One more week . . .

Means one more week gone and one more week until my "official" monthly weight. So, I'm 210 today - a solid 210, no fluctuating. But I see I'm supposed to be reporting my monthly total NEXT week, soooooooo

If I can get the scale to officially be at 206 next week, no fluctuating, then that will be a definitive 10 pounds a month, which, if I stick to at LEAST that, I will hit my goal around January 1, 2019.

That will be a great new year!

My last official weight on June 11 was 216. Waist - 44 inches.
Next official will be done on July 9.

On fasting

So, for various reasons, I thought it would be a good idea to spend Thursday fasting. I did, and it was alright, but, I noticed these things:

• Not eating isn't hard. Being sharp while in meetings a little difficult. To combat this, I drank non-caloried coffee. It helped BUT
• Not eating all day and having coffee at 3:00 pm (which I usually do with no problem) kept me unable to sleep until almost 2:00am. Not good for a working day. AND
• Friday, the day after, still feeling dingy. AND
• On my Saturday fast last weekend, I actually worked out for a couple of hours early in the day and worked out hard the day after. These seem to have worked well with the fast. Being at work, I was not able to do that. 

So, next fast will be next SATURDAY. I think I'll keep that a weekend thing. 

One week in to my new new eating and exercise plan

Drum roll please  . . . . . .

Last week on Monday my weight was 220. This morning it's a definite and official 216!!
(I'm also starting to track my waist measurement - one inch below my belly button - today it's 44".)

Four pounds!! I have a lot to lose so I know that although I can pull off 4 pounds a week for awhile, I won't be able to do that as I get closer to my goal weight. I am very happy to make what is significant progress down a very long road.

So, in addition to everything I outlined below, I threw in a 24 hour fast over the weekend. Had only coffee on Saturday morning and didn't eat until Sunday morning.

My calories all week averaged about 1250. Exercise was:

M - Walked 1 hour
T - Walked 1 hour
W - Walked 1 hour
Th - nothing :(
F - Walked 1 hour
S - Biked 1 hour
S - Biked 1 hour alone, then 3 hours with family

So, very happy with the results. I'm also learning more and more how to avoid wasteful calories and not give in to temptation. At this point, I don't want to risk my progress by giving myself a reward. Not yet.

One thing you learn from counting calories . . .

. . . is that you have NO idea how many calories you consume normally. Today I had a box lunch catered in at work and without counting calories, I would have just had the whole thing. It was a vegetarian caprese sandwich on a ciabatta roll with a bag of low-fat chips, a pickle spear, and a cookie. Seems harmless. Total calories = 1200!! I only ate half the sandwich and the pickle spear and gave away the chips and cookie, so I made it only 370 calories.

I used to think I didn't eat badly, and I don't really. But since I'm trying to lose weight, figuring out how to NOT eat 1200 calorie meals will help me quite a bit.

Good old fashioned exercise and eating right to lose weight

I gave up on the intermittent fasting (see two previous posts) because I wanted needed to see something come off the scale in the first few days and I did not. So, I'm going back to a method I've used before successfully - regular exercise and counting calories with an eye on keeping my Fat/Carb/Protein percentages pretty balanced.

I'm using this great free app called MyPlate that helps you easily count your calories, your water intake, and your exercise. It provides a summary that shows the percentage breakdown of Fat/Carb/Protein calories. Looking at different recommendations, I'm shooting for a 20/45/35 split.

What I found is that when I count the macro-breakdown (as it seems to be called in today's jargon), I naturally eat waaaayyyy too many carbs and not enough protein.

A few other things I'm trying to do:
- Obviously eat as natural as possible. Good fat (avocados, olive oil) not bad fat (fried food).
- If I eat bread, it's only for the breakfast meal
- Vegetables as much as possible
- Lean protein (fish, white meat chicken, turkey)

Also, workout everyday. After three days of watching MyPlate, and riding my bike / walking for at least an hour a day, the scale budged! After watching it fluctuate all last week between 222 and 225, this morning it hit 220!!

I'll be diligent this week and report in next week.

Activity Log - First 16/8 Week

Wednesday 05/23 - Biked for an hour
Thursday 05/24 - Walked for thirty minutes
Friday 05/25 -
Saturday 05/26
Sunday 05/27
Monday 05/28
Tuesday 05/29
Wednesday 05/30
Thursday 05/31

So, the intermittent fasting was a bust for me. I did it for three days and wanted to see something on the scale but my weight either stayed the same or went up. Trying the basic method I've used before. See the next post.

16/8 Intermittent Fast - Trying to Dump Those 75 Pounds

I'm dealing with 75 extra pounds that I gained over two years of working from home and literally sitting on my ass 12-14 hours a day. I'm now in a normal job where I get to live more like a normal person. So now, the goal is to get back to my true weight.

Full disclosure for anyone interested in the 16/8 Fast. I'm 57 years old, 5'10" female, and I currently weigh 223 pounds. My goal weight is 148 - I want to get and stay under 150. As it took me two years to gain this weight, I will be happy to get rid of it within a year.

I'm doing a 16/8 Intermittent Fast. What this means is that I have an 8 hour window each day where I can eat, and a 16 hour "fasting" window where I only drink water. I'm also drinking one cup of black coffee in the morning while I wait for my eating window, which is currently 11am - 7 pm.

Although we all know our weight fluctuates daily, I'm marking my starting point as 223. I will mark an official weight check in on Friday, June 1 (2018) as that will be one week of me doing this 16/8 thing.

My initial reaction - negatives are getting hungry in the evening, but water with ice seems to help, and hungry in the morning. But, the positives that come from that are that I am much more productive in the morning because I use "digging into my work" to keep my mind off of being hungry. I've also noticed that when I do eat, I'm more picky. I consciously don't want to waste my eating on donuts and cake. And, with restricting my eating to just those 8 hours, I've easily reduced my calorie intake by close to 1000 calories a day.

I am also increasing my daily activity, so that should contribute to weight loss. Next post, I'll track my activity, and the post after that will be on June 1 with my weight result.

Happy fasting!

Lessons in Resume Writing

I've decided to re-write my resume using a "human voice" approach. Being an "older" job seeker (read "over 50") my honest career goal is to find a job using my skills and experience that makes a higher-end salary. (Yes, I agree, there are way too many quotes in the above.)

I've created resumes tailored to the job I'm applying for, but always tried to keep my "career goals" on a general same path. But, in the human voice resume, I want to tell my story, which will include my career goals, so I realize that my career goal will be different depending on the job I'm applying for.

In this article, https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2014/07/17/how-to-write-your-human-voiced-resume/#20e12d5b6edd, Liz Ryan talks about making your story of your past experience tailored to the job. Which makes sense.

Changing the Resume Game

Here I am back on the blog that I've really not done anything with. Again, I have something I think is worth saying but will possibly fade into the ether as soon as I write my first post. But enough about me.

I'm currently mid-employed. Not "under employed" really, but not where I could be salary wise. I have an appropriate amount of responsibility and challenge with my current position, but it's for a very, very small company with very shallow pockets. They would agree that they're under-paying me but they're simply taking advantage of their luck of having me on board for as long as that lasts.

I've been playing the resume lottery. Honing my resume to hold key words to get the auto-bots to let me through the first view, and I think I've done pretty well with that, EXCEPT, I've sent dozens of resumes, for jobs I'm qualified for, over the past year and heard nothing. Less than crickets.

So, I'm taking a radical approach. I'm re-doing my resume to include a very specific summary of me at each job.

For example, each job listing starts with a brief description of the company, followed by my list of accomplishments. I'm adding this (example is my first listing):

SUMMARY: Hired through a temp firm to do data entry. Quickly learned company and systems and was hired permanently to current position.  

WHAT MY BOSS WOULD SAY:  She's smart, learns things quickly with minimal guidance, gets on well with everyone, and can handle literally anything we throw at her. We were lucky to find her. She is the one person who could step in for the Technology Manager if needed to supervise tech tasks, manage the databases, and explain the tech to the rest of us. 

The idea here is to tell a story. I've googled this approach and it breaks the traditional rules, but what have I got to lose? The worst that could happen is no response and I've already had that.

I'll let you know how it goes.