weight loss blog – Well-Rounded Ryan

Back in the game

At the start of the new year I made a commitment to myself to stop procrastinating and get my health in order once and for all.

Yeah, I know I’ve said it before. But I’m not going to let that convince me that I can’t do it.

I originally jumped right in with trying to lose weight again, and it was very slow and up and down- only lost about 5 pounds in almost two months. During that time, I did a lot of mental work and reflection about my lifelong battle with eating. I’ve only said this openly to a select few people in my life, but I have finally accepted that this is an addiction. It’s not just lack of motivation or willpower. I am a food addict, and have been for pretty much my entire life. I’ll talk more about what that means in a future post, but the main reason I’m mentioning it here is that it changed the way I think about and approach my weight loss journey.

I really kicked things into gear mid-February and have stuck with an eating plan for just over 6 weeks now. As of today, I’m down 21.2 pounds so far. And I’m feeling very positive and confident about this finally being my time.

I’ve also decided to shift most of my weight loss posts in some other formats rather then a ton of daily/weekly posts here on the blog. Primarily, via a vlog on YouTube. Plus, I have created an Instagram account dedicated to this journey. You can follow me at wellroundedryan there. I’m also doing a sporadic journal over on the DietBet.com website, since I just joined a few there and that is a community more focused on that topic. You can find my profile there, if you care to follow me.

As you know if you’ve read my previous posts, a big part of my personal growth alongside my weight loss is to stop hiding. For so long I’ve avoided posting full body photos, talking about my weight, etc. On top of that, I’m painfully introverted, so it’s hard for me to put myself out there.

Now’s the time to find my voice and be the real me to the rest of the world 🙂 So, on the right you’ll find my brutally honest weigh in photo for the DietBet I’m about to start.

I’ll probably still pop in here from time to time with “rebuilding my body” posts, but it will be more of the big picture vs. the day-to-day nitty gritty of eating and exercise.

Now, back to it.

Week 5 Recap – Small Failures vs. Big Successes

Today marks 5 completed weeks of steady focus on getting healthier. Happily, I saw another 2.8 pounds down on the scale this morning!

This week was one full of ups and downs in my progress. I had a couple of days during the week where I ended up about 250-300 calories short for the day (not really planned, it just happened). Then the weekend hit and we had 3 holiday get-togethers with friends and family in a row on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I did count calories through everything, but ended up being about 300 calories over on those days.

I wish I could say that I planned it that way and carefully rationed calories to allow for a splurge, but that wouldn’t be true. My calories overages on the weekend were not in the plan. I had plenty of calories in the budget for eating dinner and even some small treats, but I impulsively ate more than I planned on those days. In some cases, it was more like late night munching on the holiday treats that are sitting around the house, so I can’t even blame it on being around others and having a good time. I knew the snacks where there and I pretty much binge-ate them.

Also need to be honest about my exercise this week. I had planned on starting a strength training program this past week, but I never did. I thought about it a lot, but never got downstairs for some structured workout time. In addition to that, after giving myself a little rest from all the walking on vacation, I didn’t get back in the habit of wearing my fitness tracker. When that’s not on, the push to get more and more steps falls away.

But, I am going to pause right now. Literally–hang on–be right back.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

OK- back! Got my fitness tracker on and ready to move more today!

On the plus side, I continued to count the calories of what I was eating, which helped me to not get too out of control. Plus, I didn’t use those slip-ups as an excuse to quit altogether or to go off plan for a whole day. That is the real success here–changing the way I react to my own imperfections.

I’m learning that small failures and big successes don’t contradict each other. This journey of weight loss, health, and fitness can (and likely will) be filled with times that I don’t eat perfectly or days when I miss a workout. But, as long as I keep moving forward, I’ll reach my huge goals in spite of the tiny missteps along the way.

I was looking for a picture to illustrate my point and found this–I love it!

So true 🙂 I’m going to print this out right now and post it in my office where I’ll see it all the time.

Another sticky point I’ve been trying to figure out is my weekday vs. weekend routine. During the week I get up, take supplements, drink water, eat properly, etc. I have a routine and a structure that works. On the weekend, I wake up late, go visit with the hubby, relax…and more than likely miss out on completing a good size handfuls of my daily to-dos. That certainly doesn’t help when I already have a harder time staying on plan during the more social weekends.

For now, I am just putting that problem in my awareness to try and think of a solution. I don’t really want to give up the freedom of my weekends, I just want to regain a little bit of control. This weekend is Christmas and the next New Year’s, so it’ll be even more out of whack that usual, but I’ll see what I can come up with!

Other plans for the week?

Get in 1 strength workout
Don’t overdo food intake during Christmas celebrations

Let’s do this!

Weeks 3 & 4 Recap – 10 Days, 61 Miles, & 1 Pound

This will be a short post. Just returned late Monday night from our 10-day Disney World adventure (which was amazing, BTW!) and have so many things to do here before returning to work and prepping for for the holidays.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I knew losing weight was going to be a challenge on vacation. But when I first got back and stood on the scale I wanted to cry because I was up about 5 pounds. However, I also woke up feeling so puffy and swollen, as I tend to retain a lot of water when traveling. So I decided to give it one day to flush out the access water. So yesterday I just went right back to counting calories, staying on plan, and drinking quite a bit of water. Must have gone to the bathroom every 30 minutes! By the end of the day I was feeling much better and WAY less puffy.

Did another weigh-in this morning to find that I went down 6 pounds. Whew! I knew it had to be all water. That’s the number I’m going to stick with for my combined weeks 3-4 post-vacay weigh-in.

The goal was to just lose something while on vacation and dining out every single day, and that’s what I did. I was hoping for a little more since according to my app I walked a whopping 61.09 miles over those 10 days (my poor sore feet!), but it’s all good.

And I really can’t complain. If you’ve ever vacationed in Disney World on the dining plan, you know that everything comes in HUGE portions and dessert with every meal! So, if I can lose a pound eating things like this, I’ll take it:

Giant family style breakfasts..almost every day.

For this coming week? Back to counting calories and also feeling like it’s a good time to start incorporating some weight training. Nothing major, but I am going to put together a basic head-to-toe routine to do 2x a week and get started on that.

Week 2 Recap – Building habits that can survive the Disney Dining Plan!

weektwoweighin Wrapped up my first two weeks of staying on track to get fit and healthy. Weighed in this morning to be down 2.6 pounds, for a total of 9.8 so far.

I know it’s the beginning and just a couple of pounds, but I am not going to undercut any successes. I’m thrilled to say that I stuck within my calorie counts every day this week. Yes- even on Thanksgiving! I planned out my day in advance to plan what I could eat that day. It meant having way smaller meals earlier in the day followed by a big dinner with family, but that’s just fine with me. I did end up making a few small tweaks from the plan, but still in under the calorie cap.

One thing I am noticing already is that my appetite and cravings have gone WAY down even after just two weeks. There have been a few times that I took something to eat (within my limits) and then ended up either not finishing it or not eating it at all because when I actually went to eat it I realized I didn’t really want it. Love that listening to my body is helping to stop eating out of habit instead of for nourishment.

This week has also marked the beginning of moving more. I didn’t go ahead and jump right into a hardcore working program, but rather started fitting in some movement to my normally sedentary day.

How sedentary? I work from my home office for 60+ hours a week. That’s a lot of sitting time. I do take breaks often to do chores around the house, but still the majority of my day is spent in my office chair. So this week I took my under-desk cycle out of retirement and put it back where I can use it. I’ve been pedaling away during work meetings and for short breaks throughout the day.

Here’s the cycle I’m using–the DeskCycle. I did a lot of looking for something like this last year after I hurt my knee and needed something cheap and low impact to replace the cardio I was doing then. It’s really low profile so you can easily pedal while sitting at your desk without hitting your knees. It’s also super quiet. There is a display to keep track of time, distance, speed, etc. if you want. (I actually just clip my Up Move fitness tracker on my foot and track the activity that way.)

Results? I went from an average of about 1500-2000 steps a day while stuck in the house all the way up to 6500-7000 “steps.” That’s a big improvement! Right now I am working it at resistance level 2 and plan on upping that slowly over time. Eventually I’m hoping to get in a full 10K+ “steps” at at least 5-7 resistance every single day…PLUS regular strength training and other formal exercise.

This type of cycle is also great because I can move it wherever. It’s usually been under my desk, but I took it into the family room so I could pedal while I binge-watched “Search Party” this weekend. Felt so much less guilt since I kept moving instead of vegging out on the couch.

Now onto the plan for next week…

maxresdefault — Gearing up for lots of walking at the most magical place on Earth.

Things are going to be a little different. I am heading from chilly Chicago to sunny Orlando on Saturday for 10 days of Disney Holiday Magic, so my routine will be going kaput. We will be eating a all WDW restaurants and snack booths since we have the Disney Dining Plan covering all our meals. Disney doesn’t offer nutritional information on their food, so I am going to have to do some guesswork. Thankfully as a serial dieter I can usually get pretty close to what things weigh in at. The plan isn’t to strictly track while I am there, but rather to just eat mindfully, enjoy small tastes rather than huge binges, and only splurge on occasion. Movement won’t be a problem since we’ll be walking, walking, walking!

I’ll be missing my weigh-in next Tuesday, so instead I’ll do it the week after for 2 weeks combined.

The official plan for Disney is easy: Lose weight.

Basically as long as I go on vacation and come back weighing less than when I left, I’ll consider it a success–whether it’s a single pound or five pounds.

(hoping to squeeze in a blog post or two while I am away as well, but I know it’ll be tricky.)

Be back with an update in 2 weeks on 12/13!

Week One Recap – Retraining My Brain

weekoneweighin It’s been one week since I committed to a long term lifestyle overhaul to get my body back, and it’s been good.

This morning I had my first official weekly weigh-in and lost 7.2 pounds. Not bad at all.

Here’s what I’ve been doing:

Logging all food intake in the Lose-It app
Keeping calorie intake as close as possible to the daily calorie allotment that the app suggests–2201 per day (more on this later)
Wearing my Jawbone Up Move fitness tracker and keep track of steps/movement
Making a conscious effort to drink more water

That it for this week. It’s all about baby steps and consistency this time around.

The Lose It! app is the best calories tracking program I've used. — The Lose It! app is the best calories tracking program I’ve used.

When I saw that Lose-It wanted me to eat 2201 calories a day, it was a big mental hurdle to get around. That is much higher than I normally would have started with on a diet plan. But, as I outlined in my earlier post, the point is to do this at a steady, slow pace by making gradual change instead of dramatically changing everything and risking my body fighting it and myself quitting in frustration.

So I trusted it. In the end, I was just 127 calories short for the whole week. And I lost some weight! 🙂

I did go over on Friday evening. It was my birthday and the hubby and I went out for tapas and we totally indulged. But, didn’t freak out–I just cut back a little the next couple of days to balance it all out. I am relieved to see that it all worked out.

The big test will be to see if the losses keep up over the next 6 weeks or so. In the past, after weeks 1-3, my weight loss tends to stall. I am hoping that the problem in the past was that I was cutting to severely that my body was slowing down my metabolism in response. Eating a higher calorie amount to start and lowering that figure as my weight goes down should help prevent that from happening. It’s uncharted territory for me–the idea that eating more can actually help me have success.

I am feeling optimistic!