12W12S11: Ch-Ch-Changes

You know how, when you start working out, they tell you that sometimes your weight will fluctuate a little bit, because you're adding extra activity, and that makes your calorie needs change, and your body responds differently?

Yeah. Since I started my regimen (and then went and changed it), my weight has fluctuated by almost ten pounds. Like, I thought you were supposed to lose weight FASTER when you exercised? It took me until today to get back even to my old low, let alone lose any additional weight.

Three weeks. Eesh.

Whatever. No point in kicking my own ass over it, except when I'm working out. I lost another half-pound, and I will take it. I'm going to keep up with the vitamins and the arms and the cardio (what I am doing now is what I call my "dance like you're drunk at a wedding" exercise plan -- I make a 30-minute iTunes playlist, different every day, and just go crazy in the living room, incorporating as much as I can remember from the videos I've been using, but mostly just dancing my butt off and actually enjoying myself).

I also switched LoseIt! over to the 1½ lb. a week plan, because trying to lose 2 lb. a week was only allowing me 1,198 calories per day, and that just isn't enough. I am tired and cranky and hungry all the time -- I think the exercising has changed my metabolism a bit (for the better) and I don't want to starve. In trying to lose 1½ lb. a week, I get an extra 250 calories (1,448), which is doable. My plan to use up the extra calories is as follows:

• Breakfast -- now 300-350 calories (up from 250-300). Make up the extra calories by adding more fruit (i.e., large bananas, larger serving sizes) or extra ½ cup of skim milk.
• Lunch -- now 300-350 calories (up from 250-300). Make up the extra calories by adding an additional serving of vegetables or an extra ½ cup of skim milk.
• Snacks -- No change. Calorie limit remains at "float." Make up an extra calories by adding extra nuts or an extra ½ cup of skim milk.
• Dinner -- No change. Calorie limit remains at 600.

I think this plan is going to be good, because I am getting extra calories, but I am also trying not to waste them. Right now I am getting half my daily calories from dinner, and I am trying to tilt that balance a little bit, get more calories earlier in the day. Not a whole lot -- I will get almost half my calories from dinner -- but I am hoping to make up the extra calories with smart servings of stuff. Fruits, veggies, nuts, milk.

Already I've changed a couple of little things. I switched over to unsalted pistachios instead of regular ones. I mixed the new nuts in with the old stash, so I am still getting a good mix. This won't change calories at all so it's kind of a weird thing to change, but I the lunches I eat (soups and Lean-Cuisine type meals) are salty and I am trying to watch that where I can.

Also, I went back to eating Chobani or some other Greek and/or organic brand when I have yogurt in the morning, instead of the light yogurt I was eating. I have no fundamental problem with light yogurts, and I might start adding mini-cups of light yogurt in to the after-exercise snack rotation, but I really think that the extra protein and fewer artificial things in the Greek yogurts are worth the extra calories. (Plus, they do taste really good.)