Review and Resolution

Thank you everyone for continuing to check in and comment on my blog despite my MIA status. Sorry about that. I have been out of town since the day after Christmas with full intention of blogging, but never doing it. I’ve also been home since the 3rd and haven’t gotten myself to blog until today. But today is the end of my silence and hopefully you’ll be hearing me more frequently this coming year, because that so happens to be one of my weight loss resolutions: to post at least once a week. But before I get to that, I would like to review 2007 year of weight loss.

I started off that year after what I termed as “The Quarter from Hell”. Even with a month off, I was in a pessimistic, depressive slump. During that whole quarter, I promised that I would get back on the exercise/diet wagon with full vigor as soon as vacation hit, but that didn’t happen. It was more of a small crawl. Making my new year’s resolution for last year just felt like routine and I had no optimism in the process. Luckily, the quarter that followed was a more manageable load. I was able to put attention to my weight loss and actually saw it as a welcome break from school work and internship. I joined SparksPeople and was able to successfully log in my food intake for which was quite a feat, considering the year before this was something I struggled at. As I predicted, weight loss became much easier after I started recording, and I lose the weight in an almost predictable manner. However, I struggled with the whole recording process. I had difficulty gauging the calories I was consuming and obsessed over what I ate. I felt guilty for going over the recommended range of weight loss, and I didn’t like feeling guilty. During the middle of the year, I worked on letting go of the guilt with the help of intuitive eating. I continued to record but I used the numbers instead as something to reflect on. However, a drawback of letting go of guilt has been my abandonment with sweets and chocolate. Especially chocolate. Before, I was eating chocolate in moderation, but come Halloween, all of that went out the window. A part was also because of winter blues. My numbers were off the roof, and I became indifferent to them. Come December, I became tired of recording food intake and decided to take a break. It seemed pointless since seeing the outrageous amount of calories I consumed per day did not discourage me from over eating.

For the year I lost around 30 pounds! 50 pounds since my highest. And I must admit. Life without the weight is so much sweeter. I feel prettier and confident, and Ly and I are having more sex. Despite my recent spiral into over-indulgence, I conclude that this has been a successful year of weight loss. Things that I did well this year was to maintain regular exercise, record food intake, weigh-in regularly, and blog.

Things I would like to work on for this year is to control over-indulging and to stretch everyday and of course to maintain the good habits I have obtained so far. My goal for this year would be to reach my target weight and maintain.

This year feels much more optimistic than last year, but this year weight loss is not my number one resolution. There is also the trouble of finding work, which would take priority. Seeing how weight loss fits in the coming year will be interesting.

Body Fat Percentage

I had my body fat checked yesterday, and something seemed strange.

Here is all the body fat percentage I have measured with the weight I had weighed at the moment.

5-22-07 35%, 132 lbs
7-16-07 32% (-3%), 126 lbs (-6lbs)
9-3-07 30% (-2%), 120.2 lbs (-6.2lbs)
10-18-07 28% (-2%), 120.9 lbs (-0.7lbs)

I had assumed going in that there wouldn’t be a change, since I had only lost 0.7 lbs from last time. So I was surprised when the trainer said that I lost 2%. That’s exactly the same amount I lost when I had lost 6.2 lbs. This seemed odd to me. How can I be gaining the amount muscle mass the numbers are saying I’m gaining at this time when my workout has been cut back?

I’m really bad with math, but maybe it has something to do with the fact that I’m at a lighter weight. Maybe body fat percentages decreases at a faster rate the lighter you are?

Another reason could be because of the measurers. The trainer said that each trainer has a different way of measuring, causing some inaccuracies. This might be the case. Each measurement had been with a different trainer. I’ll see if I can get the same trainer next time.

The trainer this time asked what my goal was. Each time a trainer asked me this, I felt uncomfortable. The truth of the matter was, I’m not really invested in my body fat percentage goal. There are too many different schools regarding how to interpret the results. I’m relying more on my BMI to set my goals, since the interpretation of those are more clear-cut. If I don’t reach my body fat percentage goal by the time I reach my weight goal, I wouldn’t mind. Additionally having both of these goals have been too confusing for me, so I decided to drop the former. I’ll still have my body fat percentage measured, but only for the purpose of gauging progress.

Edit/Update:
I was reading this post and I realized that I had made a mistake. I had actually gained (not lost) 0.7 lbs. This actually makes the 2% loss even more of an oddity.

Marshmallow - You made a really good point. I think I will need to re-think my goals.

Mad Dash

Today I weighed in at 116 lbs. That’s three pounds lost and a whole inch off from last week. Talk about a mad dash to the finish line, although what I’ve been doing to achieve this incredible loss hardly seem anything like a “mad dash” or any sort of movement at all. I’ve had strep throat. Eating had been a struggle, since everything tasted and felt like rusted nails. It’s getting better, but this is where I should be careful. Not only in overdoing with the food, but in getting back into exercise. I will most likely gain some pounds back, but I don’t want to backtrack too much. On the flip side, certain family members are definitely voicing their concern regarding my weight loss. I understand, but I’m also starting to get annoyed.

On other news, while I was sick I was also out of Internet Land and unbeknownst to me, Crabby had posted my guest post. I can’t believe all of the positive comments I received! I just wished I was cognisant at the moment, I could have responded in kind. It was a how-to regarding procrastination. Much different than anything I’ve ever posted before, but I thought it came out okay.

Acceptable Overweight

It could be a fluke. Most likely it is. After being 123 for a little over a month, my weight dipped down to 120! I’ve been 123 for so long, I had already accepted that weight as MY weight and was happy if I never lost another pound. To see a different number was quite exciting. It felt like I was going somewhere, accomplishing something.

I know that next week it will probably be 121 or even 122, but for now, it looks like I only have 5lbs until I reach my goal weight and that’s such a ridiculously low number. It’ll probably take me 4 months to lose, but it’s such a little number it matters very little I lose it any time soon.

I also had my body fat percentage measured, and I’m glad to say that according to the American Council on Exercise, I have left the “unhealthy” category and barely entered the category of “acceptable”. I’m happy with "acceptable". However, according to the American Dietetics Association, I’m still “overweight”. Ideally, I would like to lose 5% more, but for now I’m quite happy with my “acceptable overweight” status.

Body Fat Percentage

If you pay attention to my sidebar, you would have noticed that my body fat percentage has increased. And you maybe asking yourself, “How the heck did this girl manage to gain fat as she loses weight?” Well I’ll tell you. It’s because I did the first measurement. When I bought my heart rate monitor it came with a caliper to measure body fat. It promised to be as accurate as a professional, but it was just more misleading information to sell monitors. (It was the instructions of this same monitor that lead me to believe that the fat burning zone was the most effective zone for weight loss. How can the purchase of one object create so much confusion!)

On Tuesday, I went to the gym to have the head trainer measure my fat percentage. I would have had it done last month, but I got side tracked. Last month, when I came up to the head trainer, he advised me to schedule the two free personal training sessions that came with my membership, which included a body fat percentage test among other assessments. I thought, “Why not?” So I scheduled one to only cancel it until this month because I was inundated with school stuff. Well on Monday I telephoned the head trainer to schedule one, and he asked me for my reasons. I told him to measure my body fat and curiosity regarding the other assessments that he had talked about when we first met. He asked me if I was interested in personal training. I said no, so he advised me to instead drop in the next day so that he can measure my body fat. I agreed to it. I figured it wouldn’t be fair to waste their time if I wasn’t looking to buy. Also I don’t want there to be some weird awkwardness between us, when I ask him to measure my body fat every 6 weeks. Well the next day I came in and waved at him as if we were old friends, and he looked at me blankly. I asked him to measure my body fat, reminding him of our telephone conversation. Then he advised me to schedule the free personal training sessions instead. Am I in the Twilight Zone? Am I stuck in some kind of loop? I reminded him more of our telephone conversation and our first meeting. His expression was one of blankness and surprise?, but he agreed to measure my body fat. And he did an excellent job. I’m definitely going to come back to him in a month and a half. He’ll probably tell me to do the free sessions again and I will probably have to remind him that we already did this song and dance. But I like this relationship. And I like this funny guy with the short-term memory.