Overly STUFFED

Well... today was the first day that I hit all the calories I'm suppose to eat for the day. For today it is 1400. Let me tell you... I was truckin' along through my day and I was done... so I tallied up my calories to find I had only eaten 855. I was like wow... I can eat more! I need to eat more!
So now... my stomach hurts... I didn't go over.. and I ate all healthy foods.... I'm just sooooo full...
I need to work on getting this down right. I'm going to break down my calories so that I have a more balanced day. Truthfully... had I not been counting the calories... I wouldn't have eaten that last meal... I would have been done with 855. Which may be why I'm not losing weight.... I may not be eating enough for my body to let go... Man.... I fell like hiring someone to do this for me lol.... Personal Assistant wanted.... It's be great if she could also exercise for me...
Okay... okay.. I know. But it was just a thought.
Tomorrow I shall start again.

UPDATE:
So I can't get over this stuffed feeling... so I decided to exercise! I put on the Biggest Loser Last Chance Workout... man... just the stretching had my heart rate up! Then I decided to test out the new 2010 Jillian Michael's Fitness Ultimatium... however I didn't have batteries for my balance board.. so I did what I could. I feel pretty good... still stuffed... and now really tired :o)
February starts on Monday! Can you believe Jan is already gone?

I think I'm gonna work in small goals now... I wanna get to 220... when I get there... I think I will aim for 215.... that way I'm only taking my goals a little at a time and soon I'll be under 200! I can't wait. Okay one step at a time.....

So guys.... My first goal... 220. Here I come :o)

Arugula!

ARUGULA!

This is my word... like when I'm upset... or loss/void of words.... If you hit your thumb with a hammer.... some say S#*$.. I say Arugula.
Arugula... because all my stress just came at me at once. I'm so ticked off and I wanna eat... Good news is I don't want chocolate.... bad news.. I want some high carbolicious foods. Good news... I don't think I have any in my house. I don't know what to do to get over it. Talk about it?

What do you do to help you in moments of crisis, when all you wanna do is turn to food for comfort?

Acid-Reflux

Please remind me that fried chicken and I don't mix. Please don't let me justify it. It's just not one of those foods that my body likes.... Lol. My husband had hot and spicy fried chicken wings and I thought I would have a couple. They were really good. I tend to stay away from fried chicken. In fact I don't think I've eaten it in 2 years! No lie. Normally I also can't stand how salty it tastes.... well I woke up in the middle of the night with an upset stomach. Alka Seltzer to the rescue... ughhh.

Thanks for the comments from my older posts. I don't think it was water gain.... I've been down on my heavy duty water drinking abilities.... I always weigh myself in the morning... every morning. Today I was down from yesterday so I'm going in the right direction.... I think I just need to do a few things to keep me on the right track. I also need to use the simple math. Calories in, calories out.

Okay so 'project 10,000 steps a day' is in effect. I'm working on getting it up there.
Tuesday I had 4,565
Wednesday I had 6,214
Now this was just from my normal day to day walking. I didn't do anything extra special to get those steps. I think I'm going to try to take a 30 minute walk around the neighborhood and that probably should have me hitting my 10,000 daily.

Ohh... I have some good news. Since I didn't have a weight loss for the week, I decided to measure my stomach and I have already lost 1 1/2 inches. Not bad huh. At least I have a little celebration there, and also the fact that I've stuck to my healthy eating plan. (Minus the fried chicken.. lol... but I don't ever wanna say any food is off limit... I just wanna make the healthiest choice).

So I've been looking for some pics. I have some 'fat pics' that I took but I'm not sure if I want to really gross ya'll out lol. So I was just searching on my computer and found some 'fat pics' I took in 2002.... and I thought 'Damn, I wish I was that fat....' lol I looked good. I had just graduated and was very athletic... so I must of weighed like 190 tops... :o( I'll get back there... and then go lower. Anyways.. I've found some pics... but they were from years ago. I've lost weight and gained it back since then.

This was in 2006 in Boston.. I weighed 240.

I like this pic of me. But this is my normal attire. I always wear a light sweater over my shirt because I'm hiding my poochy stomach.

This was October 2007. I stuffed myself in those jeans for my engagement shoot.

January 2009 - I was a size 20 bride. Although... the dress did look very nice on me... But they have a way of making any bride feel beautiful in whatever size.

May 2008 - I was hiding a tub of lard lol. I wore black because I thought I could hide it better.

So there is a few pics of me... to let you see a little bit of what I'm dealing with here.
I'll check in tomorrow
Love Always,
Amberly

:o(

I gained 1.3 lbs.... I'd like to believe it's all muscle...
So I am now 223.3.... ughhhh....
Well I am going to start on counting my calories for today. I have 1550. I am going to vary them out as soon as I figure out what day I'd like to eat more and so on. This will help my metabolism from getting use to the same number of calories per day, in which it will help me from plateauing.

Thanks for the comments on my 2 posts last night. I've been looking into a website that I can easily track my foods. I'm going to check out the ones mentioned. Anyone else have any others to try? Anyone know of any iPhone friendly ones? I'll check back in later.
~Amberly

Figuring out the numbers....

Well... it turns out that I can't sleep. So I started thinking more about counting my calories... and what I need to do. I've been reading the Blog Body by Pizza and it has given me so much insight. I looked back on how she calculated her information.... here's how
I started reading and she used Jillian Michael's book Winning by Losing.... so I pulled it out too... and here's what I came up with.

First I figured out my basal metabolic rate (BMR) which is basically the number of calories your body burns just by being alive.... breathing, digesting, your heartbeat.... etc. So here's the formula:

Female:
655 + (4.3 x weight in lbs) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.7 x ages in years) = BMR

Male BMR equation:

66 + (6.3 x body weight in lbs) + (12.9 x height in inches) – (6.8 x age in years) = BMR

My BMR is 1792.9

Next came figuring in my ‘daily activity level’ score using five options:

Sedentary Physical Activity Level (desk job, other work that entails sitting down for most of the day). If yes, your score is 1.1

Light Physical Activity Level (on feet/walking around for 1/2 the day or more, e.g. stay at home mothers, salespeople, doctors). If yes, your score is 1.2

Moderate Physical Activity Level (on the move all day with a few limited periods of being sedentary, e.g. gardeners, carpenters, mail carriers). If yes, your score is 1.3.

High Physical Activity Level (constantly on the move with significant amounts of physical labor, e.g. construction worker, farm workers, movers). If yes, your score is 1.4

I scored a 1.2.

In addition to my BMR and ‘daily activity level’, I lastly had to figure in my exercise expenditure using a chart on the next page. Now... I'm not sure what my daily expenditure is yet. I'm pretty sure that they two days I've gone to the gym I've definitely burned at least 400 (which is also what Rachel did). In Jillian's book it says not to go by what the machines say because they don't use accurate info.... and what you need is a heart rate monitor. All the machines I use have a heart rate monitor... and they have to have your input like your height and weight... so until I do get a heart rate monitor.... the machines it is... (Unless Jillian wants to come and coach me :o)

Here's the math:

BMR x Daily Activity + Exercise Expenditure = AMR (Active Metabolic Rate)

BMR (1,793) x Daily Activity Level (1.2) + Exercise Expenditure (400) = 2550.4

My AMR is 2550

Okay so a pound of fat is 3,500 calories. And to lose 2 lbs per week... that would be 7,000 calories.

2,550 calories (daily AMR) x 7 days = 17,850 calories per week.

My goal is to lose two pounds a week, thus, I will need to create a 7,000 calorie deficit per week.

17,850 calories (weekly AMR) – 7,000 calories (equivalent to 2 lbs) = 10,850 calories per week.

Now I can divide my weekly calories (10,850) by 7 (days of the week) and my daily caloric allowance is 1,550 calories per day.

I'm going to finish reading up this book... well start :o) Book project #6 I think.... (I need a rainy day to finish some of my books) that way I can understand how to divy up my calories like Rachel did. She saves the most calories for her weekends which I think is a wonderful idea.

Okay now I'd better go to sleep I have to go to the gym in 6 hours.... Ughh.. I need some sleep.

At my wits end...

Hello all! I hope everyone is doing really well.. and if you aren't... I'm with ya... I'm just a bit frustrated. Seems things are just not going right. I've been eating great. Over the last 4 days I haven't had any processed food. (Besides some frozen yogurt). I decided I'd like to get away from processed things and work on not polluting my body. I'm also going more organic... hence the 'not polluting myself thing'. Yesterday I went to the gym and walked on the treadmill (a very fast walk at 3.9mph) for about 15 minutes, then did 30 min on the elliptical... (after 15 I was rationalizing getting off about every 30 sec.) Usually when I get on the elliptical I can go for an hour easy... but putting the walking in first.. killed me. Which brings me to another thing. I have a serious fear of running on the treadmill. The reason I was at 3.9mph was because I planned to slowly start jogging... but I couldn't easy get the courage to do it. It's weird.... and I'm sure the moment I do it... I'll love it. Tomorrow may be my chance.. I'm going to the gym with my friend who likes jogging on the treadmill. Anyways, I then ended my workout with a 30 minutes circuit and a few thigh machines..
Now that I'm in the swing of things, I need to start making goals.. That way I can use my time at the gym wisely and get the most out of it.

So why am I frustrated if my eating is going well, and I'm working out.... My numbers have not budged since I last weighed in. I weighed in at 222 I think it was Jan 12th. I plan on weighing in every Tuesday (stay tuned for tomorrow) but last week I was on a trip so I thought I would make this week a head banging week and show a bigger loss. Not gonna happen.. in fact I may even show a gain. I'm not understanding. I'm working out now... I've been eating great... why isn't my body responding??? I think I may need to start counting every single calorie that goes into my mouth. I've been following a few bloggers who do that.... and I can't just keep ballparking my calories. So that's one thing I can work on to start getting results.

So far I've been working out every other day. I'm working up to going 5 to 6 days a week. Tomorrow I'm going to the gym in the morning with my friend.. and then after work we are going skating.... I love skating and hey it's exercise.

Well I will be checking in tomorrow with my results.
Love Always,
Amberly

Oh yeah.. I forgot... I thing I came across a blog called 12 Million Steps. It has really motivated me.... I wanna join in. This guy (Jared) has logged over 6.4 million steps so far. So I pulled out and dusted off my pedometers .... only to find out none of the 4 I have work... So I took one of them to get a new battery and it was hilarious. I put it on at Target, and I was walking around the whole story counting my steps out loud.... and then I'd check them with what my reading said. I finally got it working. I was putting it under my stomach over my knee as the directions said... but whenever I do that... I've walk like 100 steps... and it said I walked 250.... So I put it on my hip side... and got a nearly correct count... I counted 19 it said 21.... not bad. I'm gonna wear it tomorrow and I'm gonna start reporting my step count.

Gym Day 1

Well today was pretty successful for me! I got up (a little late) and went to the gym with my friend Amanda. I think her and I may be going to the gym together a lot more often. We have the same time slot in our schedule's to work with, however she has 10lbs to lose and I have 72 more to go... We shall see how it turns out. I was really excited with myself though.
I did the elliptical for about 15 min... I usually go about an hour but I was catering to the needs of her. Then we did a few machines that worked inner and outer thighs... then we did a 30 minute circuit. I really enjoyed the circuit. I was constantly moving and it felt great. As we were leaving we did the roman chair thing... I love that thing.. I feel it working.
I am going to the gym in the morning again. I think I will do Monday - Saturday with Sunday being my rest day.

Other than that ... fairly awesome day. However I am running on 5 hours of sleep. So I'm gonna go hit the sack and get about 10 hours to try to recover from the 5.. lol

Hope everyone is doing well.
Love Always,
Amberly