Today I decided to take all the "calorie deficit" information it had--almost 1 month's worth to compare what it said and what the reality is. There are 2 problems. One--it is a bad time for me to weigh myself due to monthly female issues...ok, PMS bloat. Secondly, I could have possibly gained some muscle doing aerobics. According to the numbers I've lost 13 lbs this month. According to the scale I've lost 9...but with bloating tomorrow that could be 12 or 13. I wish I'd marked down 5 weeks ago what Myfitnesspal said I'd weigh in 5 weeks to see how accurate it is. The "If every day were like today in 5 weeks you would weigh XXX" is motivating!
So I don't really know how accurate my Bodyfit core band really is, but I can tell you that it does motivate me to move more. Last week I had LASIK and so that day I basically lay in bed all day. I burned 1000 calories less than I have been. It is like how you work harder when being watched. If I'm lazy it is documented so am I going to lay in bed and watch tv or am I going to get up and do stuff when the energy expended is going on my PERMANENT RECORD! I think for that alone it is worth it.
I'm talking about my weight but not putting how much I weigh, want to weigh, or how much I have to lose. Part of that is I don't know if I really want that information out there. People who see me can see I'm fat but they don't know the number. As for how much I want to lose, well...I'm not sure. I used to have an actual goal in my younger days. I had a weight I wanted to be and anything over it was overweight. That weight was pretty low for me. I actually had about 40 lbs above that weight which were in the healthy weight range. That weight was the bottom of the healthy weight range--one pound under was "underweight." I think that was because I thought that that way nobody could think I was fat. You know how other women are--some will make you feel fat no matter how thin you are--you could be a little thinner. Ironically, there was a day where I was this ideal weight and I literally mean one single day where I was 1XX.0, not 1XX.2 and this guy told me that I'd be a "knock out" if I lost 15 lbs. He was short and chubby himself. It was just so funny how the one day some jerk had the balls to say that to me was the day that I was at my actual ideal weight. It was a stupid thing to say regardless, but if he'd said it at 1XX.0+15 it would have been different. I was a size 2, but he thought I needed to be a size 0 to be a knock out and then I could have dated this awesome man--woo hoo. Now I don't have a number that I deem a success because I know that I won't wake up and feel perfect at a certain weight, and there will never be a weight that someone won't find fault with. I just know that I have been out of the healthy weight range for too long. I need to loose about 57 pounds to be in the healthy weight range. I have lost 26 lbs so far so I am about 1/3 of the way there which means that I was 83 lbs over my top healthy weight--not good. But now I am only 57 over which is at least better. Next month I should be about 45 over...Once I get to the top I'll see where I go from there. I've had 3 kids since I was last thin. I'm a married mom in her 40's--do I really need to be a size 2? or 4? In my youth I had to work hard at staying thin--do I have that time and energy now? I think I'll be fine just being a healthy weight.
Losing a lot of weight can be very daunting. I remember in my 20's going on diets to lose 20 lbs and how upset I was I couldn't do it in under a month even if I was really good and didn't cheat at all. That seems funny now. When you get to a certain point you are lucky if you can lose the weight you want in a YEAR even if you are really good and don't cheat. That is why you can't look at it as losing 100+ lbs. You look at it as losing 10 lbs this month every month. You look at it as being better off next month than you are now. You look at what you will be able to wear this time next year. Otherwise you will want to just get back in bed and cry. The other day I had one of those little reality slaps life likes to give you. I had had a really good couple of days where I'd exercised extra, eaten well and was feeling like I was getting in better shape. I took a pair of Capris out of the closet that had been too small when i bought them a while back. I looked at them and they looked huge and I thought they'd be nice and loose and comfy. They barely zipped and are tight on the waist. I think it might be one of those vanity sizing things that happens where you are used to the vanity sized clothing and then a true sized item gets thrown in there and throws you. Or maybe it is because I get "relaxed fit" so my true pant size is actually bigger than what I want to think it is. It was just disheartening to think I was slimming down, I'd lost 26 lbs after all...to find out the size 18 capris are tight in the waist. It was odd too because with my body things are usually tight in the hips and loose in the waist so it was odd to have it clear my hips and be tight in the waist. i don't think that has ever happened to me before. I don't think it is a positive development. Or they were just cut weird. Let's hope that was it.
I hate when youngsters say that losing weight is easy; that you just have to burn more than you consume. In a way that IS true, it just doesn't take in account the fact that your body can lower your metabolism and once it gets used to an activity it gets very efficient at conserving energy. If this weren't the case people would have starved to death. During lean times the population would have died off. Look at a farmer working the fields by hand. That is hard work and in lean times he didn't get extra food. His body had to do funny math so that he could do the work needed on what he had. It would be nice however if the body only did this when you were under a certain percentage body fat. It isn't fair it happens to obese people too. The key I have found is to keep it a secret that you are dieting...from your body. Eat some fat and protein every 2-3 hours so it doesn't worry about lean times. Don't work out too hard or too long, just little spurts here and there. You have to be sneaky because if your body figures it out you are screwed. As for the youngsters most of them will figure out they were full of shit in time when what they do stops working as well for them too. They will remember rolling their eyes at the idea that age slows your metabolism and realize they were wrong. I wish they weren't. I wish it was just about being lazy and eating oreos because it is were I would not be fat.
This is what a workout looks like on the screen after I sync with my computer:
