Week 23 Weigh-in (and a FAQ)

I used to absolutely dread my Wednesday Weigh-ins, which is part of the reason I stopped doing them for a couple of years. But now that I've gotten so consistent with my eating, I don't dread Wednesday mornings at all. Even seeing a gain (a normal fluctuation) doesn't bother me, because I know that I am being consistent with my eating habits.

And, I have to say, seeing the 120's has been awesome! Today's weigh-in:

I was at 128, which is the same as last week. Another week of maintenance success :)

This week, my average daily calorie intake was 1,831. As far as my long-term goals:

7K steps 6+ days per week: I only managed five days this week. The weather turned, and it has been such a BITTER cold this week. I'm not making excuses, though--I just really didn't want to go for a walk in the cold on my rest days!

Stay binge-free: Success! Today is day 169 of my binge-free streak. I love love love feeling in control over food again. My longest streak ever was 365 days, so I'm going to try and beat that.

Try one new recipe each week: I actually made two new recipes this week. The first was Shrimp Scampi Pasta, and unfortunately, nobody in the family liked it. Normally, I love shrimp scampi (and of course I love pasta); but this one was VERY lemony, and that's what we agreed we didn't like about it. (I'm a lemon fan for sure, but not so much in the shrimp scampi)

The second recipe I tried was for Apple Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal. We had this for dinner yesterday, and it was delicious!

I thought my kids would complain the entire time about eating oatmeal (especially for dinner), but they actually really liked it. Eli even had seconds. The only change I would make to this recipe is to cut the amount of salt in half. It tasted pretty salty to me (and I happen to love salt!). But I would definitely make this again (Eli has requested that we eat it often, haha).

So, over all, I did pretty well on my goals this week (two out of three, anyway):

(This app is called Momentum)

My 10K training went pretty well this week, too, except for yesterday's run. I was doing my 5 x 4:00 intervals, and got a severe abdominal muscle spasm--I really wish I knew what was causing these! I couldn't run (it hurt to even walk), so I hobbled home. I only made it through two and a half of the intervals. I was bummed, because I was doing really great with my speed (7:32, 7:35, 7:06). These ab spasms are new to me, just occurring since October. They don't happen all the time, but when they do, it's usually during a hard workout (intervals or tempo). I've been reading what I can find about it, so I'm going to start noting when they happen and see if I can find a pattern as to what is causing them.

Anyway, my runs for this week:

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I've answered this question before, but I am still getting several emails a day asking the same question--so I'm going to post it here, too.

FAQ: How did you determine the number of calories you eat per day?

Answer: I didn't. I never set a goal for the amount of calories I would eat--I just started logging my food, eating three meals and one "treat" a day, and it ended up working out to being about 1500-1600 per day. That was enough to keep me from being hungry and to fuel my runs, but also able to lose weight. When logging my food, I just wanted the total calories to be "reasonable"--but I didn't (and still don't) aim for a particular number or range.

I think the best way to find out how many calories to eat is to experiment! Pick a number, and try it for a week--if you lose weight and feel good, awesome. If not, try a different number. When I first started counting calories, I had no idea how many would work for me. I knew I wanted to be able to eat as much as possible, but still lose weight. So, I just started eating what felt like a "normal" amount of food, and it worked out to be around 1500-1600 calories on average. In maintenance, I've been eating more than that, but I've still lost another five pounds.

The way I've lost the weight is truly as simple as it could possibly get--counting calories. I don't look at the macronutrients (fat, carbs, protein), or anything else. I wanted to go back to the basics and keep it as simple as possible. So, I just eat whatever I want, and I log the calories for it, trying to keep it "reasonable". I wrote a FAQ post about the calorie counting, which you can find here, so that answers more questions.

The bottom line is, with any sort of weight loss, to experiment and see what works best for YOU :)