This Time Imperfect.

I weighed at 75.4 Kg today. Yesterday I was at 75.0 Kg, so that's a little disappointing, but not a major concern. I went to 77.1 after cheating (It was 3 days of eating awfully) but I'm back at my usual diet now.

Haven't added any cardio but I'm trying to do some resistance training every other day. I can't really do much at this point and get burnt out pretty quick, so I'll have to progress slowly from here.

I have a couple of ideas as to what to do next with my diet but I'm unsure on what to choose. I stayed on VLC for a while and then I went to ZC (I know, I know) for the last couple weeks. I wouldn't say I feel exceptionally well (by this I mean nothing out of the usual), but I haven't felt bad or sick.

One of the things I might do in the near future is to stop weighing for a while. I can do without the constant expectation / disappointment and a bad weight-in can be enough to deviate me for a while (This being the case for my last 'cheat').

On a more positive note; I can fit on most M-sized clothing pretty well now! Most of my pants are too big now as well. There are a few that are a bit baggy but still fit me and only 1 that actually fits me properly (The smallest one I've had for a LONG time! I bought this one on 2011 expecting to lose weight and being able to use it [Even then it was pretty small for me], so I literally waited for YEARS!)
:biggrinjester:

**Edit: Just something I forgot; When I say 'VLC' it means Very Low Carb, not Very Low Calorie. ZC stands for Zero Carb.**
 
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Athala, what is your BMI? If you are fitting into size M & weigh about 75kg perhaps you are at about your right weight. Concentrating on being fit & healthy might be more appropriate, especially at your age, rather than worrying about losing weight. It's nice having you back here by the way, xo Cate.
 
Hey Cate! Thanks for stopping by.

My BMI with my weight on Sunday is 26.00 and with my lowest would be 25.70. I really don't mind my weight, but there is still a fair amount of fat I'd like to get rid of. Maybe changing body composition a bit as well.

I'd like to reach a low body fat since I'd say I'm not really 'Comfortable on my own skin'. I'm still around 22 % body fat (may vary a bit, since scales aren't really accurate), and not really happy with that.

--

I haven't weighed again , but I'll be weighing on Friday just to see where I'm at (I've had pretty bad days regarding food) and then I'll switch to only once a month. I'll take measures as well.

I think I will go back to counting calories and weighing food, etc. I've tried eating to hunger but it really doesn't work for me. Still managed to lose some weight doing this, but I'm always left wondering whether I eat too much or too little, and then if I lost weight questioning if I actually made any progress, etc.
 
Wow mediums! I didn't know you were so slim. Nothing wrong with wanting to lose fat so long is you end up at a healthy weight, but focusing on fitness/strength might be the better way to go if you are already a healthy weight. I agree with Cate on that and on it being nice to see you around.
 
Hi Quercus!

I'm planning to focus more on strength and fitness on the future. I haven't done it so far since the caloric deficit would make my efforts to build muscle futile, I think.

But once I'm happy with my body fat I will definitely try to build some muscle as well! I just want to lose the rest of the fat first so I don't have to go into the bulk / cut cycle.

Thanks for stopping by!

--

Had one extra bad day after my last post, so I will change my weight day to Sunday so I can do some damage control. I hate when I sabotage myself!

I think I will keep a mini-log from now on.

Tuesday 22;
I can't even remember but it was awful!
Weight: ---
-

Wednesday 23;
Fasting day.
Weight: ---
-

Thursday 24;
4g of carbs | 78g of protein | 40g of fat. Eaten within a 4 hour window. Equals to (around) 700 calories.
Weight: ---
-

Depending on how I feel tomorrow, I'll either fast or I'll do a higher calorie day. Right now it's pretty low on calories, since I need to compensate for a lot of bad days, but after Sunday I'll probably up the number a bit.
 
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Great idea the Yoga. I do relaxation therapy, mainly creative visualization. I've been using it to relax for about 30 years. Not all the time i must admit but it has helped me no end
 
Hi Athala!

Thank you for the lovely message you left on my diary, it was nice to hear from you! And Wow! sounds like you have done an amazing job losing weight. Well done! :hurray:
 
Thanks for stopping by Dumpy and Jade!

Sadly I stopped doing yoga (and pretty much exercising altogether) a while ago but I'm considering taking it again in the future. It's one of the few (Physical) activities that I really enjoyed.

I'm not quite sure what can I do at the moment, though. I had some issues with my back on the last couple months so I'm a bit limited at the moment.

--

I tried fasting yesterday, and managed to do it till around 9 Pm, at which point I was annoyingly hungry and had to eat a bit.

Friday 25:
7g of Carbs | 71g of Protein | 59g of Fat. Eaten within 1 hour. Equals to (Approx) 840 calories.
Weight: ---
-

Saturday 26: I'm doing slightly higher calories today.
10g of Carbs | 96g of Protein | 93g of Fat. Eaten within a 4 hour window. Equals to (Approx) 1270 calories.
Weight: ---
-
 
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So my weight day is here and I'm at 74.5 Kg. I think it is rather disappointing, specially since I'm trying really hard this time, but I guess I'll have to take it.

On the other hand, I'm glad I didn't weight myself on Friday. I probably wouldn't have been very happy.

Cate said:
Athala, what is your BMI? If you are fitting into size M & weigh about 75kg perhaps you are at about your right weight. Concentrating on being fit & healthy might be more appropriate, especially at your age, rather than worrying about losing weight. It's nice having you back here by the way, xo Cate.
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Quercus said:
Wow mediums! I didn't know you were so slim. Nothing wrong with wanting to lose fat so long is you end up at a healthy weight, but focusing on fitness/strength might be the better way to go if you are already a healthy weight. I agree with Cate on that and on it being nice to see you around.
Click to expand...

So even though I dismissed it earlier, after giving it some more thought, I SHOULD probably focus on changing body composition and fitness in general. Or at least give it a try before I go into a very low calorie diet/Zero carb diet.

Right now what I need to do is;
1) Become more active.
2) Add resistance training and do it consistently.
3) Keep a SLIGHT caloric deficit just enough to slowly lose weight and (hopefully) build some muscle. (This being very debatable; some people say it's impossible, others don't, but I've got nothing to lose and would probably benefit for a few weeks eating close to maintenance anyways)

So that's what I will be doing for the near future at least.
 
So after all the aggressive dieting and carb restriction I had done, I decided to do a little diet break before I went into yet another diet. So this lasted about 11 days.

I was supposed to eat 2000 calories / day (which is more or less my maintenance) distributed in;
150g of carbs
140g of protein.
93g of fat.

I did had some pretty disastrous days on which I ate whatever, but now I'm ready to get started again.


I'm following this program (I'm on day 2!) so I did the following for today; http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/ashley-conrad-21-day-clutch-cut-day-2.html

I really barely finished the cardio session. I was supposed to do 60 secs of walking > 30 secs of jogging and > 60 secs of all-out sprinting (I substituted this one with jump squats and > jumping jacks once I couldn't do any more squats). Repeat x 10.

I actually got the numbers wrong so I ended doing 30 seconds of each. However I was totally wrecked by the end of it so I'm unsure of how .t would have gone with 60 secs. Had to skip the core circuit and only made it to the second stretch session before having to stop but I'm still pretty happy with it. Hopefully I'll get better at it as time passes by.

--

Today I'm turning 17 and I'm in a much better place than I was a year ago. One year passed rather fast and I still get the feeling I could've made a lot more progress, but at least I did something to improve my situation. My only regret is not have started losing weight before, and having to grow up as the obese kid.

It really isn't something I want to repeat. I never want to be on that place again. No amount of food is worth feeling that way and I wish I would have seen that before turning to food for comfort.

This time I'm determined and even if I have a few set-backs I will never let myself go the way I did again.
 
So far so good. Haven't had any cravings or desire for junk food. I passed on the cake and other goodies and I'm trying to follow the program* to the best of my ability. I'm pretty determined and motivated this time around, so no screwing things up this time!

*Just for reference, this is the program I'm following; http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/ashley-conrads-21-day-clutch-cut.html


At the moment I'm eating 1g of carbs and protein per pound and bodyweight and 0.5g fat / pound, so that accounts for;
170g protein = 680.
170g carbs = 680.
85g of fat = 765.

Total of 2125 Kcal.

Yesterday was my fifth day on this , and a cardio day ( http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/ashley-conrad-21-day-clutch-cut-day-5.html), so besides the warm-up and stretching, I managed to finish 8 intervals of 60 secs low intensity > 30 secs moderate - high intensity and > 60 secs of max intensity. I aaaalmost made it to 9, but lost the mental battle at that point so stopped there.

I got about 1/3rd of today done, but wasn't really in the mood so I stopped at that point. Tomorrow is my rest day so I'm going to take that and try to be as ready as possible for Thursday workout.

Right now the hardest part is just maintaining the proper mindset while working out. So, keep going until my body is the one to tell me I cannot continue, not my mind. That is really the hardest part and what I need to work at the moment.
 
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That sounds intense! Rest is a crucial part of it for sure, especially if you are really pushing yourself.

Keep it going! You got this. :smash:
 
I can see that you are following the BB.com dietary advice, but the Clutch website goes into a bit more general information and I thought you might be interested.



I'd say that I don't know about the lemon water part (couldn't hurt) and you can ignore every "Clutch Product" entry, but otherwise it is very sound dietary advice. I don't normally eat meat, but when I do it's wild and organic (killed or caught by me). I have cheated a handful of times this year with restaurant meat, but I need to stop that. The caffeine one is my next big target.

Have you been doing the lemon water?

I also wanted to say that you have come leaps and bonds while you've been here. Congratulations on all of your success and enjoy this new phase.
 
Belated Happy Birthday Athala. I loved your birthday post & love your positive attitude, xo Cate
 
Thanks Quercus! I wasn't aware of that website. :)

I am drinking the gallon of water a day and I add the lemons whenever I can. As far as the diet goes, I'm not eating anything refined and I've eliminated artificial stuff and stopped drinking coffee (I'll still have some black tea occasionally, but otherwise I'm clean). I don't eat grains or oils, so the bulk of the carbs come from starchy vegetables or fruits. The fat is mostly from whatever is on meat / eggs and the rest avocado.

The one thing I did add was some whey protein, mostly for convenience and for not having to eat so much meat to get to 170g protein. Otherwise I'm not supplementing anything. I'd eat organic meat but I don't really have much control over the food on this house and since it's family who has to pay for my food I have to stick with the regular, grain-fed stuff, at least for now.

I also wanted to say that you have come leaps and bonds while you've been here. Congratulations on all of your success and enjoy this new phase.
Click to expand...

Thanks! :grouphug: :)

--

Edit:

Belated Happy Birthday Athala. I loved your birthday post & love your positive attitude, xo Cate
Click to expand...

Thanks Cate! :)
 
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Today's workout is done. Lift day: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/ashley-conrad-21-day-clutch-cut-day-1.html. Since I don't have any weights (or any equipment for that matter) I've been replacing the strength circuit with the following video;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCCYBNlzUcg

I still do the warm-up, stretches and cardio. It probably isn't the best replacement, but it's the best I can do for now. Otherwise I would have to replace each one of those exercises with bodyweight ones, and since I have no experience with training,I rather just follow an already existing program. Haven't searched around much but I could possibly find more alternatives if I do.

--

So it's the end of week one. I'm still yet to finish the HIIT circuit on cardio days (Almost there though!) and I'm yet to even touch the core circuit, so what I'm doing is I'm going to repeat week one (thus the above link to 'day one') until I finish 7 days the way I'm supposed to.

The lift days remain the same through the 3 weeks, but the cardio gets a lot harder and by week 3 is similar to tabata training, so I'll need to slow down a bit if I want to make it.

Tomorrow is my weight day, so we'll see if there have been any changes. It's gonna be a policy of mine that if my weight doesn't change in a week, I'm going to wait 2 more weeks (so a total of 3) before making any changes to diet. I did see a visual change so I'm not really concerned.

My back is really starting to feel a lot better now. After dropping exercise for so long I couldn't do much and doing push-ups and such would hurt me, but I can do them fine now. The one thing I cannot do is remain too much time seated or it will start bothering me a bit, but otherwise it feels a lot better.
 
Had a really crappy night. I had enough time to get +7 hours of sleep, but I was waking up every few minutes and turning around a lot as well, so I didn't exactly get much rest.

Still, today's workout is done. Same cardio as other days; http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/ashley-conrad-21-day-clutch-cut-day-2.html. Wasted a lot of time convincing myself to do the workout, but got it done, nonetheless.

Today I did finish the 10 intervals. Wanted to make it harder so for the high-intensity cardio of the first 3 intervals, I did squat jumps instead of jumping jacks (Which I usually do). I had done squats jumps on 30 secs intervals (and even then, I can only do a couple secs and have to switch to other exercise to finish), but never 60, so by the end of the third interval my legs were already destroyed and I had to stop. I took a rather prolonged rest, but later finished another 7 intervals with only jumping jacks.

Didn't make it to the core circuit yet. Tomorrow is a rest day again so that'll be appreciated. I saw a Pilates video I want to try so I'll give that a shot tomorrow. I got a jump rope the other day but I'm still on the process of learning how to use it. Once I do it's gonna be a lot of fun!

So today was my weight day, and here are the comparisons;

Friday, May 9Friday, May 16.
Weight77.2 Kg76.5 Kg
Body fat (according to scale*)25 - 26 %23.4 - 23.6 %
Hip measure37"37.5"
Stomach measure38.5"38.5"
Waist measure34"34.5"


I dropped a bit of weight and, according to the scale, some body fat as well. I must say I'm doubting my measures a bit, since I've never taken them before and I wasn't exactly careful. As far as the mirror goes I did notice a difference compared to last week. No difference with clothing yet and if there is any it's too small to notice.

I'm not expecting to lose weight that fast anymore so 1 pound (0.4 - 0.5 Kg) a week is enough for me. I'm pretty eager to continue this and so far I'm feeling pretty well.
 
So my performance the last 3 days (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and; Lift day - Cardio day- Lift day, respectively) wasn't very good at all. Sunday I wasn't motivated and really didn't put much effort so I didn't finish my workout. Monday I did 5 cardio intervals but for some reason my head started to hurt so I had to stop. Did two more intervals later that day but head was hurting so left it there. I took Tuesday off voluntarily.

Had a cheat meal on Tuesday, but instead of panicking and/or binging I limited myself to only 1 plate and 1 glass of soda. I did went over my calories with the cheat meal, but the damage shouldn't be that big.

Today was a rest day but I did 40 min (2 sessions of 20) of low-impact steady-state cardio and a pilates video I wanted to try. Tried doing intervals again but my body doesn't seem to cooperate. :confused:

Now, this is really annoying... It couldn't be dehydration since today I had +4 liters of water and I still got a headache when I tried to do the intervals. Maybe I'm just not breathing properly? which would be weird since I had been doing this for a while and didn't have a problem till Monday.

In any case, I'm going to switch my weight day to Thursday instead of Friday. I screwed up this week so hopefully my weight tomorrow won't be bad.

I would have to do cardio again on Friday, so if I still get headaches, I would have to switch to something else. I can do steady-state and even higher intensity cardio just fine, but for the moment I don't seem to be able to do HIIT or intervals properly.
 
I'm kinda sleepy right now to make detailed post but things are going fine so far.

I've been trying to make the 40 (or 60 also) min of low-impact steady-state cardio an staple, so I've been doing that + training the last 3 days.
As far as I know the headaches could be for a lack of sodium, too, so on Thursday I made sure to get plenty of salt (You gotta do what you gotta do) and on Friday I did complete my interval cardio without problem.

Weight has been all over the place (possibly because of sodium and such), I weighed Thursday, Friday and Saturday and got 3 pretty different measures (78.1 Kg > 77.6 and > 78.x, respectively).

I appreciate my experiences with this program, but I think I'm going to switch to my own program (I'll post the details later!) for a bit more flexibility on my diet and a training schedule a bit more doable for my level...
:biggrinjester:

Weight-in and measurements were kinda crappy this week but it isn't a big deal. I'm not discouraged by it. Yet another reason to keep going. :)
 
So right now I'm in the process of determining caloric needs and macros.

Using TDEE calculator I get about 2390 - 2400 for maintenance. This is just for reference since I'm going to use weight to estimate calories.

So using 14 cal * pound of bodyweight (I'm using my weight of Friday, May 16 here = 168 lbs) I get 2350, which seems about right. Maintenance calories for (active) males is on the 14-to-16-cal-per-pound range, so I'm using the more conservative value here.

--- Just in case you're wondering where I'm getting these numbers; ---

So what I'm going to do is a cut at 12 Kcal * pound for what's left of this and the 2 following weeks (after that I'll make any needed adjustments and then wait another 2 weeks and evaluate). This ends up at 2015 Kcal / Day. I don't quite know what my actual weight is, so I'll be weighing on the following days to see where I'm at.

I'm gonna use the following macros;

145g of Protein = 580 Kcal.
200g of Carbs = 800 Kcal.
70g of Fat = 630 Kcal.

Total of 2010 Kcal.

This is just my first draft, and since no plan ever survives contact with the enemy, I will probably have to make a few adjustments along the way. After my weight stabilizes, I'm going to adjust the total calories to try reach my desired weight loss (0.5 Kg or 1.1 pounds / week).
 
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