Still Alive

Yes, I'm still here. A lot has happened in my life in the past couple of months. I found a new girlfriend and I've been going through hell in school. I've also managed to break into the 150s. According to several internet "ideal weight" calculators I've found, my ideal weight is supposed to be around 150. Now that I'm closing in on that, it seems like I would be really skinny at 150. I'm not all that worried about losing any more weight; just staying healthy.

My girlfriend and I are going to be starting a workout that we can do together so I'll have something to write about.

And the secret ingredient is..

.. Sour cream! Tuna fish sandwiches made with 0% sour cream are both tasty and nutritious. Just thought I'd share my little discovery in case anyone else could benefit from it. :)

Substitute for mayo in tuna sandwiches

I've been poking around the internet looking for a viable alternative to mayo in tuna sandwiches and I have to say there's some interesting suggestions out there. Low fat yogurt? That could just be crazy enough to work. I tried just plain mustard and it works all right but I think it needs something to give it that creamy texture that mayo does. Anybody have any suggestions?

Plateau

Well I've officially plateaued. I checked my weight this morning and it appears that I've only lost one measly pound. I'm blaming this on the tuna fish sandwiches and occasional "Egg-o-Muffin" I have at school. From now on I'm going to cut out the mayo (it was low fat mayo, but apparently that wasn't good enough) and stick with just tuna. The Egg-o-Muffins must go as well.

The good news is, I've been mostly consistent with my exercise since my last post. I've slacked off with the HIIT at times but I've never missed a resistance workout. Since being more strict with my diet and routine seem to be necessary now that I'm getting closer to my goal, I'm going to make damn sure I don't miss any HIIT either.

Way to live up to the stereotype guys

This is a map showing the percentage of obese people in the good ol' US of A. I don't think there's any doubt that fast food is largely to blame for this. That stuff should be illegal!

Metabolism

I found an informative fitness blog with a great article on keeping your metabolism revved up. Interesting stuff!

Weight loss slow down and HIIT

I've started to notice that my progress in losing weight has slowed down. I've been hovering over the 167 mark for the past week and my progress since I got back from Christmas has been slower than usual as well - about 4-5 pounds in the past month. I suppose that's nothing to sneeze at, but I was losing 5 pounds in about 2 weeks when I first started. I was satisfied with that rate, which is why I haven't been going out of my way to do any HIIT; just my usual 15 minute walks to and from the bus station at least twice a day. That must have been enough up until recently, but I'm afraid I've hit a plateau.

So, tonight I did my first HIIT session. I decided to start with week 1 since I haven't been following along all this time. Since I live in Thunder Bay and it's cold as a witch's teet out there, I ran and jogged in place as a substitute. I had my doubts about how effective it would be, but i was wrong. A minute running full out is a long time and is still very effective at getting my heart pumping, even if it is just running in place.

I know I said that I wasn't going to post a picture until I hit 165, but I took one last night after my workout and even though the lighting washes out the muscle definition (Trust me, it's there. Honest!), I do actually look slimmer in this picture than the previous one.



As I suspected, my results are starting to become more visible even if the number on the scale hasn't dropped as much as it used to. Don't let the above whining fool you; I'm actually quite happy with my results.