Not Quite the Biggest Loser

So here I am trying to lose weight. I've joined a club here at work based on the TV show Biggest Loser... and though we don't do "challenges," nor do we have public weigh-ins where we are judged and humiliated by pseudo-celebs, we do have teams, and we have weekly lunchtime get-togethers for support and discussion.

The first week, I did exercise... I started a regimen of twenty minutes on the elliptical machine, followed by some light work at the weight machines, at lunchtime on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. But while I tried to stay away from sweets, I didn't really pay much attention to what I ate. And at the first weigh-in, I had gained three pounds!

I'm telling myself that was muscle weight, and it probably was. But we get "fined" a dollar a pound when we gain (there's a cash prize at the end, and fines go into the prize pot), and I was very irked to have to cough up three bucks when I wasn't expecting to.

This week I have combined the exercise with the dread practice of Counting Calories. This has been something of an educational experience, as I've never really thought about how many calories there are in the things I usually eat, especially as compared to the things that I can eat instead. For example, this morning I had the tiniest wee little miniature bearclaw pastry and a big handful of sliced melon... the latter was sixty calories while the former was two hundred and fifty. Yikes.

I was also surprised to discover that two slices of whole-grain toast with butter or margarine was two hundred and eighty calories, while a bowl of oatmeal with raisins and milk is only two-twenty and a whole hell of a lot bigger and more filling.

If I don't lose weight this week, I'm gonna be pissed! Especially since that bear-claw means that I have to either skip my afternoon tea snack, or else eat a very light dinner. Of course, a lot of the problem is being prepared with low-calorie snacks, and the only thing I have with me right now are Clif bars, which are 250 calories...healthy as all get-out, but that will leave a scant five hundred for dinner. So I think I'll just drink a lot of water instead.

But what I wouldn't give for a chocolate chip cookie... with one calorie.

In other news, my new mood stabilizer has an interesting side-effect: akathasia! It's fun to say and it's fun to have... the inability to sit still. It's a very mild case, and my doc thinks it will wear off, it usually does, and if it doesn't we'll try something else; but in the meantime, it does make exercising easier. I've been doing isometrics at my desk for the last couple of days, and I had this enormous energy-burst on Sunday morning that gave me the ability to rearrange my bedroom (which I've been wanting to do for a couple of weeks now).

Well, I'm going to get up and do some pushups against the Reception counter. Talk to you later!



PS ~ Friday, 8 p.m.: I weighed in this afternoon, and I lost three pounds. Yay me! And considering that I know I gained muscle-weight as well as losing fat, that means I lost quite a bit more than just the three pounds; my pants fit again, and the pads of fat under my arms are visibly diminishing.

God, I love this akathasia! The calorie-counting I could live without, but the strange desire to exercise is da bomb!