Reach and maintain a weight of 125 lbs in 2008

I don’t know what is going on, but I’m confused. I think I broke my analog scale, because it seems to be more unstable than it usually is (for instance, if I move around a bit, it fluctuates and remains at +5 lbs, then recalibrates to 5 lbs instead of 0 like it is supposed to. But I’m a little scared. The range of readings I got were between 135 and 145 lbs.

I have a week’s membership at a gym, and I weighed myself on the digital scale there. It said 144.6. I’m really scared. I don’t think it is completely accurate for a few reasons:

—There’s no way I gained 12.6 lbs in two weeks, or even 6 lbs, or even 2 lbs, honestly. My eating habits have been relatively healthy and stable these past couple of weeks since my last weigh in.

—I was wearing shoes and workout gear.

—I had a lot of liquids and vegetables that morning before going to work out in the afternoon.

I worry I am just making excuses for myself, but how else do I keep the panic at bay and explain this weird weight ‘gain’? I don’t understand, and it is upsetting me. There is one other thing I think might contribute to the ‘gain’, that came about in the past couple of weeks. I began consuming larger-than-normal portions of sugar free syrup. The reason for this is that I heard that its key ingredient, sorbitol, was recently linked to weight loss in a couple of individuals studied. It has a laxative effect. I was passing gas all the time, but I wasn’t pooping a lot. I don’t know if my ceasation of consuming the syrup has anything to do with this.

If I truly did gain 6-8 lbs (what the freak…), and that is based on the readout from the digital scale, adjusting for clothes and shoes, then I need to reassess my eating habits and figure out what is going wrong. I think I’ve already figured that the syrup is a bad idea, and I will lay off of that. I won’t miss the constant farting, that’s for sure. I will also need to start and consistently continue writing down what I eat. I don’t necessarily need to do it calorie by calorie, but I need to keep a record of what I”m putting into my mouth. I did this before to help lose weight and it works, because it helps to curb ‘cheating’.

Yikes though. Can this be for real?

Frankly, I was worried about weighing myself this week. It had not been a bad week, but I had not had time to be as fastidious about what I eat as ‘normal’. I didn’t really count calories, just had a light breakfast, a bigger lunch, a snack or two in the afternoon, and then almost always a big salad for dinner. I didn’t feel deprived much during the week, as I had consumed a decent amount of calories every day. On the days that I worked, I came home and went almost straight to the gym to work out for half an hour. Bottomline though, I did not consciously limit my calorie intake like I might.

However, when I weighed myself today I was 132 lbs. I think that with my above eating habits, I lost a healthy amount of .5 lbs last week. It’s hard to tell because my scale is one of those old-fashioned analog ones, but if I weigh myself several times I can usually get a pretty good estimate, and it was 132 lbs.

It is really good to know I can get really involved in my life, not as obsessive about calories, and still lose a little weight. I don’t have to be consciously monitoring all the time. That is good news, because I don’t have the time!

I’m just about exactly the same weight I was 6 days ago. I think I might have lost just a hair. It makes sense, because while I haven’t been overeating at all, I haven’t been limiting myself too much either. Most days I’ve gone to the gym and tried to eat a really light dinner (i.e. a spinach salad with low-cal Italian dressing and an orange). I’m content with at least not gaining any, as it has been a pretty stressful week. No lapses, either. It’s part of an upward trend. I’d rather the 8 lbs came off slowly and stayed off than I losed them quickly only to regain them again.

I weighed myself this morning and I was about 133 lbs (maybe slightly less, but I’d rather round up). It looks like I’ve gained a couple of lbs in the last couple of weeks. I do attribute that to the adjustment of moving back on campus and starting both classes and a new internship. I will thin down some as time goes on and I can establish a better routine. 125 is a good number for me and wouldn’t be too difficult to maintain. I hope a great deal of those 8 lbs comes from my butt!

Carbs. They certainly aren’t evil, but necessary. The brain runs on glucose, and cannot metabolize reserved fat stores. However, there are good carbs and bad carbs. Good carbs being whole grain stuff, vegetables like sweet potatoes, etc. Bad carbs being potatoes, white pasta, white bread. I think I’ve been getting too many of the latter in my diet lately. What I normally get at the cafeteria is a hollowed out bread bowl filled with one of the soups of the day, as long as it is a vegetable-based/reasonably low-calorie soup. I don’t get soups like clam chowder and cream of broccoli, for instance. However, while I do not eat the entire bread bowl, I do eat some of it. I throw out all of the hollowed-out bread, but sometimes eat the crust ‘lid’. I also usually scrape the sides of the bread bowl down with my spoon as I am eating the soup. I am okay with that. What I think I need to try to eliminate is sometimes eating the sides of the breadbowl. I don’t need those extra empty white-bread calories. Now, a little bit of bread is OK. It keeps me from feeling deprived, and it isn’t too bad, but the key is how much of it I consume. I want to try to just eat the ‘lid’ and scrape the insides, and toss the rest of the bread bowl.

I haven’t weighed myself again. I have no idea if I have gained or lost. I have tried not to eat a lot, and usually get a little bit of exercise in every day even if it is just all the walking I do around campus. I eat a ton of vegetables from the cafeteria, and usually have soup from there for a meal. sometimes I’ll make salads choosing ingredients from the saland bar, and sometimes I’ll get stir fryed vegetables. The only other thing I will typically get is some sort of carved meat with a couple of sides of vegetables and/or some whole wheat bread. The foods I choose to eat are healthy-I have grown accustomed to that and indeed prefer it most of the time (although I will induge occasionally). My daily indulgence is usually 4-6 of these whole wheat crackers with about a tablespoon of barbeque sauce. I feel like I am still a little heavy in the butt/thigh region-I wish I wasn’t so muscular and bulky. I still have a bit of a stomach pooch I’d like to get rid of. My boyfriend says he likes my stomach and I want to make sure I keep it flat and perhaps flatter. That’s not just for him—I’ve been doing sit-ups for years before I met him. It’s important to me and that is what helps it to last. I just hope I haven’t gained weight during this transition period of the first week of school.

I weighed myself two days ago and I was 130 lbs. I feel like I look OK, but would like to lose a little bit of weight overall. I still have kind of a stomach pooch and my butt jiggles. Plus, my legs are stocky to begin with and thinning them down some would be good.

Everyone wants to do it. It is on many people’s New Year’s resolutions. For me, it is the continuation of a process. I used to weight 145 lbs, and over the past two years I’ve maintained a loss of about 15 lbs. I’m a 5’9” female so I’m not overweight, but I want to lose just a few lbs more. I’ll weigh myself soon to get an accurate starting point.