy >:)

Anyway, it looks like I’ll have a busy few weeks with finding a house to live, eating right and uni starting up soon again! Eeek!

 

Fat Loss Report Week #2

It has been a busy week. House-hunting for a new place. Not much success so far. I’m really worried we won’t find a place soon and I feel our process in finding a house wasn’t thought out that well, and therefore carrying out our half-baked plans resulted in half-baked results. It’s frustrating to know I’m somewhat responsible for the way things are panning out. Also had a lot of house-guests over this week. Keeping people entertained whilst trying to find a house has left my personal plans stalling. However, I haven’t gained any weight from last week. May have lost an inch and a half off the belly. So currently I’m 36″/32.5″/39″.

I’ve also been measuring my belly for bloat in the morning, and it does seem to vary depending on what I ate last night. Some days I’m almost 32″, other days I’m almost 34″. If I eat anything too much wheat-based stuff or too much milk (like a milkshake or a cafe-made coffee), next day I will be bloated, gassy and just feeling tight in my stomach area.

As for my skin, I do feel my method of healing it up did do it some good. Yes, there are some scars in the area (now to fade them!), but they healed a lot faster and weren’t as red for as long. So my next step is to find ways to fade them, try them out for about a fortnight and document here. I’ve also been putting Vitamin E under my eyes (starting to get fine lines there gah…) and whilst my lines seem to look the same, my bottom eyelashes look a bit thicker and longer. Huh? Oh well, long eyelashes it is then 😀

Fat loss report #1

So this morning before breakfast or anything else I took my measurements: 36.5″/33″(?!!?)/39″

So despite magically gaining an inch on my belly. I’ve lost an 1.5″ in one week 😀 Am pretty happy with that. I find it encouragement to keep going.

So now for some photos:

Not much discernible difference yet. Still puzzled about my random belly sizes. I think I will measure just my belly/waist over the next 3-4 days and see how much it changes, I also know to avoid too much bread/wheat stuff and very milky drinks to avoid “bloating”. However, my greek yogurt drink doesn’t really bloat me too much. I did read somewhere that this type of yogurt is strained quite thoroughly, and this straining usually cuts out the lactose — where I think most of my dairy troubles come from.

Well today it’s raining quite heavily again, however, I still have a bit of list of house cleaning jobs to do so that’ll take care of my exercise needs today.

Got my body fat calipers

Today I got my body fat calipers and after a little bit of confusion of on how/where to measure, I ran my measurements through this online calculator and my BF% was 27.34%. This was something I was not surprised about. My lean body weight would be just about 45kg/99lb. So from my current weight I would have to lose about 16-17kg/35-37lb. I was a little shocked at how low my weight would have to go. However, after some quick googling I learnt that lean body weight is everything in your body minus the fat. So obviously, it would be good to lose fat but not too much.

Anyway, this has lead me to measure my fat loss through percentages and tape measurements only. The scales can be deceiving :PI’ve also discovered something else deceptive about my measurements. Yesterday when I went to tape measure myself in the morning… I discovered I had lost a whole 2 inches on my waist!! Everything else was pretty much the same. But this couldn’t be right. Yes, I had been exercising decently and eat decently too, but I didn’t expect such a sudden loss. My stomach looked flatter too. I was pretty excited. Anyway, I measured it again today and back came the two inches 😦

What I figured was this: I know I’ve always been short-torsoed. I’m a pretty short person (157cm/5″2) and most of my “height” is in my legs. I think because my torso is pretty short that my stomach and everything else is squished up inside. Sooo whenever I eat my stomach will bloat outwards as it probably can’t bloat down. What I mean by bloat is not the actual sensation of being bloated, it’s basically my midriff grows outwards a bit each time I have a meal. It shrinks after a while until I eat again. It’s probably its smallest in the morning when I haven’t eaten for a long while.

Frustrating, but not much I can do. I think losing a fair bit of body fat might dull the effect down, or I was always have a slightly poochy stomach thanks to my short-torsoedness

So would my actual measurements be 37″/32″/40″ minus food? I think I will take my measurements from this numbers from now on, as 34″ was really a temporary number determined by each meal I had. I might also have to rely on more visual elements, as in clothes might feel looser, face looks more defined, etc. That sort of thing plus the objective judgement of people around me. I can’t trust myself here, I’ve always seen myself as chubby and having a pretty average body – even if I did lose fat I’d still be so stuck on this mental image of myself as chubby, I wouldn’t be able to see the fat loss.

I will also report on my measurements and a photo of myself tomorrow morning, as I’ve already had dinner (steak with salad plus a small side of home-made potato chips — not too many of them though, probably about six t0 seven of them) and I wouldn’t get an accurate measure.

Am still making my way slowly through ‘The Primary Blueprint’. It’s full of information. Pretty dense but good reading. Lots of notes too 🙂

Also it was my birthday yesterday too so not a good day for eating good haha. Cheesecake, sourdough toast, big servings of rice with curry sides (did notice I couldn’t eat as much as I used too, perhaps stomach has shrunken a bit?), and a chocolate brownie. Oh dear. But I did make it to aikido for an hour. Today was a bit better. Eggs and bacon. Lots of nuts. Some fruit. Steak and salad. Plus spent most of the day cleaning up the house and car. It rained heaps today so I wasn’t able to go on my walk that I planned to do. I’ve also really gotten into this yogurt drink apparently from Iran. It’s greek yogurt plus water plus salt (add as much or as little depending on your taste). Very nice and with ice cubes, exceptionally refreshing.

Short weight loss progress report

Just a real short one. Anyway, I’ll be posting photos and measurements soon. Not sure though I’ve made much difference… yet lol. Boyfriend says that I have lost a little bit of weight and even my stomach isn’t as poochy :D. Also ordered body fat calipers off the internet, so I can be a bit more precise with my goals instead of just relying on whole body weight loss. Hopefully they should be in this week. I’ve also been taking daily walks, doing my aikido and eating mostly right.

However, in the last two days I’ve been dipping into processed/wheat junk as I only get paid once a fortnight, so by the last few days of each fortnight I’m usually dipping into junk because I can’t afford much else It has made me rethink my shopping habits, and I do know there’ s a bit of waste going-on especially with fruit and veges. I’m thinking I’ll buy as much fruit/vege as I need for a few days only, instead of projecting two weeks worth of fruit/vege and obviously wasting some by the end of it. I’m not a fan of grocery shopping (but I don’t think anyone is lol), but I’d rather do a few trips and ensure I always have something healthy on hand, and not packaged junk with 5000 different artificial colours/preservatives and who knows what else. I might also have to consider expanding my food budget, in order to set aside money for extra fruit, vege, eggs and sometimes meat.

Fell off the boat today…

Just a shortish entry. Had a bit of bread and some sugary chocolate today. I’m a bit annoyed by this, but I know I can do better tomorrow. Just one day at a time. I have such a sweet tooth 😛

PROFIT!! $$$
Or just happy tastebuds.

As for what lead me into dipping into some chocolate was because I was making chocolate mousse for a friend’s dinner tomorrow. Although the nomming on the chocolate mousse (hey had to make sure it was edible!) was enjoyable, what was more enjoyable was the actually process of making chocolate mousse from scratch. Yes, whipping the cream and eggs with my not-so good electric blender. I’m pretty sure it took me almost 20 minutes to get the egg whites to that point-of-rightness. But anyway, I digress.

Even just recently, I disliked and didn’t know how to cook. However, for a number of reasons, mainly to keep things cheap but also to have the ability to cook healthy meals for myself (and occasionally the bread-loving boyfriend lol)… I bucked up and taught myself how to cook. So far, I’ve been going surprisingly well and even enjoying myself. The mousse made me a bit nervous because it does need that light, fluffy quality about it and I hoped I could pick it when it happened.

But all went well and after setting a small sample in the fridge for a taste test, out it came and it was delicious! Relief. The boyfriend enjoyed it too. It was a bit rich but still a good success in my eyes. I’m feeling that bit more confident now about my little cooking skillset 🙂

I should probably apply this lesson on any future failures in changing my eating and exercise habits. Instead of worrying and getting down about my mistakes, I will look at the big picture and see if I’m really going all that wrong/is it really that bad? As long I don’t make a habit of making certain mistakes repetitively, it’s going to be okay.

The other thing I’ve learnt was actually watching the cream and eggs get whipped. Because they take so long, it’s frustrating and I start to panic I’ve failed and wasted a carton of cream, etc. I remember the first time I got whipped cream. It was taking foooorever. I started to panic. Blame myself. I know, pretty neurotic about a meal, but that’s me! I was about to give up, destined to make only watery, bubbly cream forever… and then it happened. The whipped cream happened and I was ecstatic. Haha. Dancing around like a fool. I remembered then, the saying that success often comes at your lowest point, the point of giving up and you just have to hold on that bit longer to reach whipped cream utopia.

One last lesson… time to buy a new electric blender. Cream shouldn’t take 15 minutes to whip, and my birthday is coming up soon. Hmmm…