The Downward Slide

Yay me!!

I lost 1.6kg this week - that's the most I have ever lost in a week since I started trying to lose weight!!!!!!!!!!

Woohoo go me!!!

Here's the graph:



Doesn't that look good!!!!

What am I so Happy About?
Well yes, of course I am happy about the weight loss, but even more than that (and perhaps a little more Buddhist) I am very pleased that I have been disciplined this week.

On one day I ate more than my imposed calorie intake of 1200cal. I went to the movies on Tuesday night and decided I was going to have a treat - a 100g bag of chips (Red Rock Deli Chilli. of course - there may as well not be any other type of chips as far as I'm concerned!). This put me over my 1200 mark, but under 1600, so I was still happy with that. Whilst I want to lose weight I still want to live as well :)

I skipped exercise on Tuesday and Thursday. Tuesday cos of going to the movies and Thursday - well just because. Exercised all the other days - 30 minute walk mostly, although on Saturday I found out about C25K (more about that later).

So I'm very pleased with myself for having maintained exercise and allocated calorie intake for most of the week.

Reward
Earlier in the week I thought I was doing fairly well so I set up a reward for myself. I didn't have to go to work on Friday so I made an appointment for a full body scrub. Ahhhh such a wonderful pamper that is!

I like getting these in the cooler months to help slough off all the dead skin, and as a bonus you get a body rub as well (softer than a massage) when they rub the moisturizer into your skin. It was heaven, I really enjoyed it.

Think I'll make my next reward either a manicure or pedicure; I can't afford to splurge on a full body scrub every time!

Tools
To help keep track of how I'm going I have a sheet of graph paper in the bathroom right next to the scales, and have been weighing myself every day. Now I know that's not recommended due to usual daily fluctuations, but what if weigh in day happens to be a heavy day - no reason to feel all dejected if you've been half a kilo lighter all week then only get a 100g weight loss on weigh in day! So I weigh myself every day, but keep it in perspective.

In addition to the graph I have been keeping a food diary in MS Excel and using the CalorieKing website to find out the nutritional values of the foods that I eat.

This has been working really well except that it can be a bit tricky remembering what I've eaten until I can get home and put it on the spreadsheet. I started moving the spreadsheet to and from work/home on a thumb drive, and also tried emailing to myself to the other location, but it was getting too much fiddling for me. Then I discovered more about Calorie King.

Calorie King Website - Weight Loss Tools
I was looking at the site on Friday getting some details to add into my Excel food diary when I noticed the other menu items on the website. I'd never bothered looking at them previously.

Wow, this is an amazing website to assist with weight loss. I joined up (costs NOTHING) and they have an amazing food diary right there, suggested meal plans, recipes, articles on weight loss, exercise and nutrition, forums ... the whole shebang.

This is great - now I don't have to cart my food diary between work and home, I just log on whether I'm at home or at work and there is all my information ready to be added to!

You can add your own custom foods if they don't already exist in their database, and save them so you don't have to type all the info in every time you eat that particular thing. You can also make your own custom meals for things you eat frequently - like the cheese and turkey snack I often have for morning or afternoon tea. I've added it in as a custom meal so now it's just one click to add that in as a 'meal'.

There are tallies for each meal as well as a progressive total for the whole day, plus an area to record how much water you're drinking, and of course a spot to indicate whether you've exercised that day.

At the bottom of each day it indicates how much of your calories you've consumed and gives a net calorie total for the day (ie calories eaten less calories used in exercise).

You can also set what nutritional values you want to see - calories and KJ are standard, but you can add in Protein, Carbs, Carbs, Fat, Fibre, Sodium, Calcium and a bunch more. For each item you choose there is a bar at the bottom for the day showing how much of your allocated amounts you've consumed.

And of course there's an area to check in each week/however often you wish, and record your weight and also your measurements.

Impressed
You can probably tell I'm very impressed with this website. It really does seem to have all the tools one requires to assist with a weight loss plan. There's a US version of Calorie King as well.

So if you're trying to lose (or gain!) weight, go check out Calorie King!