Wednesday Stuff

Today: 259.2, 0.4 down since yesterday.

Ate 1610 calories, which included a fudge fancy cookie at lunch and a glass of wine at dinner.  Fudge Fancies are a BIG weakness for me.  Almost every day for the past few years, I've gone to the on site cafeteria mid-morning and gotten a cookie and a Diet Coke.  (I go to get a Diet Coke, but then can't resist the cookie.) Dinner was leftover chicken in spicy simmer sauce and rice.

It's neat how MyFitnessPal (MFP) adds the exercise calories to my calorie allowance.  For my height and weight, MFP says I can eat 1670 cals per day to lose 1.5 pounds a week.  After I decided that I want to get into that velvet jacket in January, I changed the goal to lose 2 pounds per week which allows me 1370 cals per day.  I'll see if I can hang with that lower limit and not feel too restricted.  This is not a diet for me - this is the way I'll have to eat for the rest of my life.  When (see, I said WHEN, not IF!) I lose weight, my BMR is going to go down, so I'll never be able to go back to eating lots of pasta with sauce or McDonalds breakfast multiple days a week.

I'm addicted to Diet Coke.  It's not the caffeine.  I have 3 teabags worth of black tea every morning, which is plenty of caffeine.  Nonetheless, if I don't have any Diet Coke, I get a headache by mid-afternoon.  Lately though, after a 20-ounce bottle (which is all they sell), I get a headache of a different type.  For this week's experiment, I got some 12-ounce bottles at the grocery store and brought them to work.  I can chill one per day - meaning less DC, plus keeping me out of the work cafeteria and away from the cookies!

Weight has been a major thing with me for SO many years.  I've spent SO much time thinking about it, researching it, feeling bad about it, etc, etc, etc, that I've got a bunch of blog topics lined up in my head.  My friends and family don't want to hear my ramblings about this, so this blog is my first opportunity to spill all the details in my head.  I'm going to take full advantage of that! 

Today's topic: what's my goal weight (evolving to my weight history)?

To get my BMI out of the overweight range, I should be 169, which I haven't been since I was about 26, 20 years ago (I'm 45 now).
To get my BMI out of the obese range, I should be less than 203, which I blew through in my late 20s and briefly got back to in 2000.

When I moved to South Carolina in 2000, I was about 226.  I got down to roughly 200, but then started a relationship and making and eating dinner was a shared activity.  Since Nelson weighed about 135 pounds soaking wet, we ate lots of good food.  I think I was about 250 when I left Nelson and South Carolina to move to Washington DC.  I had a great time making friends there, and lost to 235 (just by having a full life and not eating as much) and then 225 (trip to Mexico and being sick) before gaining it all back (working too hard and other emotional stuff).  I left DC in 2007 for a job overseas with a LOT of travel and gained to 265 or so.  Then I quit that job, settled in upstate NY on a homestead and a huge commute and gained to 276, my highest weight about a year ago. (I had 2 goats, 5 chickens, 2 dogs and 2 cats!)  A dog killed the goats, a coyote killed a cat, I gave away the chickens and moved closer to work.

The easier commute and living closer to the rest of the world made it easier to eat better (when it's 1/2 hour one way to the grocery store and 45 minutes to the city, I did none of either when I was at home).  Without trying too hard, other than being semi-careful about what I eat and daily weigh-ins, I lost 15 pounds to my current weight.  I've been cycling the same 5 pounds for 9 months now and for the sake of my knees, I need to move it on down.

Anyway - I would LOVE to be 169, but I don't really believe it's possible.  It's so far away.  Same with 203.  Right now, I can focus on the first 30 pounds and get to 230.  When I'm there, I'll make another goal.  Really, my eyes are on 250 - 10 pounds seems doable and not too scary and far away.  Yes, scary.  In thinking about why I'm fat, I think that the fat is protective, to keep away male attention that I never learned how to deal with.  But that's a topic for another blog post.