Engaged in Weight Loss

What all Happened this Week

Alright! Week 1 is over and as of Sunday night (weigh-in night) I am at 238 lbs, which is about 4 lbs less than last week's 242. It seems like this Atkins stuff is really working! Which is excellent news because not only am I losing weight for the Disney Half-Marathon and 5K in February, I'll also be losing weight in order to look fabulous when I get married. That's right! Scott proposed to me on Saturday. I know not everyone wants to hear the whole sappy story of what happened, but if you do, just scroll down to the very bottom of this post and read. I will take this opportunity, however, to tell everyone that the wedding itself will probably be at least a year from now since we have some loose ends with school and job hunting to figure out. I will keep y'all posted, though, but probably not on this blog.

So what does engagement do to my diet? I'll tell you. It makes me want to GORGE myself. Icing covered sugar cookies never looked so good...and neither did hamburger cookies for that matter! The proposal happened (yes, happened, because it kind of hit me like a softball...wait) as we were about to enter our bible-study leaders' house to watch the Alabama game, and trying to think ahead, we brought avacados and pork skins for me to munch on during the game. The good news is, I was so busy with phone calls and text messages during most of the game that I didn't even have much of a chance to chow down. So it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Also....I FINISHED MY PAPER!!! So now that's out of the way, I can move on some and possibly get more into working out while studying for my orals until I hear back from my professors about this draft. It's possible I may need to brush up on this one since it's a brand new draft, but we'll just have to see! In the mean time, I've got tons to do!


Diet

Trying to keep your net carb in-take below 20 grams is hard work. It's mostly changing your mind-set. Every other diet I've been on has been low-fat and low-calories, but most of those foods are high in carbs! Interesting to think about. It's also hard to change! I tried getting the olive oil mayonnaise, but it turns out, it has 2 carbs whereas regular mayonnaise has 0. So you see how this kind of thing goes. Here are the things I've been living off of this past week.

Breakfast - Protein shake (atkins milkshake with a scoop of protein powder--tastes like chocolate milk!)

Sometimes I eat a half of a cheddarwurst sausage with half a cup of cottage cheese. Though good and filling, it takes up a good bit of my carbs for the day.

Lunch - Egg salad with pork skins, or hot dogs, or summer sausage and cheese squares, or publix chicken salad, and bacon with babybel GOUDA cheese!

Snack - babybel Gouda cheese or pork skins

Dinner - Guacamole, egg salad, pork skins, occasional frozen veggies, rotisserie chicken, cooked chicken, and I invented this cheesy sausage casserole, but I haven't perfected it, so I won't tell you how I did it yet.

LOTS of pork skins for substituting chips or bread. I've been eating so much, I went a bought this big boy:



EXERCISE

Still not any for right now. However, since I've moved in I've toured the fitness center which is nice and includes several new and semi-new pieces of equipment. Mainly a couple of ellypticals! Woohoo! Also an awesome pool that is suspiciously empty a lot of the time (I'm sure it's because it's getting cooler outside) and tennis courts that are kind of covered which is great so I don't have to worry about people seeing my hams jiggle while I play.

So now that the paper is complete (!!) I will have more time to go work out and this will possibly make me feel better about stepping up to Phase 2, but I'll need to read more about it before I actually cross into it.

Now, the engagement story...

Scott has gone to this bible study for several years and since we started dating, I've been going with him when I've been in town. It's lead by this couple, Angie and Ernie, who are so much fun and the people who come are absolutely great to be with. Ernie is a big Alabama fan, and has his whole downstairs man-cave set up with a big screen tv and theater seating. It is fabulous! Scott and I planned to go over for a little bit to watch the game on Saturday. On the way, Scott mentioned how much Angie and Ernie meant to him, especially when he first started going during a hard time in his life. I thought it was sweet to hear him talk about how much he loved and respected them, but I was so much more concerned about how rough I looked with my hair up and skin peeling. Looking back, I feel like a vain jerk, but at least I can say he loves me even when I look like crap! :-)

So we get to the house and he make sure I walk up the stairs to the back deck in front of him, nothing out of the ordinary because he is always a gentleman. We get to the top of the stairs, but before going inside he stopped me and said "You know how I was talking about how much Angie and Ernie meant to me in the car. Well, that's why I wanted to do this here." At that point the adrenaline struck, and I don't remember exactly what he said next, but he asked the only thing a guy could ask a girl when he's on one knee and slipping a ring on her finger. I asked him if he was sure and he said yes so there it is.

My favorite part of the story is what happened afterward. Ernie is a big gun enthusiast and I'm an interested learner. He also has a couple of older rifles which are especially interesting to me. I had seen one, but not the other. Not long after visiting with everyone who was there (some knew and some didn't) Ernie took me aside to show me their Japanese WWII rifle Angie's father acquired while fighting in WWII. So the second thing I held in my engaged hand besides Scott's hand was a Japanese WWII rifle. It was actually a great way to calm the nerves!

Also, not sure if everyone watched the game (once again I didn't see much because I was making phone calls until my phone died), but we almost lost the game, which apparently would've doomed our marriage, but since Bama pulled through, we have to get engaged every Saturday during the season. :-p

Ok, so there's the sappy story. Crazy! Still getting used to wearing something on that finger!

More about the diet and exercise next week!

Princess in Training (PIT)

So here we are again. Signed up and registered for the Disney Princess 5K and Half Marathon in Disney World in February. BUT, this time will be different! WHY?! Because instead of starting only 2 months before the big race, I'm starting NOW. That's right. September 20, 2010 marks the starting point of my road BACK to healthiness and I plan to exceed the previous results.

I bought a scale last night. It's a weight watcher scale which creates a profile for you, and possibly 9 other people (who the hell has 9 other people living with them...or worse, SHARING A BATHROOM?). Anyways, it records and tracks your progress as well as measures your weight, BMI, body fat percentage, and water percentage. Yeah, fancy. Did I want it that fancy? NOPE. It was just the only one in Publix and I didn't want to fight with the crazies at the "friendly" Douglasville neighborhood Wal-Mart. So what did it tell me?! That I'm fat. That's right $25 for an electronic appliance to tell me something I already knew. But seriously. I'm off the charts fat. Ready for it? I'm only going to give you the weight. 242 lbs. Gained it all back (and then some) after a summer of self-loathing during 2 more drafts of my paper which ultimately got me a free ticket to START ALL OVER AGAIN. Yep. Had to start from scratch. That took 2 pints of Ben & Jerry's and a bottle of Merlot 2 nights a week just to stomach the news.

Regardless, it's been an ongoing struggle between keeping in shape and graduate school, and instead of constantly pitting one versus the other, I think I've found a compromise!

So what's the plan?

#1. DIET. This time, just to get the numbers down and ready to run, I'm going on the Atkins diet. Sure, I understand it's not everyone's favorite. You either have a friend that yo-yo dieted with it or you saw on the Biggest Loser that Bob, the trainer, HATES it, or you took a health class which said it's not the best idea. Well, after doing a little research, I've found that understanding how it works is the key. The danger is with people who don't read about the process first and then go out and try to kill themselves without eating carbs for 6 months while overloading on some bacon and gravy. Sure some of them look great, but DAMN. Here's what I've learned:

Phase 1/ Induction of the Atkins Diet requires you to live off of no more than 20 net carbs a day. What are net carbs? That is the gram amount of carbs minus the gram amount of fiber (if I misunderstood this part, someone let me know ASAP, but this is how I understood it). The point of doing this is so that your body will begin the process of Ketosis in which your body burns fat (including your own!) instead of burning primarily carbohydrates for energy. This will be particularly helpful since until I can move out of my current hell-hole apartment in the next month, I really don't have much of a chance to exercise, but that's a whole other story. But here is a list Akins' website provides for foods to eat during this phase. The website also gives you a meal planner with plenty of recipes. It's just a really good source of information altogether.

Phase 1 generally lasts 2 weeks, though you can go longer if you like. Most people burn up to 15 lbs in those two weeks. I personally would like to stay on Phase 1 for several weeks. When I'm ready for Phase 2 and the gradual introduction of carbs back into the diet, I'll be sure to update! Right now I've got the app on my phone and I'm red-ta-go!

My only concern about induction is this "Atkins Flu" I keep hearing about that lasts a couple of days, where your body is switching gears and going into Ketosis. Apparently, you don't feel sick, you just feel really tired for like 2 or 3 days. Doesn't sound like a big deal, but I'll let you know how it goes.

#2. EXERCISE. Ok, let's be honest. I got nuthin' here yet. Here's the dealio. I canceled my gym membership a couple of months ago thinking my job was going to be ending after the first week in October and I wasn't using the facility anyways. Well, SURPRISE! Two weeks ago we learned our jobs are renewed for another year. For me it's another 6 months, because after I graduate in December...and I WILL graduate in December...under the terms I was hired, I have 120 days before they have to let me go. It's a long bureaucratic story. But that's fine! With my degree I'll be able to apply for plenty more jobs and will definitely find something before that deadline. It never hurts to be able to work a job while looking for another one, whether you're in a recession or not.

So why not run around the neighborhood? Well, the neighborhood I moved into last year has since become The 'Hood and it's not all sunshine and daisies anymore...which is really a shame. After 2 shootings in broad daylight this summer at the entrance of the complex, I'm just plain uncomfortable with the idea of running out there anymore. It's really annoying when you can't get into your apartment complex because the police have to finish mapping out the shell casings. Not cool. So the apartment complexes I'm looking at all have pools and FITNESS CENTERS. Yay! So this way, I won't have to pay extra for gym membership, and I won't have to run with a helmet, mace, and a bullet proof vest (I hear they're heavy).

So there is a lot going on, but I know I can make this work and I'm tired of putting this off while I watch my stomach line get bigger and bigger and my pants feel smaller and smaller. I refuse to buy any more fat clothes just because I'm growing out of my current ones! That's just ridiculous. Being this big is just a whole other stress in itself and I don't think ignoring it is really helping me get anything else done. So I'm going to fix it.

Afterthoughts:
I'm trying to think of all the other things that weigh 240 lbs....

-my backpack in high school
-the metal desk in the office at work
-Mark Ingram while holding his Heisman...