Category: Me, only better

Hey, lookit that! I’ve lost four and a half pounds in just over two weeks! Yay me!!

So it looks like this Plan B thing is working out for me. I’m still rather obsessive about my eating; I’ve rediscovered Calorie Count’s online tools, and have been meticulously recording every calorie consumed and expended. According to them, right now I’m expending around 850 calories a day more than I’m taking in — no wonder I’m losing weight. I’ve read that 3500 calories burned is one pound of fat, so I’m on track to burn about a pound every four days or so, exactly the results I’ve been seeing.

This week’s neurosis was whether my relatively low new calorie consumption will harm my (already rather pathetic) breastmilk. I’m finding that I don’t even need to consume the full 1400 calories I’m allowed each day without starving. I found some great info on La Leche League’s site that confirmed what I suspected: there’s not too much you can do to alter the composition of your breast milk and in fact, your body will give the best of your nutrients to the baby rather than hoard them for yourself. Don’t worry, Mom, I’m not starving myself. Must, however, be better at remembering to take my vitamins. If you’re interested, I also really liked the Body Mass and Calorie Expenditure tool on this site, the only one I’ve found that takes into consideration whether you’re lactating or not. Also provides an excellent breakdown on what your calorie intake should comprise. Good stuff!

So not only have I lost 4 1/2 pounds, but I’m about three inches slimmer around the waist, which is where I really needed to lose it. I’m still around 40 inches at the waist (from 34 prepregnancy) and my pot belly makes me look about four months pregnant. Those darn 10 lbs babies have stretched almost all of the elasticity out of it, but it’s slowly melting back into shape.

Go me!

So it’s been a week since I’ve been following my “Plan B” weight loss plan. The results so far? Drumroll, please!

1.5 lbs lost, one inch off my waist and one inch off my hips. Yay! (Actually, I lost the pound and a half between Tuesday and Saturday, and have been annoyingly stuck since then. I know, I have to be patient.) Well, it’s obviously working, if not a little more slowly than I would have liked, and I’m encouraged enough to keep at it. A few random observations from week one:

• I’m quite proud of the fact that I’ve had no trouble at all meeting the “no sugar” part of the new diet.
• On the other hand, the “limit your daily intake to 3 servings of carbs” part nearly killed me the first week.
• Apparently, I’m a bit of a carb junkie. I’d say I was eating maybe six to twelve servings a day before this week. No wonder I couldn’t lose any weight.
• I’m now more miserly with my carbs than I am with my money.
• The first day, I was hungry to the point of being mildly headachy all day. The second day I started to find my rhythm, and I did pretty good the rest of the week. I went over on carbs one day and protein the next, and have not quite been able to keep up with my fruits or my fats. In fact, if it weren’t for nuts, I’d hardly be eating any of my five allotted daily fats.
• I only fell off the wagon once when we went out to celebrate a friend’s birthday (waves to Jojo) and the hostess put out chips and salsa. I managed to resist the cake but caved on the corn chips, then topped it off with a few delicious salt and vinegar chips. Heaven, and worth every bite. At least I kept it down to about a dozen chips. And the next night my mom brought over a Farm Boy Triple Berry pie for dessert and my knees nearly gave out in berry bliss when I stole a mouthful and the centre of the strawberries were still warm from the oven. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted such a delicious pie. And yet, I ate only that one bite. Yay me!
• I think the biggest shock to my system has been the two litres (eight cups) of water each day. In three pregnancies, I never had to pee so much or so vehemently. We were out shopping, going from one store to another one half a kilometer down the road. I felt the beginnings of a need to pee, but figured I had lots of time. By the time we made it to the second store three minute later, I was lecturing the boys as I parked the car about how we were going to go DIRECTLY to the bathroom and they were not to dawdle or so much as look around until we got to the bathroom and were we very clear on this because Mommy was NOT JOKING and it was VERY IMPORTANT. It was too close for comfort, I tell you.
• A couple of days in, the nurse from the clinic called me to ask how I was doing. She had called just as I was unloading the dishwasher while eating spoonsful of yogurt directly out of the measuring cup, and I mentioned this to her in passing as a way to illustrate that I’m having a bit of a hard time balancing the extra time I need to weigh and analyze and consider my food choices while still taking care of the boys. She gave me a bit of a speech about taking time for myself and if that means letting the baby cry for a couple of minutes, so be it. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Yes, I do take time for myself. Yes, I have been known to let the baby work his way up from a fuss to a froth as I took an extra few minutes to get to him. But never so I could finish eating yogurt, for goodness sake. I save my “me” time for more important things, like going to the bathroom. Or, you know, blogging.
• I don’t really eat meals anymore, I eat off my checklist. I think ahead to what we’ll have as a family for dinner, reserve those food choices and then scan my list to see which food groups still have open slots and eat accordingly. One day I had 3/4 of a cup of dry multigrain cereal, a piece of cheese and a red pepper for breakfast. This is neither a sustainable nor normal way of eating, I’m quite aware, but for the next six months or so it will be okay, and I’m hoping over the long term I can meld new habits into a more moderate regime.
• I had said that I do not want to get obsessive about eating. I am so completely obsessive about my eating right now that it’s not funny. I suppose this is not really a bad thing, and I’ve always been a tad on the compulsive side anyway. Truth be told, I kind of like the beancounting aspect of monitoring my daily intake by making lists and ticking off boxes.

One and a half down, 18.5 to go!

Well, I worked out three times a week pretty much every week this summer from the middle of June onwards, and in eight weeks I’ve lost a grand total of… two and a half pounds. That’s a hell of a lot of work with rather unspectacular results, so I’ve gone ahead with what I’m calling Plan B.

I had an appointment yesterday with Dr Douglas Bishop (thus, plan “B”), a local MD with a specialization in internal medicine who has his own weight-loss clinic. It’s pretty much like medically supervised weight-watchers, from what I’ve gathered so far. I’m on a 1400 calorie per day diet, including 200 extra calories because I’m still nursing, bless Lucas’s hungry little heart. Rather than counting calories, I’m supposed to count portions. For instance, I’m supposed to eat three fruit portions (an apple is a portion, as is two kiwis or a tablespoon of raisins), and two portions of dairy (more than half of which is comprised by the milk in my coffee.) I get five portions of “good fats”, which I’m going through a lot faster than I expected (one portion of almonds at 10 almonds makes a perfect snack, but perhaps not three times a day, and I simply love my avocadoes a little too much). I also get seven proteins (each ounce of meat is a portion) and one “restricted” vegetable. The restricted ones are the sweet ones like carrots and corn. Things like spinach and — thank the deity of the local farm — tomatoes are “free” and you can eat as much as you can stuff into your face. The two biggest problem areas I can see are that my carbs are seriously curtailed to three portions per day — oh, how I loves me my carbs — and I’m supposed to cut out ALL sugar, including molasses and honey.

I really don’t want to become obsessed with my eating or my weight goals on the blog or in real life, but I think some accountability will do me good. So, in the interest of full disclosure, here’s where I’m starting out. (**deep breath**) I’m heavier than I’ve ever been outside of pregnancy at 190 pounds right now. I’m a shade shy of 5’8″ tall. My goal is to lose 20 lbs in 20 weeks, which will bring me back to my pre-Lucas-pregnancy weight of 170 lbs. That’s a comfortable size 12 to 14 for me, and means I’ll be able to fit back into my work clothes when I go back to work in February.

I had been working out three times a week while Beloved was home for the summer, but I’m just not sure how I’m going to do it when the boys go back to school. They have child minding at my gym, but I’m not sure Lucas will be too keen on the idea. I can get up super-early and work out at 5:30 to be home before anybody else wakes up but — well, that’s possible but probably not too likely to happen. And right now, evenings are just too hectic. We’ll see. If I can do one morning during the week and then Saturday mornings, I’ll be doing okay. And, I hope to do a lot of strolling with my stroller in the evenings, likely with the dog and one or two older boys in tow.

Anyway, that’s Plan B. I’m hoping you’ll be seeing a lot less of me in the future!

So, is this blogworthy material, or should I just let you know how I did at the end of 20 weeks?

Edited to add: had to share this doodle from Lee:

Doodle by Lee. The code for this doodle and other doodles you can use on your blog can be found at Doodles.

Yeah, that about sums it up.