Struggling, but My Attitude Sucketh NOT in a week of Roller-Coastering Mood ; )..plus day out with sisters and totally resisted the killer fried food and dessert barrage...but it's asthma-season for me...EASY LUNCHBOXES and planning what you eat..and has anyone tried PURE WRAPS?

I am on increased meds, so excuse the rambliness of major proportions, should it show up. :)

This was an emotional week. A few reasons:

1. Since the weekend, the asthma/allergies have started getting worse. August is a notorious month for me (September, too). A month that often saw me in the emergency room in the past (before I became better controlled with a battery of Rx's), often saw me with bad sinusitis, bronchitis, nosebleeds, visits to docs, steroids,e tc. So, doing Pilates this week has been hard. I've even teared up today in frustration at not being able to breathe deeply or control my breathing. My walks have been at a slower pace (no sprinting or superwalking), because my respiration can't keep up. But I'm trying to stay active.

2, Sunday, the family (sans eldest sis who was visiting with ill relatives and friends) got together. Mood up. Tuesday was the first month marking of my nephew's death. Mood way down. Yesterday was the 13th anniversary of my father's death. Sad. But my sisters and I, and my niece (the one whose brother just died) and grandniece (her papa is the one who died) got together to put flowers at the cemetery and have lunch and talk. This was good. But there were some teary  moments.  And today is my big brother's (well, the youngest of the 3 big brothers) birthday. Glad he's alive and well (though he's asthmatic/allergic-sufferer, too, so we congest together). Up and down and up and down.

3. Appetite has been higher, no longer superzen. This is a combo of the stress from the breathing, the mood shifts, and who knows, maybe the extra fruits I'd been having since last week. Scale is still higher than my lowest weigh-in, and the lack of adequate sleep is making things worse. Oh, yeah, that does make me hungry, forgot that. Not sleeping. (This is partly the meds, partly the trying to shift to earlier hours.) It will sort out, but it means it's tough to portion meals and it's a struggle.

On the plus side: 
~I'm still trying to move at a good level against the breathing odds. Makes me feel...powerful...to not give in. :D

~I'm not focusing constantly on the stressful negatives, but actively focusing on what's good and making "thanksgiving breaks" during the day when I focus on and thank God for the great stuff in my life. I am blessed in so many ways.

~While we ate out yesterday--at Ruby Tuesday's--I had salad bar (1 and a half plates of all the non-starchy veggies plus some egg and a couple tablespoons of the chopped ham for protein. Drank my water, decaf, iced tea. Kin had a fried/butter-drenched extravaganza. And when everyone else had the chocolate lava cake with ice cream and tiramisu, right in FRONT OF MY FACE, I didn't touch a single crumb/spoonful. I just sipped my coffee and averted my eyes when tiramisu flew around. ; )

~Been really tired, tired, tired in the evenings (lack of sleep, adrenal exertions from the meds increase), but still am fixing hubby his three bento boxes' worth of healthy lunches before I go to bed and making sure he has his breakfast stuff--which sometimes means scrambling his eggs ahead of time so he can nuke em warm, or making gluten-free hotcakes (he can have starch, since he's a metabolic burner!) with no-sugar homemade fruit compote, etc.  He and I really love the EASY LUNCHBOXES system I got him last week and we started using this week. It's a positive, cause I'm keeping up with NOT caving to crap, even when exhausted. I force myself to the grocery store; I make myself make the lunches. I make sure we have produce galore. Big plus. Big lifestyle change from the gal who just would call for delivery crap when tired.

As far as the EASY LUNCHBOXES: a dream for us. Three boxes fit in the bag, and it zips and is easy to carry. Works great. He gets two meals and one box full of snacks (nuts, Larabar, hummus with carrot sticks, cheese n apple slices, etc.

I won a set from Katie J's blog (thanks, Katie!) and that should arrive soon. This way, we'll each have our own bento system, which is lovely, as when we have to take food for BOTH OF US to avoid temptations when out and about, that will simplify matters. And they have a great page with pics of REAL lunches and ideas. They do need more low-carb, Paleo, Primal, Gluten Free example pics! Maybe I'll snap one these days of hubby's threesome. ; )

No BPA. And though the lids are made for kids to be easy pop open (not Tupperware supertight), I just use rubber bands to secure stuff that might spill and use Press n Seal for when I use cottage cheese/yogurt/mooshy-smooshy-semi-solid--oozey stuff.

I have the bags in olive and aqua, and won a system with a dark red bag. The newest color is the pink, I think, and young girls, as we know, loveth the pink. With my three bags and 8 containers--and they have nice colorful lids--I'm REALLY set.  I fill them at night, put the whole bag in the fridge, and hubby just has to grab 'n go in the AM when he's ready to head out for the office. Then he puts the whole bag in the fridge at work. :D EASY!

It's a great TOOL to make sure you think about what to eat and plan for balanced, healthful, non-crap meals. If you're a dieter who works, really, get some sort of brown-bagging or bento system. Makes things easier. And making stuff is as simple as cooking extra at dinner (or lunch or breakfast) and saving it for the next day. And some things I pack are so easy and don't require cooking for hubby: nuts, fruit, cottage cheese, salads with deli meat, etc. If you like  yogurt, you can make a whole great snack in one bento, make your main lunch food in another, and not have to give in to office-crap temptations.

Speaking of stuff that makes lunches easier: Anyone try those gluten-free, no soy or assorted weird stuff alternate to regular sandwich wraps,  PURE WRAPS? If you have, review it or link me up to your review of it. And where did ya get it? Thanks.

Anyway, if the weather is benevolent--and August/September in Miami is not the most benevolent of times for exercisers being outdoors--I will have my walk and that will make for almost 1.5 hours of exercise for the day. I may not be able to go all-out while I have congestion issues, but I can do something. And so can you!

I wish all my fellow fatfighters well today. If you're struggling like me to get back down the scale and find your full-behemoth mojo again, let's egg each other on. No quitting. Ever!

later, lovelies...

Why Tracking Matters ~aka~ Take Online Calculators With a Grain of Dieter's Salt

I love online tools. Calculating this and measuring that. In fact, I visited another one today:

Daily Calorie Needs Calculator. 

Nifty, right?

I plugged in my current numbers and it promptly told me I needed to consume 2951 calories to MAINTAIN my current weight (254.8 as of this AM, but I entered 255 rounding it up.)

Excuse me while I snicker.

If I eat 2951--oh, let's just call it 3K cals, shall we?-- I'd gain weight. Period.

How do I know this, you ask?

I've had a weight loss blog for  more than 3 years--May 2007 to be precise. I've logged my ups and downs (thankfully, mostly down, though slooooooooooooowwww as heck). I've lost almost 44 pounds from my high weight, and 34 pounds since May 2007. Roughly 10 lbs a year. A slow rate, but progress. Call me Mrs. Turtle. Call me Dame Snail.

In those 3.5 years, I've done, on and off, either Weight Watchers food journaling to track intake and points or SparkPeople.com nutrition tracking to check calories and nutrient breakdowns. My latest round of tracking showed me what I needed to eat to MAINTAIN--ie, the exact same weight on the scale for nearly a week--and it was around 2350 cals. Yes, way fewer calories to maintain than the calculator suggests. 601 fewer. And that was when I was 10+ pounds heavier.

Granted, my body is damaged. My thyroid is a lump of scar tissue and I need to use drugs to supplement what it no longer supplies. I have an autoimmune (well, more than one) condition that puts me often into a flare of inflammatory processes. And I'm menopausal and 50.  And pretty sedentary. None of that is a plus for weight loss. So, maybe that's why I'm so far off that general calculator for weight/height/age.

If you are trying to lose weight and not succeeding, I suggest you do the nutrition tracking for a few days at your normal eating, and see at what level you stay still (or gain, if you are gaining now). Now, cut back, say 500 cals. If you were maintaining, cutting back 500 cals should be 1 pound loss a week (might be more if you lose a lot of water). If you cut back 500 cals and still aren't losing, check your portions to see if you're estimating your intake incorrectly. Measure EVERYTHING. Then cut back more. If  you start losing 1 to 2 pounds a week, you're eating 500 to 1000 fewer calories a day than you need to maintain at the level you are at with the amount of exercise you are doing .

As you lose pounds or become more or less active, you need to reassess to maintain the rate of loss.

I you want to lose faster, yes, you have to cut back more. You knew that. But I would never recommend eating less than what will offer your body proper nutrition (fruits/veggies, protein, healthy fat). Most nutritionists caution against going below 1200 cals a day consistently. If you go below that, I recommend medical supervision and care to pack as much vitamins/minerals in the calories you do eat, particularly muscle-sparing protein.

I really think it's useful to know where you maintain, cause it might be way off the calculator and you may be someone who needs to eat LESS than most others to be a similar weight.

Tracking is also good to show you that you may be eating MORE than you realize, calorie-wise. If you measure and you log, you can't lie to yourself about how "I don't eat that much." It's easy to think you had a cup of pasta when you had a cup and a half.  It's easy to think that was a medium or small apple, when it was a large one. It's easy to imagine that sip of this and nibble of that doesnt' add up, but if it's more than what helps you maintain, it's what makes you gain.

Yep. It's really easy to eat 1000 and think you ate way less.

Something else, and easier, you can try:

Use the calculator to get their base suggestion for maintaining weight. Jot that down.  Now, change the weight in the calculator to the weight YOU WANT TO BE. That lower amount should be enough to get you to lose. And it would get you used to eating what it takes to maintain a normal weight.

In my case, I put one lower than my goal happy weight, one that has me no longer overweight. It said: 1977 calorie needs.

I would lose weight at 1977. At a slow rate, but I would.  I doubt I could maintain the weight the calculator states at that level. I might have to be at 1400 to maintain 150 lbs. Or I'd need to up my exercise (which, frankly, isn't alluring).

The main reason I'd suggest gauging where YOU maintain is just to get an idea of how different you may be metabolically. Of course, it's a given that you'd have to be super honest about intake (no fudging on the nutrition tracking). It's silly and does no good if you refuse to log that spoonful of cake or nibble of cheese or slurp of someone's soda or milkshake. You have to really treat it as an experiment.

If you are losing, tracking will show you at what caloric level you lose X pounds. If at Y caloriez you lose 1 pound a week, then you're eating/burning roughly 500 calories MORE than you need to maintain. That can give you an idea of your own individual factor as opposed to a general calculator.

Online tools are quick and fun. But they may not be accurate for you--not about BMI or caloric needs.

So, just keep that in mind, and use the tools with some caution and care. Or you may be eating too much. ; )