Well, here i am. Starting a weight loss journal. I feel awkward at the moment, so let me follow a game plan... I'll make this feel like a MySpace Survey!

-- How much weight do you want to lose?
- I want to get back to 140, so I still need to lose 160 or so pounds...

-- What is the timeframe for reaching your target weight?
- I am going to work like hell to make my progress as fast as possible. Hopefully I'll be able to better see my goal within the next 18 months.

-- How do you want to accomplish your goal?
- I am measuring my food and counting calories. In addition, I have made a promise to myself that I will exercise! I'm only a week into this, but I hope to continue going at least 4 X per week and being able to do more there each time!

-- Who or what can support you in reaching your goal?
- My family. They know how unhappy and unhealthy I am. They know that I feel held back from so many things I want to experience. In addition to them, I have wonderful friends. I also am seeing a personal trainer as part of beginning at the gym. He's awesome, and depending on his rates I might continue seeing him 1-2 times a moth for accountability.

-- How realistic is your goal?
- I think it's realistic. I'm currently a size 26, so I know I would be thrilled to weigh 170 and be a size 12 again, but 140 is where I felt the best about myself. I look pretty hot in a size 8!!

-- When will you start?
- A week ago. I know it's cliche, but this is a New Year... And I'm trying to melt away half of my current self so that I can be a New ME.



Now that's better. I love to ramble about myself, so I think this will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The Obstacle: Dinner at Applebee's for my husband's birthday.

The Mission: Stay on track. Don't eat the wagon.

The Outcome: SUCCESS!!


I am proud! There were appetizers, and I allowed myself 3 onion rings! That's it, and I'll guesstimate that at around 300 calories. Then I only let myself look at things on the menu that had the little symbol that they were approved by Weight Watchers and had a certain number of points. I ordered the Steak & Portobellos, a juicy, flame-grilled, 4 ounce sirloin steak topped with sliced, sautéed portobello mushrooms and a savory brown sauce. It came with steamed herb potatoes and steamed garlic broccoli. The Daily Plate tells me this meal was 330 calories! How amazing is that! It was so good! Add on 2 glasses of ice water and I left feeling satisfied and energized.

I can't wait for tomorrow to come so I can go to the gym again!

Hey there! You seem really motivated and have a good plan on how you want to reach your weight loss goals. I think the hardest part of losing weight is all the tempting food we see when we go out to eat. You did an amazing job resisting the bad foods! I always use calorieking.com or thedailyplate.com to find the calories for food. Whenever I eat out, thedailyplate.com actually has the calorie break down of a lot of foods at restaurants. You should try it so you know what and how much you're eating!

PS Keep up the good work!

Well... that overwhelming desire to go to the gym has passed. I mean, I'm still going to go... I'm just not as jazzed about it!

I've always loved math (seriously, I'm one of those sick people), and so I have been having a blast playing around with finding my BMR.
(NOTE: I don't know what BMR means, but I have some probably close guesses. If anyone is reading this, and you know what BMR stands for, can you help me out?)

OK, so the formula for finding this BMR for women is:
BMR = 655 + (4.35 x weight in lbs) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in yrs)
(Look HERE for how to figure BMR for men.)

As of today, this would make my formula be as follows:
BMR = 655 + (4.35 x 308.8) + (4.7 x 69) - (4.7 x 26)
BMR = 655 + 1343.28 + 324.3 - 122.2
BMR = 2200.38

Then... Since I consider myself "lightly active" I would multiply my BMR by 1.375. As follows, 2200.38 x 1.375 = 3025.5225

This means that if I wanted to maintain my current weight, I would need to eat 3025 calories a day! Since I do not want to maintain my current weight, eating less than that should lead to weight loss! Even if I wasn't exercising!

Then... By every 500 calories per day that I undershoot this number (3025), I could lose that many pounds per week! For example, if I eat 2035 calories every day this week I should lose 2 pounds! 1335 daily would lead to 3 pounds, and so on, and so forth!

I especially like math when it helps me get skinnier!

So to cut my caloric intake I've been eating healthy things when I begin to feel hungry. I'm not eating just to eat because it's time for breakfast unless I feel like I could be hungry. I will not starve myself, I've made that mistake before! My main focus is not letting myself become hungry, and satisfying hunger with healthy low calorie foods. So far it's working! I am really obese now, so weight it coming off quicker than it would for most people, but I've lost about 12 pounds since January 1st!

Thinking about all this progress has successfully jazzed me up for the gym again! Off I go!

I did more at the gym today than I have been! Not much more, but still more! Every gradual increase will help!

I haven't felt hungry yet today, and I don't want to eat just to eat... But I also don't want to just not eat at all. I'm torn about what to do... It will probably be unhealthy to only eat when I feel hungry if I never feel hungry!

I'm sure this will pass. Tomorrow I will probably feel ravenous all day and want to kick myself for complaining now. Speaking of tomorrow... I *think* I am going to try to wake up and go to the gym BEFORE work. I feel good about it now, but I guess we'll see how I react when the alarm goes off at 5:00 AM!!

Until next time!

BMR is you Basal Metabolic Rate, the energy needed to keep your body functioning. it varies with age, body mass, body composition and gender.

the BMR formula is an estimate.

it looks like your off to a good start

Thanks so much! That wasn't one of my educated guesses!

I DID IT!

I woke up and went to the gym so I was there when they opened at 5:30AM! I pushed myself harder on the treadmill than I have before, and I came home smiling and jumped into the shower!

Now it's time for work... and I have a report due to the Court in 2 hours that I haven't started yet...

Well done getting into the gym, and good luck with your report

Thanks Trusylver! I really appreciate your support more than words can say!


Today was OK, I feel frustrated because it seems that I can never have the three main branches of my life be doing well at the same time. What are the three branches you ask?

1. Personal
- Relationships with myself, my husband, friends, and family.
2. Financial
- Being able to pay my bills.
3. Professional
- Doing well at work.

Areas 1 and 2 are doing OK.
I like myself much more when I am working towards a goal and succeeding, so that automatically makes my interactions with the people around me better.
I definitely could use more money, but I'm doing OK compared to so many people that are struggling so badly. I don't have a HUGE amount of stress about money at the moment, and that's good.

But that leaves Area 3... I have just lost all motivation to do work of any kind. I sit and stare, and then I think about when I'll work out next, and then I read my email, and then I try to create a reason I need to go home early, and then... Well, I think you get the picture. I am so far behind that it's scary to think about trying to catch up, and the more I slack off - the worse it affects my clients! I know I need to just dive back in and work like hell for a while until I have things organized again, I don't know why I'm able to feel so motivated in one life area, and so anti-motivated about another!

Oh well! I just read this article that was posted on another portion of the site, and I think I would like to have it here so I can better access it to reflect on it. Other than that... I'm out for now!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fear Of Thin: Is It Keeping You Fat?
By Dr. Matthew Anderson
Exclusive for eDiets

Here are some tough but highly useful comments on why you may be having a terrible time losing weight. This information has helped many of my clients make great progress on their weight loss journey.

If you are fat then you want to be that way. Well at least a part of you wants you to be fat. I know your Conscious Mind tells you to lose weight every moment of every day. But there is another part of you that truly wants and maybe even needs you to stay fat, and it has quite a bit of control over your eating behavior. That powerful, but usually hidden part is called the Unconscious Mind. Your Unconscious Mind wants you to keep the weight on and it clearly has more power over your life than you realize. And in addition to that, your Unconscious Mind has very good reasons for wanting you to stay fat.

Here are some examples of the Unconscious Mind and why it may want to keep you fat.

* You may fear your sexual energy.
* You may have been raped and fat protects you from men.
* Your self-esteem may be very low and you might actually feel undeserving of weight loss.
* Your fat may be a way of resisting the growing-up process (baby fat) because adulthood seems frightening.
* You may believe that losing weight might require you to make other scary or painful choices and changes (divorce, change jobs, lose friends).
* Weight loss may require you to accept more challenges or responsibilities and staying fat then becomes a form of safety.
* You may fear being seen and therefore judged.

The point is that each of us who has significant weight we have not been able to lose is invested in staying fat and until we discover these hidden wants, needs and fears we will be stuck in fat.

This information should help you finally understand why you try so hard to lose weight and then, without any warning, find yourself eating out of control. This is what happens when your Unconscious Mind takes over. It (for the good reasons I mentioned above) is very threatened by your weight loss and will not allow you to drop too many pounds without a tremendous fight.

OK, let’s assume you agree with me so far. Now what? How do you learn to deal with an out of control Unconscious Mind? I thought you would never ask. Here are some suggestions. They really work so make sure you do at least some of them.

Finish this sentence as honestly and openly as you can (25 times) even though your responses may seem strange at first.

The reason I want to be fat is…

If you stop before you reach 25 you will probably not find useful answers. The key here is to discover two or three meaningful root causes behind your weight gain. Trust me. They are there. Every significantly weight-challenged person has them. (Write down your 25 sentences and responses in full as you do them.)

When you have done the unfinished sentence exercise, pick the two or three most powerful answers and write them down on a separate page. This information could be the real key to your long-term healthy weight loss. Take it seriously.

Make a decision to do some serious inner work on these three most significant issues. What does that mean? You can start by writing a two-page description of each issue. Take your time and be as descriptive as you can. If you have trouble writing it then find a good friend and talk about each one with that person. The task here is to begin to "flesh out" the issue and explore how it affects you.

Now it is time for a book (or a tape). If you have clearly identified your issues then you will probably find a book on the subject. For instance, if your fat protects you from sexual advances then you can find numerous books that will provide you with support and guidance for healing. This may sound strange but it actually works. There are self-help books and thousands of subjects and there is one just for you. Go take a look.

These exercises will get you started. Be sure to do them. Then you will be on your way to discovering additional guides to help you heal or manage your unconscious desires to stay fat.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

hehe thanks for posting the BMR formula =D

i checked mine and atm i have about 2390 calories to eat to cut even everyday o:
thanks to you^^ i realized i need to start tracking my calorie intake... by adding what i eat to my diary... keeps me accountable and also lets me realize how much i am actrually putting into my mouth >.> compared to how little i think i am.

good luck today^^

As promised (threatened?), I have stopped to check in on your journey. I find the inner workings of your mind to be running at a slightly different pace than the norm... This by the way should be taken as a compliment. I like people who think differently.

BTW, good call on the gym work you're doing. I'm an addict myself now. There could be worse addictions.

I don't like doing things that are uncomfortable or difficult. That's how I ended up weighing as much as a sumo wrestler! And today at the gym my personal trainer had me do things that were both uncomfortable AND difficult!!

It felt like he barely had me do anything at all, a couple repetitions of 5 basic exercises, but I struggled to complete those exercises! It was embarrassing! He had me do squats holding a medicine ball, and on my first squat I went too far and just fell down like a toddler! I know this is all part of the process (well, OK... maybe some people skip the part where they fall down, go boom) but it just made me feel super dejected today! When I was done with him, I tried to go do my normal workouts on the elliptical and treadmill... but I couldn't do it! My legs felt like silly putty! Instead of 35 minutes of cardio, I did 10. Bah! The worst part is that I'll bet I could have forced myself to stay on the treadmill and get my normal workout... but I just felt so physically drained that my mental willpower couldn't win the fight today!

As I am sure you can tell, I can hardly wait to go repeat these exercises 4 more times before I see my personal trainer again next week.

I think I might go play in traffic for a while...

Don't panic, the exercises you have been given will get easier much quicker than you might expect, just hang in there but if your legs were as done in as i think you may have a little bit of DOMs tomorrow.