Quick preview- Food Journal, Excel Sheet, Emotions- Good and Bad, Weight Gain History
In determining a title for this entry, I realized that I had two conflicting thoughts doing battle in my brain. I didn’t even know it was happening until I started writing! (And then I picked a completely different title!)
In one corner you have food and nutrition and in the other, weight loss. Then floating in the middle of the ring, you have all these issues and side thoughts about what to write on both topics. And what should the first real blog entry be about?
The bottom line is that I need to eat better (good nutrition) and that will lead to me losing weight. Sounds SO easy right?!
So let’s explore… On this journey, my step one, my first goal is losing weight. Where do you begin with that? Well, how do we gain weight? Excess calories from FOOD (See blog entitled I Love Food)!! For quite some time now, husband has told me that keeping a food journal would help. For quite some time now, I have started food journals and usually get to 4, maybe 5, days before it gets tossed aside and forgotten. I’ve used paper and pen, internet based, phone apps and the ever popular “in my head” style of keeping track of what I eat (sometimes including calories, fat, carbs, protein intake for every morsel). The problem became that foods weren’t in the database or the information wasn’t available or I didn’t have my handy little notebook with me. What I decided was that I am always with my laptop and/or my phone and I needed to make them work together. I don’t always have internet or good service and really, incomplete databases frustrate the ever living hell out of me… So, I created an excel sheet, just for me. (I will try to upload it somehow so you can see it…) It’s on my phone and my computer. And I can at least record the food item/emotion in the moment and go back later to get the numbers from various sources.
I’m sure I’ll get into specifics at some point but later in my journey and training, I’ll be eating for triathlons and specifically, Ironman. From what I understand and have learned, this lends itself to a 60% carbs, 20% fat, & 20% protein plan of nutrition. This does not typically equate to weight loss. But, in preparation, the excel sheet accounts for percentage as well as calorie totals. I also put in a comments section so I can write, “felt crappy… had a bad day… was craving a burger… deserved a treat…” to track the emotional side of this.
I feel like I’m getting off track but the emotional side of this journey is HUGE. BIG. GIGANTIC. ENORMOUS. GI-NORMOUS! Get it? I think I’m an emotional eater. I mean, aren’t we all to a certain extent? But I recently had a job and I was there for 3 years. And over the course of those 3 years, I would say Mt. Dew was my “drug of choice”. And McDonald’s. And KFC. And of course, beer. Let’s not forget about beer. The job was good but I was not happy there. So bad day = McDouble with a coke on the way home to “make it all better”. And there were many a plenty of “bad days”.
And then there are GOOD days too! And you meet a boy and you like boy. And boy likes you! And you date… And your dates consist of yummy, yummy dinners at many, many restaurants. I mean, a mutual love of hamburgers leads to date #1 and a mutual love of rugby and beer leads to fun weekends with friends. And then all of a sudden you’ve been dating for a year, you’re engaged to be married and you’ve put on 20 lbs. And you aren’t currently playing rugby so that adds another 10-15 lbs. And your personal high weight keeps going up. “God, if I’m EVER 200 lbs… OMG! If I’m EVER 210 lbs… Ok, I’m serious, if I ever tip the scale at 220 lbs…” I’ve said all these things to myself over the course of the last 3 years. But wait, it goes back further…
I left home at the age of 22. And went to college. Off to Philadelphia I went. I lived downtown and commuted to Temple University by bike or train. You are always moving in the city. Walking, biking, running for the bus that only comes every 30 minutes and is the only way to get home at 11pm… All this exercise left me at 165 lbs and the fittest I’ve been, probably ever, or at least since high school. Then my senior year, I had an athletic training assignment off campus so I got a car. This put on 10 lbs over the course of a semester. Still, no problem. 175 lbs and off to AZ in July for grad school.
Arizona, in July, is freakin’ HOT! When you aren’t accustomed to that and you don’t know anyone, you sit in your apartment, watch TV, wait for school to start in August and you eat. Maybe you don’t, but I did. And I didn’t realize what was happening to my waist line until orientation came around. Actually, it was a dinner at a golf resort. I went to put on my nice clothes and was SHOCKED that I couldn’t get the buttons to come anywhere close to each other. Called my new classmate and said I couldn’t make it. I’m sure I had some lame excuse. This marks point zero on my journey. This was the FIRST time “I got fat”. I say “I got fat” because that’s what I would tell people for the next 7 years. I still say it today. And from that point on, I would pretend I was still 175 lbs. I’d record it on various papers that required height and weight. The AZ DMV thinks I’m 175 lbs. But I would go to doctor appointments over the years and my eyes would go saucer size when they would record 190, 200, 215 lbs.
Ok, so I moved to AZ in 2004, put on weight (high was 190-200 lbs I think), then I dropped some when I started working. I dropped some more when I started playing rugby. When I stopped playing rugby and when husband and I started dating, would mark the 2nd period of weight gain in my life. I think I was 180-190ish when we started dating. I was 200-210 when we got engaged. Today, after almost a year and a half of marriage, I’m 220 lbs. Happiness… what a b****!! For the record, husband had lost 60 lbs. prior to us dating and also suffered from about a 30-40 lbs. gain. (For the record, when HIS pants started to get too tight, he trained for a marathon and got them to fit again.)
Quick recap- Food Journal, Excel Sheet, Emotions- Good and Bad, Weight Gain History
I think this is a good start for today. J
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