The saga continues

Average daily calorie burn over the last two weeks: 2025

Boy, have I let you down, my faithful readers—it's been a long time since my last post. For those of you still interested in what's been going on in my exercise and diet life, I shall bore you with the details. And thank you for caring enough to read.

In all honesty, the details of my diet and exercise plan for the last two weeks has been a blur. Exercising for me is fun, and I love to do it, and I'm pretty consistent with it, so the details don't really stand out in my head. I've gone to personal training each week, and I've been doing various routines at home. I tried a yoga DVD, which I liked, but I get frustrated by yoga knowing that it burns so few calories. It was a 45 minute workout, and I burned maybe 170 calories. I can burn almost twice as much as that with other 45 minute workouts, so I struggle with a commitment to yoga. I've done some outdoor walking, too, which was phenomenal. It's so awesome to get outside and breathe in that fresh air and warm sun. It's still pretty dark in the mornings around here, so I haven't gone for a morning walk/jog yet, but am planning to do so soon. I usually don't let the dark get in my way; this is more just a matter of getting back into that routine. Winter has left me too used to indoor workouts.

I'm considering ending my sessions with the personal trainer. I love going, but with my new endeavor (keep reading for more on that), I'm short on time, even more than usual; plus it's expensive, and since I'm not really watching what I eat, I'm not really getting the full benefit of personal training. So it may be time to stop.

My diet (and when I say "diet", I am referring to the way I eat, not a specific weight-loss program) has been a mess. First of all, let me mention that I'm embarking on starting a business where I sell my baked goods at a local farmer's market. I love to bake, and my goodies usually get rave reviews, so I figured why not try to make some money off of that. Well, it's a lot of work to get this rolling, and in addition, has inspired me to try new recipes and ideas, which, in turn, causes me to taste test everything I bake. Taste-testing a wide variety of baked goods practically every other day is not good for my waistline. So this endeavor will now challenge my willpower, and if I don't want to grow to be twice my size, I will need to figure out how to take a bite of a finished product to test its flavor and texture, as opposed to eating the whole thing or multiple servings.

So I've eaten a lot of sugary foods over the last two weeks, and that can't be good. And while I'm eating it, I'm loving it, but as soon as I'm done, I regret it terribly. And then I just want to work out so I can work it off. But I don't have the time for that kind of lifestyle. I barely have enough time to fit in the workouts that I do, let alone find time to fit in extra ones to work off the crap I put into my mouth.

And then on top of the sugary foods, we've eaten out much more than usual over the last two weeks. I'm not sure what that's all about, but that has to stop, too. It's expensive, not to mention fattening. I try to make good selections, but even the good selections, most of the time, are still not good for you when you eat out.

One day last week, I did weigh in at 131. I'm not sure how that happened, but I'll take it. But of course, I got on a few days later, and I was back up to 133. I'm slowly weaning myself from the habit of weighing in daily. I have found that it frustrates me more than it motivates me.

So my saga continues. In my dream world, I would still like to lose some weight, and get down to around 125 pounds. But I feel like I've tried so many different eating plans lately, and none of them have worked, nor have I been able to stick with them, I'm not really sure how I'll ever lose any more weight again. And I hate to be that pessimistic. I keep reminding myself that I was successful at this once, losing 15 pounds on Weight Watchers. But even that program, when I've gone back to try it again, has failed me. I'm still just so burned out on tracking everything. Ideally, I would find a way to eat enough calories to fuel my body while still maintaining a calorie deficit, and know what that amount of food is without tracking it. Wish me luck in finding that magic method that finally works for me.

And now I can't stop eating

I don't know what has gotten into me, but I have not been able to stop eating these last few days. And the scale is not my friend.

I weighed 131 on Saturday morning. By Tuesday morning, the scale said 134. And on Wednesday, it was 133. Those measurements all came from my old scale. My new scale's measurements were not as friendly. For whatever reason, although I went from 134 to 133 on the old scale, the new scale went from 134.0 to 134.4 between Tuesday and Wednesday. These numbers are all just driving me crazy, and the logical conclusion is to just stop weighing myself for a while. But is that wise? I don't know, but I think I'm going to try it.

And what's up with this eating? I have not eaten well for the past week. Is this a result of me deciding to stop counting and tracking what I'm eating? Maybe. Am I rebelling for all those months of hard work with what felt like not as much progress as I would have expected? Probably. I feel like I've been on a food bender, and it has to stop. But the problem is, I say this every day. And then I go to work, and there's some new sweet treat tempting me, and I give in and eat it. I think of all the months I didn't give in, and then I say to myself, screw it. I want that cinnamon bagel so bad. And then I eat it. Although I have been good about not eating whole pieces of things. Instead, I nibble. But then sometimes I nibble so much over the course of a few hours, I might as well have eaten the whole thing from the start.

Tomorrow, though, I will overcome this problem. I will eat well all day. My lunch is already packed. My snacks are packed. Tuna on a bed of lettuce with fat free dressing. Some grapes and an apple, and some Greek yogurt for snacks. Breakfast will be one serving of cereal with milk. Maybe some Wheat Chex, or Cheerios, or oatmeal. Whatever I choose, it will be good for me, and I will only eat one serving.

Where might I falter? Any time I walk past the kitchen at work. This is my problem. There's always something to snack on in there. Trail mix. Nuts. Honey pretzel twists. Chocolate. Or worse, some kind of dessert. I can say, though, that I have been doing a good job of resisting the chocolate in there. I know that if I start, I won't stop, so I've been resisting, and it's been working. I just need to do the same thing for any other treats that show up.

Another point of failure will be tomorrow evening. It's a Friday, and during Lent, I can't eat meat. We get home at 6, and I'm going to a friend's house at 7 for a ladies' happy hour. I'll have little time to eat, and it can't be meat. This is when I usually give in and just eat whatever I can get my hands on. And that's usually not the best thing for me. So I need to try super hard to only eat what I make myself for dinner, and not nibble on anything else. Then at the happy hour party, I need to resist whatever yummy appetizers or sweets she may have. That will be hard, too, because sometimes at a party, you eat just to have something to do with your hands.

Oh boy, tomorrow could be a disaster. But I'm going to try as hard as I can to not let that happen, and turn the disaster in my head into a real victory. One day at a time. I can do it.

It's nice not counting calories

Calories burned:

Wednesday 2243

Thursday 2839

Friday 1830

Saturday 2686

Sunday 2126

What a variation in calories burned for the last five days. Thursday was the highest. That's because I worked out in the morning, as well as went to a Zumba class that evening. I can see how people who have time to spend 3 hours a day at the gym can lose weight quickly and easily. It was fun burning all of those calories, but in my normal life, I typically don't have that much time to work out daily. I have much more important things to do with my time, like spend it with my daughter and husband.

Since I worked out so hard on Thursday, I decided to not work out on Friday. It's amazing how much of a difference working out makes in total calorie burn. And it's very easy to see how, if you don't exercise and don't watch what you're eating, you're likely to consume more than you burn on average, and in turn, gain weight. For me, the hard realization is that I have always been an exerciser, so during those times when I've gained weight, that meant I was consuming more than, say, 2200 calories in a day. Really? See, I find that hard to believe, but I must have been for me to have been gaining weight. I also think that now that I have the bodybugg, I tend to work out harder because I'm aware of how many calories I'm burning (or not burning).

On Sunday, I wasn't planning to work out. I plan for Sundays to be my day off, but if I can fit something in without it getting in the way of life, I try to do it. So yesterday, the sun was shining and the weather was comfortable. Around 5:00, I felt the need to get out and enjoy it. I asked Lila if she wanted to go for a walk, but she said she'd rather sit in her wagon while I pull her. So I did. That burned about 200 calories, and helped me meet my step target for the day. And boy did I need to burn some extra calories. We went to my in-law's house for lunch yesterday. Delicious pasta and grilled chicken, and the best salad ever. And then for dessert, we had the cake I made for my sister-in-law's birthday. It was awesome. But then around 9:00 pm, I had another piece. I didn't need it, and in fact, I felt yucky when I went to bed a little while later.

So this week, I'm still not counting my calories, but I am trying to be mindful of what I eat. If I lose, I lose, and if I maintain, I'll be happy with that, too. But I pray that I don't gain because that will just make me sad. So wish me luck. I'm hoping for a fantastic week!

Is this considered "giving up?"

Wow, has it really been a week since my last post? I'm surprised, and I'm frustrated. I want to write more often. Perhaps my daily posts back when I started this were a bit overambitious, but posting once a week is not what I wanted to do, either. Hopefully I can find some middle ground.

So what has gone on in the last week? Well, since last Wednesday, I've logged food for all days but the weekend, which means I was pretty well-behaved most days. My deficits for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday last week were 383, 454, and 478 calories. Not as high as I would like, but still a deficit. On Saturday, I blew it. I can't even remember what all I ate, as I ate poorly at every meal. I ate too much breakfast for starters. Then for lunch, we lucked out and had a free meal at the new Italian Oven by our house. We had a thin-crust white pizza, soup, salad, and a half of a panini. Now, we shared all of this, but I still probably ate more than I needed to. We had two teeny, small desserts, too, and shared those. After some shopping, we stopped and got good chocolate at Sarris'. Again, not a lot (two pieces), but still. Then for dinner, which I didn't think I would need after the big lunch, we had leftover pizza and salad from lunch. There was no way I could count those calories, and I find it hard to believe that I ate more than I burned that day (2227 calories), but who knows. Maybe I did.

Sunday wasn't much better. I did, at least, eat well at my meals, but I made brownies with Lila and her friend, Danielle. So I ate some batter, as well as ate a small piece after they were done. Again, did I eat more than I burned that day, which was 2399 calories? It seems hard to believe that I did, but who knows.

Now, when I weighed in on Monday morning, I was up in my weight. Seriously? Do you see why this drives me crazy? I had a deficit going into Saturday. I had a deficit of 2703 calories for the week since my last weigh-in, which is 3/4 of a pound. For me to have gone up a pound in weight from the week before, that means I would have had to have consumed those 2703 calories, PLUS consumed another 3500 (one pound in calories). There is no way that my splurges on Saturday and Sunday were comprised of that many calories.

So what's going on here? Where is my reward for the deficit that I did have earlier in the week? Why am I not seeing the scale budge along with my deficit? Is this whole deficit thing a farce? I don't think it is, but I can't explain what's going on with my body.

Which leads me to my current thinking. I'm frustrated. I have been trying since the end of October to lose some weight. I started at 135 pounds on October 26. Back then, I started tracking my calories in and out using caloriecount.com. After the holidays, I decided to get more serious about it, and I bought the bodybugg so that I really knew for sure how many calories I'm burning. But even that has not helped. I'm down to 132 pounds (well, this is what the scale said today; yesterday it said 131, and last Tuesday it said 130), so at least I did lose 3 pounds, and I'm exercising harder than I had been, doing much more strength training. The good news is that today I put on a pair of pants that I bought two summers ago when I had lost 15 pounds. These pants, when I got up to 135, were a bit snug, and looked kind of tight. But today, even after only a 3 pound loss, they fit fine, if not even a tad bit roomy. So I guess that means that my body shape has changed in some way. This is all good news.

But I'm still frustrated. Seriously, am I that much of a pig that with all the working out that I do, since October 26, I've only been able to lose 3 pounds? It seems so unbelievable, and this is why I'm frustrated. I don't want to fall off of this wagon again, but I feel it coming. I'm grateful to have the bodybugg, as I now think I will always want to be aware of my calorie burn throughout the day. It will hopefully always help inform the way I eat. But I'm tired of tracking and counting my caloric intake, especially when it seems to be making no difference. But can I fall off of that wagon and not lose control? If I'm not a slave to documenting everything I put in my mouth, will I be more likely to put things in my mouth that I shouldn't be putting in there? Now that you've gotten your mind out of the gutter, I wonder if I can be successful at all at losing more weight, or am I stuck at 132 and I need to just accept that? What would it take to lose more weight? Do I really need to eat like a bird, limiting my caloric intake to even less than 1500 calories a day, even if I'm burning 1000 calories more than that daily? But if I'm burning so many calories, and taking in so few, won't I be starving all the time? And how can that be healthy?

There is something liberating in the idea of just accepting yourself the way you are, vowing to eat healthy all the time, limiting sweets but not giving them up completely, and getting on with your life, forgetting about all of this tracking and managing. Wouldn't it be a total success if I could just do those things? The question is... can I do it? Stay tuned to find out.