Well, tomorrow I lift!

Strangely enough, since I decided I was going to, I feel more in the mood for it. I’ve pulled out the sheets and will likely load the barbell before I go to bed. I’m just not that alert in the morning so it’s probably a good idea to be ready to go. I’ll still have to get up, having something (likely liquid) to eat, and wake up before I start.

I’m looking at my list and I did pretty well. I ended up with 10 1/2-cup jars of the cranberry sauce (as well as a single 1 cup jar and an almost full 2nd). It was really made for my mother to have with her (now homemade) smoked turkey. That’s the only slightly negative thing about the homemade stuff, it’s not quite so moist. Of course, that’s because they’ve pumped the luncheon meats full of water, so it’s not a bad trade-off. The turkey was the best. The eye of the round roast is a touch dry, but I’ll get better at it as I go along.

I ended up getting 20 servings of the stewed beef (done with a few mushrooms and onions) at 314 cals 34g protein, 15g fat, 6g carbs - it means tomorrow I can actually have some potato with it since it’s a lifting day. So I froze 9 double portions of it, which will be nice to have as the evenings get colder. Oh, and I ended up with some well concentrated stock with 5 ounces of chopped meat in it as well. I’ve got plenty of stock now… think I should start making soup!

The blueberry bran muffins turned snack cake were pretty good. I substituted yogurt for the original cottage cheese which dropped the protein a little bit and raised the carbs. However, it did use up the yogurt that was short dated. Since I still had yogurt left, I made a second pan in the afternoon. Yes, 46 piece in the freezer seems excessive, doesn’t it. However, I take a piece (sometime two) each day and my mother takes another, so it’s not as bad as it sounds. Oh, and I made some fruit salad as most of the soft fruit season here is past (just plums left really). This week’s fruit salad is all home canned fruit (peaches, sour cherries, sweet cherries) with a few chopped apricots. Have to watch there aren’t too many of those!

The hair is coloured and the laundry is almost dry. In fact I stopped posting so I could go take it out. So, it’s just about 10pm and I’m done for the day. (Yikes) I think tomorrow I’ll also take my shoes and a different shirt and maybe do a little walking during my 2 hour break. If I don’t then I will work on my homework from the morning class. So it’s one or the other. I suspect that the weather will end up being the deciding factor. I don’t want to do any high heart rate cardio, which I seem to do in the fitness center. So if the weather sucks it will be homework instead. Looking at my schedule for the next two weeks (evening tests on both Tuesdays) I might have to do Wed/Sun lifts in which case I might do cardio at the fitness center Tues/Thurs those weeks. I’ll cross that bridge at the time.

So, that’s it for me tonight. Just the food, then off to my bed.

Food for the day:

Total: 1994 (35% fat, 31% carbs, 33% protein)

Breakfast: two scrambled eggs, zucchini bread, jam, peaches (361)
AM Snack: chocolate zucchini cake (156)
Lunch: whole wheat tortillas, eye of round, nectarine (372)
Snacks: blueberry bran snack cake, carrots, hummus (281)
Dinner: hamburgers(2), condiments, edamame, salad w/dressing (692)
Late Snack: protein shake (135)

Well, I weighed in this morning at 266.0, which is 92.2 pounds from where I started this time, and 141.0 from my top known weight. It’s been a pretty good month. The weight lost came out higher than I expected (ie. with the rest/maintenance week), but that could be because I’m down almost 2 pounds from Sunday’s weight. If October 1st had been yesterday the number would have been different. The exercise minutes are low as well because of the rest/maintenance week. Overall though, decent progress.

• calories per day: 2396, hr monitor: 4827 cals total
• mixed cardio: 1h 30m , strength training: 7h 15m
• walking outside: 3h 45m
• avg daily exercise: 25 mins (161 cals per day)
• weight lost: 8.4 pounds

Now I need to think about goals for next month. I don’t set weight lost goals, as I feel I would be disappointed if I didn’t meet them. I try and set goals that will push me, but I can control if they are attainable. Although you can do certain things to help, you can’t force your body to lose weight on a schedule. So, on to the goals for next month.

• Eat within plan every day (2300 lifting days, 2150 cardio days, 2000 rest days)
• Drink water every day (18 cups min.)
• Exercise (60 mins cardio 2 days, ~60 mins strength training 3 days)

From a couple of tests at school I definitely keep my level of activities up during the days I’m at school. This is likely from lugging around books/water/lunch/purse from the back of the parking lot and such. So at the moment I don’t plan to change the calorie levels at all.

The plan is (starting tomorrow) to lift Tues(PM), Thurs(AM), Sun(AM). The cardio will be 2 hours between Wed/Thu/Sat/Sun, with ideally doing 1h15 mins on Wednesday and 45 mins on Thursday (at the college). That will leave Saturday as a completely free day. The other commitment I’ve made is to work on my homework on weeknights, so I don’t have to spend my days off catching up (as I did this last week). On the first day of November I’ll take a look at these and see how I’ve done. Wish me luck!

—-

Added: technically this is me exactly at the halfway point (assuming that 125 is my final weight). It’s almost sad, having lost so much, that I have so much to go. I’m trying to think of it as a victory or a milestone, but it’s kind of tough to do so.