The Return of the Bad Dieter

Yeah, I know. Bad dieter. Bad bad dieter.

Life has been a little difficult for me lately, so it's kind of hard to focus on anything. My eating has been all over the place, going from eating too much to eating next to nothing. I'm back now though. I think.

And what better way to kick start the new start than by telling you guys how much damage I've done while I've been slacking?

Despite not posting, I did weigh myself on schedule. The first week, I was up to 76.8 kg (169 pounds). The second week, I was down to 76.5 (168.3). This week, I'm down to 75.8 (166.8). Which is 0.7 up from my lowest weight. I'm okay with that, especially since that lowest weight was the result of a week of lousy eating. Also, Aunt Flo is about to come knocking, so I'm guessing at least a few hundred grams are water weight. It's not unusual for me to fluctuate several kilos when my period is due. Which sucks, but what can you do?

Anyway. Measurements. I got them. And here they are.

ARMS: 33 cm / 13 inches
WAIST: 90 cm /35.4 inches
HIPS: 104 cm / 40.9 inches
THIGHS: 61 cm / 24 inches
CALVES: 39 cm / 15.4 inches

Also: my waist measurements are driving me nuts. I know I'm supposed to measure the same spot every week, but short of marking the spot on my skin with magic marker (sexy!), I have no idea how to actually do that. I try to go by my belly button, but even if I measure twice just to be sure, I seem to get wildly different numbers, differing as much as two inches.

Epic phail week.

It's been a bad bad week. A friend of mine died in a car accident, so my diet kinda got screwed. I'm heartbroken, who cares about what the hell I weigh? There's been lots of crying, and very little calorie counting. And very little eating, actually. The week started off okay-ish, with me reaching 1200 calories a day. Because I pushed myself to eat. Then I couldn't even find the energy to push. So I ate, but I have no idea how far away from reaching an acceptable amount of calories I was. It was more like 'hmm, it's six o'clock, maybe you should eat something more than the measly yogurt you had for breakfast?'

Today, I plan an epic cheat day though. Well, not really epic, but my best friend and I are having a "Valentine's Day date", and there's going to be pizza. And cake. I figured that the pizza is probably not going to be easy on the sodium, so I decided to weigh in today rather than tomorrow. The result is 75.1 kilos, or 165.5 pounds, a weight loss of 1.5 kilos or 3 pounds since last week. Too fast, I know, and this time I can't blame it on the water weight. So, it's probably coming back on. But I won't lie: it's good to see the number 75 on the scale. I am so close to my goal!

A revelation

I know you're not supposed to put too much stock in BMI, 'cause it's a very inacurate measure of how healthy you are. However, I just realized that today, after weighing in at 168.5 pounds, my BMI is 29.8. I am no longer obese, merely overweight!

Goodbye water weight!

I stepped on the scale today quite confident that I was going to lose. I've been sticking to my diet pretty well (ahem, with a couple of deviations...), I've been to the gym a few times, and I've been running back and forth between my apartment and the city center all week for lectures, visits with friends, movies, seminars, etc. In addition, this week was my time of the month and I've been peeing like a champ. So the question wasn't really whether I was going to lose, it was how much I was losing. I guessed that I'd land on seventy seven point something kilos, or around 170 pounds.

The number I saw when I stepped on the scale? 76.6 kg! 168.5 pounds!

That's nearly two kilos down from last week, or three and a half pounds. Now, before you all go saying that this is too fast, let me remind you that I have not been starving myself this week. Far from it, actually. There were several days when I had absolutely no calorie deficit. It's mostly water weight, I think. Either way, I'm happy. This means that I only about eight kilos/eighteen pounds left to lose before I'm at that arbitrary goal that I've set myself. I can do that in two months. That doesn't seem so bad! Not bad at all!

(... of course, I would have to be a saint throughout those two months, so I'm not really hopeful. But I am quite confident that the "finish line" is glittering somewhere on the not-too-far-away horizon!)

Goodbye Twilight Zone

I knew I'd gained weight before I stepped on the scales this week. I have been to the gym a few times, but my eating was kinda crazy. Insane cravings galore. No other way to explain it. Anyway, the damage isn't that bad: I weigh 172 pounds, which is one pound up from last week's 171.

And here are the measurements:

Arm: 34 cm
Waist: 92 cm
Hips: 105cm
Thigh: 61 cm
Calf: 39 cm

It's only been a couple of weeks since I last took my measurements, so I wasn't really expecting any significant change her. And yet, it's so infuriating to see that my waist circumference is what it is. But I suppose the belly fat goes last, so I have to be patient.

Anyway, according to my last measuring, my arms are still the same. My waist is down by about a centimeter, but that could be due to dodgy measuring. My hips are down a centimeter, my thigh is down two and my calves are holding steady.

Chili and workout

I made the most delicious chili for dinner today, and upon calculating that it's only 71 calories per hundred grams, I had to share the recipe. It's easy peasy lemon squeazy!

CHILI

400 grams of ground beef
400 grams of canned tomatoes
410 grams of tomato beans
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
3-4 chili peppers
salt
pepper
ground cayenne pepper/chili powder (I used something called Chili Explosion, which is a mix of different kinds of chilis.)

First, you fry the ground beef, then season it with salt, pepper, and chili powder/cayenne pepper to taste. Add the tomatoes and leave it to simmer for 4-5 minutes. I left mine to simmer while I was chopping peppers and chili, which was probably much longer than 4-5 minutes. That worked out fine too.

Then you add in the red, the yellow and the chili pepper, and finally the tomato beans. The original recipe calls for chili beans, but the shop that's nearest to me doesn't stock 'em, and I'm not interested in running halfway across town for one ingredient.

Anyway. You're done. Leave it alone until it's reached the level of thickness that you desire. Then enjoy.

My roommates used to cook this for me all the time when we were still living together, and they usually served it with tortilla chips on the side, which is yummy, but you know... not all that good if you're on a diet. Or in general really.

In other news, I've finally signed up for another semester at the gym, and so far, I've been there twice. Once on Monday, which was the day I signed up, and once today. Both times, I've hit the rush hour (it's a gym primarily used by students). On Monday, I wasn't there until three-ish. Every single treadmill in the place was occupied, and the machines weren't much better. I went on the stationary bike for about ten minutes, while waiting for a treadmill and then "ran" for 45 minutes. I say "ran", because there was a lot of alternating between running and walking. I naively thought (hoped?) that I'd be able to run as much as I did back home, even though it's been nearly three weeks since I set foot inside a gym. Not happening. But I did manage nearly three miles, which isn't all that shabby.

Today, I was going to go the gym around 12:30, but it turns out, I'm lazy. Who'da thunk it? So I wasn't there until maybe 2-ish. Better than last time, and I did get a treadmill right away, but there were still too many people around for my taste. I really really dislike having to wait around for certain machines to free up, and I feel all self-conscious about people standing right there when I'm trying to work out. It's got nothing to do with my weight. I just don't like people watching me do stuff.

Despite the people, it was a good work out. I set my treadmill for miles per hour today, just for kicks. I averaged 4.5 miles per hour. I totally prefer saying that I averaged 7.3 kilometers per hour though, even though it's pretty much the same speed. The metric system is an ego boost for me!

After the running, I went through my weight program, and discovered that the machines that I've been pining for all Christmas actually aren't all that. But they work. And I guess that's all I need?

Welcome to the Twilight Zone

Considering the string of extremely bad days I had this last week, I expected to have gained ten or twenty pounds or so. I've certainly eaten enough for that to be the case. Add in the fact that I chugged lots of water before bed yesterday, am premenstrual, and feeling bloated. The result was one apprehensive girl about to step on the scales this morning.

It told me I weigh 77.8 kg, or 171.2 pounds. That's down 0.7 kgs/1.5 pounds from last week. How I managed this trick? I have absolutely no idea.

Like I said, it was an exceptionally bad week food-wise. Saturday was especially epic, in terms of gluttony. My ex-roommates invited me and my best friend over for movie night and pigging out. Chocolate, potato chips, leftover Christmas cookies, sour candy, soda, licorice, hot chocolate, more licorice... I'd like to say that I don't think I've eaten this much junk in one night before, but the truth is that I probably have. Just not recently.

On the exercise front, things have been a teeny tiny tad bit better. Not good enough to account for the weight loss, but better. My lectures have started, which means that I get a 20-30 minute walk every time I have a lecture or a workshop to go to, which is three times a week. And today I'm finally going to the gym to sign up for another semester of torture.

Extremely cranky.

I feel like telling someone to stick this diet where the sun doesn't shine. Who this person would be? I have no idea. But it would feel good to yell at someone right about now.

Phail.

Phail. Phail. Phail. Phail. Phail. Phail.

This day has been so incredibly full of phail. To make it short and sweet, the premenstrual cravings kicked in again. Big time.

Holy premenstrual cravings, Batman!

I. Need. Sugar. Now.

Weigh in numero dos: the good kind of 'huh'??

Here are the cold, hard facts of the previous week. Having spent more than away from the weigh in regime, I nearly forgot all about it today as well. Maybe I should stick a post it on the bathroom mirror?

'How much do you weigh?'

And while I'm at it, I can stick one on the fridge as well. A reminder and motivation!

Anyway. I was expecting to be disappointed this week, because the past week hasn't been great in terms of food, and last night, I was really really thirsty, so I ended up chugging a pint of water just before bed. But the scales were in a good mood today, and told me that I now weigh 78.5 kilos, or 172.7 pounds. Which means I'm down a pound and a half.

Monday weigh in? Nah!

My weigh ins are supposed to be on Mondays. What day is today? Monday. So where's the weigh in?

-crickets chirping-

Yeah, I totally forgot and ended up eating breakfast without jumping on the scales first. So, tomorrow kiddies, tomorrow! Stay tuned!

The Gym? Yeah, that didn't happen.

As the title indicates, I didn't renew my gym membership today. Probably just as well, because with the luck I'm having today, I'd probably fall off the treadmill and hurt both legs, and an arm.

However, I did get some exercize when I discovered that the store closes an hour earlier than I thought it did, and I was forced to trek all the way into the city so that I'd be able to eat tomorrow. A 15-20 minute run to the store turned into more than an hour. Great.

-snorts-

I've been positively angelic when it comes to food today though!

Accountability sucks.

It started out well. By six o'clock, I'd consumed about 8-900 calories, leaving more than enough wiggle room if I wanted to get something to eat before bed. Which I usually do. I can't sleep if I'm hungry.

And then I went and asked my best friend if she wanted to go get some candy. And let me tell you, SOME candy, was actually A LOT of candy. It was very very tasty, but I feel stupid. A perfectly good day, completely ruined. Oh well. I'll eat better tomorrow, and if my student loan is transferred, I might even go sign up for the gym. Key word being might.

In other news, I've decided to switch up my exercise program a little. Last semester, I did some running and a weight program on Mondays and Fridays, and about an hour of swimming on Wednesdays. This semester, I think I'm going to do the running and the weights every three days, and then go swimming on Sundays, so that I can use the sauna afterwards. Hopefully, that will take care of some of that pesky water that tends to screw up my weigh in, and subsequently my mood!

... This is still subject to revision though. I hate swimming when there are lots of people in the pool. Oddly enough, not because I hate having people see me in my swimsuit (although I'm not terribly excited about that aspect either), but because very few of the people who use the pool know how to swim in a straight line and that annoys the hell out of me.

Scrumptious apple scones

Not exactly health food, but holy crap, these are absolutely delicious!

85 g refridgerated butter
350 g wheat flour
3 ts baking powder
1/2 ts baking soda
1 ts vanilla sugar
50 g sugar
1 ts cinnamon
1 ts ground muscat nut
1 1/2 dl plain yogurt
1/2 dl milk
50 g room temperature butter
2 small apples
85 g raisins
1 egg for glazing
2 ss demerara sugar or nib sugar

Dice the refridgerated butter and put it in a food processor, along with wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, vanilla sugar, sugar and half the cinnamon and muscat nut. Run the processor until the butter is crumbled.

(If you don't have a food processor, you can do this by hand, but make sure that the butter isn't as cold!)

Warm the yogurt and the milk in a pan until you can see the yogurt starting to separate. Put this mixture into the food processor, and run it just long enough for it to turn doughy.

Take the room temperature butter and mix it with the rest of the cinnamon and muscat.

Peel the apples, dice them into little pieces, and mix them with the raisins.

Sprinkle a little flour on your baking surface, and use a rolling pin to work the dough into a square that's 40x30 cm (16x12 inches). While you're working, it's a good idea to lift the dough a couple of times, to make sure it's not sticking to the table.

Take the butter, cinnamon and muscat mixture and spread it evenly over the square, then sprinkle the apple pieces and the raisins on top of it. Roll the dough into a sausage, and use your palms to flatten it a little bit. Then, you cut it into ten pieces of approximately equal size.

Whip the egg and use a brush to spread it evenly on the scones. Sprinkle demerara sugar or nib sugar on top. Then pop them in a oven that's preheated to 225 degrees celcius (437 degrees Fahrenheit), and let them bake for 13-15 minutes. Let the scones cool off a bit, then serve.

So. That's what the recipe my mom gave me says. But I did it a little differently. First of all, I am not particularly fond of baked fruit of any kind, so I went very easy on the apples. I cut one apple in half, peeled it, weighed it and fount that it was approximately 70 grams worth of apple.

Second, I skipped the raisins entirely.

Third, I didn't sprinkle sugar on top. My mom had one batch with sugar and one without, and I honestly didn't think there was much of a difference.

Fourth, I doubled the amount of cinnamon, 'cause I adore the stuff. In addition, it's supposed to be very good for your metabolism.

Fifth, I used fructose instead of sugar. Which probably doesn't matter at all. Except it has a much lower glycemic index.

I left the scones in the oven for a little over 13 minutes, and while they weren't exactly burnt, I think I'll pull 'em out a little sooner the next time I make them.

Because I'm counting calories (and I'm ever so slightly obsessive of getting it as accurate as possible), I calculated the amount of calories in the scones, by weighing the finished product and adding up the calories in the ingredients I used. The entire batch was 2516 calories! That sounds awful, doesn't it? But, the recipe produced 788 grams of delicious apple scones, so that's about three calories per gram, or 319 calories per hundred grams. If you manage to make the scones approximately the same size - which I totally didn't - that's about 257 calories per scone.

Like I said, this isn't exactly health food, but I plan on experimenting a bit with the recipe and see if I can't make it a little better. For instance, I did not need fifty grams of butter to mix the last of the cinnamon and the muscat with. Next time, I'm going to use half that and see how it goes. I'm also going to try and lower the amount of fructose and see if that affects the taste in a negative way. Seeing as fructose is supposed to have a sweeter taste than sugar, I should be able to make do with less.

At my parents house, I'd get one of these babies from the freezer, and just pop them in the microwave. Voila, 'perfect' breakfast!

Weigh in numero uno: not quite status quo.

It's my first morning back in the city after Christmas break at my parents house. Normally, I weigh in on Mondays ('cause Mondays suck anyway), but I decided to push it back one day so that I could weigh myself on my own bathroom scales.

Last time I weighed myself, I hadn't gained anything, though after today's weigh-in, I think that the scales at my parents house are a bit more eager to please. I clocked in at 79.3 kg, or 174.5 pounds, which is a gain of 1.3 kilos. Not bad after a month of indulgences.

The measurements?
Arms: 34 cm (13.4 inches)
Waist: 93 cm (36.6 inches) (do I have a huge belly or what?!)
Hips: 106 cm (42 inches) (what? Either I measured wrong last time, or something very odd happened!)
Thighs: 63 cm (24.8 inches) (I think I measured wrong...)
Calves: 39 cm (15.4 inches)

Sigh. Aren't measurements supposed to be uplifting? Oh well, better get exercising! New weigh-in next Monday, and new measurements in about a month!

Birthday bash

It was my cousin's 12th birthday today, so me, my dad, my two siblings and I went to her party, and holy crap, lots and lots and lots of food! My aunt was practically begging people to eat more, 'cause she didn't want to get stuck with leftovers. I, however, was a complete angel and consumed one small piece of carrot cake and a glass of sugar free Pepsi. Which I might as well have skipped, 'cause it tasted nasty. If I'm going to drink soda, I need my sugar.

...

Of course, the angelic behavior might have something to do with the fact that we had dinner only a couple of hours before heading to the party, and I gorged myself to the bursting point on potato dumplings, potatoes, sausages and... something else which I have no idea what is called in English. It's a kind of pork sausage. Not particularly good for you, I would assume, but man, is it delicious!

Exercise and status quo

Today's exercise: shoveling approximately 5.73 tons of snow from my parents' driveway.

In other news, I stepped on the scale for the first time in over a month. Seeing as I decided to say to hell with calorie counting for the month of December, I was expecting disaster. But guess what? I haven't gained anything at all! Of course, I haven't lost anything either! Color me content!

A teeny tiny competitive streak

On Saturday, I was so proud of myself for running three and a half miles on the treadmill at the gym. Then yesterday, I talked to an online friend of mine, and I may have tried to brag about this feat to her. Only, she smacked me in the face by saying she had run four miles that very day.

...

What? I can't have that, can I? So today, I went to the gym again, and ran five miles.

Neener neener neener!In your face, online friend!