Diminishing Returns

So the phone rang at 4:59 this morning. That’s actually one minute before our alarm usually used off so it wasn’t too bad, but it was the hospital help desk calling to see if Tom could help with a videoconferencing problem they were having. Unfortunately, he’s not really the backup person for that and couldn’t help. But he did get a hold of the person who truly is the backup person and told him what was going on.

After that was solved, we noticed it was raining. No walking for us today, especially since much of our route is on rather steep, grassy slopes. We had our shakes and started our days. And the power went out just before 10:00 and stayed off for almost 90 minutes. For the first time, I realized that, with a garage door opener, I was stuck unless I wanted to pull the emergency release. No, thanks… I’ll just wait.

Had the last two tortillas for lunch (one with super-sharp cheddar and Miracle Whip Light and the other with butter and hagel (Dutch version of chocolate sprinkles – eaten on bread… really! Check the link!). Now, I desperately want more food. Oy…

Will update later in the day…

UPDATE

The day didn’t get much better as I tried to have a reasonable conversation with the idiots working in the office at our soon-to-be former apartment complex. If you or anyone you care about is thinking about renting from Paddock Club Apartments in Florence, KY… RUN AWAY!!! RUN AWAY!!!

Carla

So Tom and I haven’t posted here since June 11th. Since then, we started looking for a house or condo, hired a realtor, taught summer classes for the first time, found a great condo, got a mortgage, celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary, closed on the condo, moved ourselves, got sick, hosted our first guests… and gained about 20 pounds each. But, yesterday, we went back on the shakes (doing a 4 shakes plus one healthy meal plan) and this morning, I was down 3.2 pounds. Not too bad..

Besides not always making healthy food choices lately, we haven’t been as religious about working out. This week, the Y is doing their annual cleaning of the pool so water fitness is out. We’ve been walking instead, taking an approximately 2.5 mile route through the condo development and the adjoining county park that takes us about 50 minutes. Also, not too bad…

Not surprisingly, our first goal is to get back to where we were in late April and early May. After that, it’s on to our big goals. As we go, I’m following some Twitter friends on their newly launched blog at http://cincinnatilosers.blogspot.com/ It’s already been fun getting seven new perspectives on losing weight in Cincinnati.

That’s what’s going on with us… What’s new with you?!?

Carla and Tom

You know it’s been a long time since your last post when Blogger makes you log in again… We are long past due for an update. Since our last post, our weight has stayed about the same with a variance of about two pounds at most. We only exercised three times last week, but we’re shooting for at least five and maybe six times this week. We both can tell that our clothes are back to fitting the way they did before the many travels we did in April and May. It’s great to be able to eat “real” food again and our portion sizes are definitely smaller than before the liquid diet. I still want to hire a personal trainer some time, but not until after we get settled at our new place (whenever and wherever that is).

Hope you are all doing well too!

Carla

It’s been a long time since we posted and, while we were away traveling here and there, Tom and I did a lot of thinking about our involvement with the liquid diet at this point. A few posts back, I said that we were going to enter the six week re-feed stage today. Due to several factors (some ours, some others), we have quit the liquid diet as of today. Since we still have about sixteen boxes (or about 112 shakes) left, we’re going to do our own version of re-feed and slowly start adding regular food back into our diet and ease off the shakes.

We’re also going to really concentrate on the exercise portion of our lifestyle change. We’re looking to hire personal trainers to help bump things up a notch in that regard.

There will be a change to the Loss-O-Meter since we’ll be using just our home scale from now on. But, it also means it can be updated at any time, not just on Weigh-in Wednesdays.

There is definitely a sense of being free or even unshackled at this point. Instead of being told that our weight loss isn’t good enough or isn’t the way they think it should be done, we’re going to keep going our way. We’re still heading towards our goals, just on our terms.

Carla

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPF9SjFJHjM]

My first time parasailing (and it won’t be my last!)

Carla

As predicted, I was up at weigh-in. Seven pounds to be exact. Tom was up 1.2 pounds. But the thing that really hit us yesterday is that we are burnt out on this diet. We’re still enjoying exercising and miss it when we can’t, but we are so tired of the liquid diet. So, when we weigh in next on May 28th, we’re going to officially start the refeed process. It’s basically six weeks of easing off the diet. If we start on May 28th, we finish on July 2nd (almost exactly a year after starting).

CARLA -
Official Weight (after forty-four weeks): 230.0 lbs – loss of 51.0 pounds
Home Scale (after forty-four weeks): 228.2 lbs – loss of 49.8 pounds

TOM -
Official Weight (after forty-four weeks): 343.0 – loss of 91.0 pounds
Home Scale (after forty-four weeks): 340.4 – loss of 84.4 pounds

Carla

I was gone most of last week as I attended some training at Walt Disney World and Disney Cruise Line. I knew I was going to be up, but I wasn’t expecting how much… 6.4 pounds! 1.6 of it was gone this morning, but I’m going to still have a sizable gain tomorrow at weigh in. Not good… Plus, Tom and I are both going to miss the next two weigh ins due to travel. It’s been hard getting back on shakes this time and it didn’t help that I forgot to clean out my school shaker last time I was here so it reeks. That meant lunch from the cafeteria. I’ve been having mixed feelings about the liquid diet lately and this all may be extensions of that. I think I mainly need to really get back into the exercise routine so I can get that endorphin rush to tide me over.

Carla

Something interesting happened the last few days… I kept getting more and more comments about how much more weight I had lost, even though I knew I was the same or slightly higher than two weeks ago. At first, I thought it was the new clothes that actually fit. Then, I thought it might be the fact that I hadn’t seen anyone at school for two weeks. But, then, I noticed how really loose my pants were. So I tried on the size 18 pants I’ve had in the back of my closet since the last time we did the liquid diet five and a half years ago… and they fit. Maybe the break from exercising and being so hard core on the diet gave my body a nudge. Hard to say at this point.

CARLA -
Official Weight (after forty-two weeks): 223.0 lbs – loss of 58.0 pounds
Home Scale (after forty-two weeks): 220.8 lbs – loss of 57.2 pounds

TOM -
Official Weight (after forty-two weeks): 341.8 – loss of 92.2 pounds
Home Scale (after forty-two weeks): 338.6 – loss of 86.2 pounds

Well, we’re back from our travels and we each gained about 3.5 pounds as of Sunday morning. By this morning, I was down 1.6 pounds and Tom is down 4.0 pounds. We’re both back on shakes and trying the best we can. I was under the weather most of yesterday (I blame the salad bar at Ruby Tuesday’s), so no work out today. I’m feeling much better today and looking forward to being back in the pool tomorrow. I leave a week from tomorrow for my Disney Cruise Line training so I want to lose while I can since many of my food choice next week will be out of my control. Of course, right now, I’m sitting in the AAUP office with mini cinnamon rolls, pound cake, cookies and chips. I did have one mini cinnamon roll, but it wasn’t that good so I think I can ignore the rest.

Carla

Greetings from Herndon, VA! Tom is here for some training for work and, since I’m on my term off from school, I decided to tag along. We drove here over the weekend and stopped in Pittsburgh to visit our friends Steve, Pam and Hanna. We had hoped to see a Pirates game, but it was too bloody cold to even consider. Instead, we were treated to a tour of Pittsburgh which was lots of fun. Appropriately enough, there was a beer theme to the day. We had lunch at the fabulous Fat Heads South Side Saloon which has something like 200 beers available and about 50 of them on tap. Tom and I split a pierogie appetizer and a kielbasa reuben sandwich (can you tell he’s Polish and we both like Polish food?). It was on to the Duquesne Incline next. What a great view! Dinner was at Six Penn which is just up the block from our hotel, the Renaissance Pittsburgh. If you ever watch a Pirates game, look the building across the river from PNC Park with the large arch in the middle. That’s where we stayed. Dinner was more splitting and sharing: seared scallop appetizer, lo mein salad for me and white bean soup for Tom.

With all this traveling (and there’s more to come), we’re trying to do the best we can to maintain at this point. We were up at 5 am to work out this morning and will be again every day this week. We’re also trying to keep on the shakes as much as possible, but sometimes it just isn’t realistic. Because of all of this, I’m suspending this first round of the Sprint for the Goal. It may be back or may stick with our “slow and steady” method. Either way, we’re never going back to the way we were before July 4, 2007.

Carla