Nutritional and Exercise Pyramid Challenge

Scale Victories

It's the truth, I weigh myself almost every day right when I get out of bed. Dann thinks it's a bit obsessive and I can understand why this practice could be detrimental to healthy weight loss; the human body fluctuates so much during the day and even during the week I see subtle gains and losses. But I recognized these weight fluctuations as a side effect of my bodies natural processes, so I don't let it discourage me (or get me too excited). With that being said, I have only one real reason for daily weighing, and that's because I'm a sucker for a good graph. There is nothing quite like plotting a nice downward sloping line that shows your victories! So I have been diligently plotting points almost every day so I could have this little statistical data nugget: 

Goal: 172 lbs

Current Weight: 255.4 lbs

Difference: 83.4 lbs.

Loss to date: 16.8 lbs

 Viewing weight loss as a graph is an easy way for me to see my progress when I can't always see it in the mirror. As you can see, there was about a week between the holidays and me getting sick where I didn't bother to weigh in. 

Focusing on Non-Scale Goals

Despite my a scale victories, I need to make some progress of some of my non scale goals. This is where the pyramid challenge comes in, it's an idea I got from this post at From Hippo to Hot. 

The premise of this challenge is that you divide your goals into nutritional and exercise categories and then rank them from least difficult to most difficult. After you have ranked your categories you assign each a number starting with 1, which is supposed to be your easiest goal to master. If you are a visual person like I am (evidence being the above weigh loss graph) you make your self a pyramid out of these  goals. The tip of the pyramid is your easiest goal and since it's  ranked first  you work on this goal for 1 week. You practice the second tier goal for 2 weeks while still practicing the 1st tier goal. If you mess up one of the tiers you just restart that tier rather than going back to the beginning. 

 In general, exercise is difficult more me. I really hate it and I am always finding reasons not to go to the gym; most, if not all, are invalid. For this reason, I am going to be focusing my goals mostly on my exercise goals. My nutritional goals focus mainly working toward a vegetarian/whole foods diet, which shouldn't be too hard for me, because I have done it before.  Behold my visual goal pyramid:

I have it drawn out in the back of my planner so I have it for reference whenever I might need it. Some of the week one items are a little hard to read so my goals are as follows:

Nutritional:

1 week: Drink 64 fl oz. of water per day

2 weeks: 1 vegetarian day a week

3 weeks: 2 vegetarian days a week

4 weeks: Cut out carbonated beverages and high-fructose corn syrup

5 weeks: 3 vegetarian days a week

6 weeks: Cut out products with hydrogenated oils 

7 weeks: No refined grains/eat whole grains

8 weeks: Eat whole foods

Exercise:

1 week: Cardio 2 times per week

2 weeks: Strength train 1 time per week

3 weeks: Exercise outside the gym 1 time per week

4 weeks: Cardio 3 times per week

5 weeks: Strength Train 2 times per week

6 weeks: Enter a 5K (never done this before) 

7 weeks: Cardio 4 times per week

8 weeks: Strength train 3 times per week

I would like to get to the point where I am doing some form of exercise at least 5 days out of the week. Ideally several of those days I need to do cardio and some sort of strength training. This will be hard for me. . . I am clueless when it comes to strength exercises. If I stick to the pyramid and achieve the goals each week, this will last 36 weeks. Planned Start Date: January 27th 

Winter is Coming

Winter has declared war on me. I've spent the last week in the trenches battling it's latest act of bioterrorism. Bronchitis is no joke. I'm on the mend, but there is no guessing what Winter has planned in the war room.  My only hope is that Spring will send in reinforcements before my body succumbs to one of Winter's attacks, be it illness, biting cold, or slick sidewalks.

Somehow, despite holidays and illness, I managed to keep the weight loss going, though it definitely slowed toward the end of December. I was worried last week in particular because most of my meals where fast food or pizza that Dann so graciously got for me. I was far too ill to cook for myself, and I had to blanket all my food in crushed red pepper just to taste anything.  I was hoping that my violent coughing was tightening up my abs. My intercostal and and rectus abdomens muscles hurt enough that it felt like I had done a major ab workout! Of course, it was a fool's wish. 

I am very pleased with my weight loss results for the month of December.  In January, I need get a gym routine going and I have challenged myself to logging all my food entries at My Fitness Pal. I really enjoy their calorie counter, and while sometimes it may not be exact, I feel that the act of knowing what you are eating helps. You don't realize how much you eat until you write it all down. If you're interested in what I'm eating this week, the link will take you to my food diary.  Today's entry has a ridiculously low amount of calories. I woke up late and didn't have breakfast, but I snacked on dishes I was cooking for the week and didn't log it. I promise I'm not starving myself.

Goal: 172 lbs.

Current Weight: 263.8 lbs.
Difference: 91.8 lbs.
Loss to date: 8.4 lbs

December 2012 - 272 lbs

January 6, 2013