On April 13th, I put away all the chips, boxed foods, sugars (except for one cup of coffee in morning with sugar) and replaced those items with fresh fruit, fresh veggies, lean meats, poultry...I am no longer consuming any soft drinks or sugary drinks. I drink water...plain. I have exercised faithfully since that day and recently began coordinating holding 2lb weights with my walking workout in my hands. On May 9th, I started using fitbit. My weight on April 13th was 188 pounds. I am a 5"4.5 feet tall female with slightly muscular legs, smallish hips and butt. I carry all of my weight in my abdomen and have what I like to refer to as "the shoulders of a football player." My arms are not huge, but they definitely need toning!!
I started out on a treadmill on April 13th at a light pace and daily increased my speed. I am now comfortably up to 3.5-3.8 mph for 3 weeks, with bursts up to 5mph and I walk at this pace for an hour a day, sometimes all at once, other times I do 2 thirty minute workouts. I wear a pulse oximeter to be sure my target heart rate stays up. I can only maintain 5 mph for a minute or so at a time, as I am NOT a runner! I also began about a week ago adding inclining to my workout. I was up to 4-5 miles a day on the treadmill alone, not including the regular walking around during the day. On May 2nd, my weight was 181. I was excited to see that I had lost 7 lbs. On May 9th my weight was still 181 despite my consuming less calories and exercising. I spoke to my doctor about it and he advised me not to get discouraged saying this was a normal plateau.
This morning I got on the scale and I was shocked to see I had gained almost 5 pounds!
Now I am still getting used to Fitbit website so I have also been using Supertracker and have since April 13th. My BMR was 1543 I think give or take a few. I set the supertracker to keep me within 1500 calories and I only went over 1 time after enjoying 2 slices of pizza...I always average under. May 10, and May 11 were my first true tracking days on fitbit and the calorie load was very similar to what I logged on supertracker. It was only off by a couple of points. I had a calorie deficet on fitbit. The only difference I have made was that yesterday, I consumed 50 ounces of water, where I am used to only getting 32 typically. Surely, the almost 5 pounds did not come from that? My husband says I am building muscle, and while that may be true, 5 pounds seems less likely as a muscle gain in only a few days.
Prior to starting a healthier lifestyle I rarely ate breakfast or lunch and always consumed my calories at night with dinner and snacking. Now I eat breakfast most mornings and have a healthy snack around every 2-3 hours. By healthy I mean a piece of fruit (usually an apple). I am not eating any dairy products as I refuse to eat low fat cheese because I hate it. I am supplementing for that by chewing 2 viactiv.
My typical daily food menu is this:
AM-1 egg cooked with cooking spray
1 piece of whole wheat toast (the very thin kind from Pepperidge Farm---it's like the size of an extra large cracker 🙂
1 tsp peanut butter
1/2 banana
Morning snack-apple
Lunch- low sodium tuna fish (1/2 single serving pouch) with 1tsp light mayo
2 slices of the little wheat bread
lettuce
carrots
a few grapes
afternoon snack-5 sesame seed crackers or 6 triscuits
dinner-baked or grilled chicken 1/2 of small breast or very lean beef
2 vegetable sides cooked without fat
sometimes I replace one of the nonstarchy veggies with a very, very small baked potato with light margarine...just a pat
Evening snack-fruit, or triscuits with 1 tsp of sourcream based ranch dip, or popcorn (air popped no fat)
WHAT IN THE HECK AM I DOING WRONG?????
AVERAGING 10,000 STEPS A DAY OR MORE!
