My Summer Weight-loss Diary

H

hanabi

New member
Hi everyone!

I just joined this site today. It looks like a really great community, and I thought I'd start of of these journals to help track my progress.

My goal is to use the summer holiday off from university to really work on my weightloss/fitness/health goals! I gained a lot of weight when I started college, mostly due to a binge-eating habit I picked up. I was very slim and fit during high school, and I have continued exercising, but my eating got so off track, and it's been very difficult to try to focus on correcting that while also doing well in my courses! So I'm optimistic about these next few months.

My CW is 140, and ideally I would like to reach my pre-college weight of 110-115, which would equate to roughly 30 pounds in about 3 months. That said, I am not overly concerned about the actual weight as much as I am body fat and size. I would like to lose at least 3 inches from my waist and 2 or 3 from my thighs, mostly, and lower my body fat percentage by about 5% points.

I think I can accomplish this by doing a few things...
1) keep up my exercise routine: run 4-6 miles most days of the week, and do strength training in a upper body/lower body split
2) stick to a fairly structured eating plan with a breakfast, lunch, dinner, and evening snack
3) drink more water
4) add in some yoga and stretching work to improve my balance and flexibility

I'm pretty confident that just by doing those things, and staying away from my bad habit of massive binges, the weight will come off fairly easily! The hardest thing will probably be the regular eating... I have gotten into a bad pattern of skipping meals at university. The exercise won't be a problem, since I've been doing that anyway for the past 6 years or so. And I know I ought to drink more water and less coffee. :D

I guess I just come back here and reply to my own thread every so often?
 
Welcome to the forum! Do you mind me asking how tall you are? Your plan looks good and your motivation is high by the sound of your post so I think you should do great! Stay consistent and remember to take it one day at a time! Looking forward to reading more!
 
Awh, is your name Hana? MINE TOO! Spelt the same way and everything. If it is your name, you'll be the only other person I've ever met with the same name!

Hope to see you post more soon! Good luck!
 
Welcome to the forum. You are about my weight (don't know how tall you are), and you have realistic goals. I hope you find what you are looking for in this forum. Good luck!
 
Hey, thanks for all the comments, guys!!
No, my name's not actually Hana. But I like the alias!
And I am about 5'6" - 5'7" tall... 5'7" in the morning but I shrink about half an inch during the day -- thanks to scoliosis! xD

I did okay on my first day: had 2 cups of water, ran 5 miles, made sure to stretch after. The only thing I did wrong was actually not eat enough, I think, because I was busy with final exams and such all day. Starting tomorrow I'll be able to be a lot more regular with my meals though!
 
Well, I did complete crap yesterday. It was the last day staying in my old apartment, and I did one of those "eat everything you can now because the weightloss starts tomorrow!"

Oh well. I really will start today! My eating plan is going to be like this:

breakfast- yogurt or eggs, toast
lunch- sandwich of some sort
dinner- some sort of protein with whatever veggies are fixed
snack at night- carrots and mixed nuts

and then with fruit and cheese for snacks as needed. And I won't have any set times for meals until my job starts, really...just breakfast about an hour after my workout in the morning and then eating something every few hours afterward!
 
Hi, welcome to the thread. Your workouts are very good, and you are right, you should be able to lose it in no time if you stay away from Junk eating. Looking forward to reading your diary around the thread.
 
Thanks for the welcome, njoyabl!

I did well yesterday. Ran outside in the park, a 5.7 mile trail, I believe. Did lower-body and core later in the afternoon. And then I ate good, whole foods the rest of the day. Plus, I managed to get down 2 large bottles of water.

For today, I'm going to run at the park again plus do an UB strength workout, and then try to enlist some family members to do yoga with me in the evening. As to food, since until I start working I want to just sleep in in the mornings, I'm going to change my meal scheduling a bit so that I just go running whenever I happen to wake up, have "breakfast" (even if it's nearly noon) about an hour afterward, and then eat again every 3 or 4 hours.
 
Yesterday was great!
I ran 3 miles- less than anticipated, but it turns out I was quite sore. During the school year I get used to running either on a treadmill or flat sidewalks, whereas where I've been running now there are so many HILLS and off-road terrain and such. I also stuck to eating whole foods on a regular basis throughout the day.

Today is my rest day from running (I actually don't like rest days, but I know it's for the best). I'll still try to get in some yoga and core work, though. And of course, stick to my eating plan.

Does anyone (if anyone reads this!) have any advice as to whether you adjust your intake on the days you exercise more/less/not at all? I wonder if I should try and eat a little bit less on my rest days, or on the day before them, or the day after, or something. Maybe I'm just crazy. xD
 
I don't know about everyone else but on days that I'm on rest (like I am right now because of a poorly ankle :() then I try and eat less. I don't need as much fuel because I'm not doing exercise so I just eat healthy and don't have ANY junky food or go over my limit of 1200 at all. On days where I go to the gym it doesnt matter if I go over as much and I have a much bigger lunch to get me through the gym session..Usually between 1200-1500 on exercise days!
 
Well, I ended up deciding to make yesterday a rest day from exercise AND from my structured eating plan. Probably did not need a break from the diet after 2 days, haha. But in any case, I did not go off track very badly.... I still ate only whole foods and, at my best estimate, under 1600 calories. The only way I was off-track really was not worrying about timing or content of meals, which just meant a lot of fruit and eggs over the course of the day. :)

Today I'm going to go run again, most likely at least 6 miles since I tend to feel more energetic than normal after a day of rest. Plus lower-body and abs. And since my workout will probably happen around 9-10, I'll have meals at 11, 2, 5, and 8 (approximately).

The only thing I'm worried about is that I'm going to get frustrated with the pace of weight-loss. I tend to get frustrated when a few days goes by and I don't see any noticeable results- for some reason I expect to lose mega-inches every single day. Will try not to think about it!
 
I am the same height and my goal weight is 135 because I really don't think I could get any smaller than that. I would love to see a pic of you at 110 pounds when you are 5'6 - isn't that underweight to the BMI index? Even 115 is underweight I think? I'm not trying to discourage you and I know what it's like to never to happy with yourself but I'm just wondering if you knew that? It doesn't seem healthy to me to be underweight - aren't the risks similar to being overweight? Maybe once you get back down to 130 or 120 you will be happy there and work on building muscle - just a thought.
 
Chubbygirl- I really do appreciate your concern! :) You're right, I might not actually ever weigh 110 again, because that was 4 years ago when I was still a teenager. I am not focussing too much on the actual weight, anyway, so like you said, I may get to 120 or 130 and decide that's perfectly fine! But in any case, I have a small frame, am half-Japanese, so I guess that's why my goal might be lower than yours? I would post a pic, but I'm kinda scared to do that on the Internet and all. I know that I never heard any concerns from doctors about being underweight or anything. Thanks a lot for reading and replying! :)

I had a slip-up on Monday, overate between lunch and dinner, mostly because I was stressed, and that turned into me giving up and going for the ice cream. Oops. But I didn't let that affect my eating at dinner or the next day!
I did the 6-mile trail again yesterday, and it was really fun! I made sure to stretch well afterward. Also did upper body strength exercises. Today I plan on just doing one lap of 3 miles, plus a yoga workout in the evening.
 
Ugh. So, I took my measurements today as a progress check, and it was not a good surprise. I've gotten bigger even since I last measured...
waist: 28 in
thigh: 23 in

I did take the measurements in the late afternoon, rather than first thing in the morning like I did last time, so that might've affected it some... but it's still disappointing. Just a month ago, my waist was 26.5 and thigh 22.

Oh well. This is where I'm at now, can't change that! Even though I've gotten bigger, I know my eating and exercise habits are slightly healthier, so that's a plus, I guess.
 
I got the idea from another thread on here to try actually planning out what I'll eat for the day beforehand, so I'm going to do that for everything except breakfast, which I don't have a problem with. :)

10:30 Lunch: turkey sandwich, can of v8 (250)
1:30 Snack: large grapefruit, snack cheese (200)
4:30 Dinner: tilapia filet, broccoli (200)
7:30 Snack: baby carrots, almonds (200)

So all that plus a big breakfast and morning snack should give me 1300-1500 calories, by my rough estimations. I'll plan on making that my eating schedule for pretty much everyday, switching up types of food (e.g. tuna instead of turkey sandwich, apple instead of grapefruit, etc.).
 
So, I had a minor slip-up yesterday....or maybe a major one...I don't really know. Haha.

The air conditioning at my parents' house is broken, and since the weather is so incredibly hot here at the moment, I was just dying (I am NOT made for hot climates!). So I made the executive decision to head back to my apartment, since I've got it until the end of the month. I knew this might be a bad idea for my diet, because I've only been out of my apartment for a week, and I still heavily associate it with the massive recreational binge eating I would do whenever I had a free evening. :/

I managed to avoid stopping at the store I usually do on my way into town, but then I had to stop and get some coffee, and I broke down and bought a bunch of food. :( Ate it, felt sick to my stomach a bit, and then all I could think of was "Oh well, I've blown it, may as well go get ice cream and chip and etc etc too and just start again next month!" I actually got in my car to go back out to the store...but somehow, I stopped myself and went back home and had tea and watched a movie instead.

So it's great that I did not go off plan more than I did... but at the same time, I'm disappointed that I messed up as much. :( I also got my scale out and weighed myself since I hadn't since I started this diary on here: 139.4. Basically the same, a little less than last time I weighed myself, which was after the rebound from my most recent stupid fad starvation-calibre diet (Got down to 133 after about 2 weeks, but then gained it all back, as you can see). Not great, but okay.

Food for yesterday--
late breakfast: turkey sandwich (200)
snack: a lot of cauliflower (didn't measure, maybe 150?), handful of nuts (200)
late lunch/binge: 3 quarts of yogurt (840), 4 apples (400), 3 oranges (300)
total: about 2000 cals, and no exercise (it was too hot). boo.

Oh well. I think my goal for now is going to be to hit 135 by the end of the month, which should be doable considering the measurement I just took probably had some bloating associated with it. And then I'll shoot for 10 pounds each of the next two months.

Should I weigh myself every day? I don't think I will... I might be tempted to not eat my evening snack or drink enough water just to see a lower weight or something! Plus I'll get all those natural fluctuations. I think I'll do every 5 days or something...
 
At least you snacked on fruit and not pizza!! Not a bad binge as far as binges go so don't beat yourself up too much :)
 
Thanks for the encouragement, Sunflower! : )

I am trying very hard not to eat out of boredom right now...thought I'd post on here as something to do!
My intake for the day has turned out pretty weird, but it's because I'm at my apartment for only today and I don't want to buy a bunch of perishable food or anything. Plus, I don't want to make any trips out to the store lest I lose my will and overeat again. vv

Breakfast/Lunch: tuna sandwich (300)
Snack: V8 (50)
Dinner: tuna sandwich (300)
Snack: V8, handful of nuts (250)
Total: 900 calories

Plus I ran 4 miles in the morning and walked about 1 later in the afternoon. Total was a little low, but combined with yesterday I think it balances out! Not the best day- overdose of mercury, haha, plus lots of tinned foods rather than fresh, but I think it was pretty good considering the circumstances!

edit: Made myself one of those cute tickers I kept seeing in people's signatures! :)
 
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It helps to plan out your meals. I mentally plan my meals every morning too (although most days it turns out different than I plan), but it helps you calculate the calories in your head. And fantastic job on the runs!!
 
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