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[bigheckinbraindrain]

Today's comparison numbers

Where I was vs. Where I am; May 8th to June 25th to July 10th

Weight in Pounds: 193.0 > 173.2 (-19.8) > 169.0 (-24.0)

BMI: 35.5 > 31.9 (-3.6) > 31.1 (-4.4)

Body Fat: 45.6% > 40.1% (-5.5%) > 38.8% (-6.8%)

Subcutaneous Fat: 39.5% > 35.1% (-4.4%) > 34.0% (-5.5%)

Visceral Fat: 17.0% > 14.0% (-3%) > 13.0 (-4%)

Skeletal Muscle: 31.7% > 34.9% (+3.2%) > 35.6% (+3.9%)

[bigheckinbraindrain]

These numbers, tho

So we've talked about my start on 5/8; I changed my diet, started working out with my trainer, made a big effort to really stick to it this time.

Where I was vs. Where I am; May 8th to June 25th

Weight: 193.0 > 173.2 = Loss of 19.8 lbs

BMI: 35.5 > 31.9 = Loss of 3.6

Body Fat: 45.6% > 40.1% = Loss of 5.5%

Subcutaneous Fat: 39.5% > 35.1% = Loss of 4.4%

Visceral Fat: 17.0% > 14.0% = Loss of 3%

Skeletal Muscle: 31.7% > 34.9% = Gain of 3.2%

Three days a week, I use the treadmill for about 30 minutes (speed ranging from 2.5 to 2.9). I then see my trainer and do 3 to 5 supersets. Mondays are Arm days, Wednesdays are Leg days, and Fridays are Full Body days.

I have not eaten things outside of my diet very much. I accidentally had about 1 tablespoon of tomatoes the other day (it was in my guac), and I ordered chicken wings one day and it was a bit breaded. I only ate 3 of the wings and it was gross, so I stopped. Otherwise, I'm killing it with my diet.

Where I know I can improve is my working out. 3 days a week is not quite enough, especially considering I only do half an hour of walking and half an hour of weights (with setup, walking from one area to another, and rest periods in there). My trainer is going to write me up a plan for my days when I'm not with her this week. That'll help me get into the gym and kick some ass even better.

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Putting the work in

I don't remember if I posted about working with my doctor to come up with a GOOD health plan or not, so I'm going to cliff-notes it now.

I went to the doc and started on a new nutrition plan on May 8th. That's 36 days ago. I had started seeing my favorite trainer way back in... Jan? Feb? But nothing crazy. I was kinda going through the motions just to get back to it. Since May 8th, I have been deadass serious.

So on the 8th, my entire diet changed. I'm on something akin to Paleo, but more restrictive. Basically, I can eat all the white meat chicken I want, some veggies, and a few fruits. My drinks are ONLY water with the exception of a protein mix (and only one; SunWarrior). I can't eat any dairy, no nightshades (tomatoes and the like), most fruits are off limits (apples, strawberries, and most other berries are ok), some nuts, and all the leafy greens a girl could want.

I rotate between three meals more often than not (like, 95% of my meals are one of these three).

My favorite is a bowl with chopped kale and cauliflower base topped with strawberries, broccoli, blackened chicken, sunflower seeds, avocado, and balsamic vinaigrette.

I also do chicken breast with a small fruit salad on the side

And my other dish is 2 chicken breasts with zucchini.

Coming from a girl who ate things like 4 chicken tenders with mac n cheese and fries pretty regularly, this is a massive change. I also was seriously non-active. I have a desk job and work from home. My step count was absolutely laughable.

This past month+a few days have been entirely different.

On my gym days (3x a week with the trainer), I get up between 4:30 and 5, do my morning stuff for about half an hour and then head out the door with my SunWarrior shake. I have a 30 minute drive to the gym, and do a half hour on the treadmill to warm up before seeing Jess (the trainer), and then I do my workout with her and drive a half hour back home. Shower, change clothes, and plop my ass in front of the computer to start work.

On my non-gym days, I sometimes hop on my home treadmill or play beat saber or Supernatural on my Oculus for some cardio, and then in front of the computer.

I could be so much better; I could go to the gym more often, I could Oculus much more frequently, but it's still a huge change. I've lost about 16 pounds this month, and good lort do I feel better!

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Today, something amazing happened

So, after Covid, I've had serious heart conditions. I take heart medication 3 times a day to keep my heart rate down. Without the medication, my resting heart rate is 150. Now we know I'm not a fit girl (yet), but 150 is way WAY too high, especially for a resting number. My medication keeps it below 100.

Before I started going back to the gym, my on medication resting heart rate was in the mid to upper 80s. It'd get down in the 70s occasionally when I was sleeping.

This morning, when I woke up, I had a heart rate notification on my Apple watch. I opened the app to learn it was a LOW heart rate notification! I've had one of those in the entire time I've had an Apple watch, and it was around the time I had my heart attack (just after, on all the meds, in the hospital).

I had to contemplate that for a moment. How did it dip so low? Am I sick again? Am I prepping for another heart attack? Or... hear me out, is my diet so drastically different since I started (2 weeks ago) that it could be that my food was triggering my heart rate?

You can call me all the names here, I know it was bad, but I knew I am allergic to Soy, Peanuts, Palm, Pine, Wheat, and Rye. I did very little to avoid them. I mean, I wouldn't eat soy sauce or something like that, but breaded chicken fingers? Yep. Food prepared with soy? Yep. And I know those foods make my face itchy and the doctor said it causes inflammatory responses inside my body. When I consume those things, my body tries to defend itself (myself?) against them and it can cause a cascade of things to happen. I never took a lot of stock in that even though I knew I should.

So with this new way of eating, I get zero of those things. Literally zero. And seriously, in 2 weeks, my face is thinner, my stomach has come down, I feel much better, and... and this heart rate thing.

Sure it could be something entirely different, but I work out now multiple days a week. I'm sure to have cardio as well as strength training. I eat REALLY well. I'm thinking that it really could be because of this that I had to not take my heart meds today.

Because I couldn't imagine what my heart rate would be at if it's this low without medications and I took pills to make it lower.

So... yeah. This is pretty nutsbananas!

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Here we go again... again

I have this tendency to get really, really into fitness. I love the gym, I love to sweat (when working out, not when just walking outside... stupid Florida), I love the way my body feels when I've got a regime.

And then, I love to eat bad for me foods. And I don't mean they have lots of calories (which they usually do) or that they contain unhealthy ingredients (which they usually do, too)... I mean things I am allergic to or that my body can not process. I am allergic to wheat, rye, peanuts, pine, and palm. I have had my gallbladder removed. I have specific things that my body just doesn't handle properly. But I still eat the stuff.

And eating the stuff makes me lose stamina and energy in general. And then I stop working out regularly. And then I stop working out at all. And months pass before I get back to it. Sometimes as much as a year!

I'm getting back to my gym ways right now. Last Wednesday, I went to my nutritionist doctor and said I needed help. I explained that I can barely stay awake for a full day (not ideal when you work 8 hours a day) and that I just don't have energy to work out. Between that and my dietary issues, they put me on a very specific diet and medication to help.

As of this morning, I am down 5 pounds and am really pushing with my personal trainer. I also did the MudGirl run this weekend (though I walked it, and felt like I was dying!)

Cross your fingers for me. I really need this to stick!

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Once-a-Month Meals

I recently found a website called Once a Month Meals (OaMM). The idea behind it is that they have many MANY recipes that you can prep ahead of time and freeze for later. You can create a menu plan, add up to 15 recipes from their site to your menu plan, and then tell the system how many servings you want each meal to be and how many make-ahead meals of each recipe you want, and it guides you through it.

Yesterday was my first attempt at this. I picked 15 meals that looked/sounded like they'd be really good. I made my shopping list (they allow you to download an exact shopping list, but I wanted to write it out to combine a few things, like there would be an entry for Chicken breast and another for chicken thighs, but I only eat breast, another entry was for diced tomatoes and one for diced tomatoes with chilis that I combined together). And when I got home from the store, I started in.

As I understood it, the basic steps for doing a meal plan session are to

Make your meal plan from the available recipes

Print out a shopping list (the website creates this)

Shop for the items on the list

Print out the prep-day sheet

Make all the recipes

Freeze

My experience of last night's endeavor was that it sucked. Hard. The recipes were good and the prep wasn't really that bad, but there are some things I could have done differently that would have made a huge difference.

I learned a lot in my first go-round. Some things I realized part-way through, some I realized once I was cleaning up my disaster of a kitchen at the end.

My tips for my next round will be:

PAY ATTENTION TO PREP TIMES ON THE RECIPE CARDS

Make my meal plan

Shop at a warehouse grocery store like Sam's, Costco, or BJ's because bulk, man

Pre-prepare my cooking by figuring out how much hamburger meat I need to have "cooked" for a recipe, chopped onions, etc. Do all that the night before

Use these little cups to measure out my spices for all recipes beforehand

Figure out what I'm going to eat for the next 2 or 3 days to keep in the fridge instead of freezing.

Make up my Ziploc bags and bowls with their labels

Group similar recipes together (like my Santa-Fe chicken and my taco pasta) because I can reuse some of those mixing bowls without having to wash and dry them in between when a rinse would do just fine

WEAR MY GOOD SNEAKERS FOR ARCH SUPPORT because I didn't last night, and my feet were dead weight about 5 recipes in

Download an audiobook to listen to while I'm prepping. Or a podcast. Or something.

Make sure I do my flash-freeze recipes in a logical order. Somehow, all my flash-freeze ones were near the end. Since I needed freezer room to store the pans before packaging the item, I couldn't do them in succession. Honestly, I'll probably ensure I only do 2 or 3 flash-freeze recipes per prep day, and do one at the start, one in the middle, and one at the end. Or just start and end.

Make an "eat" calendar. I will make a little post-it note and pre-write each individual meal on one note, then add it to my calendar (so I can move them around if I want to). I could also use calendar software to do this, but I like the tactile feeling of placing and moving stickies. I'm a very techy person but this is one thing I do like doing with paper.

Get 11 inches-wide plastic storage bins. I can freeze all my bags lying down, flat, and then put them into these storage bins in order of when I'm going to eat them

[bigheckinbraindrain]

MyNetDiary Health Tracker

Y'all, I am floored by this tracker! I literally just paid for a lifetime membership of Lose It and dgaf, I still switched over to MND

THE FREAKIN REPORTING AND INSIGHTS!!! OMG!!! And it's pretty, and easy to use, and has an excellent food db!!! Like WHOA.

So if you've been reading along my "Find my Tracker" journey over the past few weeks, please know that my adventures/hunt is well over.

As a note, if you try out MND and like it, you can get a discount by buying gift cards instead of just paying for the app. They tell you how to do this on their site.

Annually, the regular cost is $60. If you buy two year's of gift cards, that total is $72. That comes out to $36 a year. That's what I did. I was going to use it for 2 year's worth of membership, but my daughter was interested in using MND too, so I gave her one of the gc numbers to use. So she has a year and I have a year for $12 more than it would have cost me for just my membership.

[bigheckinbraindrain]

WHOA, New Contender!!!

So I was looking for promo codes for MFP because I was pretty sure it won out in the quest for food tracking apps.

And while searching for the code, someone posted on Reddit (of course) that they were in the same search and decided to try other apps (samsies). They mentioned My Net Diary which I used a really long time ago. It was as basic as Lose It on the web, and I honestly didn't even consider it when doing this round. The last time I logged in this app was 2 years ago, and even then I was just kinda going through motions to see if I liked it.

But now?! Holy CRAP has it changed!

Y'all, I'm sold! The charting, entries, food db, tips, and insights are amazing!

I'm done looking. I'mma fork over the money for this, I just know it. I'll look to see if they do trials first, but I'm pretty sure this is my new and only app!

[bigheckinbraindrain]

MFP vs CM

I have officially decided to drop Chronometer and Lose It.

I dropped Chronometer because while it does offer a lot of macro insights, I don't use them. And I frequently find food that is either a different nutritional value than listed on the package or another app, if I find that food at all. It's lovely to view, but it's just not overly helpful.

I dropped Lose It because while it does have a pretty good database, it is just not visually appealing on the web (the phone app is fine), and it doubles up entries. I just didn't see enough good features to make me love it.

I tried out FatSecret. I used to use it a million years ago (last time I logged an entry was January of 2022, so almost 2 years ago). It's... ok, at best. But there are no reports and it's kinda clunky. I decided to just drop it before I tried to get too committed. I mean, zero reports or insights just can't compare to the other sites I'm working with who do have them.

So now we're at My Fitness Pal and Carb Manager.

My only complaint with CM is that I wish it let me focus on calories instead of carbs. The only time I care about carbs is when it's from an allergen. But not all carbs are, so this focus just doesn't do anything for me. Outside of that, though, it's awesome.

MFP irritates me that you have to pay to use most any good feature and you can try it for free but only by putting in your cc info. I feel like they are making their site about a money-grab. I don't know why that irritates me but... here we go! I might use the free trial until black friday, see if they have a sale.

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Drop two, picked up 'nuther

Yesterday, after not being able to find a meal once again, I dropped Chronometer. I like how much info it gives about micronutrients, but I'm over not being able to find foods.

I also dropped Lose It. I hate that it takes in double entries. I probably shouldn't... I mean once I decide on an app it won't double up anymore. And the phone app is pretty dope. But the web app is crappy.

And in a really weird turn of events, I picked MyFitnessPal back up. Unpaid account, but worth at least tossing into the mix I guess.

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Food logging apps

As of yesterday, I have been using all 3 food logging apps for 2 full weeks. I have logged each thing I ate as best I can (all food has been logged, but sometimes the app doesn't have exactly what I ate so I do as best I can; like one didn't have Little Greek Fries, so I found other fries that were similar in calorie count).

The overall, I think Lose It is my favorite. I have a lot of 🚫items on it, but the pros outweigh the cons (haha, outweigh). I don't want to have to keep up with each of them daily, but each one has something much better than the others do. With Lose It, it feels like the most complete and useful. With CarbManager, it's food logging is the most user-friendly and the daily page is just more robust and useful. With Chronometer, the breakdowns of macros is way better.

Here's where I am with each of them:

Lose It - Overall there are a lot of 🚫 on this list, but it's not my least favorite.

Food Logging

🚫Visually, it's not appealing. At least on the computer. I actually like it's phone app but the computer app just isn't very nice.

🚫It ingests from Apple Health which is ok, except that because I enter stuff on LI, and then the same stuff on the other apps, I have to go back and find duplicates all the time. This is, I'm sure, an easy setting to fix and it won't matter when I've dropped to just using one app.

✅It seems to have most of my food

🚫While it has most of the food, it doesn't show the brand on the diary page, which I weirdly hate

🚫Zero hotkeys or shortcut buttons/clicks. I also hate that

🚫In the meal search box, if you start typing, it can auto-hover on something and stops letting you type. It's a pain

Reporting and Insights

I really like the Patterns insight. It shows me "On days you eat (...) you tend to keep you (...) lower/higher" which is super helpful already, but I'm sure it will be much more so after I've used the app for a long time

The Food Insights (where it shows what items contributed to the highest calories/sodium/fat/etc) is pretty cool, but it doesn't let you pick the date range so ... meh

Budget shows the days you were over/under on your calories. That's kinda nice but I almost never look at it. It doesn't really lend to any changes in behavior so far

Nutrition insight is useless, because there is an "Unknown" slice in the pie. And it doesn't tell you what contributed to it. How can I take stock in anything it's showing on that chart when there is such a large portion that is unknown?

The weekly summary is kinda nice, I do like this one

The weight chart is pretty clear and easy to see my trends.

CarbManager - Overall, this has the most ✅ marks, but I just don't know that it's my favorite. I think this is 100% because it's focused on carbs and that's not my goal. I feel if they were to let you choose which macro is your focus and display accordingly, this would be my favorite by a lot.

Food Logging

✅Visually, this is my favorite. It's clean and crisp, both on the computer as well as on my phone

🚫It's focus is on Carbs (I mean, it IS called CarbManager) and I don't focus on Carbs. I really really wish it would let you decide to do Carbs OR Calories as your focus.

✅It has most of the foods I'm looking for

✅It tells you the name of the brand/restaurant and even shows pictures

✅It's super easy to copy from one day or meal to another, which is awesome

✅I actually just did a recent call with them for market research. I love knowing that they're that interested in their user base and take time (and spend money) to find out user's preferences and ease of use. They did a portion that was touch-point/pain-point and I LOVE that!

🤔There are a ton of recipes on the site (which is awesome) but they are all carb-focused (again, it's right there in the name) which is not my goal. So yay recipes, boo they are carb-focused. HOWEVER, because I'm not supposed to be eating wheat and select other grains, this is actually pretty good. I'm not Keto, but I share a lot of the same needs.

🚫Your weight isn't listed on your diary page. I want to see all the info I care about in one place

Reporting and Insights

If we're being honest, the reports section is shit. I get way more useful information looking at the day-to-day charts, because the reporting section is 100% lacking

Chronometer - I really like this one, except the lack of items in the database. I think if I had no issue looking stuff up, I'd absolutely love this app. I know that if I used this long enough, and I entered in everything that it didn't have in the db whenever I found something missing, eventually it would even out and I could find everything even if it was because I entered it. But I just don't have that kind of patience or desire to put in the extra work for an app I'm paying for.

Food Logging

✅Visually, this is almost an exact mix between the other two.

🚫🚫I find a lot of the food I'm looking for just isn't here. I have to frequently find "close enough" type foods, which means that the macro summaries that I like so much aren't really accurate.

✅It's very easy to drag and drop, rearrange stuff, etc. That's really nice

🤔I always talk about how much I love the nutrient targets, but if we're being honest, I rarely look at them. It seems the only time I care about this level of depth is when I get bloodwork done and I want to see what contributed to a specific thing (like sodium).

Reporting and Insights

The nutrition report for daily averages is pretty dope. I really like this one for retrospective

[bigheckinbraindrain]

She Who Is Tired, and the Negative Thoughts That Keep Her That Way...

I am just. so. tired. I feel like it just never stops, I run from one fire to the next never getting to put any out. And just when I think I have something down to embers, it blazes up again.

I feel like I run from one crisis straight into the next and I am exhausted.

And today I got feedback that I didn't want to ever receive. It was hard to hear. It's always hard to hear when you put so much effort in and you're not doing well enough.

My first instinct is to give 'reasons'. I went instantly on the defense. But I held my tongue and did not respond because I knew that my reply would be "I did this because person x did that".

That's not the right way to respond. I knew it, and it was hard to continue listening objectively while fighting that reaction.

I kept repeating some variation of "you're not in trouble, you're being offered insight on ways to improve" to myself. I kept trying to remind myself that I was being given an opportunity to be better. But man, my mind just kept going back to the "I put my heart and soul into this" mindset.

I'm choosing to not feel that way. I'm choosing now, right now, that my takeaway from that is that I was putting my efforts into chasing down these fires when there was an easier way to manage them. I'm not wrong for putting 100% in, I was mistakenly putting my 100% in incorrectly.

I will listen to this feedback and I will use it to help me change what I do with my efforts. I was given feedback not to reprimand me for a poorly done job... I was given that feedback to help me learn to direct my methods to a better means of putting out those fires.

Giving effort is good. Giving the effort correctly is better.

I have learned a valuable lesson, and I won't let my negative thinking take that away from me. I will take it at face value and say to myself 'This person cares enough to provide an outside perspective. They not only show me areas where I can improve, they offered me real examples and solutions to help me grow.'

I will keep that mentality, but damn today sucked.

And I am tired of fires.

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Noodle arms

Welp, I finally jumped back in. I made my body do sweat stuff. I didn't do much, but that's ok. I did SOMETHING.

I pulled up my beat saber (and had to wait forever to get it logged back in and ready to go :/ ). I did 3 songs; 2 Imagine Dragons and one Billie Eilish. And for some reason, even though I only did 3 songs, my arms do not want to lift.

Hey body, do you remember when we used to go to F45 four or five days a week, sometimes we'd do two classes? I miss being at that level. But I'll never get back there if I don't start somewhere.

So I started on this path again today. I wonder how long it'll be until I get back to having strength and stamina?

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Gonna have to do this too

🎥 sculpd (TT)

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Welp, Imma have to do this :/

🎥 _therichhome (TT)

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Apps, Day 2

LI (Lose It), CM (Carb Manager), C (Cronometer)

LI - There isn't a water tool from the diary page

CM - There isn't a water tool from the diary page

C - There IS a water tool from the diary page. Also, there is a backfill for my Apple Health. I can sync with Apple Health and select a timeframe with which to backfill data to C. That's wickedly cool!

[bigheckinbraindrain]

These heckin' food apps :/

So I ended up getting a "For Life" membership from Lose It (it was $60, so why not, right?).

I started using it again today.

Dude, come on... I had a Red Bull for breakfast (I know, champion). For lunch, I had a Crack Kale dish I made. Obviously, it's a custom recipe so I had to enter it into the system. It was a serious pain in the bum. It was a chore to create the recipe, and the site glitches out so bad when trying to select ingredients. That made the process take at least twice as long.

So I pulled up my Carb Manager. I instantly thought "Man, this looks so much better!" So out the gate I was regrettispaghetti about purchasing Lose It today. I put the recipe in there and added it to my daily diary in a fraction of the time.

Then for shits and giggles I opened Cronometer and instantly thought "Man, look at all these stats!!!" and entered the recipe and added to my today. The only thing I liked more about CM was that it was easier to see the brand name for the items when adding them. Other than that, I really prefered Crono.

DAMN IT!

Ok, going to do all 3 this week to see what else I have apparently forgotten about a dozen times.