Day 4 - August 31, 2009

I plan on walking this evening after work. Hopefully I'll have a walking buddy to join me and my slow-paced 5yo.

9:00 AM "Kirkland Signature" weight loss shake for breakfast.

12:30 PM 1/3 of a Chipotle carnitas bowl from last night

7:30 PM 1/2 a place of lettuce w/ bleu cheese dressing, spaghetti w/ EVOO and meatballs

In General: 70oz of water

30 minutes on the elliptical machine upstairs. A bit uncomfortable for my knees, and after 10 minutes, my toes were tingling, like how they feel when they've been "asleep." I noticed my glutes were working; wonder how sore they'll be tomorrow.

As I finish writing this at 12:23 AM Tuesday morning, my knees are hurting. I won't give up on the elliptical right away, but I don't think I'll use it more than twice a week to determine if will continue to make my knees hurt. I think it's just the position of the foot pads; too wide for my normal stance, and not adjustable to fix it.

Day 3 - August 30, 2009

**Could not post on Sunday; a couple of hours after getting home, the power went out and was restored 10 hours later***

Totally forgot to have breakfast today; went to church on an empty stomach. Lower back muscles not sore anymore and left ankle feeling better, but now my left calf is feeling tight.

12:00 PM "Lunch" after church with friends at Marie Callender's. I had their Soup & Salad bar, two waters and a lemonade. For my salad I chose lots of lettuce, 2 hard boiled eggs, ham cubes, tomatoes, olives and a partial scoop of bleu cheese dressing. I ordered the vegetable soup, but only ate the squash since a lot of it was onion and string beans, and I didn't drink the broth.

2:30 PM Went swimming at my sister's house. Didn't "swim" much, but helped my daughter dive and swim. Honestly, I would consider it light-impact cardio since I was in the pool for about an hour with her.

4:30 PM Handful of cashews

6:30 PM - power goes out in my neighborhood

8:00 PM - 3/4 of a Chipotle Mexican Grill bowl: carnitas, rice, beans, sour cream, cheese and 1/2 a large root beer. (yeah, not so good, but at least I didn't eat the whole thing)

In General:8 8oz glasses of water

Day 2 - August 29, 2009

11:10 AM Woke up with a very sore lower back. Possibly from yesterday's morning Yoga, possibly from carrying my 40lb child on my shoulders and hip. Either way, it's comfortable if I'm sitting, but walking probably looks funny to everyone else.

Lots of laundry and unpacking of new kitchen stuff, so I'll have to figure out what to do for exercise. This heatwave is making it really difficult to do anything remotely active. Does lifting full laundry baskets up the stairs count? I'll figure out something.

11:20 AM Bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats w/ 2% milk

1:00 PM 16 oz of orange juice

4:15 PM a few tortilla chips with homemade guacamole

6:30 PM Whole grain pasta with a homemade tomato and mushroom "sauce" (more like a pico de gallo)

Over the course of 3 hours, two frozen margaritas

In General:8 8oz glasses of water

No exercise today; lower back muscles sore and my left ankle was feeling the damage from carrying my daughter the night before.

Day 1 - August 28, 2009

My morning started out with Yoga in my living room at 6:10 AM. First added benefit: the heat wave made it into "Hot Yoga." Second benefit: I was able to serve my daughter her breakfast instead of having my dad do it.

I'm not as flexible as I used to be; I can't bend over and touch my toes. When I was younger (age 5 - 13-ish) I took tap, ballet and jazz dance classes. I was good. Genetics took over in Junior High and made my knees "go to pot." Doctors told me no running, jumping, dancing, skiing, stairs, etc. I took a 3 year break from dancing and took Weight Training in High School instead of regular P.E. It allowed me to focus on strengthening my legs and not have to play softball or tennis where running would be involved. My Junior year in High School I took a dance class as one of my electives, where the instructor was gentle with those of us with physical limitations. My knees felt better those last two years of high school because of the muscle conditioning they received from the Weight Training and then the dancing.

Anyway, so Yoga was interesting this morning because my fingers could only go to about 6 inches off the floor when I bent over. It got easier later in the exercise. A couple of the moves gave me a headache, but it didn't last long. But the 30 minutes felt a lot longer than that; I was out of breath and sweating like crazy by the time my timer went off. Not sure if my muscles will be sore in the next few days; right now I feel fine. No notable increase in energy yet, but I'm not as tired as I expected I'd be after getting up 30 minutes earlier than normal and exercising.

9:20 AM "Kirkland Signature" weight loss shake for breakfast. I plan on having leftovers for lunch: 3/4 of a roasted chicken thigh and mashed potatoes. Dinner will be interesting: my daughter, boyfriend, cousin and I are going to Disneyland. Usually we hit Redd Rocket's Pizza Port for dinner, getting the Chicken Fuscilli with a cream sauce. Probably not the best for my diet plan. Again, not big on salad, but I might just have to finally try something other than the fuscilli for dinner.

12:10 PM 1/2 a skinless chicken thigh and more mashed potatoes than I should have had; I didn't want to throw them away, and I wouldn't eat them again as they'd been reheated twice already.

4:15 PM 1 medium sized apple

6:00 PM 1 Granola bar

8:00 PM 1 small corn tortilla

8:30 PM 1 large chicken Caesar salad (took me about 40 minutes to eat it)

11:15 PM 1 medium pineapple spear

In General:10 8oz glasses of water

Around 10:45 PM I noticed that my lower back was a bit sore if I sat down. We did a lot of walking at Disneyland, especially in the later evening when we went from Tomorrowland to Critter Country to Tomorrowland to Adventureland all to ride one attraction (everything kept breaking down when we arrived). The walk from Tomorrowland to Critter Country and back included about 10 minutes of carrying my 40lb 5-year-old on my shoulders. The walk back to the car in the parking structure also included about 15 minutes of carrying my now-sleeping child. So 25 minutes of walking with 40 extra pounds. Not bad.

Hi, my name is Michelle, and I'm overweight

I am 26 years old and have a 5-year-old daughter. I have put on 40 pounds in the last 4 years. My BMI puts me in the "Obese" category. At a "Health Fair' at my company, I was told my body fat was at 40%. I don't exercise daily, if even weekly. I love starchy foods. I smoke about 12 cigarettes a day. Time for a change.

Health experts recommend losing no more than 1-2 pounds a week when engaged in a weight loss program. If I were to start losing 2 pounds a week now, I could be down to my suggested weight by mid-January. If I lose only 1 pound a week, it'll be the beginning of June.

My gym membership ends in early January. At home I have access to an elliptical machine, yoga DVDs, a bicycle, an exercise ball and "boot camp" DVDs. At work there is a small workout room with two treadmills, three stationary bicycles and a 4-piece weight system. There are also lunch-time yoga sessions in my building on Thursdays.

So why don't I work out? My daily schedule is as follows: 6:30 AM, the alarm starts to go off. At 7:00 AM I finally get out of bed. I have to have my daughter to school before 8:00 AM. I get to work at 8:30 AM. I take a half-hour lunch break so I can leave at 5:00 PM. I get home at 5:45 PM - 6:00 PM depending on traffic. Dinner needs to be ready before 7:30PM so that my daughter can be in bed by 8:30 PM. I'm in bed usually around 11:00 PM.

So, there are a few holes in my schedule where I could work out:

• I could get up earlier, but I've not been an early riser since 6:45 AM choir in high school. To workout and be showered and ready to leave the house by 7:50 AM, I'd have to get out of bed by 6:30 AM, which means setting my alarm for 6:00 AM (I know myself, and it can take up to 30 minutes to really wake up and be functional). It's doable, but would take a lot of work and determination on my part.
• I could exercise when I get home from work. But I like sitting with my daughter, going over her day at school and helping her with her homework (if any). Plus, there's always someone else home (see my other blog about my daughter's after-school care) and I feel self-conscious when I work out to a DVD in the living room, so I'd have to use the elliptical upstairs or go for a walk or bike ride.
• I could exercise after I put my daughter to bed, but the above-mentioned problem of working out to a DVD in the living room is still a problem, plus now it's dark outside, so I can't ride my bike or walk alone safely. Which leaves the elliptical.

I could mix it up: Monday, Wednesday and Friday I exercise after work, Tuesday and Thursday I get up early to exercise.

Of course there'll be days when I'll have to change the schedule, when I have after-work obligations or I'm up late the night before for legitimate reasons (my second job, dates with my boyfriend, etc.).

But I think I could make it work by changing up what I do each day and not force myself to get up early every morning, or say, "Sorry, Friend, but I can't come out tonight because I didn't exercise this morning, so I need to do it tonight."

As for the smoking, I'll be cutting waaay back. As of right now, I smoke 6 cigarettes at work. My employer is initiating a "Tobacco-Free" environment on September 1, which means no tobacco or e-cigarettes on company property, including the parking lot. If I can switch to using my e-cigarette when I drive, I might be able to cut out real cigarettes altogether, and maybe even stop using the e-cigarette eventually. I've been smoking for a total of 8 years, with a few breaks in between, like when I was pregnant with my daughter and when I had surgery. It won't be easy, but I can do it.

Eating healthier...now that will be a real challenge. I love pasta in all forms, and I love going to Chipotle; I go every Wednesday as a "treat" for making it through half the week at work. I also go to Pat & Oscar's with my cousin a couple times a month. I'm not a huge salad person, so it'll be better for me to completely avoid fast food/casual dining restaurants for a while so I can resist the temptation of getting that huge burrito or bowl of pasta with soup and 3 breadsticks. I do have Costco's version of Slim-Fast shakes for breakfast every morning, and sometimes for lunch too, but usually I take leftovers from home. I eat at my desk, then usually go out for a smoke. Since my employer is prohibiting that, I can take walks around the buildings during my short breaks and lunch. Meals at home will be a challenge, too. My whole family loves carbs, though some are better at portion control than I am. I read somewhere that if you downsize your dinner plate to a salad/dessert plate, you won't eat as much. I might have to give that a try. I don't usually worry about dessert, meaning that I don't usually have one. I've found that if I have dessert an hour or two after dinner, then I wake up hungry, literally feeling like my stomach is empty. My guess is that feeling happens while I'm sleeping and "goes numb" before I wake up on nights that I don't have dessert.

My basal metabolic rate (BMR) is 1637 calories; meaning that's how many calories I need to function properly. According to various online calculators, just being at my desk at work burns 600 - 700 calories. To lose one pound of fat, I have to burn 3500 calories over and above what I'm already doing (which is nothing). So to lose 2 pounds a week, I need to burn 1000 extra calories a day. Walking 45 minutes a day will burn about 274 calories. So if I already burn 600 calories a day just from working and add my walking, then I'm burning a minimum of 874 calories in one day (clearly I burn more than that just to keep my body working). The calculators say to add your BMR to the number of calories your activity burns: 2511. As long as I eat fewer calories than this number, I'll lose weight. What's scary is clearly I wasn't eating less than this, which is why I've been at this weight for so long. Keeping track of my calories will be hard, since not all of my meals will come pre-packaged with the nutritional info printed on the outside. But if I can keep my breakfast and lunch to less than 600 calories, then as long as I have a decently portioned meal at dinner, I should lose some weight.

So, my challenge to myself: Lose at least 40 pounds before my birthday in early April (factoring in that I will probably have a few weeks where I won't lose anything). I will hold myself accountable by updating this blog and my exercise and weight-loss trackers regularly; I anticipate blogging and recording my exercise daily, and updating my weight-loss once a week. I think I'll use the "post" section of the blog to record my food intake and how my body is feeling. I'll also post pictures of myself once a month, to see if I'm the only one seeing a difference, but also to see the changes in my body. I'll post a picture of my body as it is now after I get home.

Comments, tips and encouragement are always welcome. Please, nothing destructive, as I know that won't help my self-esteem or motivation. If anyone would like to be my workout buddy, I'd love it!