First Three Weeks of 2023: Busy, Mixed Results

One-Sentence Summary: I have been tracking everything, been trying to keep on-track, and things got complicated.

Overview: I don’t normally do overviews or a narrative so much with these, but I thought I would here given that it’s the start of this “yet again” and there’s been a lot of stuff going on. So … Week 1 I was home after being in Ohio for a week or more due to Southwest Airline’s meltdown, and there was still some left-over bûche de noël. I started to ramp up my exercise, dealing with DOMS and fatigue. I also found my bf’s passports, so we got his tickets to Australia straightened out so he could visit his mom due to her stroke. I then made the mistake of getting a giant thing of Chex Mix at Costco (“you can have some with you on the plane!”). So, Week 2 was spent eating two pounds of Chex Mix and seeing the bf off to Australia on that Monday, and I’ve been home alone with the cats since. Except Week 3 was away on a work trip where I thought I was good with food but, once I really factored everything in, I was not; and, instead of what I thought that I had lost weight, I came back and weighed 230 lbs, my max, which was demoralizing. Add to that, I booked my first flight to Australia as a surprise to the bf and his mom, I leave in two weeks, and my flight back from Baltimore was an uncomfortable 4 hours after a guy who definitely did not have Economy Class hips sat next to me, and my flight to Australia is Economy Class (Economy = ⅔ paycheck; Economy Premium = 2 paychecks; Business = 3 paychecks), and I promised my (pseudo-)brother-in-law that I would have “less of a footprint” next time he saw me … so, yeah, I need to lose weight, and I’m planning to hit the next two weeks hard. Now, with that as preface:

Food: The plan is my “Cut v. 6.1” which is to lose 1 lb/wk through diet restriction when I weigh 170±5 lbs. I do not weigh that, but it alternatively translates to –1.5 lbs/wk through diet at my current weight. I sort of succeeded in Week 1, except when you count the cheating from various things. Week 2 with all the Chex Mix was insane, but I did change the goal to “Cut v. 6.16” which is the 220±5 lb one for –1 lb/wk through diet restriction. I was still 14% over my limit, and then more on top of that due to not counting some things. Week 3, I was closer to being on-track. I planned what I was going to do ahead of time, including what take-out I would get, and I even packed some food to stick with things better. But, I forgot a celebratory dinner for someone who was retiring, with a fixed menu that was $73 to get in the door, so I “had” to eat that and it added another 1000 calories. Add to that, I got take-out on my way home of two Thai dishes that just put me way over, even when again jacking back the “goal” to 1740 cal/day. Going forward this week, I am trying (planning on trying) to stick very close to that “v. 6.1” goal of 1470 cal/day for –1.5 lbs/wk from diet alone.

Exercise: The first week was “alright,” and somewhat expected as I got used to doing exercise again. I’m not surprised it was what it was, I’m a little disappointed I didn’t do exercise a day or two, and steps were kinda low but again not surprising due to the limited cardio. It being the beginning of January in Colorado, it’s quite cold, so outdoor activities (walking, biking) were a “no.” I did manage to get my Watch’s imposed January challenge by filling my Move ring a whopping five times. That’s how bad I have been the last few months, to get this award I just had to fill it five times. Week 2 was better, I actually did get one walk in when the temperature rose to nearly 50° and the road wasn’t slush, I got more elliptical in, but weights were only twice instead of thrice due to fatigue. Number of steps were up, and all my rings were filled each day. Since I did an outdoor walk of >15 minutes, I got my first VO_{2 max} reading for the year, right at 32.0. Which triggered a health alert on my watch that it was low. Though it was about where I thought it was, and comparable with the last few months of last year. Week 3 and my calories from exercise rose again – slightly – while all the “walk” exercise was mostly at airports. Number of steps was also slightly up, but weights were again twice due to my travel. I had planned to do banded exercises while on travel, but I had too much to do at night after long days, so it filled my luggage again with no end-use. I had also hoped to do weights when I got back home Thursday night, but I was too tired when I rolled in at 8:30pm and just ate, watched TV, fed the cats, and went to bed. I filled my rings, but I shrunk the goals while I was out of town. Calories from exercise for the three weeks were 1320, 1482, 1577. So, steady increase, and all above 1000 calories, but that’s also why they look nearly identical on the infographics.

Sleep: I’ve been putting less effort into exactly tracking sleep, so these are approximate. But, Weeks 1 and 2 I did okay, while being low on sleep in Week 3 is typical for me on work travel, unfortunately.

Measurements: Okay, here’s where the proof is, and my pudding is rotten. Week 1, I started out losing a pound a day until the cheating caught up with me and I rose back up. Week 2’s Chex Mix fiasco along with still not doing as much exercise as I want/need to do similarly made the average rise. Then Week 3, again I thought I was going to be okay or at least not gain much weight, but I gained around 3 lbs. In a week. Wish I could consistently lose that instead. Meanwhile, bodyfat percentage has gone up each week, though I suspect that they’re all basically the same within the noise and the sucking-in-of-the belly. So, I’m going into Week 4 basically near 30% bodyfat and 230 lbs body weight.

Points: On the good side, I had the best “first week” with respect to points that I think I’ve ever had since I put the system in place. Typically, “Week 1″s are in the 20s. On the bad, it went way down in Week 2, up in Week 3, but still not better than Week 1. I’ve been losing points for not doing core exercises, for not getting enough sleep, for not hitting nutrition goals … basically every reason, including this week not weighing myself every day even though I was away and there wasn’t really the possibility of fulfilling that one. But, this also means I haven’t fulfilled my New Year’s Resolution of getting ≥50 points per week.

Work-Life Balance: I have been doing better at this, though I also haven’t been working 40 hrs/week (shhhhh… don’t tell anyone). I have also stuck very well to the Resolution of having at least one full day every week where I don’t do any work; an exception was yesterday when I had to spend some time on my timecard because I forgot to fill it in and it was locked and I had to contact various managers. Never had that issue before, but for some reason the automated system emails reminding us that it was the last day and to fill them out never got to me. Without my boyfriend here, I’m surprisingly finding it a bit more difficult to focus, though I’ve also been planning things out more / better on how I’m going to spend some days around the house doing stuff that needs to be done, like cleaning various areas, or emptying the litter box, or feeding the chickens, etc. I will say that it is nice, when cleaning, not to have someone actively work against you. For example, say I’ve just spent two hours cleaning the kitchen, the bf isn’t there a minute later putting a dirty dish on the counter and leaving it there.

Looking Over the First Three Weeks: These were not great weeks. That said, they could have been a lot worse, especially this past week with travel. And, instead of giving up, I am (planning to) redouble my efforts over the next two weeks to work towards getting my Economy Class hips back. I picked weights back up after my trip, I did them twice in a row before my trip, I’m doing the cardio, and I need to do better on food. It would be really nice to be <220 lbs by the time I go to Australia, but that means losing nearly 5 lbs/week, which is doable but not at all sustainable and not entirely healthy. But, I think at this point I know enough about what I’m doing that I could do it safely if I really tried. When I was in Australia last year, I was right around 227 lbs and 29% bodyfat, so I just have to beat that with this first trip this year … first of maybe five.

Looking Ahead: I think I basically covered this in the above paragraph. Primarily what I have done, looking ahead, is I’ve already planned my food out through the first half of March (9 weeks!). It’s much easier to plan the bulk of that when the bf isn’t here because I stick much more closely to a plan than he does, so I know if jambalaya makes 8 servings, I’ll eat one per day. As opposed to if he’s here, he would get 4 of those bowls, but then might not eat all 4 by Day 5, so I’ll eat one, throwing my plan for Day 5 and then every meal that follows off by a day. Yes, this sounds stupidly OCD, I recognize that even as I write this or when I was doing it, but I did find back in 2020 that planning out my meals like this really did help me to stick to them. Additionally, I’ve more reasonably been planning out exercise, or at least with a renewed intent to stick with it and do everything in the plan. I could be expending up to about 4500 calories per week from exercise, if I actually did everything that’s in the plan. I still have significant fatigue from doing more exercise in the last three weeks than I’ve done in the last three months, but fingers-crossed.