Friday, February 27, 2015

Restocking the food...

Now, one thing my friend's sister suggested me using was an app called My Fitness Pal, which I have found SUPER helpful so far!  It lets me be aware of the foods and their properties that I am putting in my body.  It also has a place to track calories ingested, calories burned from exercises done and there is even a place you can sync a stepper app to keep track of the steps you do through your smart phone.  I use Pacer and it even calculates the calories burned based on the steps you have taken too, which is very cool.

So for me having Hypothyroidism, I am more sensitive to certain foods than a lot of people and it takes more for me to lose weight than the average person too.  Some people just have to be below their intake vs used calories... My BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate - the amount of calories it takes to maintain your weight) is higher due to my weight, but lower due to my Hypothyroidism... So the balancing act is something we all have to find.  On the days I had three servings of tuna, celery, and a grapefruit, I have had the biggest most consistent weight loss.  Just the plain albacore was getting bland for me, so I found some gourmet select versions of Starkist packets of single servings tuna.  I have tried a few and love them so far.  Let's hope they have as much of an impact on my waist line as the albacore does.  (almonds have also been helpful).  

I also got lemons... I want to cut out smoking and my diet Pepsi, but that is difficult.  I have an e cigarette with a few different flavors that I plan to start using in lieu of the smokes if I can do it... or I should say when I do.  I got some lemons to try to kick the soda with tea and lemon water...

Been a while... update ... 9 weeks and almost 2 days til the Spartan Sprint...

I started this blog after I had a hard time walking to my parents house the summer my oldest and I were going to get fit before she started high school.  Its sad that I think that I lost vision of my weight loss goal... about 6 months later, I was in a new job and was getting these horrible stabbing headaches.  I went to the ER and my follow up appointment, my doctor suspected I had Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.  He sent me out for tests and an ultra sound and towards the end of November, I got a call from my doctor who told me that he was sorry, I did have the disease and there was nothing he could do for  me.  He told me that I had had it for some time and it is what caused some of the other health issues I have.  He told me my only hope was to lose weight.  The sad thing is he really didn't have any direction to send me in but did say that Atkins had worked for him.

Wow... it felt like he was giving me my death sentence.  I wasn't ready to give up.  I started losing weight.  My highest was 310 and today I sit at 234.  I have lost 76 pounds.  I got down to 80 pounds, but this has been a rough week with being sick and all the snow.  Below is my progression from 310 down to 234.  I am only about half way, I still want to lose another 89 to 109 pounds, but this is my progression (of my face) thus far...



About  weeks ago, I made a pact with a friend we were going to run the Spartan Races in May...we had 12 weeks to prepare.  This has been my goal.  I wanted to see how much progress I could pack into 12 weeks.  I had gotten back up t o 248.8 pounds and am at 234.2 so I am down 14 pounds since the beginning of our challenge.  How much more can I pack into the next 9 weeks and 3 days?

I figure this is a great way to journal my experience...