June 1st

Well, today had its ups and downs. We ended up going to a movie preview at the last minute. Essentially, we went from my therapy straight downtown to wait in line. So I ate more calories than I normally would have by eating out.


Also, since I have therapy on Mondays at 4:15 p.m., it pretty much means that Mondays will rarely include a workout on my end. But my goal is 3-5 times a week a walk. I'm starting around 20 minutes and working up from there.


A few basic facts about me: I am shooting to lose 10 lbs in the 8 weeks provided. I'm on Alli, which helps keep me in line on the binging front. (I'm an emotional eater and a depressive, which go together annoyingly well.) It essentially means I can't eat more than 19 grams of fat at a meal without risking quite a bit of discomfort.


That's usually not a problem. My diet is relatively low-fat. I eat Kashi Go Lean Crunch every morning, because I'm boring like that. I stocked up on a bunch of Healthy Choice frozen meals when they were on sale for $1.88. And I usually have a sandwich for lunch and cram a bunch of veggies in there when possible. (I didn't grow up eating veggies, so that is something I'm trying to work into my new eating routine.)


One of the main problems I have is that I deal with chronic fatigue. There are days when I don't leave the house. If I get less than 8 hours sleep, I'm ditzy and unfocused all day. If I try and do too much at any given time, I can set myself back a day... or more. It's been awhile since I've pushed that hard, I'm happy to say. But when I get that exhausted, I'm actually so tired that it hurts to breathe.


I tell you about this so that a) you understand why my exercise is relatively low key and b) because we need to understand the challenges we are all facing. I work a few hours a day from home. My husband is unemployed at the moment so is also home all day. The biggest problem for me is just getting myself up and out of the house -- sometimes due to fatigue, other times depression's overwhelming inertia.


This is one reason I am happy to have people to be accountable to but also to have in my corner.


Anyway, I figure with some monitoring of calories and semi-regular walks, plus a small boost from the Alli, 10 lbs in 8 weeks is a pretty reasonable goal.


Overall, I should be shooting for about 1800 calories a day. Just keeping it to that amount would let me lose a pound a week. But I don't always follow things well. So I actually shoot for 1500 calories a day (but never to the point that I am actively hungry and don't eat) so that if I do go over, I'm still in an acceptable range. Sad to have to play these mind games, but such is life.


I'm losing weight because I don't comfortably fit in my clothes anymore, and I wasn't happy about my weight even when I did. My priority right now is getting comfortably back into a size 14. I figure losing 10 pounds should more than do it. I would like to extend the healthier habits to eventually get down to a size 10-12.


My scale's a little wonky, but seems relatively consistently wonky. So I weighed myself today and came out at 203.5 lbs. Which is actually closer to 206ish. But the point is to have a baseline, I suppose. So at the end of the two months, I want to be 193.5 or less.


And, I'm warning you, yes I actually do always write like this. So expect some long, rambling posts. My apologies ahead of time.

Here we go

We're up and running. I thought we could use this to check in with each other, since I can't be on Twitter much socially.


Thought we could learn about one another and give each other updates....