I completed my challenge. Barely. Let's just say as of Thursday night, I needed to make up 1,000 calories by the end of the week or lose the challenge. I guess I needed a little drama to end this thing. I would have thought that after four months I would have a rhythm down, that I would just be in the habit of staying within my limits, but I guess that is not the case. In some ways it did get easier, but in many ways every day was a new struggle.
Before I go too much further, I need to give a little update on the rules of my challenge. I decided on week two that I needed to revise the challenge. The splurge day was confusing. I was supposed to stay within my calories every day, except for splurge days, but I had to have calories saved up for that. It was a bit messy to track and not clear when I was cheating and when it was okay to go over. So I decided that instead of having a daily limit, I would switch to a weekly limit. Lose It makes it really easy to track weekly calories using a Monday to Monday week, so I used it to track my weekly calories. I continued to have my official weigh-ins on Tuesdays, because that is when the West Jordan Biggest Loser contest held their weigh-ins. The weekly tracking made things so much easier. I had a little wiggle room if I decided to go over on one or more days, but I still didn't get too out of control, because I knew that I'd have to make those calories up somehow.
The first two weeks were awful. The day I announced the challenge I felt completely sick for most of the day. I had strong doubts as to whether or not I could pull it off. I don't think I had ever gone more than a week staying completely within my calorie budget. And I had just signed up for four months of it. I was afraid of what I could and couldn't eat. I was terrified of going over my calories. For those first two weeks I remember feeling like I was starving all the time. I wasn't, of course, in fact, I probably wasn't even legitimately hungry most of the time. But I missed the food. I missed the comfort. I missed the instant feeling of calm that comes with eating during stressful times.
I had to find different ways of dealing with my stress. I didn't find any easy answers, but exercise helped. A lot, actually. I looked forward to my almost daily 45 minutes of swimming . My head was under water and it was quiet. I could think. I could feel the rhythm of my breathing and my body flying through the water, and I could let go of my stress and frustrations.
This challenge (and the consequences) were the only things that kept me going. I've lost weight before, but never consistently like I did this time. Before I'd have great weeks and then not so great weeks. I was very forgiving towards myself when I would have a bad day. I'd just leave it behind and move forward. That was all well and good until I would start having more and more off days. Pretty soon I was only having off days. I was much too understanding with myself and didn't worry or fuss about the gains and defeats until it reached that point where the weight gain started to freak me out. Then I would start the “lets get serious” cycle all over again.
This time I didn't have that luxury. I quickly realized just how motivated I am by negative consequences. It was a matter of pride, and also a matter of not having to watch country music. I know I promised myself a reward for winning my challenge, but I honestly hardly ever thought of it. The board game was a nice bonus for making it though, but I rarely if ever used it as a motivating force. When I had to choose between blowing my calories on chocolate cake or taking a few breaths and walking away, I could have cared less about the game. The only things I cared about were not watching that box set of country hits and the knowledge that if I beat this challenge I could take a week and eat whatever the devil I felt like eating. Even though my intent when I started this was not to use food as a reward, I realized that if I scheduled a little calorie counting vacation when I was done, I could delay eating food that wasn't on my plan for the day.
This is not to say that I became an extremely healthy eater. I did not. I did eat better, because when you eat healthier you can eat more and stay more full for the same amount of calories. But I still ate chocolate, cookies, cake, and other kinds of junk food. I just planned ahead or ate less of it. Sometimes if I didn't have calories that day I'd put it in a ziplock and save it in my cupboard or fridge for a day or two until I had the calories to eat it. I could eat whatever I wanted, I just couldn't always eat it when I wanted it, or as much as I wanted. And I was okay with that. Most of the time.
I was not always in control. There was the time I ate 4 Twinkies or another time (four days ago) when I took my fatigue and stress of dealing with a whiny sick child out on a package of Keebler fudge striped cookies. Twelve of those little thin devils came out to 600 calories. Totally not worth it. But I put the calories in my Lose It tracker just the same. I even once binged on healthy food. How sad is that? I can't remember exactly what now, but I know there was Jicama, maybe some pretzels, bananas. Each time I ate food I hadn't planned on I made up for it. I would eat less the next day, or the next three days if I needed to. Or I would make sure to get my exercise in that day and just use the exercise calories to cover the excess. I held myself completely accountable for everything I put in my mouth. Many times I was able to stop a binge before it even happened, just because I didn't want to deal with the after math.
The worst time of day for me was always the afternoon. Sometimes on purpose, and sometimes not so on purpose I would eat a full meal around 2:30-3:00pm. On those kind of days I would either eat a light dinner or skip dinner all together. I found I didn't miss the calories too much at night, but I was an onery mess if I was hungry in the afternoon.
Irritability was definitely a down side of counting calories. I was definitely a lot less patient without my drug of choice. Especially when my children wanted me to feed them. They were always hungry for meals and snacks. If I didn't have calories to eat, it was pure torture making them food. I have to admit that on more than one occasion I said things like, “I don't care what you eat, just make it yourself, don't let me see it, and don't talk about it.” I pretty much ignored pinterest for 4 months because it's mostly just pictures of food that would consume half my daily budget. I often hid people's food pictures on Facebook so I wouldn't have to look at them when I scrolled by.
I increased my consumption of diet beverages. I know that's bad, but I needed something a little naughty to get me through the day. Nothing like my hubby making a late night run for a double gulp of half and half (half diet dr. pepper, half caffeine free diet coke) to make my day feel better. I also found that if I was down to zero calories, but felt I was starving, a mug of warm herbal tea would satisfy me and get me through to the next day.
I wish I could say that I've fixed all my issues and don't need another challenge to stay on track. But I know that's not true. In fact, it's entirely probably that I will need to stay on a food budget for the rest of my life. That probably should freak me out, but it doesn't. I'm also on a cash budget for the rest of my life. In both cases I will get vacations, and save up for indulgences, but I need limits. Without limits I have no control.
I have had a love/hate relationship with this challenge. I love the results. I love that I was successful. I'm proud that I did something hard. I loved that I was working out harder and more often then ever in my life. Even though I was sometimes irritable or exhausted after a hard work out, I did feel better. I felt like I was doing things the right way and was taking care of myself.
I ended up taking 4th place in the West Jordan Biggest Loser contest. Winning was never the point of this challenge. But it was pretty darn sweet to come in 4th. During the 13 week Biggest Loser contest I lost 38.4 pounds. If you remember, I started my Grand Old Opry Challenge two weeks before I started the Biggest loser contest. I also continued on the Grand Old Opry Challenge for two more weeks after the Biggest Loser contest ended. In the 17 weeks of my self-imposed Grand Old Opry Challenge, I lost a total of 46.2 pounds. If you had told me at the beginning of this that I'd be looking forward to that high of a loss I would have been skeptical. It's definitely nice to see those results. (I have updated the chart in my previous post showing my weekly loses for both contests.)
Even though I was pretty consistent about how many calories I ate, on a daily basis my weight was all over the place. Over the course of the contest it has a nice trend downward. I tried not to let the little gains get me down, because I knew it was part of the process, but especially when the scale did something like randomly jump up 3.5 pounds, it was hard to take. The jumps up always seemed to happen right when I was about to hit another 10 pound loss. I'd get so close and then all of a sudden I was up again. Luckily I just kept going and it always came back down. I weighed in almost every day. I think I only missed a couple of days. You can see my daily weigh-ins on this graph from Lose It.
I am really grateful to everyone who supported me through this challenge. My family, both immediate and extended, were patient and encouraging. Mike teased me by singing country music from time to time, but never complained about what we were eating, or what food was in the house. My friends on Lose It got the brunt of my whining, but were always there to cheer me on. I tried not to bombard my Facebook page with too many posts about my challenge, but when I announced the results of the Biggest Loser contest and posted pictures I had a ton of likes and comments on the posts. It was like a Facebook birthday only better. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I'm currently taking a week off from counting calories. I'm indulging in food that I haven't had in four months. Restaurant Morelia, kettle corn at the movies, and jalapeno poppers from Arby's to name a few. I'm gaining weight, and feeling uncomfortably full. It's nice to take a break, but I'll definitely be ready to start back up on Monday. Stay tuned for my next challenge. It will be starting on Monday, and I'll be revealing the details soon!
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