Not enough calories?

Hmmm... Another half kilo gone in a day... That's too much, too soon. I guess I'll have to increase my calorie intake, at least on the days that I work out. Hmmm I'm thinking nuts, raisins and high fiber cookies. I'll go by the store later to check that out.

On the bright side I now weigh 73.5kg. That puts me back to my lowest weight of last year AND back at the weight I was pre-ZwitsalBaby. This also means I'm almost 1/4 of the way along to my goal weight.

I must not get too excited now and stay on track. One to two weeks is usually when I start slipping on a diet. On that note, look at the yummy lunch I just prepared:

3 crackers with cottage cheese, topped with pickle slices and spring onion. Total of 278 calories.

I just went through my archives and I laughed at this post. Clearly I have not lost my love for cottage cheese. Unfortunately it's pretty expensive, but I don't care.

Making the case for dairy

Yesterday I was surfing YouTube again for some videos on diet and weight loss. I stumbled on this BBC documentary called "How to be slim". It focused on finding the best methods to lose weight. Woot! Sounds perfect, so I started watching.

The first couple items were interesting, but nothing I had not heard of before. Then the topic of dairy came up. From what I've read on the internet (because the internet is always right off course), dairy is getting a bad rep. People bashing the stuff and cutting all dairy out of their life. Whut??? Such drastic measures always baffle me.

On the show, they had a guy consuming a dairy-rich diet during one week (mostly low fat dairy products) and the other week he consumed a low dairy diet. Both weeks he consumed more or less the same amount of calories and fat. Then they measured the amount of fat in his feces. This is the icky but fascinating part. During his dairy week, he pooped TWICE the amount of fat than he did in the other week.

TWICE. That's some impressive shit right there.

I have always been mindful to consume enough dairy, because I know us ladies have to remember to keep our bones healthy (osteoporosis, anyone?) and in my experience the easiest source of calcium is still dairy. But I had no idea it could have such a drastic effect on losing fat.

I love me some science and I started researching further. WebMD talks about a study that compared three groups of people with varying dairy intakes and it was clear the high dairy group lost more weight. In addition, they also found that this group lost significantly more body fat.

I'm liking what I'm reading. To put that in practice, this morning I had my usual oatmeal porridge, prepared with semi-skimmed milk. For lunch I packed a 200g jar of cottage cheese and I also have a 125g pot of fat free yoghurt at my disposal for a snack. These are all low calorie food items, but also quite delicious and filling. Apparently they can help me lose some body fat too. I'm excited right now.

That was a fast one!

So, as you know I've been weighing myself daily now. I try not to put too much value on the number though, I know it can fluctuate for many many reasons.

It showed me that I stayed more or less the same over the weekend, probably because I did consume more calories during those days. And then I hopped on this morning. Half a kilo lost compared to yesterday! Holy Moly.

Is this normal? I guess since it's still the first week my body might still be in shock mode. Like "WTF is happening here with this calorie restriction, y'all???" I'm so happy but also a bit scared. Losing too much too fast can be dangerous; I have to make sure I remain on the straight and narrow. Today I packed a shitload of snacks to keep me from getting hungry. I hope it'll work.

I also had a non scale victory today! I have this pair of pants that I bought in between the two kids. It fit me snugly a few months ago. I put it on this morning and now it fits perfectly, maybe even a little on the loose side. That means I'm definitely losing some inches as well. Yay!

BBC docs on crash dieting

I love looking for diet inspiration on the world wide web and on TV. I wrote a post about a TV show I enjoy a lot some time ago.

Well this weekend I was searching YouTube for some videos on diet and weight loss and I stumbled on a few gems: Two BBC documentaries on extreme dieting. They are called "Super Skinny Me" and "Super Slim Me" (just type these names in the YouTube search bar and you're there). It shows a few female journalists going on crash diets to obtain a size zero figure, resulting in serious physical and mental health problems.

It's pretty clear to see that these kinds of crash diets are a verrrry bad idea. And still... I feel like such a freak admitting this (I would only do it on an anonymous blog and never in real life), but I was intrigued. Who doesn't want to diet with fast results? The thing about crash diets is that their rules are usually very simple; basically you get maximum results with a minimum amount of thinking. No calorie counting, looking for the healthiest options, making sure you get enough protein, calcium blah blah blah.

Ugh... I know this is such a dangerous way of thinking, but these kinds of crash diets will always be just a little bit fascinating to me. I can already (kind of) notice it now while I am counting points. When my daily calorie intake is on the low side and I contemplate having a snack, I have opted to just skip the snack so my calorie count is lower. While having a snack and being closer to my maximum allowed intake of 1500 cals a day would be the more reasonable and healthy thing to do, the fact that I showed restraint gives me a feeling of pride.

I need to cut that shit out. Next time I will HAVE the snack, this is a promise to myself.

Post weekend update

The weekend has gone by and I admit I am kinda proud of myself. I wasn't as diligent as I was during the week, but I made good choices and managed to stay within my maximum intake (Saturday 1510, Sunday 1580). I am so happy about it, because I want to allow myself to still enjoy some things, which I certainly did. But no more weekend bingeing that used to make me feel sad and bloated.

Weight wise it's also been going well. 5 days in and a 0.7kg loss. I am weighing myself daily now, thanks to the scale I got for Christmas. This is mostly for logging purposes, because I'm really interested to make some graphs in a few weeks to see how my weight reacts to certain amounts of calories and exercise. I'm not going to post new stats more often than weekly though.

My mood has not been too bad. On Friday I did have a hard time at work. I was really hungry during the morning and then 1.5 hours after lunch I had a total sugar crash. Not fun. Today I took some extra snacks (fruit) with me to avoid that. Let's see how it goes.

Where have I been?

Sooo... I'm back again. I have no idea why I stopped posting. All I know is I'm back again, ready to roll.

Life's been good. MiniMe is doing great at school and growing up so fast my head is spinning. ZwitsalBaby's lungs are completely better now. The only real ailment that's still bothering him is eczema, which we are keeping under control with a moisturizing cream. He started walking at the end of January, which he is clearly loving. With the weather improving in our area, they are enjoying playing outside together; they are becoming more independent and frankly, I'm loving it.

On the exercise front I have been able to keep up the momentum. I'm still running my 7km twice a week. In december I finished my first run: 8K! I did it in 51mins, not too shabby if I say so myself. Below is a picture to prove I'm not lying. I'm the second one from the left, my father is the guy next to me. We ran the whole thing together and I had a lot of fun. There is something exciting about runs like these. The anticipation in the group before the starting signal, the wild outfits (this was during the end-of year holidays, so lots of Santa Claus hats, reindeer antlers and such), listening in on other runners' conversations. Definitely something I'll be doing again.

I'm also still playing badminton weekly and going to work by bicycle. In other words: Same old, same old.

On the eating front: Blech. Well, honestly it could have been worse, but it certainly wasn't great either. My main weaknesses, as always, have been potato chips and booze.

Weight wise I was holding on to my weight loss until December. then over the holidays it completely went to shit. I did have a lot of fun though, so I'm actually not feeling too much guilt. Own up to it and move along. Right now I'm at 74.9kg. New stats update and ticker below.

Updated stats:
Height 165cm (5'5")
Starting weight 76.5kg (168.6lbs)
Starting BMI 28.1
Current weight 74.9kg (165.13lbs)
Current BMI 27.5
Lost weight 1.6kg (3.5lbs)
Goal weight 64kg (141lbs)
Goal BMI 23.5




As far as food intake goes, I'm in a complete slump; I'm so over those fracking WW points. I need to shake things up with a fresh approach, so I decided to go with good old fashioned calorie counting. The nice thing about this is there are so many on-line resources out there, making it easy to look up anything, including calories burned from exercise. I'm logging everything right now in a spreadsheet: Weight, calories in, calories out and water intake. I am shooting for an intake of 1200-1500 calories a day. I'm not sure if I will take the exercise calories into account as well, i.e "eating" my exercise calories. At this point I'm not, but let's see how the first weeks go and maybe I will start doing that at some point if I notice my energy levels are problematic.

I'm making a commitment to myself to blog about the calorie counting as often as possible. Because I want to log not only the numbers but also how I'm feeling. From everything I've read online - and that's a LOT - I have realized that all of our bodies respond differently to certain diets. It's important to find out what works FOR YOU, physically and emotionally. So these first few weeks are going to be experimental. I'm going to try to stay on track as well as possible and then make some graphs to see the fluctuations in weight, energy levels, mood etc. I lurves me some graphs.

Back on the wagon we go!

Still running

During Engineer Daddy's business trip I didn't have any time to run. It's not even an excuse this time. I had people coming over to help with the kids, but they always went  home right afterwards, so I was stuck inside for the entire 10 days he was gone.

Yesterday evening I went for my first run in 12 days. It was way better than I expected. I figured I'd do the shorter 5.3km trail, but when I got to the end and still felt really good, I just went for it and finished my 7km route. I did not get out of breath, did not get the dreaded side stings, just felt on top of the world. Afterwards I even did some ironing. Running, check. Being a good housewife, check. Booyah, baby!