Day 1

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This has been an interesting day so far. I feel tired and I'm not sure why. Maybe just the busy weekend. I don't think it's the lack of caffeine because I tapered down. But today is a BIG day! So I need to rally, build excitement for the journey on which I'm embarking. That's 28 days of clean livin' folks!

Tasted better than it looks

Day 1:

First day with no caffeine.

Breakfast: 2 hard boiled eggs, hot tea
Snack: Grapes, 1/2 avocado
Lunch: Grilled tilapia, salad w/ no dressing, cabbage and carrot soup

I dealt with some pretty heavy temptation in the afternoon to have a snack, mostly my mind kept wanting a McDonald's ice cream cone. Yeah, I know. But hey, I didn't give in so Yay Me!

Snack: Orange

I stayed pretty drowsy all day but dragged my sleepy self to the gym anyway. I started with 25 minutes on the upright bike. Holy hell it almost killed me. I did level 9 again because I'm stubborn like that and whoa, was it hard. I had to slack off toward the end, my legs just didn't have it, but I finished the 25 minutes and went on to do legs/shoulders/PT exercises for weight training.

Despite how my legs felt on the bike I got through my workout pretty well. I made a slight change to my routine, dropping side lunges and adding shoulder presses. My routine was too leg-heavy with only 2 shoulder exercises. Anyway, I stumbled out of the gym feeling I'd done all I could. I'll admit, I got a little scared that I have pneumonia again. Mainly because I was wheezing and struggling on the bike and that I felt tired today. I'll have my nurse friend listen to my lungs but I honestly don't think I have it.

After the gym I stopped by the grocery store to pick up some challenge-friendly food for dinner. A steak (wow!), some fruit and veggies.

Dinner: Ribeye steak, quinoa and sauteed mushrooms and onions.

The mushrooms and onions were delicious, I could have eaten a whole plate of those. Dinner was filling, as you can imagine. I was too tired to grill the steak so I just cooked it under the broiler. Not as good but still pretty good. I've managed to resist the temptations this evening. Oh, except I had some of Myra's plantain chips before it occurred to me that they are fried so that means they're out. Whoops.

Today's final bit of news comes from the scale. I hopped on this morning and was surprised to see 141.8 pounds. That's 3.4 pounds down from five days ago. I'm not complaining, but sadly I think some of that might be muscle because I am still 29.5% body fat. Let's do the math.

145.2 pounds at 30% body fat = 43.6 pounds of fat, 101.6 pounds of lean mass
141.8 pounds at 29.5% body fat = 41.3 pounds of fat, 100.5 pounds of lean mass

1.1 pounds of lean mass lost +
2.3 pounds of fat lost =
3.4 pounds lost

Of course I'd like to see NO lean mass lost and ALL fat, but maybe that's unreasonable? I don't know enough about the physiology of weight loss to know if this is normal. I read an article recently that said "for every three pounds of muscle you gain, you can expect to burn an extra 120 calories a day without moving a single one of those muscles." I guess that means I'm burning 40 less calories per day than last week. I'm (mostly) kidding, I doubt it's that precise.

Anyway, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and see what happens. So it's 42 minutes past my new 10pm bedtime so I'm off for some zzzzz's. Hope you're doing well, ever-reaching toward those goals. Never forget how much it means to you. And that your happiness is worth the time and effort.

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I am a licensed clinical social worker with a private practice offering Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) for weight loss and maintenance. I have an office in Marin County, CA and I'm also available to see people via Skype. To learn more please visit my professional website at www.michellefunez.com