Hope for the Hopeless

K

karajmartin

New member
Hi Everyone!

My name is Kara and I'm fairly new here. I've been lurking on the site for a few months reading everyone's inspirational stories, looking at the before and after pics, and getting some great info. What has prompted me to post something is that when I joined the site in January, I weighed 165. On July 5th, I stepped on the scale (probably for the first time since January) and was horrified - I weighed 175! :eek: Ugh. I put on 10 pounds in half of a year. Disgusted with myself, I started a new diet and exercise program. I'm happy to say that it's been going well so far! I wish I had started this diary from Day 1, but oh well.

I've been counting calories and exercising for the last 2 weeks. I try to keep my calorie intake around 1200 calories per day. I'm fortunate enough to have a gym at work (which, by the way, barely no one uses!) so I've been doing 20 minutes on the elliptical every morning before work and 40 minutes on the elliptical everyday after work, as well as light weight lifting after work.

Anywho, just some stats about me...
Age: 23 1/2
Height: 5' 4"
Heaviest Weight: 175
Current Weight: 169
Goal Weight: 125ish

I hope this site can be the catalyst I need to keep myself motivated! I've already seen so many incredible success stories on here and I hope I can become one someday!

Xo,
Kara

P.S. I've had my mouse hovering over the Submit button for about 5 minutes now... lol - I just gotta do it!
 
Well, chica, we're almost the same age (I just turned 23), same height, and same goal weight. We can do it! You are blessed to have a gym in your workplace, go for it!

:)
Jes
 
Saturday - July 17, 2010

Jes - Thanks for the welcome! You've already done an incredible job! 100 lbs down?! :hurray:

Well, yesterday had it's ups and downs. The weekends seem to be the hardest for me. I work Monday thru Friday and since the gym is at work, I don't have access to it on the weekends. Nevertheless, my husband needed help cutting and stacking wood so I offered my services. Holy hell was it hot! It was about 95 degrees yesterday and it was ridiculously humid. I was a sweaty beast from hell by the time we finished. :svengo: Not to mention the pain I am in today, lol. No pain, no gain!

Food breakdown:
Breakfast: 3/4 cup Chocolate Cheerios w/ 1/2 cup skim milk = 140 cals
Lunch: Morning Star Veggie Burger (I highly recommend, sooooo good!) w/ 1 slice American Cheese on a bun = 330 cals
Dinner: (Here's where I went a little off course) 1 cup Miso soup, 1 cup Edamame, 1 cucumber roll, and (gasp!) 1 spicy tuna/salmon/yellowtail roll (it's this monster roll with all 3 fish and I knew I shouldn't get it but I did anyway) = 760 cals - hooooly shit
Drinks: Chrystal Light Pure Fitness (60 cals), Lots of water (0 cals), and 1 Vodka w/ Fresca (100 cals) = 160 cals
Daily Total = 1390 cals = bummerrrrr

I will try to be better today! Have a great one all!

Xo,
Kara
 
Daily Total = 1390 cals = bummerrrrr

I will try to be better today! Have a great one all!

Xo,
Kara
Click to expand...

That is nothing to feel bad about. At your weight of 175, your maintenance level calories are probably at least 1750-2100, and maybe even as much as 2625-2800. As long as your intake level is less than your maintenance level, you are in a deficit and will lose weight. How quickly you lose will depend on the deficit.

What made you choose 1200 as a target intake? If your maintenance is at the low end, it might be about right to lose 1lb per week, but if your maintenance is at the high end, you could be eating as much as 1000 or more calories too few.
 
Hi MAR1984 -
I'm kind of new to this, so any input you have is certainly appreciated. I used one of those websites that calculates how many calories you should eat to lose weight. The number it gave me was about 1300 cals/day to lose 1 lb/week. I figured that if I cut out an additional 100 cals/day it would help a teeny tiny bit.
Maybe you (or someone else) could help me with another question... If I'm exercising, would I still aim for 1200 or 1300? Or would I need to increase my daily intake?
Oh! And congrats on your weight loss so far MAR! What an amazing accomplishment!
 
:seeya: Hi Kara! I read your journal and noticed that we are about the same age (I'm 24), same height, and have the same goal weight (although you are a lot farther along than me). I have had some success, but right now I am kind of in a funk because the scale hasn't moved in the past week. BUT, I am throwing myself back into this thing full force. I'm not giving up this time! Anyway, good luck with your weightloss. Maybe we can be buddies?
 
Sunday, July 18, 2010

Yesterday was a weird sort of day. My meals were all messed up. I woke up at like 10:30 so I didn't have breakfast. Then around 11:30 I had a bag of Smartfood White Cheddar Popcorn bc I was starving. My husband needed help stacking wood again so we did that around 12 or so. It was hot as hell again, but it didn't take nearly as long to finish as Saturday. We went to my in-laws around 2 bc they have a pool. Then, at night, we stopped by my parent's house bc they're away and we had to feed their dogs.

Food breakdown:
Breakfast: N/A
Snack: Smartfood Popcorn = 100 cals
Lunch: 3 slices of gluten free pizza = ugh, i don't even know. probably betweek 750 and 900 cals??? shame on me
Dinner: N/A I don't know what happened... we were watching my parent's dogs and next thing we knew it was 10:30 and time for bed...
Drinks: Crystal Light Iced Tea (10), lots of water, and 2 vodka w/ Frescas (200) = 210
Daily Total = Between 1060 and 1210

So, while my calorie count wasn't high yesterday, it was all shit food and way too sporadic. :mad: It's kind of pathetic that I'm glad it's Monday and that I'm back at work, lol. Missed my morning workout so that means I need to kick it into high gear for this afternoon's workout!

Wishing everyone a lovely day!

Xo,
Kara
 
Hi Kara, how you getting on? You liking the forum? I got into trouble for posting links on my diary...oops! lol Think they thought I was trying to sell stuff! lol Shoulda read the rules eh.

Just been reading through your diary and realised that I havent actually been typing up what I eat. Do you think this helps? I do write it in a diary though but maybe telling the world would be better! :) I think I may count calories like you for a change. On advice I have stopped the Kelloggs Diet as its not the best diet to do on the Shred but I feel I need something a bit regimented to focus on and keep me on track, if you know what I mean. Where did you find out how many calories you should eat in a day?

Its been absolutely freezing and pouring with rain here so Im laying in my bed all snug whilst I type this lol. Haven't even done my diary for the day and it's 1am...

Hope tomorrow (or today, not sure of time difference!) is a good day for you! :)
 
dragonflyjen said:
Where did you find out how many calories you should eat in a day?
QUOTE]

I just did a Google search for "Calories needed to lose weight." I think the site I used was like caloriecount.about.com... I'm afraid to post the link after you said you got in trouble!!! Haha!

I definitely think counting calories helps, at least for me. It helps me to be more aware of what I put into my mouth. For example, I usually get a 1/2 sandwich from this restaurant (Panera Bread, not sure if you have those...) and a bowl of soup thinking I was being good. I looked up the calories in the 1/2 sandwich and it's 480! For half of a sandwich, that's ridiculous!!! The whole sandwich is 960 calories! That's almost all of my calories for a day! It's also good because if I know I'm going to have something that's very high in calories, I'll write it down in the beginning of the day so there is a constant reminder that I need to be a little better than usual :)

It looks like your 1 AM is my 8 PM, so we have a 5 hour time difference! Hope you're doing well! Talk to you soon!
Click to expand...
 
Monday July 19, 2010

I should probably try to post at the end of each day, but I just end up crawling into bed!

So yesterday (Monday) was a pretty good day! I missed my morning work out (slept right thru my alarm) but I was happy to be back to work. The weekends are just so rough - it seems impossible to be as good on the weekend as I am during the week lol.

Food:
B: 1 peach = 65 (I had a meeting all morning so I didn't really have time to eat a good breakfast)
L: Salad with cucumbers, carrots, lean ham, 1 hard boiled egg, and light dressing = 300 (early lunch, I was famished haha)
S: Tostitos w/ Salsa = 200
D: Grilled chicken with veggies = 450
S: 1 peach = 65 (I'm kind of obsessed with peaches lately, lol)
S: Chocolate = 70
Total = 1150 cals

Exercise:
Morning -
N/A
Afternoon-
45 minutes on the Elliptical
20 minutes of light weight lifting and ab exercises

The only downside to yesterday was a extremely rude Sales Rep at my company who thought he was entitiled to treat me like shit. I put him in his place though! :D

Hope everyone has a great day!
 
I can't do well with my meals unless I count calories (or WW points :) ). I have tried to not count them in the past and it just doesn't work. I have no idea what I'm putting in my mouth. One of my favorite fast food places is Chick-fil-A. I used to get the original chicken sandwich all the time, but then once I tried to eat healthy (but before counting calories) I started eating the chicken salad sandwich, thinking I was making a good swap. But then later on I found out the calories were worse! So now I know to get the chargrilled chicken sandwich with a fruit cup.

It's hard for me to get all my meals in on a busy day too. Whenever I go shopping all day with my mom (which hasn't been much lately unfortunately), it's like I hardly eat because we are trying to hit all the stores, lol.

Hope you have a great week!
 
Tuesday July 20, 2010 - A Day From HELL!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Today sucked so bad! My coworker is out all week, so I'm covering his job and trying to do mine and it just isn't working. Thankfully, my new boss (just moved to a new department about 2 months ago) is pretty kick ass and he's like, tell me what we can do to help! So that's pretty awesome. But I was still stuck at work 2 hours later so I didn't get to go to the gym :( I missed my 2 gym buddies - they're like 55 year old men, but whatever. It's so sad, I'm like one of the youngest people in my company soooo yea, good luck to me trying to find someone to hang out with! haha. Whatevs.

Ok, food for today:
B: Egg white omelette with cheese = 220
L: Tuna Roll, Cucumber Roll, and Soy Sauce = 200
D: Massive bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup = idk, I'll go with 500... it was a big bowl peeps.
Drinks: Lots of agua (duuuh), crystal light (10), and Vodka w/ Fresca (300) = 310
Daily Total = 1220

So, I'm going to continue my rant, lol. :rant: My parent's and little brother are away this week. They're visiting my bro's future college in Oregon. So I've been going to their house every day after work to feed the dogs and let them outside and whatnot. So I get there around 8:30 PM tonight, let them outside, say hey to their cat (Cleo, she's enormous btw), let them inside, feed them, go to pour myself a drink bc I need one after this horrid day, and I hear this strange noise in the living room. I look over and their golden retriever, Alie, is VOMITING all over the carpet!!!! :puke: OOOOO fabulous! So I call the hubby and try to convince him to drive to my parent's and clean it up - he said no! Jerk... I hate puke. I hate when I puke, I hate to hear puke, I hate everything having to do with puke. Needless to say, I was NOT happy! I called my Mom and told her she owed me BIG TIME!

Ok, I think I have my rant out of my system now.

Until tomorrow my lovelies,
Kara
 
Sorry to hear about your awful day. Especially the dog puke part. :ack2: I have a puppy who is refusing to be potty trained and I spend all day cleaning up pee. He pees EVERYWHERE! Even when I hook up his leash to take him outside, he pees on my feet before we go out the door! And I am usually wearing flip flops. It's awful. But I'd take that over puke any day!
 
Wednesday July 21, 2010

BB2011 - My parent's have a Weenie dog and she still pees in the house sometimes! She's like 5! lol. Oye!

Yesterday was... eh. Still crazy busy @ work. Didn't do my morning workout again... Ugh. I think maybe I should just do a longer workout in the afternoon. It's so hard to get my ass out of bed in the AM. I don't know what to do...

Food:
B: No breakfast... meeting all morning :banghead:
L: Tunafish Sandwich on Whole Wheat w/ some carrots = 500
D: Dominos Pizza... I know, I know. I shouldn't have = 690
Drinks: Water, Snapple (20), SF Redbull (10), Grapefruit Mash (100) = 130
Total = 1320 :piggy: lol

Exercise:
30 Minutes on the Elliptical
Didn't even get to do my weights because I worked late and had to rush my workout to get to my parent's house and let their dogs out again! Thank god they get home today.

In other news, I was getting frustrated (even though I told myself I wouldn't) because I lost like 5 pounds week 1 and then nothing since! GRRR! But I stepped on the scale this morning and I'm down to 168.5. Woot woot! It's only a 1.5 lb loss, but I'll take anything at this point!

Have a good day all!

Xo,
Kara
 
You can loss your weight if you want. Health is the wealth. Therefore, it is require to keep maintain the health. I prefer exercise as Yoga and diet food to maintain my physics regularly. Another important thing is that to control on the brain for the fast food. Remember, losing weight is as simple as burning more calories than you eat.
 
Thursday July 22, 2010

Happy evening to you all!

So I was trying to be really good today because I had ladies night tonight... I think I may have gone overboard tho...

Food:
B: N/A - damn morning meetings
L: Chicken Noodle Soup = 150
S: PopChips (100) and an Apple (100) = 200
D: Cream of Chicken Soup = 250
Drinks: Mash (100), SF Redbull (10), Iced Coffee w/ Splenda & Skim Milk (20), Water, and Wine (100) = 230
Total = 830 ? ? ? Whoops.

Exercise:
45 minutes on the Elliptical
20 minutes of light weight lifting and ab workout

Nothing too exciting happened today... hectic at work still, but I found out that the entire system we use for our daily operations is going to be down all day tomorrow... So I don't even know why we have to go to work. I'm hoping they let us out early! :D

Ooo, I did almost hit a black bear today on my way home. Scared the shit out of me! We've had so many bears this year! We had one on the deck the other day and a cub in the driveway a few weeks back. I thought it was my sister-in-law's dog, Lucy, and went out to greet her. Walked around the corner, saw the bear, and ran back inside. lol. I'm an ass.

I need to take a before picture before I lose too much weight, but I can't find our camera... Oh bother.

Well, I'm off to bed! Goodnight! :sleeping:
 
Friday July 23, 2010

Food:
B: Egg white omelet w/ American Cheese = 210
L: Chicken Noodle Soup & Bread = 260
D: Stouffers Meal = 430
S: Chocolate = 70
Drinks: Water, Iced Coffee (20) and Vodka w/ Fresca = 130
Daily Total = 1120

Exercise:
NONE! Shame on me. I just needed a day off.

Really boring day yesterday... nothing special to report on.
 
Saturday July 24th and Sunday July 25th

Did you hear that noise?

What noise? you ask.

The noise of me falling off the bandwagon, duh!

Ugh, I hate hate hate the weekends! At least in terms of my diet and exercise program. I just never seem to stick with it! WHAT IS MY PROBLEM!?!?!? I used to wish away the week just waiting for the weekend and now I can't wait for Monday to come so I can get back to my structured schedule! I'm so backwards...

Saturday Food:
B: 3 egg whites, 1 whole egg, 1 1/2 slices American cheese = 240
L: Cucumber Roll, Salmon/Tuna/Avocado Roll, Soy Sauce = 505
D: Burger on a bun w/ 1 slice American cheese = 430
S: Chocolate = 35
Drinks: Water, vodka w/ Fresca = 400
Daily Total = 1610

Sunday Food:
B: Smoothie = 200
L: Wrap w/ turkey, salami, lettuce, and light ranch dressing = 560
D: Salad w/ lettuce, shrimp, bacon, and light cesaer dressing = 340
S: Homemade Guacamole, Tostitos, Skinny Cow ice cream, Starbucks skinny vanilla latte = 850
Daily Total = 1950

Fabulous. I ate like a pig, drank too much vodka, and did ZERO exercise. Awesome. Go Kara :banghead:

What I really need to do is just put this mishap behind me and move on. So here's to a new week and to keeping my eyes on my goal!
 
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (July 26-28)

Whoopsie! Been a bit busy these last few days...

Monday:
Food:
B: Cherries & a Peach = 125 cals
L: Veggie Stirfry = 175
D: Wrap = 560
S: Chocolate = 70
Total = 930
Exercise:
25 minutes on the Elliptial
Light weight lifting

Tuesday:
Food:
B: Cherries = 75
L: Sushi = 440, Edamame = 100, Miso Soup = 30, Soy Sauce = 30
D: Frozen Meal = 430
S: Peach = 50, Chocolate = 120, Chocolate Milk = 160
Drinks: Vodka = 100
Total = 1535
Exercise:
20 minutes on the Elliptical in the AM
30 minutes on the Elliptical in the PM
Light weight lifting

Wednesday:
Food:
B: Iced Coffee = 50
L: Veggie & Shrimp Stirfry = 300
D: Sushi (do i have an obsession or what?) = 625, Edamame = 100, Miso Soup = 50
S: Chocolate = 100, Vodka = 130
Total = 1355
Exercise:
40 minutes on the Elliptical
Light weight lifting

I wanted to go to the gym this morning since it's ladies night tonight, but I didn't get the chance. I found out late last night that I had to come in extra early today for a conference call with our Netherland and China office... that's one of the downsides to working for a global company - everyone is on a different time! Oye. So I guess I'll just have to go to the gym tonight and be late for ladies night!

I'm happy to say that I reached my first goal of a 5% weight loss! I'm down to 166 now :D Gosh that still sounds really high - ugh! But I'm onto my second goal of 10% total weight loss. So I have 8.5 lbs to go!

That's all for now! Hope everyone is doing well!
 
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