Progress!

It's been 9 days since I've started tracking my calories and weight and according to my data, I'm down 1.7 pounds, which puts my average calorie deficit at 661. Sweet! I went way over on my calorie goal yesterday though so I'm going to have to work out hard tonight to make up for it. I'm hiking for 4 hours on Saturday so I think it'll all even out. If I keep this up, I'll be back to my lowest weight by summer and I should hit 145 (the weight at which I'm officially not "overweight") by October. I could do it faster but I really don't like being that hungry and I don't have time to work out any more than I'm doing now. 5 workouts a week plus a few mid-day walks and a long hike on the weekend is about all I have time for. I'm really looking forward to being able to just maintain and work on my fitness instead of trying to lose weight all the time. I bet I'll have way more energy for my workouts once I don't have a calorie deficit. I don't feel terribly deprived right now so as long as I don't go overboard on tater tots and chocolate cake, I should be fine. It'll be completely new territory for me.

Back on track!

According to the 8 days of data I have so far, I've lost 1.2 pounds since I've been tracking my weight and my calorie deficit is 525. It's a lot less than the 1000 I was shooting for (I really wanted to lose two pounds a week) but not bad. Better than maintaining and much better than gaining. I really don't think I can cut my calorie goal much more without really depriving myself since I'm already working out almost every day so I'll have to be happy with a pound or so a week. If I keep this up, I should be fitting back my size 6s in a few months. I really need to make sure I'm lifting weights more often so I can build some muscle and increase my ridiculously low metabolism.

In other news, this past weekend was a blast! On Saturday afternoon we went for a hike with my friend Janet and then we went to the last U of A hockey game of the season (have I mentioned my new hockey addiction?) They played they're big rival, ASU and it was a super exciting game (there were even a couple of good fist fights). By the end of the third period, the score was tied and they had a 5 minute overtime period and the score was still tied. After that was a shootout that went for 7 rounds before the Ice Cats scored the winning goal. The team was so excited that they dog piled each other on the ice. It was awesome!

On Sunday, me and Sean went to a basic pistol shooting class together. It was way fun! Apparently all those years of playing Duck Hunt on the Nintendo have paid off because I'm actually a pretty good shot. I got a bulls eye on my first try and the guy was like, "Are you sure you've never done this before?" and I go, "I've played a lot of Duck Hunt." Just about all of my shots were right around the middle of the target so I'm pretty proud of myself. With the class, we get to go to the range for free 7 times in the next two weeks so we're going to go shoot again on Wednesday afternoon and while we're at it, we're going to sign up for the concealed weapons class. It should be fun.

Next weekend our friends Dan and Tracey are coming out from San Diego and we're going to go on the Upper Cliff Dwelling tour at Tonto National Monument on Saturday and then on Sunday, we're going to Kartchner Caverns, which is a totally awesome wet cave about an hour south of us. I should have some really good pictures to post after that.

Still Floundering

I'm not quite sure how it happened but somehow I gained 15 pounds back. Okay, I know exactly how it happened, I got all lax on my eating and stopped weighing myself daily and my exercise has been sporadic. Oops! So this week, I've started doing what I do best: using technology and math to solve problems. I found a cool App for my iPhone that works with the Daily Plate website. It makes it really easy to log my food and keep track of calories on the go. It automatically sets a calorie goal for you based on your weight and goals. When you eat it subtracts calories and when you exercise it adds calories. Neat-o! And like, every food you can imagine is in the database so I haven't had to laboriously create custom foods. Now to track my weight and figure out exactly how many calories I'm burning, I've started using the Hacker's Diet online tools (which I can also access from my iPhone). Prefering and actual application optimized for my iPhone instead of something web based, I'm thinking of trying FatWatch instead. It based on the Hacker's Diet and looks to be very slick. When I get it, I'll let you know if it's as awesome as it looks.

The good news is that for the past week, I haven't had much trouble sticking to my calorie goal except for yesterday when I didn't have time to get a real workout in after work since Nick had an orchestra concert. Wanting to get some form of exercise in every day, I went for a walk at lunchtime. After a few days of tracking my weight, it looks like I am consuming fewer calories than I'm burning (yay me!) but not few enough to make my two-pounds-a-week goal (boo!). I might have to adjust my daily calorie goal a little lower. At least I'm not gaining weight, which is good. The REALLY good news is that I've exercised 5 days in a row this week. I think that even on "rest days", I'm going to try to get a walk in. It makes a big difference in how many calories I can eat for the day. Okay, not enough of a difference to go out and eat french fries every day but enough to have a little extra snackage in the afternoon.