I decided recently that I really need to lose some weight. So I started using
Lose It about two weeks ago, to track my calories. I also bought (and read) their
book
. I'm not sure if my scale is accurate enough to say whether or not I've really lost any weight yet, but, if it is, then I've lost a couple of pounds. My goal is one pound a week, until I've lost 30 pounds, so, if that works, I should hit my goal in mid-March 2014. Assuming that Lose It is giving me correct numbers about my calorie budget, then I don't think I'll have a huge problem sticking with the program. I've stayed within my calorie budget every day so far, though I've had to make some guesses about calories recently, so I don't know if I've *really* stayed within the budget.
The last several days have been a bit rough. I went out to dinner with a friend on Wednesday, and had a meatball parm sandwich, which was definitely a bad idea. Then, we had a department lunch on Thursday at an Italian restaurant. We had three entree choices, and I ordered the one that seemed likely to have the fewest calories, but it probably still had more calories than I wanted. Then, on Friday, we had a department barbeque, which I just skipped out on. But another friend wanted to go out for dinner Friday night, so I did that, and had a small steak. Saturday was fine; I only ate good stuff that I knew the calorie count on. But today, I went downhill a bit again, since I went out to brunch with my brother (banana pancakes), then picked up a couple of empanadas at the Somerville Jazz Festival this afternoon. (They were from a restaurant here on Main St that makes *great* empanadas!) If I guessed right on calorie counts, then I'm still within my budget. But who knows, really?
I should be able to do reasonably well in this coming week. We've got no work events that should cause me to deviate from eating relatively low-calorie lunches. I don't have any particular plans for going out to dinner, but I probably will once or twice. I'll just have to be careful.
On the exercise front, I'm just trying to get in a lot of walking. The weather has been pretty good, so it hasn't been a problem to do a fair amount of walking. I'm worried about keeping that up once it gets cold out though. I've been looking around at cheap treadmills that would fit in my apartment, or a local gym that's got treadmills. (We have a gym at work, but I'm not that enthusiastic about it, for several reasons.) The treadmill thing is actually turning into a challenge. I haven't found a local store that actually carries manual treadmills, which is what I'd need to buy if I want a reasonably-priced, compact, folding, model. I can just order one from Amazon, but I'd really like to check one out first. And, on the gym front, there's a new fitness place opening on Main St, but they only have exercise bikes, no treadmills. I also tried the local YMCA, but I had trouble finding anyone to talk to there, so I have no idea if they have treadmills or not. I may have to try calling them during the week.
I don't want to turn my blog into a diet and fitness blog, but I thought there would be some value in writing this up, for future reference. If I meet my goal in March, then I can look back and see where I started. And, if I don't, maybe I can look back and figure out what I did wrong!
Labels: food, health