For the last few weeks, my suitcase has been either half packed in my bedroom, half un-packed in a hotel room or completely full and in the belly of an airplane. NOT my normal life, unfortunately, or fortunately depending on the trip of course. But all this traveling has been hard on this diet, even though I’ve kept at it through Colorado (sigh) and Chicago. I chose Ideal Protein because the results tend to be swift and impressive. Mine, averaged over time are just, meh.
In 52 days I’ve lost 21.4 pounds. So at about 7 weeks, that means I’ve averaged 3 pounds per week. Honestly, I was expecting more, considering the first week I lost 10. Yes, I realize it was fluids etc… but by this point, I expected to be closer to my goal. As it stands, I’m still looking at a monkey of 39.9 pounds. Hell yes, it’s better than that 50, turned 60 pound monkey I started with in June.
Here’s the plan. We’ll be here for the next two weeks, and I’m challenging myself to show at least a 3-4 pound loss per week. There are no excuses about “holding water” from traveling, or not getting all my food or vitamins eaten. It’s back ON.
Our trip with our son to Chicago was amazing. We made some memories. We must’ve walked an average of 4 miles a day… a couple days were more than that and my knee was a complete pain (literally) but, I hobbled the best I could and tried not to complain. I doubt I was very successful at not complaining, but the truth is that I tried. I still loved hanging with 2 of my men. We got to see a Cubs/Cardinals game (yawn, sorry baseball fans), Chicago Fire vs Tottenham Hotspurs and Liverpool vs Olympiakos. The Liverpool game was great fun, our highlight and reason for the trip. My son knew all the chants and we saw the big stars like Steven Gerrard (our hero) and Daniel Sturridge, to name two of many. Just makes me smile.
Memories Made!
I did notice that I got CRANKY when my blood sugars got low, and my knee hurt. Sorry guys!! Hope you still love me.
Despite the one Vodka Soda in the bar whilst singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” at the top of our lungs and the half a piece of deep dish, I might have lost a tiny bit. Maybe a pound? I’m pretty sure I gained some muscle with all the stairs and walking. I’ll find out in 3 hours. According to my FitBit scale:
Yep 47 straight days of clean eating ended with a half a piece of deep dish in Chicago. It was a 10 inch pan so the pieces weren’t huge, but I wanted to experience it! The salad I ordered just wasn’t cutting it, just iceberg … Yawn. So after thinking about for a full 5 seconds watching the guys
munch through a few slices, I gave myself permission. I ate a bit of crust, so the gluten has jacked up my hands but, there you have it. I knew that was coming too. Let’s hope it didn’t totally de-rail me!
Gluten does me wrong!
On the bright side, we get to watch Liverpool play Olympiacos today! You’ll Never Walk Alone!
Yesterday, while I was discussing my belief that body fat percentage remains my priority, I started to think about what my goal body fat percentage is. How much body fat should a grown up, athletic woman like myself shoot for? I searched the internet and found many different charts. This is the one that seems to be reasonable to me, and is based on gender/age and whether or not you want to be “average” or more lean.
I was trying to work backward and find out how to calculate how much weight I would need to lose, given maintaining my current lean muscle mass, and was a bit surprised. However, I’m not sure that the number I have for myself includes bones and other lean tissue. But, based on that and my goal body fat content of somewhere around 24, I might need to lose an additional 10 pounds. That being said, I’m doing NO exercise right now until I have the ol’ knee surgery. I build muscle very easily, so I have a feeling my goal weight will be dead on when I regain some muscle.
To find your lean muscle mass: Take your body weight right now and multiply it by the body fat percentage your scale shows (or your trainer has given you). Now, subtract that number from your current body weight.
Say you weigh 200 pounds. Your body fat percentage is 45%. (200 X .45 = 90) Then, take your body weight (200 – 90 = 110). You have 110 pounds of lean body mass! Great, now what? How do you figure out your goal weight?
So, say you think your goal body fat percentage should be 29%, which is average for a 26-30 year old woman. You first will subtract your desired body fat percentage from 1. (1-.29=.71) Now, divide your lean body mass (in pounds) by the .71. (110/.71= 154) So, if your muscle mass (or lean body mass) remains the same, your goal weight is 154. At that weight you should be at a body fat percentage of 29%. Isn’t that cool?
Marc has the formulas all spelled out on his site.
To me, body fat percentage is what it’s about. BMI is total horse dinky. It does NOT take into account your lean mass. If they went strictly by BMI, athletes like Lance Armstrong would be obese. Remember the whole muscle weighs more than fat thing?
I hope this helps you guys like it helps me focus. It’s not the pounds as much as the lean pounds to fat pound ratio that I’m truly concerned with… well, until that scale doesn’t move. THEN, I must remember to revisit this post and adjust my thinking from somthing less emotional to something a little more cerebral.
OR the other option is to go have an iDXA scan, which I did last year. Oh, the humiliation! However, I posted my scanned image which I think is fascinating and would be totally awesome if I didn’t know who that was in the picture. I do plan to do another scan at the end of this year come hell or high water. I want to see the difference!
My weight loss numbers yesterday, though disappointing, were not completely devastating. What I’m really wondering though, is how accurate is the Tanita scale that my coach is using? Specifically, how accurate are they when it comes to lean muscle mass? From what I’ve read, they’re “fairly” accurate. One article said that the only 100% accurate body fat measurement happens in an autopsy. Uh, no thanks! What I find crazy is that my body fat composition scale is off by a couple body fat percentages from my coach’s mega scale. I guess I’ll take her measurements though. (They were better… 🙂 )
Since yesterday, I’ve lost (by my scale) a pound. That one pound would make me finally hit the magic 20 pound mark. However, I will not celebrate until it’s “official” next week. I’m just not so bitter today. That is a fine thing. So, if I truly gained back 3 pounds of muscle, then I really must have lost 3.6 pounds of fat. That helps. A little. (very little…)
Meanwhile, I’ll have to fight to stay on track on another 4 day trip coming up. After that, I’m two weeks at home and plan to kick this plan’s nether region!
Now for the random:
Hubby was working from home yesterday right in front of a big window to the back yard. Our yard is quite tree covered and shady. Suddenly, a hawk landed maybe 15 feet from the window. He was struggling to get his phone ready to take a picture when it flew back up with a wee snake in it’s talons! How freaking cool is that? I like snakes, but mother nature in action is amazing!
While shopping for dorm supplies the other night, we bought a microwave for $35. It was on big sale from $60ish, however, I was blown away! Since when did microwave ovens get so cheap? I mean, isn’t that what a two slice toaster costs? Don’t get me wrong, we snapped that sucker up, happily!
Have you ever heard the expression, “Don’t be the south end of a north bound horse” ? I don’t know, it just popped into my head. Some day, I’ll have to do a stream of consciousness post. Now, THAT would be random, and possibly hysterical.
Our sports medicine doctor brings her Standard Poodle to work. She’s such a great customer relations tool! She even coached my son in his PT (physical therapy) session. He’s still not cleared for soccer… but we’re getting there.
Oh, no! This is very bad news because I love my bed. Maybe I need to sleep outside? I really could live out of doors. I love to be outside, I just don’t love getting up early! However, this new study says that people who roll their lazy asses out of bed rise early, and get outside are up to 30 pounds (holy shittakes) lighter. Are you kidding me? Can I possibly become a morning person?
Anyone want to try to get up earlier with me? I’ll set my alarm for 6:30 for the next week and plan to go outside and enjoy the morning for 30 minutes or so. Challenge anyone? I mean, what have you got to lose, besides precious sleep poundage?? Who’s in?
50poundmonkey.wordpress.com 