Muke's growing journey

Weighing myself daily reminds me of why I stopped doing so: it can be pretty discouraging. And I don’t mean discouraging in the sense of staying the same every day so progress is hard to see, as happens to some people; I mean discouraging in the sense of rising steadily to 205 by the middle of the week, and then skipping a meal and waking up Saturday morning at 201.

Of course the lesson to be learned from that is more ‘don’t skip meals,’ not ‘give up the daily weigh-in.’

Meal plan for week of 5/24–5/30, result +1 lb:
Weekday (~4500 calories)

• Breakfast: Donut, breakfast shake.
• Lunch: Calzones with mozzarella and black olives.
• Snack: Triscuits with cheese. Chocolate-chip cookies.
• Dinner: Nachos (with pinto beans, black olives, tomatoes, and cheese). White rice.

I was in the mood for calzones but was a bit wary, given my bad history of not enjoying bread. But the dough I made myself seemed to hold up okay over the week, and they turned out pretty well.

The cookies were a suggestion of my roommate’s, and I gave them a try, but I still don’t have the sweet tooth for them. The donuts failed for similar reasons (that, and they started going the way of all bread pretty quickly). Not too keen on foods I have to choke down, so I won’t be repeating ‘em anytime soon.

Been a while, but here’s a couple pics from today:

I’ve taken to wearing undershirts lately.  They’re all old and pretty tight on me (smalls and mediums) and it’s an interesting feeling.

I lost everything I gained last week. Easy come, easy go, right? I did lousy this week chiefly because all the food I made turned out pretty lousy. Across the blackboard a hundred times I shall write: Bread is not a good nucleus around which to base a meal followed by I do not yet have the culinary skill to improvise recipes.

It’s discouraging to look back at the beginning of the year and see myself still at the same weight, especially when last year I was doing so well. But I’m not giving up, and I’m not letting it bring my mood down, like it did in the past when I was always depressed about my body. I could still do with some help, though, just as much as I did then. I guess that’s part of what this blog is about: me learning to help myself, seeing the progress I’ve made, what I did to get there, and the things that don’t work.

Here’s to better luck next week.

I keep posting these updates later and later; I don’t know why—it’s not like I do anything with my Sundays.

This week I kept an eye on my gaining progress weighing in daily instead of just at week’s end. I peaked around mid-week at 205, then started going down from there as usual over the weekend.

Meal plan for week of 5/10–5/16, result +4 lbs:

Weekday (~4500 calories)

• Breakfast: Vegetarian sausage and bacon.  Grape juice.
• Lunch: Potato casserole. Clementines.  Soda.
• Snack: Triscuits and cheese.
• Dinner: Lasagna with vegemeat. Garlic mashed potatoes. Garlic bread. Cucumbers with olive oil. Soda.

Not sure how I made the progress I did, but not going to complain.  I did take a different tack with leftovers—instead of saving them for the weekend, I just took them with me every day to lunch, which may have helped some.

Down a pound.  2009 really hasn’t been my year of progress, has it?  This week’s lack of progress I blame on miscalculating and only taking a lunch about half the size I had planned on.  Oh well.

Today, at least, I feel inordinately full.  But it’s late, so I’m going to bed.

A pound ain’t much, but it’s something.

Meal plan for week of 4/26–5/1, result +1 lb:

Weekend (~2000 calories)

• Breakfast:  Buttered bagel.
• Lunch: Frozen pizza.  Soda.
• Dinner: White rice.  Homemade ramen.

Weekday (~4000 calories)

• Breakfast: Vege-sausage.  Buttered bagel.
• Lunch: Potato casserole.
• Snack:  Triscuits, with cheese.  Marinated black olives.
• Dinner: Vegetable fried rice, with vegesausage.  Egg roll.  Sesame tofu.

In practice, actually, I think I may have ended up eating more than I had planned; I was even able to buy a bit more since I had money left over.  (I got extra Triscuits, the kind with pepper, and snacked on them at work.)

Breakfast, again, didn’t work out, this time not so much because of not feeling like eating (as so often is the case) as just not getting around to it—I haven’t gotten in the habit of going downstairs to eat, at my new place, so.   I did take the vegemeat to lunch and have the bagels at home afterwards, so it wasn’t really a loss… except at the end of the week, when the bagels started getting stale, reminding me again why I try to avoid buying breads.

And here’s a couple of belly pics for y’all who waited so patiently: