The last weigh-in Wednesday

I have to admit, I’m bored of weigh-in Wednesdays now… and I’m sure you are too! So I’ve decided to make this the last one. It was only supposed to be a summer thing anyway, and by this time next week it will be September (eep, where has the time gone?!). Even if it isn’t officially autumn until the 22nd of September, it’s still an autumn month… and that was a long-winded explanation for something so simple! I think I’d better get on with the post…

Photo credit: Esthr

I’ve almost reached goal weight now (still not telling you what it is though. Ha!). I’m 1.3 kg down on last week, and weigh a whole 3.6 kg less than when I started the challenge. Go me!

I’ve only been weighing in every other day for the past two weeks, but my body fat percentage has been up and down just as much as when I was doing it every day. The ups have been lower as time goes on though, and today’s percentage is 28.3 %, down by 0.8% compared with last week!

Today’s waist line measurement was 76 cm (following on from 76.5 the last two times), which is 4 cm less than my starting measurement of 80 cm and puts me well below the unhealthy boundary. Phew!

I suspect I may look something like this… (Photo credit: pasukaru76)

Exercise has been… wellll, non-existent to be honest. I did do some walking (more than the usual tram stop to work and back, which I don’t count), but that’s about it. However, my local supermarket currently have fitness products on offer, so I took advantage and finally bought myself some hand weights… which means no more lifting tins of mangos! I might get my Jillian Michaels DVD out again this week and see how I fare doing a workout with actual weights…

And that’s my last weigh-in Wednesday for the time being. I might mention my measurements as part of another post in future, but I don’t intend to dedicate any more entire posts to weight loss… at least not until next summer when it’s time to stop hiding under stomach-shaping tights and baggy jumpers again!

Advertisement

Weigh-in Wednesday: The post birthday edition

Well, it’s been two weeks since my last weigh in, and since then I’ve not only celebrated my birthday with delicious cakes in Strasbourg, but also had my proper birthday party (which involved more cake, nachos (mmm cheese!) and cocktails. Then there was the Mississippi Mud Pie, which I obviously had to try to make sure the rain hadn’t completely killed it…

Needless to say, I haven’t been doing particularly well on my calroie goals recently. So it’s quite surprising that my weight this morning was pretty much exactly the same as it was two weeks ago. I was actually down almost a kilo on my current weight between the last weigh in and my birthday, but sadly it all came back. And I fear this delicious birthday gift from my uncle is not going to help me get back on track…

30th birthday sweetie hamper

Never mind, on with the measurements. Body fat percentage this morning was at 29.1%, which is 0.5% less than two weeks ago at least. Still only about one percent away from the danger zone though…
And as for the waistline… it’s the same as two weeks ago on 77 cm. I actually measured 76 cm the day before my birthday, but there was obviously no way that was going to last…

On the exercise front, I have nothing to report. As in I have done nothing in the way of exercise for the past two weeks. First it was too hot, then it was my birthday… and the past few days I’ve just plain been too tired! Work has had me stupidly busy this week… to the extent that I was convinced yesterday was Thursday… I’d been so busy that my brain simply couldn’t believe I’d fit all that work into a mere two days!

I will try to be better over the next week, but with the sweetie hamper to tempt me I’m not promising anything!

Weigh-in Wednesday: 30 minutes exercise not happening!

So, it’s Wednesday again (how did that happen?!), and that means it’s time for another weigh in.

Despite my plans to treat myself on Saturday, I actually ended up doing pretty well this weekend, mostly because I was so buy preparing for curry night I didn’t have the chance to eat anything else that day! In the end, I was only 10 calories over my daily limit despite the glasses of wine.

My weight has fluctuated a lot since last week, but it hasn’t gone back up to my starting weight at any point, which is good. Last week, I was 0.5 kg down from when I started… this week I’m at roughly the same, although I did record a weight that was 1 kg down from original weight. Only on one day though.

My body fat in percent also fluctuates quite a bit, but it’s only gone above last week’s measurement of 28.5% once. This morning’s result was 27.8%, down 0.7% on last week and 2.2% on my starting percentage. Here’s the graph from MyFitnessPal to show you how much it fluctuates. It’s generally around the 28% mark though… well, apart from that one day where it shot waaay up to 29%!

After getting stuck at 78 cm for what felt like years, my waistline measurement finally crept down by another half centimetre (yes, I count the halves!) and has been 77.5 cm for the last three mornings in a row. I did measure 77 cm once, but the next day it had gone back up again.

My plan for this week was to try and actually achieve my goal of 30 minutes exercise on 5 days a week. Sadly, this hasn’t happened once so far… since last Wednesday, the most I’ve managed is 15 minutes. It’s just too hot to exercise! And this week I also have far too much to do.

Photo: zebedee.zebedee

On the calories front, I’ve been doing really well! Admittedly, I was 375 above my limit on Friday, but apart from that I’ve been sticking to it pretty well. The last couple of days I’ve felt really hungry and just wanted to eat everything in sight. On Monday I was good and managed to restrict myself to a single serving of dark chocolate peanut M&Ms and a small handfull of spelt snack things from the organic supermarket, but yesterday U was unable to resist the cheesy crisps and eded up around 300 calories over my daily limit. To compensate, I forced myself to jog on the spot past the point where I would normally have given up and managed to make it to a whole 5 minutes on both days. Quite an achievement for me! Not that it helped much… 5 minutes of jogging in place burns a mere 42 calories. *Sigh*

I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to keep up with the healthy eating thing while I’m in England, but I’ll do my best. We’ll see how well I fared in two weeks time…
Wish me luck!

Weigh-in Wednesday: The first week

I joined My Fitness Pal on the recommendation of The Pink Rachael. For the first week, I decided to carry on with what I have been doing anyway – eating as healthily as possible and trying to fit in some exercise between all my other commitments – and see what insights I could gain. Here’s what I’ve discovered:

• Star jumps (jumping jacks) don’t use up nearly as many calories as I expected. So why exactly have I been jumping around my kitchen like an idiot? 😉
• Pine nuts contain a surprising number of calories!
• There is far too much sugar in my diet. Most of this comes from yoghurts.
• I would be much better at sticking to my daily calorie limits if I didn’t have a social life 😉
• I am totally useless at judging correct portion sizes. If I don’t weigh out ingredients, I will automatically make too much!
• I can currently only jog on the spot for 2 minutes before I have to stop.

All that said, I have been doing pretty well so far. I haven’t always been below the calorie limit that MFP specifies in order for me to achieve my goals, but every day so far I have been below the number of calories it says I would need to maintain my current weight. And now for the numbers…

– I didn’t tell you my original weight (and I’m not going to now ;-)), but this week it is down by 0.5 kg.
– My body fat is down from 30% to 28.5%
– My waist measurement is down from 80 cm to 78 cm (there is some fluctuation, but it tends to be 78 cm in the morning and 79 cm in the evening… the last 6 measurements have all been below 80!)

Here’s a graph showing my morning waist measurements since I started using My Fitness Pal:

All in all, the first week went pretty well. For next week, I want to try and meet my exercise goals (30 minutes a day on 5 days of the week) and actively plan some meals in advance based on the number of calories they contain – during the first week, I was making our “normal” (but healthy) meals and checking out how many calories they actually contain. I already know I will be treating myself on Saturday though… planning on  having friends round for curry. And wine, of course 😉