For those who missed my last wellness check-in, you can check out my 4/10 check-in here. I am kinda sad I didn’t share last week’s weigh-in. I got excited to get down to 359 as it’s been a hot minute. Alas, this weigh-in I am back up to 365. This is my cycle. In the past, I would dig into the data and try to figure out why I gained weight and usually would not be able to find a clear reason (increased calories, lowered activities, etc) so then I would write it off as muscle gain. If you look at my pics for this week compared to the 10th, I do look more tone. Or it could just be the different lighting. IDK.
But I think it actually has to do with stress. Not stress-eating. Just stress. Between my husband losing his job, my webstore being broken, trying to get everything in place for the bariatric surgery, and then some chaos at my day job that is making me feel a ton of pressure about my current goals and strategies the last two weeks has been pretty high stress, with the highest stress hitting me Friday and Saturday.
Looking Back
Unfortunately, I still haven’t figured out the best way to share my tracking information, but bouncing between myfitnesspal tracking, my Samsung health app, and my notes, I *should* have lost 3-5 lbs. I have been consistently getting 5 days a week hitting over 40 min of physical activity.
In addition, I have consistently been using my 1-hour timer to get up and move on average 8 times a day/ tracking it 4 days a week. During my 4 ten-hour days it is really easy to track that. But I am also pretty good about staying moving on my 3 days off as I am doing chores in between working on my side hustles. I expect that is reflected in my over 40 min of activities.
Two weeks ago I had the psych evaluation needed before surgery. This week I had a nutritional consult. Based on both of those I feel like I am on track for getting the surgery approved by insurance. Based on the information from the nutritional consult, I feel in a better position to tweak and adapt my current menu planning to prepare for surgery. We went through all of our Tupperware and I have enough to plan 3-5 oz meals for 3 days. We plan to get enough to do 7 days of meal prep.
Moving Forward
I need to add stress management to my self-care routine. I also need to be more agile in my planning. I will continue to work on food prep (look forward to some new recipes on the site!) and meal planning. I will also continue to grow my activity levels. I am currently aiming for 2,500 steps a day (I know, so low) and I consistently hit it 4 days a week, but I’m not hitting it most days I am working my 10-hour shifts. I think that is in large part because the lunges, squats, weights, bands, and stretching I am doing every hour are not enough to trigger “steps” in my small office. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can add in more walking during those 4/10s with my time being really tight trying to bring in money to offset the loss of my husband’s income and ramping up my efforts for completing my PMP quickly. I don’t think I will change my step goals at this time. I think I will strive to find a better tracking system that will allow me to compare all my data side by side. If you have a suggestion for a tool that works with Samsung health, please let me know.
For those who missed my April update, I shared some progress on my health and wellness front. I announced then some exciting news about a surgery to help me with my wellness goals and that I was going to get back to my weekly accountability tracking here on the site. Talk about perfect timing. The very next day, I got notification of my pre-approval with insurance for the surgery. The same day my husband was terminated from his job.
So yeah, been a lot of feels this weekend.
Fortunately, the approval was through my insurance with my job so we decided to keep moving forward with the plan and hope that he is able to get another job before then to help cover the costs.
Then I ran into another frustration. Previously when I was sharing my tracking info, I was using Fitbit and Myfitnesspal. Since then my Fitbit died (again) so I decided to replace it with a Samsung Galaxy watch. My husband’s had lasted him well over a year so we figured it made more sense than replacing my Fitbit every 8 months or so. Lol. The downside is that Samsung doesn’t play nice with Myfitnesspal. It will only pull food tracking from myfitnesspal, but it won’t transfer activity to myfitnesspal. It also has kinda sad tracking data and none of the great charts I enjoyed with Fitbit.
So still trying to figure out how I am going to manage comparing the data just for me, let alone in a way that’s easy to share. I have a nutrition appointment on the 28th and hopefully they can give me some ideas. But in the meantime, I am focusing on tracking my food and using the exercise journal on Myfitness pal to track measurements, activities, and how I’m feeling.
Measurements
While I wasn’t tracking here, over the last year, I have been tracking periodically in Myfitnesspal. As you can see my numbers have really fluctuated over the last 6 months.
I was very excited when I got on the scale Sunday as I have lost weight and inches, even though it is still higher than it was at my peak.
Tracking my food has been trickier. I did a calculation back in December for my estimated cal count and was at 267 so have been aiming for 2100-2400 calories but I really struggle to get that many calories in. I still rarely if ever get hungry, but that was also what motivated me to explore this surgery.
Plan Moving Forward
Knowing that after the surgery I will be expected to maintain a diet of 70% protein 30% vegetables, I am transitioning to that diet model and am trying to be better about tracking.
I am also aiming to move every hour and add walking my dog and other physical activity lasting more than 20 minutes. I had a blast going swimming on Saturday and am trying to figure out how I can justify the cost of an annual membership again, but hesitant to do that until we get my husband’s job situation sorted out. But I will aim for 40 minutes of physical activity 3 days a week without injury.
Wish me luck!
Until next time,
Keep Growing!
If you would like to see my weight-loss Journey, you can check that out here:
I know, it has been a hot minute since I did a keto weightloss journey check-in back on September 6th. Yes, it’s been nearly 10 weeks!
Crazy, right?
So what happened?
Life. A lot of life. I finished up the crazy overtime with my temp gig, fought through website transfer issues, found another job that while not my dream job, is paying me more than not working. Got approved to buy a home, put in lots of bids and still no home, got back on track working out, state of emergency reinstated and changed my work out plans, then my shoes wrecked my ankle and I had to replace them, got the wrong replacement shoes, family came to visit.
Yeah, it has been a hectic 10 weeks. But through all of that, I have managed to stick to the keto diet. And I have been measuring almost every week, even though I haven’t been sharing with you.
And I spent a lot of time feeling really frustrated and stuck. Not just because I have watched the scale go from 349-343 and back again. (Yay, plateau). Not just because of an injury that left me limited in how I was able to work out. Not just because Covid keeps disrupting goals and dreams.
I spent this last week reflecting on my feelings as I took a much needed break and hung out with my amazing mother who braved traveling in Covid to see her family for the holidays.
This woman is where I get my positive can-do attitude that lets me fight through setback after setback.
My sister came down this Monday to pick my mom up and take her to Idaho. These amazing ladies are the reason I’m on the keto journey.
But back to my main point starting this out. Feeling stuck and frustrated.
Despite my best efforts (which were not ideal by any means, but the best I can do.) I have not been having the success they had on the diet. Analyzing my stuck feelings across so many problems in my life, I recognized that those feelings are often driven by losing control over what is happening.
I’ve actually made some amazing gains this year. I hit a goal five years in the making (being able to buy our own home). Now I’m at the stage where I’ve done all the work I can and just have to rely on circumstances to play out as they should(IE: someone will accept our bid on their home). We keep saving to make our offers more appealing, we keep going to open houses, every day I look to see if any new houses hit the market.
I’ve lost 30 lbs and gotten healthier mentally and physically than I have been in years. Yes, I once again seem stuck at that 30 lb plateau. I can get frustrated, throw up my hands and quit, or I keep doing what I’m supposed to (with some minor tweaks and adjustments.)
So that’s where I am right now. Going to do a reboot on my measurements
Keto Day 182 Week 25 Measurements
Here are myfitnesspal measurements for today:
I just finished my period yesterday.
Keto Day 182- Week 25 Fitness Data
And because life got in the way writing this post and I didn’t get back to it until Thursday, I have the Fitbit stats from last week too.
155 active minutes is the minimum reccommended for health so at least there’s that. Looking forward to getting back to my higher routine. Have been feeling the aches and pains building up.
Keto Day 182- Week 25 Food Data
I have not tracked my food at all really. I’ve just been sticking to the food that is keto approved. I suspect I’m not getting enough fat and looking at yesterday, I suspect I’ve not been getting enough calories many days either. But I’m still getting hungry throughout the day so I don’t think I’ve done damage to my goal of restarting my metabolism. Yay, wins.
Next Steps for Week 26
I’ve actually been doing a lot of research into calorie/ carb cycling and I think I will be planning a menu around that idea. Basically, I want to be flipping my diet up to keep my body from getting complacent and plateauing. This means that for a couple of days I will be eating at the low end of my cal/ carb intake (2100 cal, 0 carb) then for a couple days I will go high (2800 calories, 50 carbs) then a couple days average (2300 cal, 20 carbs) rinse and repeat. I should aim to have my high carb days on my high workout days and they should never be back to back.
I think this change up will A) get me back into tracking and B) break the plateau… hopefully.
My goal is to go swimming 3 days this week and walking 5 days this week. I also start my first full 40 hour workweek at my new job so scheduling that will be easier, but sticking to it might be harder. Wish me luck.
I will have a lot more recipes coming your way (including an amazing pumpkin muffin recipe that is so delish and PERFECT for high carb days!)
Also, I am working on a cool week-long challenge for goal setters. Want to join us? It starts December 6th. I will be focusing on all my goals- including weight loss, personal goals, and career goals. But the point of the challenge is to learn how to make SMARTER goals and stay on those goals, even when life throws us curveballs. Or Covid!
Follow my Keto Journey
If you would like to see my Keto Journey, you can check that out here:
Dr. Jeff Volek– This is just one of a ton of videos he’s done, but he doesn’t seem to have his own channel so I will have to look up more as I do the research.
I know, it has been a hot minute since I did a check-in. I did an update a couple of weeks ago and asked for feedback on who wants me to keep providing the keto updates. Considering these tend to be my more popular posts, I was surprised to see very few people ask me to continue doing it. But, to be fair, I was doing this more for my own tracking and accountability than anything so that’s not a huge deal. I don’t know if I will continue doing them weekly, but I did want to check in for Keto day 105 because I have really fallen off the tracking bandwagon what with working the census, hosting another 30 days of marketing challenge, being sick, and Little man doing two sports. So this morning I took a few minutes to at least get my measurements.
Keto Day 105 Week 15 Measurements
Here are myfitnesspal measurements from August 16th:
And here are my measurements for today:
So, gonna be real here. I actually got on the scale every week and the Sunday after I got sick (8/30) I was down to 343.9 but I know that was because of being sick. (It was so bad, y’all!)
So I gained a couple lbs after being sick, but am still down 5.6 lbs from last official weigh-in.
My neck is down .7 in
My waist is down 1.2 inches
My hips are down .8 in
Here are my extended measurements from Day 35 (6/28/2020)
Here are my extended measurements from today:
Left bicep is down .5 in
Left forearm is down .5 in
Right bicep is down .25 in
Right forearm is up one inch
breasts are down .6 in
Ribs 2.5 inches
Butt is down 1.75 inches
Left thigh is up 1.5 in
Left calf down .25 in
Right thigh up 1 in
right calf up .75
So over all, down. My thighs are larger and my right leg is larger. My guess is that this might be related to the census work because I’ve been doing a lot of stairs, also getting in and out of my car uses different muscles in my right leg.
But honestly, that would just be wild conjecture.
Keto Day 105- Week 15 Fitness Data
And because life got in the way writing this post and I didn’t get back to it until Thursday, I have the Fitbit stats from last week too.
As you can see, the last two weeks have been brutal. My step count is less than half what it was a month ago. my active hours are a joke. But I am slowly getting better from that nasty bug.
Keto Day 105- Week 15 Food Data
And one thing I was pretty proud of is that during this whole illness, I stuck to keto-approved foods. I wasn’t measuring or counting portions so not sure exactly where my carb count was every day but I know I wasn’t eating nearly as much as I should have so I suspect my carb count was pretty low.
Next Steps for Week 16
This week will be focused on getting back to census work, getting back to online work, and getting back into my walking routine. I don’t want to push too hard. I have to say that I have been pleased with how easy it has been to maintain the foods on the diet during the chaos of working two jobs, transpo for two sports, searching for a job, and trying to find quality time with my loved ones.
I want to make an effort to track a couple of days a week just to make sure I’m not slipping below the required caloric intake, but I suspect I’m doing pretty well with that because I get hungry and I make sure I have something to eat when that happens, whether in the car or at home.
So yeah, that’s where I am. I think, unless I hear otherwise from you guys, I will just do monthly check-ins here. Life is just so crazy busy. It literally took me most of the week to write this post.
Plus that will be a good transition time to set new goals because the census work and the 30 Days Marketing Challenge will be wrapping up.
Follow my Keto Journey
If you would like to see my Keto Journey, you can check that out here:
Dr. Jeff Volek– This is just one of a ton of videos he’s done, but he doesn’t seem to have his own channel so I will have to look up more as I do the research.
I am feeling very broken this week. I didn’t track food. I couldn’t workout. I started a 2 month contract that has me working outdoors in the heat up to eight hours a day. The first few days I was telling myself that I was proud of how I was able to handle the work. I never would’ve been able to do this a year ago. But about Thursday I ended up with pretty bad heat exhaustion that I am still trying to fight through. Then I looked at my data for this week and I am trying not to cry before I go on shift again in the heat. Keto Day 84 is filled with a lot of conflicting emotions.
Keto Day 84- Week 12 Measurements
Last Week
This week:
I gained 5 lbs and gained inches everywhere except my hips, which was kind of a surprise, TBH.
I am fairly certain that most of that is water retention because of the heat exhaustion and my whole body doing all it can to retain all the water I’m trying to give it.
I still have the heat exhaustion head ache. I hope this passes because I can’t go through another two weeks of this.
Keto Day 84- Week 12 Fitness data
Unfortunately, I don’t have time to go step by step through my stats last week. Monday I managed about 8,000 steps on the job. I was feeling good so we went for our morning walk on Tuesday and I managed about 10,000 steps. After that, the heat was getting to me and all other workouts were cancelled. Interestingly, I only manage about 5,000 steps a day with this gig so I’m not getting my workout in either.
Keto Day 84- Week 12 Food Data
Last week’s food data:
Yep, nope that didn’t happen. I ran out of time for food prep on Sunday and the rest of the week was too chaotic to get it all in. Planning a menu is tricky when you don’t really know what you’re schedule will look like. Unfortunately, the next two months is going to be like this and in some ways worse because now the training is done I will be out in the field 6-8 hours a day.
This week:
I am really struggling with being able to eat because I’m so hot. I didn’t plan or track anything last week, but I can tell you that a typical day I had my morning shake, 2 sausage patties, 2 hardboiled eggs, 4 babybell, 3 pickled asperagus, 140 oz of mio-sport flavored water, and pudding or jello for dinner if I was lucky enough to keep it down despite the heat. So I’ve been averaging 1500 calories a day, which is bad. But I don’t know how to increase it because when I’m overheated I can barely keep water down.
Keto Day 84- Next Steps for Week 13
I’m not sure. I am feeling so daunted. I know that I need to make some changes but I don’t even know how I can. I hate feeling like I have to choose between a paycheck and my health.
I do know that I have to get myself up to 2300 calories somehow and that I need to find more cool light foods that are keto friendly and not killing my carbs because my macros have been more 11% carbs, 64% fat and 25% protein.
I also need to figure out how to deal with this heat exhaustion because this week is going to be over 100 several days and I need this work.
As much as I hate it, my workouts will need to take a back seat until I figure out these other issues.
I am also going to try really hard to focus on the positives because I think the last two days I have really been wallowing in my pain and misery.
So, one positive is that yesterday I had to buy “cooler” professional clothes and based on how my size 26 were fitting, I decided to go with 24s. We got a great sale at Lane Bryants and I ended up getting 6 pairs of pants for the price of 2 pair. It was a bit overwhelming and I didn’t realize until we got home that half of them were actually 22/24.
And they fit. The 24s are actually a bit big, but with the heat I don’t mind them being looser.
So despite the apparent gains, I am making progress. Once I work through this work schedule and struggles, I will keep making gains. I just need to be patient and focus on the most important things right now: Getting enough water and electrolytes, controlling my body heat, and getting my daily calories back up.
I can do this.
Follow my Keto Journey
If you would like to see my Keto Journey, you can check that out here:
Man, I don’t even know what is happening. Last week was pretty much a wash in tracking my diet. I started training for a new temp job on Monday and my whole schedule was unknown and up in the air the whole week. Then I started my period on Wednesday and had one of the worst periods I’ve had in probably six months. I had migraines the last three days (probably from my period) and total exhaustion. It was all I could do to get my morning walks in and finish my training for my new gig. I fully expected to be flirting with the 350 lb line again this week. So my measurements this morning on Keto day 77 were quite a shock.
Keto Day 77- Week 11 Measurements
Last Week
This week:
I lost 2.2 lbs! My neck is down .2 in, my waist is down half an in, my hips are down half an in. I can’t help but worry if it is because of muscle loss though. My workouts weren’t so great this week.
Keto Day 77- Week 11 Fitness data
Last Week’s Fitbit data:
This week’s Data:
Sunday, Aug 2nd 1,190 steps, .55 mile, 0 minutes of activity
Monday, August 3rd 5,838 steps, 2.7 miles, 113 minutes activity.
Tuesday, Aug 4th. 4995 steps, 2.3 miles, 44 minutes of activity.
Wednesday, Aug 5th 2096 steps .97 miles 0 active minutes.
Thursday Aug 6th 8,322 steps 3.8 miles 68 active minutes.
Friday Aug 7th 7,588 steps, 3.48 miles 69 active minutes
Saturday August 8th, 2,098 steps .97 miles 11 active minutes.
Total steps- 32,127 (down 15,417 from last week) Total miles 14.77 ( down 7.12 miles.) Total active minutes is 305 ( down 145 min from last week.) and total workouts is 4 over 5 days. (Down 5 workouts.)
The first part of the week I was still letting my ankle heal and Little Man really didn’t feel up to band camp and swimming each day so we didn’t swim. The second part of the week I was struggling. Each day I started with my walks and then had training and by the time I was done training for the day I had a migraine or period pain, or inflammation.
Keto Day 77- Week 11 Food Data
Last week’s food data:
I was very slack only tracking fully on Monday. I will plan out my menu again this week using My Fitness Pal and hopefully I can stay on task with that this week.
This week:
Yep, nope that didn’t happen. I ran out of time for food prep on Sunday and the rest of the week was too chaotic to get it all in. Planning a menu is tricky when you don’t really know what you’re schedule will look like. Unfortunately, the next two months is going to be like this and in some ways worse because now the training is done I will be out in the field 6-8 hours a day.
Keto Day 77- Next Steps for Week 12
The next week is going to be tricky because I don’t entirely know what my schedule will look like. (I was expecting to have to work today, but that didn’t happen.)
This whole getting your schedule the day of is going to be very strange. I know that I will be working on average 6-8 hours a day sometimes that will be working through lunch and others it will be working through dinner. Which leaves me with two options: figure out how to get all/ most of my calories in outside of work and plan a meal that can travel with me for work. Or plan on eating out at least one meal every day.
Both because of budget and for the sake of my diet option, two doesn’t really appeal. However, I really struggle getting my calories in before noon. So this week is going to be a big test.
As for the workout front, that will also be up in the air because I’m not sure how much walking will actually happen during my shifts, but it sounds like a lot. Given the fluidity of my schedule, I won’t be able to schedule swim time either. My hope is that I will get a sense of the schedule this week and have a better feel for scheduling my availability following weeks to be able to schedule in swimming. But Little Man and I are hoping to get some swimming in early in the AM if there are slots available. Not scheduling in advance though because…yeah.
Fortunately, the last two weeks have shown me that I should be ok doing low carb instead of strict keto so that makes me feel a bit better about the crazy schedule I will have. As I get a better sense of it I will adapt as needed.
Follow my Keto Journey
If you would like to see my Keto Journey, you can check that out here:
I have to be honest, I was so busy trying to catch up from my trip to see my sister the week before, that this week I got a little slack on my tracking. I spent what little extra time I had researching low-carb diet (as opposed to Keto which is just a significantly stricter version of low carb focused on forcing you into ketosis.) and while doing the research, I quit counting carbs and only loosely counted calories (As in, I aimed for 6 meals a day of about 400 calories each so aiming for about 2400 calories a day.) While I wasn’t counting carbs, I did stick to my keto-friendly foods. This week I tried a couple of amazing new recipes that are a bit higher in carbs than I usually eat, but are recommended on several keto food plans, stuffed peppers and cheesy bacon cauliflower. So I was quite pleased and surprised when I took my measurements this morning on Keto day 70.
Keto Day 70- Week 10 Measurements
Last Week
This week:
I lost 6.2 lbs! And considering I’m due to start my period any day now, that is quite a pleasant surprise! My neck is down .3 in, my waist 1 in, my hips .2 in. Yes, I am quite happy with those results!
Keto Day 70- Week 10 Fitness data
Last Week’s Fitbit data:
This week’s Data:
Sunday, July 26th 2168 steps, 1 mile, 0 minutes of activity
Monday, July 27th 10,265 steps, 4.7 miles, 73 minutes activity.
This is wrong and it annoys me to no end because I even set the stupid manual workout buttons but at some point about halfway through my walk somehow the workout stopped and only logged 2.29 miles. We actually did 68 minute walk that covered 3 miles. I then went swimming that evening and did 47 minutes and 1200 meters ( or 1,300 yards.) So I am on the hunt for a new device. I will wear the fitbit until it dies but want to be prepared to replace it with a more accurate system. I expect that the rest of my daily data is off but I didn’t manually track because that is very time consuming.
Tuesday, July 28th. 11,116 steps, 5.13 miles, 85 minutes of activity.
I know we went for an hour long walk. I know skipped swimming and instead did a band workout of about 20 minutes . Despite the high minutes of activity it didn’t really log either of those workouts.
Wednesday, July 29th 11,179 steps 5.14 miles 100 active minutes.
We went walking for about an hour and I went swimming for about 45 minutes.
Thursday July 30th 7,598 steps 3.52 miles 93 active minutes.
We had a shorter walk because we got a late start. Probably the 40 min walk logged is accurate. I went swimming for 45 minutes, however I was a bit slow on the swim which may be part of why it didn’t log the whole workout. I sprained my ankle when jumping in the pool and that led to me cutting out my workouts for the rest of the weekend in an effort to let it rest and heal.
Friday July 31st 1,818 steps, .84 miles 0 active minutes
I actually did a 45 minute stretch and core workout consisting of 30 ankle rolls, leg lifts, scissors, crunches, side crunches, mule kicks, cobras, and body curls.
Saturday August 1st, 3,400 steps 1.56 miles 17 active minutes.
I didn’t do any workout because I reserved my ankle strength for our shopping trip and then was elevating my ankle the rest of the day due to swelling.
Total steps- 47544 (up 1194 from last week) Total miles 21.89 (up .56 miles.) Total active minutes is 450 (up 77 min from last week.) and total workouts is 9 over 5 days.
I feel like this level of working out is sustainable long term. Though I would like to include a daily walk on the weekends once my ankle heals.
Keto Day 70- Week 10 Food Data
Last week’s food data:
I didn’t track anything at all. I was too busy helping my sister to move. I did accidentally have a Gatorade on Monday, instead of a Gatorade 0.
Other than that, my sister is also doing Keto so we made sure to have keto-food. I loosely tracked my carbs to stay under but other than that, I didn’t track.
I will get back on track with tracking and food planning this week, planning to spend today food prepping. But honestly, let’s just look at Monday off the cuff.
This week:
I was very slack only tracking fully on Monday. I will plan out my menu again this week using My Fitness Pal and hopefully I can stay on task with that this week.
Keto Day 70- Next Steps for Week 11
I also think that rolling back for a bit to more of a low-carb style rather than full-on keto is a good call. I will continue this eating style, aiming to stay below 100 grams of carbs and keeping my macros at the 5-10% carb, 15-20% protein and 70% ish fat. I will still plan for 2,400 calories a day and cap my consumption at 2,800. (According to the average from 3 different calculators, my daily caloric expenditure should be around 3,000-3,500 so that should keep me well in the sweet spot.)
Between my ankle injury and my starting a new gig tomorrow, I haven’t planned out my workouts for next week, but my hope is to get at least 3 days at the pool even if my ankle isn’t up to hard core lap swimming and I will strive to get back to my walks starting tomorrow. I will add in bands and core workouts if I can’t do the walking. Just because I have an injury doesn’t mean I need to give up my workouts. But I will take it slow and easy so as not to delay healing of my ankle.
Follow my Keto Journey
If you would like to see my Keto Journey, you can check that out here:
Last week was a total break in my routine and in my plans. I went to Idaho on Monday to help my sister and her family move. What was planned the week before to be a 2-day trip, turned into 4 days. I spent Friday and Saturday trying to recover and catch up and today I will be taking some time to reflect on some feelings that have been plaguing me this week. Those feelings were brought into stark relief as I took my measurements this morning on Keto day 63.
Keto Day 63- Week 9 Measurements
Last Week
This week
I’m up 4 lbs. My neck is up .8 in, my waist is up . 2 in, my hips up .5 in. I’m disappointed, to say the least. I didn’t even want to do my other measurements for fear of further disappointment.
Keto Day 63- Week 9 Fitness data
Last Week’s Fitbit data:
This week’s Data
Sunday, July 19th 4911 steps, 2.26 miles, 22 minutes of activity
Monday, July 20th 14420 steps, 6.61 miles, 274 minutes activity.
Tuesday, July 21st. 6817 steps, 3.15 miles, 0 minutes of activity.
Wednesday, July 22nd 4955 steps 2.29 miles 32 active minutes.
Thursday July 23rd 7160 steps 3.27 miles 30 active minutes.
Friday July 24th 4229 steps, 1.96 miles, 15 active minutes.
Saturday July 25th 3858 steps, 1.79 miles, 0 active minutes.
Total steps- 46350 (down 295 from last week) Total miles 21.33 (down .08 miles.) Total active minutes is 373 (down 283 min from last week.) and total workouts is 4 of 5, down from 6 of 5 last week.
So what happened? Well, I didn’t go swimming and other than Thursday when my sister and I went for a stroll around her neighborhood, I didn’t have any formal workouts logged. Those that were logged were from when Fitbit decided I was working hard enough to count.
James and I did go for a quick walk on Sunday and love seeing that 100% fat-burn. But Monday I was helping unload furniture from about 12:3o pm until 8 pm with two short breaks in between. I was completely soaked through with sweat, huffing and puffing, and have gorgeous bruises all over my body to show how hard I worked. Yet somehow those 14K steps only account for a 22 min workout? Lol.
Tuesday, I spent the morning unloading and unpacking their kitchen. While I’m not terribly surprised that it didn’t log a lot of steps, I am also surprised that it didn’t log a workout because I was lifting and bending and making similar motions as when I do laundry which often gets logged as a workout.
Wednesday I helped with unpacking and prepping a room for painting, but I’m not surprised that no workout was logged because I was definitely losing steam. I don’t think I was eating anywhere near enough calories for the work we did.
Thursday it logged our walk around her neighborhood but ignored my hour and a half painting a room. Anyone who’s ever painted knows that is quite a workout. Fortunately, even if Fitbit doesn’t know what I did. I do. Unfortunately, the scale doesn’t seem to know.
Keto Day 63- Week 9 Food Data
Last week’s food data:
This week:
I didn’t track anything at all. I was too busy helping my sister to move. I did accidentally have a Gatorade on Monday, instead of a Gatorade 0.
Other than that, my sister is also doing Keto so we made sure to have keto-food. I loosely tracked my carbs to stay under but other than that, I didn’t track.
I will get back on track with tracking and food planning this week, planning to spend today food prepping. But honestly, let’s just look at Monday off the cuff.
This is the day I ate the most, and despite the unfortunate Gatorade incident, I did keep my carbs to protein to fat ratio. Still, my calorie count was only 1,976 calories. So yeah, way under my calorie count, I bet.
I know I was under most of the week because yesterday I was insatiable. That may be part of the weight gain.
I have also been drinking nonstop, consuming on average 100-140 oz of water each day and yesterday binged on olives probably needing the salt. I hope that contributed to some water retention.
I also swell when I travel and I know that every day I’ve struggled with getting my shoes on because of the swelling. So hopefully that will all be better next week.
Keto Day 63- Next Steps for Week 10
If we counted the workout days (4) only, I averaged 93 active minutes each work day. Otherwise, it was 53 active minutes per day. I plan to go swimming three days this week and will resume my daily walking routine. I would like to hit a daily average of 90 active minutes.
I am also aiming for 2400 calories a day and tracking my macros.
This week has been a major roller coaster on my mental health and I need to take some time to address my feelings and reframe my viewpoints. I’ve struggled with envy, a sense of entitlement, anger, feelings of worthlessness.
I am glad I went to help my sister and that I stayed longer than I intended. It felt good to be able to help them out. I felt so strong being able to help them as much as I did. I definitely couldn’t have done that a year ago.
On the flip side, I heard back that several jobs I’d applied for were closed and I never heard anything from them despite being highly qualified. I lost out on applying for jobs all last week.
I also didn’t prep content through the whole week and felt guilty that I had not followed through with my commitments and chose to stay at my sisters for the extra days instead.
I had a lot of moments of envy as I helped them set up their home, realizing that (other than location) their home was almost everything we’ve been looking for in our future home, but we’re stymied on our goal until I can get a job and there was some unjustified resentment that my sister was able to decide to move, sell her home, and move all in a few months and yet my goals and plans which I’ve been working on for much longer, none have come to any true fruition.
Then I stamped down some urges to wallow in entitlement that I have done everything I was “supposed to” and haven’t gotten the rewards I “deserve”.
So yeah, I need to do some cleansing of my thoughts and feelings this week as well as refocusing and realigning with my goals and my journey, not just in health and wellness, but the whole journey.
Gonna be a busy week.
In the mean time, I will remind myself of this bit of wisdom I had at the beginning of the week.
Follow my Keto Journey
If you would like to see my Keto Journey, you can check that out here:
Holy cow, can you believe I’ve been doing Keto for 2 months already? That means that we’re going to do not only the weekly check-in but also the from the beginning to now check-in. Long post ahead, and while I’m tempted just to do the weekly (I had some great news with the scale this morning) I think that doing the then to now is always important. Because there have been weeks where I gained, weeks where the scale didn’t budge over and over, and there have been other changes that it might not always be easy to see from week to week, but looking at it from a then and now perspective is always important. So let’s get to Keto Day 56.
Keto Day 56- Week 8 Measurements
From May 24th
Last Week
This week
I’m down 2.9 lbs, my neck is down .5 inch, my waist is down .7 inch, my hips are down 1.5 inches. I’m thrilled.
Now let’s look at my 8 week results:
I’m down 10.7 lbs (Which keeps me happily in the 1-2 lbs a week range, so I’m glad.)
My neck is down 1.5 inches total.
My waist is down .7 in- I think this is in part because I’ve been building muscle that had been lost during Covid and not going to the gym.
My hips are down 2.5 inches
Keto Day 56- Week 8 Fitness data
Fitbit is now two weeks behind. or maybe they’ve been two weeks behind this whole time and I just didn’t notice? IDK. Point is, here is the latest Fitbit report
Last Week’s Fitbit data:
This week’s Data
Sunday, July 12th 7,225 steps, 3.34 miles, 25 minutes of activity
Monday, July 13th 7936 steps, 3.65 miles, 49 minutes activity.
Tuesday, July 14th. 11084 steps, 5.02 miles, 118 minutes of activity.
Wednesday, July 15th. 7284 steps 3.33 miles 49 active minutes.
Thursday July 16th. 4,428 steps 2.05 miles 52 active minutes.
Friday July 17th 4857 steps, 2.25 miles, 35 active minutes.
Saturday July 18th 3831 steps, 1.77 miles, 0 active minutes.
Total steps- 46,645 (down 1,383 from last week) Total miles 21.41 (down .64 miles.) Total active minutes is 656 (up 232 from last week.) and total workouts is 6 of 5, down from 7 of 5 last week.
I mean, how do these numbers even make sense when you look at my workouts according to Fitbit:
And in Myfitnesspal, I logged my workout start and end times in notes and came up with 593 just for my workouts. Never mind my getting up and walking every hour-ish for a few minutes and doing HIIT exercises. But that gets ridiculous to log. I am still not sure how to address the wild discrepancies.
So we have to stick to Fitbit data for measuring, from the beginning to now I have:
Increased my steps by 19,400 steps.
Increased my miles by 8.8 miles per week.
Increased my active minutes by 497 minutes
and increased my workouts from 4 out of 5 to 7 out of 5.
So I would definitely say that I have increased my workouts exponentially. I was wondering if the energy level was dying off (Because I’m always exhausted and sore lately) but I realize that it is just because I am pushing myself to grow every week.
Keto Day 56- Week 8 Food Data
Last week’s food data:
This week:
I noted last week that I needed it up my calorie goal and I did! I managed an overall daily goal in the 2300 cal range, which is awesome! Especially as that small increase seemed to help with the weight loss. It’s hard to say, though, as so many things have been coming together.
My averages for carbs and protein are a little high, fat was a little low. But I’m trying to cut myself some slack in meal planning and go more towards 30 carbs than 20. Again, focusing on the percentage more than the hard numbers. I’m also pulling back a bit on fats, treating it more as a lever.
Keto Day 56- Next Steps for Week 9
I ended up with an average of 93 active minutes per day over 7 days and I think this is a sweet spot. My body is totally feeling the extra push towards spending more of that at high intensity than mid intensity. in 8 weeks I have lost 10.71 lbs. That is 1.33 lbs a week average and at that rate, in 52 more weeks, I will lose 69 more lbs. I am right on track and quite happy.
Looking from the previous week’s workout figures where there was a lot of below 100% numbers and more yellow than red, then compariing it to last week’s, I would say that effort paid off. I will aim to do the same next week, however next week will be a bit tricky as I am going to help my sister move in Idaho, little man has Colorguard camp, and we both pushed way too hard this week and are really feeling it today. So our regular workout schedule is kind of up in the air so I haven’t scheduled any swim next week.
I will aim to hit 2400 calories on average per day and see if that helps with muscle growth and kickstarting my metabolism. Hopefully we will see more wins next week.
Follow my Keto Journey
If you would like to see my Keto Journey, you can check that out here:
This week has been very busy with life, and I sadly had the last course in Weigh to Health. It’s hard to believe that I did a year-long course solely focused on weight loss and healthy eating. I started out that course aiming to lose 7% of my 365 lbs (25 lbs) but secretly I hoped to lose 50-100 lbs which everyone says is a reasonable weight-loss expectation (1-2 lbs a week.) Needless to say, nowhere near that. But I learned some great information and combining that with Keto, I hope will let me see that kind of results with Keto. Let’s get to the Keto Day 49 results, shall we?
Keto Day 49- Week 7 Measurements
Last Week
This week
I’m down .9 lbs. My hips are down 1/2 an inch.
Keto Day 49- Week 7 Fitness data
Strangely, I didn’t get an email last week, which was super frustrating. IDK what is going on with Fitbit, but I keep getting more disappointed with them. So we will go with what I reported last week
Last Weeks Fitbit data:
Sunday, June 28th 4,483 steps, 2.07 miles, 39 minutes of activity
Monday, June 29th 4534 steps, 2.1 miles, 24 minutes activity. This makes no sense because I went for a walk in the morning for 30 ish minutes (I totally forgot to set my watch to log the workout.) AND I went swimming for 45 minutes so my fitness minutes should be 75 minutes minimum.
Tuesday, June 30th. 7,7722 steps, 3.54 miles, 157 minutes of activity. This makes sense as I went for a 25-minute walk that morning and swam for 46 minutes. I also did a lot of chores and moving around every hour or so, which made up for the rest of that activity.
Wednesday, July 1st. 6,845 steps 3.04 miles 58 active minutes. I went for a 25 minute walk and I also did a 30-minute resistance band full-body workout.
Thursday July 2nd. 4,068 steps 1.88 miles 0 active minutes.
This makes no sense at all because I did a bunch of cleaning and running up and down the stairs. I also did a 20-minute resistance band core training session, but I did forget to set my watch so I guess that’s why?
Friday July 3rd 3,636 steps, 1.68 miles, 34 active minutes.
Again, I don’t get it. I went for a 45-minute swim and while I did spend about 15 minutes talking to a lovely lady there about my experience with back issues and suggestions to treat her own, I only logged about 75 yards less than I usually log because we were walking laps in the pool while we talked. I even logged this in my watch so I don’t know why it shorted the workout.
Saturday July 4th 5782 steps, 2.68 miles, 47 active minutes.
James and I went for a lovely 40-minute walk to see the fireworks setups and watch them up close before the sun fully set. The rest of the day was cooking, prepping, cleaning, and having fun as a family so I guess the active minutes is pretty close.
This week’s Data
Sunday July 5th 7,400 steps, 3.4 miles, 72 active minutes.
I went for a walk and did a 30 minute band workout. Of course, Fitbit didn’t track my walk time, just distance of 1.69 miles which lately I’ve been doing in 40 minutes so the active time seems accurate.
Monday July 6th, 5,295 steps, 2.4 miles 101 active minutes.
We went for an hour walk Monday morning and I swam for 45 minutes so again, close timewise, however because of my doubts on Fitbits accuracy, I actually measured my laps during my swim. I did 1,100 meters. Fitbit recorded 775 yards, which = 708.66 meters. So Fitbit shorted me 400 meters. That is not a small shortage! So I have reached the point that I don’t feel like I can truly trust my fitbit data.
Tuesday July 7th, 12,580 steps, 5.69 miles 142 active minutes.
I’ve started doing PT exercises again which is a 30 minute core strengthening and stretching routine every morning. I went for a morning walk for about an hour and then went for a 45 min swim that fitbit tracked as a walk for some odd reason. I did 1,000 meters.
Wednesday July 8th 7127 steps, 3.3 miles, 45 active minutes
30 minutes of PT and a 45 minute walk equals 75 minutes of activity so fitbit is off.
Thursday July 9th 9,536 steps, 4.36 miles, 62 active minutes.
I spent 40 minutes doing PT, then we went for an hour long walk which is 100 active minutes.
Friday July 10th, 3,973 steps, 1.84 miles, 49 active minutes.
a 30 min PT workout, 45 minute swim, and 30 min band workout equals 105 min activity.
Saturday 2,292 steps, 1.06 miles, 0 active minutes.
I don’t understand this because it logged a 23 minute workout, which I’m pretty sure was my doing chores. I also did my 30 minute PT for a total of 53 active minutes.
48,203 from 37,070 steps- up 11,133 steps from the week before.
22.05 miles up from 14.31 miles- up 7.74 miles from the week before.
471 Active minutes up from 359 active minutes last week (according to the minute’s tracker. According to my known workouts it should’ve been at least 640, up from 430 minutes) up 112 minutes (or 210 minutes, respectively.)
So yeah, wildly different activity numbers. I did do several tests of counting steps during my hourly get up and move sessions and the step count seems accurate so at least it measures that correctly. But beyond that, Fitbit doesn’t seem super accurate and Myfitnesspal doesn’t seem to know how to log the activity.
This is made particularly frustrating because I tried to recalculate my macros this week as it is recommended to do every 6-8 weeks to keep the weightloss moving and according to most of the trackers, my base is 2300 cal, but my activity level I should be consuming 2600 calories for a 15% weight loss. And here I’ve been trying to schedule 2100- 2300 calories so basically always riding my metabolism on the verge of starving.
Keto Day 49- Week 7 Food Data
Last week’s food data:
This week:
I need to up my food game. I know that I can’t possibly do 2600 calories a day as I struggle most days to manage 2,100, but I scheduled for 2300 and still ended up short. I need to focus on adding more calories earlier in the day. I also need to look at food prep that is not protein so I can go for a non-protein add on when I’m hungry. Man, Monday’s swim left me straight up ravenous!
It’s tricky though because of the carb restrictions. I went over on both carbs and protein last week. Sure, not a ton, but trying to figure out how to maintain this delicate ecosystem of Keto dieting is becoming very stressful. I may consider upping my carb minimum to 30 to fit within my macros while giving me the space to eat the number of calories I need. IDK. We shall see. Still doing research on this part.
Oh, and I bought a new bathing suit. I was kind of thrilled when I guessed my measurements right and wanted to celebrate that my top is down from last year at a 3X and everything was tight, to this year where a 2 X is loose. I was also excited that I’m down on my bottoms from a 4X to a 3X. I suspect that my early tracking efforts last year were not accurate in what they were measuring.
Then I had James take a picture and was sad all over again.
My legs are just disgusting. I honestly debated not including this picture because I am embarrassed. This is what people see when they look at me.
But it’s important for me to be real with myself and be honest with where I am otherwise I can never get to where I want to go. I’m more motivated than ever to make sure to include weights in my regiment to help tone that hot mess of fat up. I won’t share photos like this too terribly often because honestly it is really disheartening and unmotivating to see myself like this.
But I think at least every 3 months or so will be important so I can truly see some changes happening, hopefully.
Keto Day 49- Next Steps for Week 8
The last day of Weigh to Health class was all about creating strategies for success beyond the class. It looked at some interesting statistics from The National Weight Control Registry
This is a study on people who’ve lost at least 30 lbs and kept it off for 1 year or longer.
Some of the interesting statistics that they found correlated between members to maintain weight loss:
Most managed their weight loss and maintenance through diet and exercise plans and tracking.
Most eating plans averages 56% carbohydrates, 24% fat, 20% protein
Most days included 60-90 minutes of moderate intensity exercise.
Most people kept daily food records and weighed in daily or weekly.
The biggest indicators of success were tied to mindset changes around making these habits (tracking diet and exercise) as lifestyle changes, not just “the diet mentality.”
which has kind of been daunting for me. Like, I don’t mind the workouts, though I realize that I’m pushing on being a bit too much. Definitely doing more than 60-90 most days. My daily average is right there, depending on if you take the Fitbit active minutes or my estimated active minutes based on my workouts.
So I’m not aiming to add more “active minutes”. Instead, I am aiming to increase the effectiveness of my active minutes. I started this last week and will continue to push this week. I am consistently swimming for 45 minutes three days a week. My goal is to spend as much of that time pushing from moderately active to vigorously active. What’s the difference? Moderately active means you can hold a conversation but you’re winded. Vigorously active means you cannot speak during that time frame. Last week I started pushing myself to that point during my workouts for short burst, but I wasn’t really tracking how much time I did it, just doing my best to maintain it as long as possible.
This week I am going to attempt to actually track the difference in my workouts to achieve that. Still trying to determine the best way to do this. It will probably be by tracking whole workouts in Myfitnesspal notes, and then logging just my high intensity portion of my workout in fitbit maybe?
The other option is to see if I can somehow influence the figures on the “workout tracking report” in Fitbit:
Given how unreliable I am finding the Fitbit data, I’m not sure which would be best. So for this week, I will try to do both and see which gives me better data. I also need to figure out the best way to cross over between fitbit and Myfitnesspal to achieve a cleaner record. I was logging workouts in Fitbit, then when the data didn’t add up, logging in Myfitnesspal but I’m thinking that may not be the best approach. Not that either of their calorie counts seem very accurate. They’re just guessing, really. Which is abundantly less useful than the calculators online based solely on my height, weight, age, and perceived activity level.
So upping my exertion, also upping my calorie goal to 2500 in hopes that my reality will be closer to that.
I have discovered that there are no keto experts in my area who take my insurance. There are only 3 keto experts in the area. period. They range in cost from $50 for a 30 minute consult to $500 for a 90-minute consult (which I am guessing would hopefully include the weighing, measuring fat, and maybe offering a meal plan? None of them are very clear on this.)
So I plan to stick with my nutritionist if she’ll allow it. Sure, she can’t help me understand what I’m doing with the diet, but she can run my tests, check my cholesterol, take my measurements, and I know, like, and trust her to encourage me and help me consider adapting as needed.
Follow my Keto Journey
If you would like to see my Keto Journey, you can check that out here:
Otherwise you can just use my recipes to to build your own meal planning!
Until next time,
Stay inspired!
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