Back to it – Week 1 Again
Last Monday, I got back into the diet.
I got derailed with sports, and have been eating whatever I wanted and maintaining at 160 pounds, or 18 pounds lost, for many weeks. (The last 5 pounds I had lost went right back on within a week, so they were probably just water weight.) I plan to do six weeks total, and hopefully be under 150 when I’m done. 147 is the upper limit of my bmi for a healthy weight, so that would be a nice start. I won’t be all the way to my goal, but I need energy right now, and I’ll get the last ten pounds off as soon as the season is over.
In week 1, I lost 3 pounds, so I am at 157 pounds.
Goals
I want to work out regularly, including doing a 10 week program that begins with a walk/jog combo that progresses to 30 minutes of continuous running. I completed this a couple of years ago, and it’s great. A far cry from my 5-7 miles a day of a few years ago, but really, the 30 minutes is all I need right now. I’m looking forward to doing this is the beautiful fall weather. I adore running in the cool, as well as the cold. I plan to lift weights, do aerobics, walk, play team sports – whatever, as long as I’m moving. I’d like to burn 3500 calories a week through exercise – or 1 pound per week.
I would like to eat around 1500 calories per day. My current basal metabolic rate is 1958 calories (178*11). At my ideal weight it will be 1485. So at first, I will have almost a 500 calorie deficit (that’s a pound a week!), and as I progress towards my goal, I will be losing most of my weight through exercise.
This should mean losing 2 pounds a week at first, and then somewhere between 1 and 2 pounds after that.
I have 26 weeks. I need to average just over a pound and a half per week.
This is doable. Challenging, but doable.
And to lose 22% of my body weight? Finally, when I’ve been talking about it for so long? That would be incredible.
My “ideal” weight – the no hangover test
So how did I come up with my ideal weight? Well, last time I was that weight, I had no hangover. You know what I mean, that pooch in your stomach that hangs over when you sit down. The last time I weighed less than 140 was the last time I had no hangover.
The stats
I weigh 178 pounds. My waist is 38 inches. (Yeah, you read that right. I can’t believe it either.) I am 5′ 4.5″.
Writing that makes me cringe. Especially the waist part.
My ideal weight is between 135 and 140 lbs. I’m aiming for 138, right in the middle of that range. At that weight, I am a size 8, which is perfect for my body type.
In high school, my waist was 24 inches. In an attempt to be realistic, I’m shooting for 27.
Because I gain weight on my waistline so much more so than anywhere else, I don’t plan to track anywhere else. Two numbers is enough, in my opinion.
40 by 30
I’m turning 30 in six months. I’m not really freaked out by this – I’ve accomplished quite a bit in my first 30 years, have a wonderful husband, own a beautiful home (it’s mortgaged, but again, I’m only 30), and am living in a great city. But I do want to start the next decade off on the right foot, and for me, that means losing those extra few pounds that have been hanging around for the last 5-7 years. And by a few, I unfortunately mean 40. That’s startling to me, because at first it was only ten pounds, then twenty, and now somehow it’s forty. Startling because I have dieted before, and in fact was at my ideal weight maybe 4 years ago. But it crept back on.
So 40by30 is my chronicle of trying to lose those 40 pounds before my 30th birthday. I’m hoping this blog will help me keep track and stay focused.
30, here I come!
