Exercise Routines

Lately I have been doing *great* on the exercise front.  This week I have worked out 6 out of 7 days.  There was one day when I only worked out for 30 minutes, but all of the others were between 45 minutes and an hour and 15 minutes.  I love being able to switch back and forth between machines.

However, I do have some concerns.  I have plantar fascitis in my left foot.  It is very painful.  It has been getting better in the last six months because I've worn running shoes exclusively instead of nicer shoes (which, okay, is what my podiatrist recommended a year ago but I wasn't in the position to follow that advice when I was still in corporate America).  Even so, walking on the treadmill constantly has started to make the issue flare up again.  Not so bad that I want to collapse and cry (hello, me a year ago!), but enough of a twinge to give me a warning that I need to rethink how much I am pushing my body while I'm still carrying this much weight.

In addition, I've been on the weight watchers boards a lot and have seen several posts about people who have a lot of extra skin after losing large amounts of weight.  Granted some of these people started out heavier than I (400, even 500 lbs as compared to my 385), but some people who started at even less than me (350, 300, or less) have reported a loose skin problem after losing the weight.  I did a lot of reading on the subject and there's not a lot I can do on the genetics front.  I'm guessing my genetics do lean towards an extra skin issue, because after I had a c-section, I had an apron of fat on my belly, which I've never had before, even at 330 lbs.  It could just be something that was going to appear on my body no matter what after I got above my pre-pregnancy weight (even without the pregnancy and c-section) but it could also mean that my stomach area is always going to be an issue no matter my weight.  So, nothing I can do to change that.  I can, however, make sure that I lose weight at a slow and steady pace, and stay very well hydrated.

In addition, I can add strength training into my exercise regimen.  This has a few advantages.  Supposedly, it helps with the loose skin issue.  In addition, it will allow me to maybe cut my cardio back to every other day, and still get in movement that is good for my body on the "off" days.  I bought a strength training dvd off of Amazon, deliberately choosing one that doesn't include anything high-impact such as jumping rope.  I also bought a set of dumbbells and an extra-thick mat for floor work, since the only area large enough for this kind of exercise is my completely-tile-floor den.  I can't wait to try this out and see if it is as good of an addition to my routine as I think it will be!

Mmmm, guilt-free margherita pizza!

I am not a great cook, so I don't claim the credit for any recipe that I post here.  It is pretty much guaranteed that I got the recipe somewhere else, and I will try to credit/link to that original source.

With that being said, I cannot recommend enough the English muffin margherita pizzas I made last night.  I based the original recipe off of Rhonda35's recipe on allrecipes.com (see the original recipe here), but I made a few changes based on my own tastes and the recommendations of fellow weight watchers.  I had one and a half of these for dinner last night and was completely full.  Someone who wanted to spend less points on dinner could have just one, with a salad, and could use less cheese or use fat-free cheese (though I personally think that fat-free cheese just isn't worth it).  So without further ado, the world's best easy, fast, and portion-controlled margherita pizzas:

Serving size: 1

Ingredients:
1 English muffin
1 roma tomato
1/2 cup low-moisture, part-skim mozzarella cheese
Fresh garlic
Basil

Instructions:
Split the English muffin and then toast it.  While it is toasting, slice the tomato into generous slices.  Remove the muffin from the toaster, place the tomato slices on each half, face-up.  Top with cheese, garlic, and basil.  Move the two English muffin pizzas to a baking sheet (I sprayed mine with pam first) and bake at 375 for 10 minutes.

Points total for the two completed pizzas (each is 1/2 of the muffin with tomato, cheese, garlic, and basil): 8

I wish I had taken a picture, but I will definitely be doing these again so I will take one then.  My husband and daughter did theirs with jarred pizza sauce from the store and topped with sausage that I cooked up quickly.  I tasted theirs and they were fine, but nothing beats the taste of the warm, fresh tomato on the version I had.  Happy eating!

Weekly weigh-in

Today was a good weigh-in!  I lost 2 pounds this week.  Current weight: 357.  Yay!  I'm hoping subsequent weeks will show similar results, especially now that I'm working out.  Having two machines is AWESOME--you get bored with one, you just switch to the other!  I do get a lot more points for the bike than the treadmill, but I like the treadmill more since I can read on it.

New photo:

A smart choice after all!

The last few days have been hungry days for me.  I hate these kinds of days--where you continue to be hungry no matter what or how much you eat.  But, many weight loss journeys have shown me that these are something that I just have to deal with periodically.  Today was hard--I am home alone with not only my food but also my daughter's snacks and husband's candy.  I'm also stressed and tired, and when it came to lunch all I had the energy for was to heat up a can of soup with some crackers.

In the end, I had three strawberries, a can of Progresso soup, 10 Ritz crackers, 4 cheese straws (sort of like grown-up cheetos), and a single Hershey's Bliss dark chocolate square.  I was feeling pretty bad about my lunch until I really thought about what I ate and how I chose it.  I'm making a carb-heavy dinner, which translates into high points.  So, I compared all three cans of soup in my pantry and chose the one that was the least amount of points.  I was feeling a out of control while it was heating up, and instead of binging on my daughter's snacks, I ate three strawberries (0 points!) and only half a serving of the cheese straws that I was given for Christmas, which I can usually eat by the boxful.  Then I looked up the point value of my crackers and counted out how many I could afford to eat and put the rest away.  Knowing that I would be craving dessert, I got a single chocolate square out of the freezer (1 point).  After I ate, when I realized that I was still thinking about food and was likely to go back in the kitchen, I made myself a cup of coffee with a tablespoon of creamer (1 point), which I savored long enough to kill the rest of my food cravings.

The result?  A reasonable 14 point lunch.  I get 57 points a day right now, so that is very acceptable.  If I hadn't stopped to think about what I was eating, I would have eaten the high-point soup I wanted when I went into the kitchen, all of the crackers in the Ritz short stack, at least a full serving of the cheese sticks, and probably some goldfish while I waited for the soup to cook.  The result?  Most likely a 25-point lunch.  Maybe more if I couldn't stop myself.  If the rumors about the points-to-calorie conversion are true, thinking through my lunch saved me 550 calories.  Not bad!

I also got my home gym set up yesterday (see below).  It has a treadmill and a stationary bike, and a cable hookup.  We bought a refurbished tv to put in the room that will be here next week.  My daughter's things are still in the closet (she wanted to switch rooms so we did that as well and put the gym in her old room), but we will finish that part next week.  In the meantime, the equipment is up and running.  So exciting!

"Before" Photo, Wellbutrin, and Weight Watchers

Well this is a little late, but below is my "before" photo, which was taken 1/6/14.  It's actually not the worst photo I've ever seen of myself, I think because it was taken by my husband at a downward angle since he's half a foot taller than me.  I'm thinking about taking measurements as well...but those are hard to face.  In the interests of full disclosure, this also isn't my highest weight.  The highest that I've ever seen on the scale was 385.  I lost some weight last semester when I started grad school and had to walk a lot more (around campus, to and from my car at the end of campus, etc).

In addition, I started taking Wellbutrin about 8 weeks ago, and it's definitely had some weight-loss benefits. At first it was just the anti-anxiety benefits (which are AWESOME, btw.  I know a lot of people have the opposite effect on Wellbutrin but it has made a huge difference in my anxiety), and the benefit of almost entirely solving my IBS problem (which I've had for a decade).  The quality of life improvement has already been enormous.  In the last couple of weeks, I've noticed a mild appetite suppressant effect as well, and the anti-anxiety effects have had an indirect weight loss effect as well--even when I'm hungry, I no longer get that panicky, out-of-control I must eat now feeling. Now its more like I'm hungry but eh, not a big deal if I don't eat.  As a result, I skipped a bunch of meals last week and actually lost 6 pounds in a week.  Obviously not a safe rate of loss, and it was before I started Weight Watchers again.  With Weight Watchers at my current weight I have a lot of daily points, so I have to eat all three meals.  Hopefully I will keep losing, at a more reasonable rate.  On a related note, my treadmill is being delivered tomorrow, yay!

Without further ado, the "before":

Current weight: 359 lbs

Introducing the Diminishing Duchess

Welcome to the world of the Diminishing Duchess.  I (the Duchess) am a 28-year old grad student living with my wonderful husband and daughter in Swamptown while I attend Swampville University.  I'm turning 29 soon, and this year will be the year that I lose weight.  Like so many other weight loss bloggers I've been here before, only to fail a week or a month down the line.  This time I'm all in.  Grad student stipends do leave something to be desired but we have invested what we have in my health and this journey.  In the last month, I have purchased, acquired, or arranged to acquire:

• A digital scale
• A 12-month subscription to Weight Watchers online
• A paid-in-advance entry into The Diet Bet's new 6-month "Transformer" bet to lose 10% of my body weight by June.
• A Nordictrack C700 treadmill:
• An awesome beach cruiser bicycle, as well as bikes for my husband and daughter
• High quality running shoes
• A bento box
• A Fitbit Force
• A Weight Watchers Active Link
• A bead-style charm bracelet, for which I will get a new bead for every 5 pounds I lose
• An excel spreadsheet with the date of every Sunday from now until July 2016 written down, and my projected weight at each week (assuming a loss of 1.5 lbs per week), as well as space to record my actual weight against those projections

Some of these (the Force, the bike, and the bracelet) are gifts from my wonderful parents, who are also invested in helping me on this journey.  In addition, I already own an awesome Nordictrack recumbent stationary bicycle, and this week my husband and I are converting our spare room into a little mini-gym with the bike, treadmill, and maybe a tv with a satellite hook-up.  He has committed to working out with me in the mornings before our daughter wakes up.

On Sunday I will do my first official weigh-in for the Diet Bet.  Those pictures will (gulp!) be placed online here for the world to see so that my journey can be tracked from beginning to goal.

Things you can look forward to here:

• An honest, maybe even personally embarrassing account of my journey, from food cravings to skin elasticity issues
• A review of any awesome recipes I find, and maybe even pictures if I manage to cook them without setting fire to the kitchen (something that has happened to me before.  Multiple times.)
• Tips and tricks about dieting, fitness, and lifestyle change, as well as an accounting of the emotional and relationship changes that occur when your body is transformed
• Probably some funny stories about my hilarious daughter and my great husband

So check back Sunday for the official beginning of my journey, completely with guaranteed-to-be-unflattering photos.  Stay tuned as I change my life over the next few years, and maybe come with me for the ride.