Scared of the scale

The rumor was correct, and I have the beast (the scale) in my room right now. Unfortunately, I got tempted to look at my weight tonight after giving into a bit of temptation today and I weighed myself a few minutes ago. The verdict I weighed in at a disappointing 195lbs. That's a 5lb weight gain. I can't say that I shook it off and was like "to hell with it..." Honestly, I was disappointed. I'm working so hard and to see it reflected negatively on the scale made me sad.

I got teary eyed, I'm still wiping them away as I type. But I'm not giving up. I'm tired of being fat and being dissatisfied with my body and if I have to make this my new starting point, well then that's what it's going to have to be. I'm still trying to work on my compulsive snacking it's more difficult than I thought it would be to give up. I'm also working on trying to balance my food choices. I'm going to have to give up eating vanilla yogurt and go for the more calorie friendly plain yogurt (flavored with a packet of splenda) and a banana instead. Tomorrow is a new day and although I feel like giving up, I know that I can't because it's now or never.
 
don't cry. i'm sure you'll lose it. maybe you didn't actually gain that much, depends where you weighed yourself before. scales are differently adjusted. on my scale i have 101 (222lbs) but on my brother's have 98. i stick to mine because i started with it hehe.

so don't be depressed and sad :) continue what you have been doing. calculate how much you should be taking in daily to lose weight.

*hugs* Lena
 
Lena, thank you for the words of encouragement. I really needed them this morning. According to a website I visited, it said that I would have to be taking in a little bit over 2100 calories to maintain my current weight of 195. The absolute minimum # of calories I was allowed to go down to was 1750 calories. Anything less than that, and I would be starving myself. So I'm making a conscious effort to eat within the 1800 - 1900 calorie range. So far, so good.

This morning for breakfast I had:
1 hard cooked egg - 65 calories
2 slices wheat bread - 80 calories total
1 small bowl rice grits - 80 calories
2 slices fruit (honeydew and cantaloupe) - 100 calories total
1 dab cottage cheese - 100 calories
It came out to 425 calories eaten for breakfast and boy am I full.

Like I've said before, weight loss for me is a bit of mix and match and finding the right combination of foods that work for me. I know that I'm a complusive snacker and when I'm busy snacking, I don't take into account just how many calories I'm actually eating. Secondly, I'm not as food savvy as I thought I was. Salads are healthy so they must be good for me...wrong!!! Some of the salads I ate were higher in fat and calories than the burgers and fries I had given up a few weeks ago. I also now know that in my case, I have to account for every calorie I put into my mouth. This may not work for some people, but I know that it'll work for me. I honestly believe that it was the unknown calories that I was putting in my mouth that led to my 5lb weight gain. At times, I wouldn't know what I had eaten and just guess as to the calorie content; most of the time, I was underestimating.

Today is the start of a new day. I have 3 months before my graduation and 2 months before my 23rd birthday. I'm determined to have dropped 10lbs by my birthday, and an additional 10lbs by the time I graduate. No more set backs, and no more fearing the scale. This is a new funkyphantom and I WILL WIN THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE!!!
 
The advice Lena gave about the scales is entirely correct. I went through a scale buying phase so I actually ended up with three at one point. I could hop on all three and have as much at 5 pounds difference between the three. There was one of the digital scales that would weigh 3 lbs different when I just got off and back on! Eventually I found one that weighs me about the same every time and that's the one I use now.

The food knowledge will come with time. I found myself a couple of months into my new lifestyle snacking on trail mix only to discover it was 300 calories for 1/4 cup! What the heck?!
 
This is why I love this forum, you guys are so supportive. I'm feeling a heck of a lot better today and I'm also eating better without excessively snacking. I think the weigh in yesterday got to me because I was feeling guilty for having indulged and having 4 chocolate chip cookies. But then I got to thinking, it's only 5 extra pounds.

It could have been much more, and I could have gone back to being well over 200lbs. So I'm just going to have to roll with the punches and suck it up. Trust me, I'm not an overly emotional person, but when the subject of weight comes up, it always puts me on edge.

Lunch was really good and I'm happier with the food decisions I've made thus far. I've got some stuff planned out for today...I'm heading off to the mall and I'm going to pick up some protein bars and this thing called Muscle Milk. Then I'm off to go and buy some cereal, especially the kind that has fiber in it. I'll probably pick up some fruits and vegetables while I'm at it.

So here's how eating has been going thus far:

Lunch

Pasta Presto - 300 calories (pasta, chicken breast strips, onions, sun dried tomatoes, spinach and some spaghetti sauce.)
1 pear - 45 calories
1 steamed carrot - 31 calories
Total - 376 calories.

Let's add that to the calories I consumed total during breakfast and it comes out to a nice 801 calories. By the time dinner rolls around, I should have bumped that total up to well over 1,000 calories once I get in my snack which will be a protein bar.
 
Today is an excellent day. We had our black history month celebration yesterday night, and everything went off without a hitch. Food wise, my day yesterday ended off well. I was literally running around all day yesterday so I had to rely on a protein bar to fill me up. By the time dinner rolled around, they didn't have anything I wanted to eat, so I had to find a way to make up my remaining 700 or so calories to bring me a nice number of 1800 calories consumed. So, dinner last night went something like this:

Dinner

2 portions of cod: 110 calories x 2 = 220
2 bowls special K with 1% milk: 190 x 2 = 380
breakdown
Special K = 110 calories
1% milk = 80 calories
I didn't finish the milk I had used for my first bowl of special K and just added some extra cereal to the preexisting milk.
So my total caloric entake for dinner was 600 calories.

Eating wise today was ok...I gave in and had a slice of chicken brocolli pizza. When I looked up the caloric value, it wasn't listed so I found the closest one and it was chicken and vegetable at 560 calories. Not to worry, I'm planning on working out for about an hour and a half doing some hardcore cardio today as well as doing 20 minutes of weight training to make up for the pizza.

My food breakdown for the day looks like this thus far:

Breakfast

Vegetable omlette with cheese: 295 calories
Bowl of rice grits: 80 calories
1 honeydew: 50 calories
dab of cottage cheese: 100 calories (this could be less since I don't know what constitutes a serving size when it comes to cottage cheese...is it the spoon size a person uses???)

Luch
1 slice chickent brocolli pizza : 560 calories (yikes!!!!)
Lettuce salad: 15 calories (didn't eat the croutons only the lettuce)

So far, this puts me at 1100 calories. I still have 700 calories left for today, plus, I haven't even factored in the exercise I did early this morning as well as the exercise I plan on doing in the day. Aside from this, I had a dilema, my friend invited me to go out and eat with her. She opted for Indian and I was petrified because I just don't know what to order in places like that where the nutritional information is unknown Luckily for me, I came upon an article geared specifically toward the healthiest and most calorie friendly things to order at places like Thai, Indian or French restaurants.

According to the article, it said that it was ok for me to order anything curry based, but to steer clear of creamy curry, coconut milk, anything fried, or high fat lamb and beef dishes. The site where I found the article is awesome. It even has a section that breaksdown fast foods and tells you the best things to order from the menu, and it doesn't always have to be a salad. Like take Taco bell for example, they warn against getting the Taco fiesta salad as it packs in 860 calories per serving!!! But they say that it's ok to have the crunchy taco without cheese because 1 of those only has 130 calories.

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to mention the site or not, but I will because I think its only spreading useful information as opposed to spam. It's called popsugar and can be found at popsugar.com. They have a section called fitsugar and that's the one I clicked on to get the information on the nutritional stuff. I hope this site comes in handy for other people faced with having to eat out but getting caught up in what to order.
 
I just got back from the gym a bit ago and I burned a total of 889.7 calories. This isn't including the 529 calories I burned earlier today at this gym. When I do add them all together, I burned off a total of 1,418.7 calories from exercise alone. I was shocked. I didn't think I had it in me. But I did it and I was so proud of myself.

Another thing is, I got back on the scale today and from what I could discipher from the analog scale my friend lent me, I lost 1lb!!! I'm now 194lbs. It may just be water weight, or I may have been standing weirdly on the scale, heck I may not have lost anything at all, but seeing 194 on the scale had me doing a happy dance. With all of my hard work for today, I can happily go to the Indian restaurant tonight with my friends and not feel guilty.

I'll still be smart when it comes to ordering food, but I won't feel as though every bite I take will be scrutinized. With that, I'll say good night everyone and have a fantastic weekend.
 
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Indian food tonight was tasty. I used the tips I learned from Fitsugar and order a chicken dish. It came out to somewhere around 300 calories and with the Bismanti rich it was a total of 411 calories. I didn't even finish eating all of the foods. To keep me from overeating, I asked for to go boxes and put a third of my in them. Then the remaining food was what I ate for the night. I had lots of water to help me digest the food faster. It was totally guilt free pleasure. I'm off to bed now, I've got a long day ahead of me. Hope you all have a good weekend.
 
Being broke sucks

There are times when having no money comes in really handy, like stopping you from buying those extremely tasty but fat inducing Aunty Anne's pretzels at the mall. But I swear, having about 50 bucks to your name has got to be the pits. The only good thing about it is that it's forced me to get creative with my workouts. Like this morning, I wanted to try jumping rope as a new cardio routine. So I hop online and look for some of the weighted ropes I've read people on this forum talking about. Haha, they were all too expensive. So I decided to make my own jump rope. I got a bunch of bedsheets, rung them around each other and viola, I had constructed my own "broke man's" jump rope. To add some weight to them, I soaked them in water, rung out the excess and started jumping. My walls are a bit wet right now, but I got one heck of a work out. I jumped for about 10 minutes and then decided to pack it in. Hopefully, when I go home for spring break I can convince the parentals to make an investment in my future.

OMG
I just weighed myself and I've lost another 2lbs. Which brings my total weight loss to 3lbs!!! Wow, it's actually working. I couldn't even believe it. I thought I was seeing wrong so I put my glasses on and made sure that what I was looking at was correct. This is so much fun, it's time to update the ticker again.
 
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I wanna take the time to thank everyone that has commented in my diary. The words of encouragement that you've left me have meant a lot to me especially on days that I felt like a failure for having given in to temptation and eaten that slice of pizza. Because of you all, I haven't quit. I finally worked up the nerve to head on over to the harsh truth section of this forum and there are some very knowledgeable people on this site. They've really opened my eyes up about my nutrition and exercise plan. I've learned a great deal especially when it comes to speeding up my weight loss. I've promised them that I'm seriously going to take there advice to heart and I can't wait to start implementing it on Monday. Well enough with this sappiness, here's my meal plan for the day.

Breakfast

2 small pancakes - 60 calories
scrambled eggs - 225 calories
2 cantaloupes - 48 calories
cottage cheese - 100 calories
total: 433

Snack
1 medium green apple - 81 calories

Lunch
Turkey sandwich on wheat bread: 365 calories
- 2 slices turkey : 116 calories
- 1 tomato: 26 calories
- 1 medium leaf of lettuce - 1 calorie
- 10 leaves of spinach - 22 calories
- 2 strips green pepper - 1 calorie
- shreds of mozzarella cheese - 69 calories
- 1 tablespoon honey mustard - 50 calories
- 2 slices whole wheat bread - 80 calories
Homemade chicken noodle soup - 142 calories

Snack
1 caramel rice cake - 80 calories
1.5 cups chocolate soy milk - 121 calories

Water
84oz of water drunk so far

Dinner
Left over Indian food. It's going to be vegetables and glass noodles - roughly 320 calories.
 
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A shopping day (almost) disaster

So tomorrow marks the beginning of a new week. In honor of that I've set up a few mini goals.

1. be more positive about everything in general including my weight
2. get in 6 servings of fruits and vegetables
3. drink 100oz of water everyday
4. run for 20 minutes on the treadmill
5. No cheat day for an entire week
6. conquer the pull up machine

Other than that, I was having a great day until I went shopping today. I hit up the GAP and was looking for some dress pants. When you're tall but don't have extremely long legs, it's tough to find pants that'll fit you correctly. So I went past the curvy section of the store and was looking at the pants there. An assistant came up and asked if she could help me out. I told her I was looking for the curvy fit pants in a size 12. She looked at me and said, these pants wouldn't be for you would they because you're not a size 12. She didn't mean it in an insulting way, but it just came out wrong and it made me feel bad.

I quickly told her, nope they're for a friend. She found them for me, and I just walked around with them for a while. I was wallowing in self pity (hmm this seems to be a recurring pattern) but then I began thinking, eff her (yes I actually said eff and not the other more flavorful word). I shouldn't let what she said ruin my day. So I marched up into the fitting room and tried on the pants. Lo and behold those bad boys fit, and not tightly either :D . Hahaha, in your face store clerk lady; I thought to myself. I gave myself a high 5 went up to the register and walked out with a new pair of size 12 dress pants from the GAP, so much for what the scale has been saying these last couple of days. I'm giving that thing back. It's been the bane of my existence for a while now a veritable Pandora's box. I'm going to rely solely on measurements and maybe weigh in every 2 weeks or so.
 
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Lookin at your pics, you dont look that tall unless your friends are also tall lol.

Keep up the great work! awesome job :D
 
Haha, yeah wishes, I get that a lot. When people see me in pictures, they expect someone shorter and then when I'm actually there in person, they're like "you're a lot taller than I expected."
 
Hey there! Thanks so much for the encouraging comment in my diary the other day. You're right, it is nice to have some fellow university students around on the Forum. Sounds like you're doing very well. Keep up that determined attitude, I'm loving it.
(And you're right... eff that nasty GAP lady indeed!)
 
funkyphantom said:
1. be more positive about everything in general including my weight
2. get in 6 servings of fruits and vegetables
3. drink 100oz of water everyday
4. run for 20 minutes on the treadmill

...She looked at me and said, these pants wouldn't be for you would they because you're not a size 12. She didn't mean it in an insulting way, but it just came out wrong and it made me feel bad.
Click to expand...

Congrats on your progress so far! It's great to have smaller goals; it helps keep you motivated. And putting them here makes you more accountable as well.

People don't think very much about how they talk to us overweight people, that's for sure. My favorite was when I was at a party last year, and a woman walked up to me, rubbed my belly, and said, "Oh, when is it due?" I didn't know whether to punch her or just walk away, and I was completely tongue-tied.

You just have to let that stuff roll off you, even when it hurts.

But now I hope one day I'll meet her in the gym. I'll invite her to do my HIIT routine right along side me. :)
 
Thanks for the encouragement guys...I took a few days off from the diary so as to catch up on some school work. But I'm back. Good news, I've gotten rid of the scale and I couldn't be any happier. That thing was really making me nuts. In more back slapping moments, yesterday was soul food night at my school and they had the works fried chicken, honey ham, honey glazed fried chicken, yams, baked macaroni and cheese, etc. I was sorely tempted, but I just thought "hey do you really wanna take 1 step forward and 100 steps back" so I walked away and made myself a really nice grilled chicken salad. It was high in protein, and tasted awesome if I do say so myself.

Aside from that, I've been sticking to all but 1 of my new goals. My water intake is nowhere near where it should be but I'm going to fix that tomorrow. As for today, eating wise was a bit mundane, the school cafeteria was serving CRAP. I was so hungry and just looked for anything healthy to fill me up. Unfortunately, after calculating my calories for the day through fiitday, I have only eaten 1,282 calories. I guess that's ok. I know that tomorrow will be much better cuz I'm going food shopping so no more hungry days for me.

Breakfast
1 cooked egg - 69 calories
1 bowl crispex cereal w/1% milk - 190 calories

Snack
1 caramel rice cake - 80 calories

Lunch
Spinach and Lettuce salad w/ other veggies, tuna, beans and some cheese - 416
1 cup beef vegetable soup - 70 calories

Snack
1 apple - 58 calories

Dinner
Chicken Sagwala w/basmati rice - 390 calories

Snack
5 pretzels - 57 calories
 
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It seems like a lot of people have problems with trying to eat healthy when they rely on school cafeterias. I think schools should really be more considerate. It's hard enough to take good care of yourself when you're a student, you don't need someone shoving crap food in your face!
However, you're doing EXCELLENT! Way to go on turning down all that fried food and going with the salad. You've got some mad willpower. Keep it up!
 
Boy was today hectic, I just got back from Activism Symposium...it's a conscious raising workshop sponsored by my school that looks to educate students about issues happening outside of the college bubble. It was so informative especially the presentation made on grafitti. I never knew it had so many important uses besides being a form of art and vandalism.

Anyway, I finally updated my ticker today and I've lost a total of 5lbs. I'm now 190lbs. I'm very happy with the progress. I won't be weighing in until 2 weeks from now. So hopefully by that time, I'll be officially in the 180s. Well with all of the running around I've done today, I had to budget a lot of my calories because I knew I was going to be eating some foods that weren't necessarily so healthy for me. Here's how I've done so far:

Breakfast
2 eggs - 130 calories
1 bowl oatmeal w/1% milk - 145 calories

Lunch
1 turkey sandwich - 241 calories (I used hummus as a condiment in place of the honey mustard)

Snack
2 brownie bars - 258 calories (haha, yes I gave in, but aunt FLO is visiting so I gave myself a pass for today only)
1 orange - 45 calories

Looking at it, my total for the day is 898 calories. Still low, but I haven't had dinner yet, we'll see how it goes. I'm going out to dinner tonight with a friend. It's a diner/bar and they don't have many healthy options, but I do know that they make awesome salads so I'll eat that while I'm out.
 
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