Two Months In

Today marks exactly two months since I began this weight-loss venture. Two months of sticking to a plan and gradually increasing my exercise to 5 days per week. Two months = 18 lbs lost. I’m so close to my next milestone I can almost taste it.

In terms of my plan, I don’t see myself making any big adjustments until perhaps after the holidays, unless my weight plateaus. At the same time, I am reading and information-gathering about weight lifting and about eating in such a way that would optimize muscle growth, because long-term, I do believe my eating habits will need some changes for me to be a successful loser and maintainer. As I lose weight, I do not want to eventually be required to live on 1200 calories per day forever, or even 1400 calories. Nor do I want be constantly required to up my cardio time to burn the same amount of calories as my body becomes more efficient with those movements. And if I play this game strictly by the lady-mag cut-calories rule, I could see things coming down to that. I could also see myself being a thin person who is still kind of flabby, despite being at a “healthy weight.”

I’m reading The New Rules of Lifting for Women, and although I don’t know if I will have the confidence to do its strength workouts by myself off the bat, I do see myself heading in that general direction in 2010. Perhaps I’ll shell out the bucks for a personal trainer to get me started; in this case it would probably be worth it.

In terms of eating more healthfully with an eye toward muscle-building, I think I will need to eat more protein than I have been. SparkPeople breaks down my macronutrient ratios (fat/carbs/protein) for me in its reports, and I consistently come in on the very low end of the advised protein range—whereas my carbs are often a little higher than the high end of the recommended range. So yes, my eating is somewhat out of balance.

I have been making small changes to begin remedying this issue. For one thing, I am having omelets for breakfast several days per week now. This is something that came about what I got a bit bored with my food about a month into my program and my boyfriend and I figured out that, actually, making omelets isn’t too hard! I notice that on the days I have omelets for breakfast, I tend to be less hungry/have less cravings mid-morning. And obviously, my macronutrient ratio is a little more balanced, because I’m getting extra protein from the eggs.

I think I will use the next month and a half or so as time to experiment gently with adding more protein and some veggies into my regular meal plans. I don’t want to shock my system (psychologically if not physically), but I do want to keep improving what I’m doing at a rate I can handle.