Category: Health

Weight: 197.5 lbs (down 4 pounds)

Average Hours of Sleep: 6 hours

Total Workout Time: 80:36

Total Calories Burned: 531.9

This week I didn’t exercise as much as I wanted to. Various things (mostly my Disney World Photo Book) got in the way. Still, the 80 minutes and change that I did work out must have had an effect as I lost 4 pounds. My plateau is busted! This takes me to within half of a pound of my pre-Disney goal of 10 pounds and nearly 50% of the way to my ending goal (20 pounds).

Part of losing weight/getting healthy is recognizing when something isn’t working and changing it to maximize the effect. Last week, I pledged to work out half an hour per night. During the week, however, I only found time to work out 2 nights. Now, I could either keep the “half hour every night” pledge as-is and feel guilty about all of those missed workouts (thus perhaps making me want to skip them more so I don’t need to think about them). Or, I could recognise that it’s just not working and change it. Given that I don’t think that half hour per night goal is feasible, I’m going to modify it to 30 minutes per night, 3 nights per week. This should be easier to hit.

I still remain a night owl, staying up way past when I should. I know I need to work on this, but I seem to get a second wind at 9pm that lasts until midnight. It’s hard to go to bed when all the other things I have to do and want to do beckon. Perhaps I need to prioritize more.

Weight: 201.5 lbs (up half a pound)

Average Hours of Sleep: 6 hours

Total Workout Time: 45 minutes

I pretty much expected this to happen after my incredible first week. I’ve plateaued. Despite eating well the entire week, I actually gained a hhalf a pound. This isn’t going to discourage me, though. Going up and down is part of the whole weight loss process. You just need to make sure that the general direction is down. Given that I’m still 5 1/2 pounds lighter than when I started, I’d say I’m still ahead of the game.

I did work out one day with B using Leslie Sansone but then couldn’t get up the motivation to work out anymore. Finding time to work out after working for 8 hours, making dinner, cleaning up from dinner and getting the kids into bed is a challenge. I’m going to set a mini-goal for myself to work out for a half hour every night this week (perhaps exempting Friday night since Shabbat starts so quickly in January). After all, if I only reduce my caloric intake, my body will react by slowing down its metabolism. Exercising will help increase my metabolism. After all, Weight Gained Or Lost = Calories Eaten – Caloried Burned.

As far as sleep goes, I still can’t get the hang of early bedtimes. I suspect this is going to continue to be a concern. There are only so many hours in the day. NHL usually goes to sleep at around 7:30pm and JSL snuggles with B to go to sleep at around 8:30pm. Since I need to wake up at 6 – 6:30am, I should get to sleep by 10:30pm. So, once B takes JSL into bed, I only have 2 hours to clean up from dinner, do whatever I need to do on the computer, work out (and shower as I’m not going to head to bed all sweaty), and watch what few TV shows I follow. There never seems to be enough time to do it all. At the very least, I need to organize my time better.

Weight: 201 lbs (down 6 lbs)

Average Hours of Sleep: 7.14 hours

Total Workout Time: 0 minutes

This first week of Project New Me has brought about many upheavals. First of all, simply needing to track my points again was something to get used to. I couldn’t just toss a ton of snacks in my lunch bag and eat as many of them as I felt I needed during the day. I had to think more about what was going in my mouth. This is a good thing. When you mindlessly shove food into your mouth, you forget about the calories you’re ingesting and you are more likely to gain weight. » Read more

Today, I weighed in for the first time for Project New Me.  I not only weighed in, however, but decided to track a few different factors.  One thing I’ve noticed is that a poor nights’ sleep results in more snacking.  It’s almost as if my body is low on energy from a lack of sleep and is trying to get more energy by ingesting more calories.  So losing weight is going to likely mean no more staying up until 1am when I need to wake up at 6:30 the next morning.  I also decided to track how much time I’ve worked out.  After all, the equation for weight loss (or gain) is: Calories In – Calories Burned = Weight Change.  I can drop the calories taken in, but increasing calories burned (through exercise) can result in greater weight loss.  Exercise might also help improve my final set of numbers: the measurements of my waist, arms and thighs.  (This last one will be taken on the first weigh-in of each month since it likely won’t change much week to week.)

So what are the numbers to start?

Weight: 207 lbs

Sleep & Workout Time: N/A (since this will reflect the previous week’s averages)

Waist: 39.25 inches

Arms: 14.5 inches

Thighs: 25.5 inches

Where is this headed? What are my targets?  My only real target is my weight.  I want to get back down below 190.  Since I’m at 207 right now, I figure that I’ll shoot for 187.  This means a 20 pound weight loss target.  Since I’m going for 20 pounds, I’ll make the target time 20 weeks.  This will allow for a gradual weight loss of 1 pound per week.  (Realistically, I’ll likely lose more than that in the first few weeks, but might also plateau.)

So that’s where I am and where I hope I’m headed.  Wish me luck.  If you are participating in Project New Me as well (or are just on your own weight loss routine), I wish you luck as well.