MONTHLY CHECK-IN

WEIGHT LOSS THIS MONTH: -3.5 (which is a 3.5 lb gain)
WEIGHT LOSS TO DATE: 36.5
DAYS BIKE-COMMUTED: 14 (though some of these were only one-way commutes because my boyfriend picked me up or I chose to walk one way)
DAYS WALK-COMMUTED: 2 (both ways)
POTENTIAL COMMUTING DAYS MISSED: 4
BREAKDOWN OF EXCUSES USED BY COMMUTE DAYS MISSED:
Taking Tiggy to the Spay Clinic for Snippety-Balls (aka, neuter surgery) - 1
Mechanical Failure - 1
Something Right After Work - 2

I didn't expect epic weight loss this month because I got some rides home from work here and there so I didn't get as much commuting in as usual. I was expecting something like the five pounds I managed to lose last month, not the 12 pounds I lost in January. But a 3.5 pound gain? Really? How disappointing.

Perhaps I've come to that point in my weight loss journey where I'm either going to have to kick it up a notch with the exercise or really dial down my eating habits. And, quite frankly, I don't think I have much more time for exercise in my single-parent-working-full-time lifestyle than the five hours a week I already spend on it. So, what option am I left with? Sigh . . . changing eating habits.

A few months ago I lent a friend at work my South Beach Diet books. She describes herself as "serene" while on this diet because it reduces her cravings for sugar and other carbohydrates, her Achilles heel. As much as she doesn't enjoy eating as much as she would otherwise, she does find she feels much better while "on The Beach". I'm not sure that's what I want to do, exactly, follow a diet that restrictive - but perhaps the principle of eating more lean proteins and fewer simple carbohydrates is a generally good one to follow most of the time.

But, as my friend noted, eating a naked slab of chicken breast just isn't as fun as a pretty pastry from Duchess Bake Shop or a delicious Slurpee. I know it doesn't have to be one or the other, that there is room for some balance in my nutritional landscape, but I can't say the prospect of eating lean proteins excites me on any level. Not remotely. Ahh, well, no pain, no gain . . . right??

MONTHLY CHECK-IN

WEIGHT LOSS THIS MONTH: 5
WEIGHT LOSS TO DATE: 40 lbs
DAYS COMMUTED: 15
POTENTIAL COMMUTING DAYS MISSED: 5
BREAKDOWN OF EXCUSES USED BY COMMUTE DAYS MISSED:
Something After Work - 2
Spring Storm - 2
Too Tired - 1

OK, well, I can't say it's epic weight loss for the month of May, but it's nice to see the numbers finally going down again! And maybe that's not so bad after having eat-a-thons during my trip to Regina over the long weekend and on the weekend of my daughter's birthday party/Mother's Day. So, the less-than-mind-blowing weight loss is perfectly understandable. Still, it would have been SO NICE to wake up to the scale informing me that I just lost ten pounds - or even twelve pounds, as I did in January!! I need a couple more months like that. I'm looking forward to that again.

Honestly, though, I'm pretty happy about the weight loss for this month. After a number of months of stagnating, it IS nice to record some loss again. And just as the nutritionist I consulted last month said, 5 lbs in a month is actually ideal - any more than that and it's getting to be a bit too fast. So I can definitely live with this. Oh, weight loss, you NEVER happen as quickly or as easily as I want you to! What a jerk.

MONTHLY CHECK-IN

WEIGHT LOSS THIS MONTH: -2 (that means I gained 2 lbs this month!)
WEIGHT LOSS TO DATE: 35 lbs
DAYS COMMUTED: 16
POTENTIAL COMMUTING DAYS MISSED: 4
BREAKDOWN OF EXCUSES USED BY COMMUTE DAYS MISSED:
Sick - 3 days
Knee Getting Sore - 1 day

OK, body, this is getting out of hand. It made sense that I gained weight last month because I wasn't exercising and I wasn't following any kind of healthy eating plan. In April, I consulted with a dietician and used the EatTracker tool on the Dieticians of Canada website to ensure I was following the eating guide set up for me by the dietician. I bike-commuted most of the month, save for a few days of being sick and one day of knee soreness caused by all that biking in the wind. I've been doing everything I'm supposed to be doing! I even started joining a couple of friends on campus for a half-hour lunchtime jog (well, more like a bouncy walk) twice a week. So, how could I have possibly gained weight this month? WHAT THE HELL???

Maybe it's time to go back to the drawing board. Clearly, following the Canada Food Guide just ain't working for me. So - what to do? How to eat? I know I lose weight on things like the South Beach diet, but I'm a miserable human being while doing so and I can never do it for more than a couple weeks. I know I lose weight calorie-counting, and maybe I should just go back to that, but even that was starting to meet with some disappointing results by February. What am I supposed to do?? Trying to lose weight really sucks! Especially when you're genuinely trying and it just doesn't seem to work.

Oh, the disappointment!! I try to comfort myself with the knowledge that even if I'm not losing weight, per se, I'm still getting healthier with all this exercise. It's a small consolation because I feel like I sure as hell don't look healthy. But what can you do? It seems my body has its own agenda, and it's definitely calling the shots these days. How annoying.

MONTHLY CHECK-IN

WEIGHT LOSS THIS MONTH: -4.5 (that means I gained 4.5 lbs this month!)
WEIGHT LOSS TO DATE: 37 lbs
DAYS COMMUTED: 7
POTENTIAL COMMUTING DAYS MISSED: 18
BREAKDOWN OF EXCUSES USED BY COMMUTE DAYS MISSED:
Daughter ill - 2 days
Stomach flu and its lingering effects - 4 days
Hiatus (working longer hours to write a paper) - 12 days

SIGH! I kind of knew it would happen. I spent most of March driving to work instead of biking, and eating take-out and junk food because I was working too hard. So I gained weight. Logical consequence.

What this month has taught me is that:
1. My weight loss to date really can be attributed to biking, because the biking has really motivated me to make other positive choices regarding my self-care. When I don't bike, I also eat worse, and that leads me back into gaining weight.
2. While I have made significant lifestyle changes in order to bike-commute this year, this month has shown me that the moment I stop biking I will immediately fall back into old habits. This means I need to focus more on changing my old habits so that whether or not I continue bike-commuting beyond August, I will not risk gaining back whatever weight I've lost and returning to my pre-bike-commuting unhealthy lifestyle.

So, how am I going to change my old habits? Well, for one thing, I've consulted with a dietitian about eating for healthy, sustainable weight loss and picked up some excellent advice from her. I'm also trying to be more mindful of what my body really needs - listening to that guiding voice within me that tells me what I need rather than what I want. Essentially, I'm trying to change my relationship with eating so it's no longer a hobby or a reward or a way to self-soothe. I know that changing this relationship isn't going to be easy, and it's not going to happen overnight, but I'm becoming a lot more interested in changing not so much what I eat, but rather how and why.

MONTHLY CHECK-IN

WEIGHT LOSS THIS MONTH: 5 lbs.
WEIGHT LOSS TO DATE: 41.5 lbs
DAYS COMMUTED: 17
POTENTIAL COMMUTING DAYS MISSED: 2
BREAKDOWN OF EXCUSES USED BY COMMUTE DAYS MISSED:
Slept In/Too Much Snow on the Ground: 1
Knee Discomfort/Low Motivation: 1

Really, Body?? Five pounds? I've been biking pretty consistently, I added 2.5 km of walking to my daily routine by walking my daughter to daycare, and I've been watching what I've been eating, using Daily Burn to track my eating habits and workouts religiously - even on weekends! And still, I only lost 5 lbs. this month? I was hoping for 10 or 11, or at least 8, a solid 2-lbs-per-week loss would work for me. But 5 lbs? SIGH!

I was complaining about this to my Mom earlier, wondering aloud if all this effort is even worth it, and she repeated to me her weight-loss mantra: The time is going to pass anyway, you may as well be losing weight. This phrase is an apt reminder that even at 5 lbs a month, I'm still better off than I would be if I wasn't putting in this effort and staying the same weight forever (or, perhaps more truthfully, continuing to gain weight as I was pretty consistently for the six years leading up to the start of my bike-commuting challenge). So, 5 lbs in February - a disappointment, I must admit, but it's certainly better than nothing. And after a crazy 12-lb weight-loss month like January was, perhaps my body needed to cool its weight-loss jets for a spell.

MONTHLY CHECK-IN

WEIGHT LOSS THIS MONTH: 12 lbs
WEIGHT LOSS TO DATE: 36.5
DAYS COMMUTED: 18
POTENTIAL COMMUTING DAYS MISSED: 2
BREAKDOWN OF EXCUSES BY COMMUTE DAYS MISSED:
Stayed home to take care of sick daughter: 2 days

Yeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh!!! TWELVE pounds this month!! That's a personal record!

To celebrate, I bought two new tops and a skirt over the weekend because the new work clothes I bought in August are starting to look pretty bad on me now that I've lost all this weight. Now, I've always hated clothes shopping, and it's still not fun for me, but this weekend's shopping extravaganza sure felt better than any shopping experience I've had in a LONG time! It was awesome to discover that my waist is a solid two dress sizes smaller than it was in August. It was even a pleasure to know that I'd only gone down one size around my hips and breasts, because it reminded me of those deadly hourglass curves of mine that have been buried beneath layers of shapeless chub this whole time. It's slow work, to be sure, but I'm breaking those curves out of their prison, and when they come back in full they'll be just as awesome as they ever were when I was 20.

I'm feeling good. I needed to feel good after an emotional-roller-coaster of a month that was January, and I'm very glad I do. Three cheers to a good month, and here's to the start of what will surely be another good month!

MONTHLY CHECK-IN

WEIGHT LOSS THIS MONTH: 1 freakin' measly pound!
WEIGHT LOSS TO DATE: 24.5
DAYS COMMUTED: 9
POTENTIAL COMMUTING DAYS MISSED: 10
BREAKDOWN OF EXCUSES USED BY COMMUTE DAYS MISSED:
Bad Road Conditions: 3 Days
"Gift to Myself" the Week Before the Holidays: 3 Days
Cold weather: 2 Days
Got my Cat Neutered: 1 Day
Brought my Toddler Daughter to Work with Me: 1 Day

Ahh, December . . . I drove more days than I commuted, and for the last two weeks of the month (if not three!) I ate like a recovering addict who just fell off the wagon again. Of course, all this was pretty well expected. And quite honestly, I'm just grateful I didn't put on weight and still managed to lose something this month, even if it was just one pound. I had one good week of commuting and eating, and the rest of the month was basically a write-off, between eating poorly (chocolates and donuts at work, going out for dinners and Christmas parties, etc.) and neglecting to bike-commute for over half the month. I'm just glad this slackerly behaviour didn't cause too much damage at the end of the month to erase the hard work that brought me this far. So . . . yay for me??

Now, may the depression being. You see, December can be a pretty wintry month, but all is forgiven because I have the holidays to look forward to at the end. Cold weather? That's okay, I get a week off at the end of the month! Massive dumpings of snow? Great! We'll have a white Christmas! And the whole month is infused with people's good cheer because everyone feels the same way - it's not really winter, it's just Christmas-time!

And now it's January. There is nothing - nothing - to look forward to except the sweet mercy of spring, which won't even begin until April or May. By that point, people will venture out in shorts and t-shirts when it's 10C outside because they are so grateful to be able to feel the sun on their skin again after months of impenetrable darkness and cold. And in the meantime, there is nothing but vast expanses of long blistery months without sun, without heat, without leaving the house unless you have to. The next three months will be hell.

The good news is that if I can keep bike-commuting, and really keep it up unlike I did in December, I'm sure to lose a decent amount of weight because it's so cold and the snow makes the routes so much harder. That thought keeps me feeling positive. And maybe my motivation to bike will be higher because it'll be the only fresh air I'm really going to get. So maybe it'll work out for the best . . . maybe it won't be so depressing after all . . . but it probably will be.

MONTHLY CHECK-IN

WEIGHT LOSS THIS MONTH: 7 lbs.
WEIGHT LOSS TO DATE: 23.5 lbs.

So close! I wanted so badly to get to 8 lbs lost this month, despite knowing that almost two weeks of the month was spent eating poorly and not commuting, given my daughter's illnesses and my inability to control myself when I'm bored. I ended up cheating this month, weighing myself at a mid-way point in the month after my daughter was well again, sometime close to the third week of November, and at that point I had lost one whopping pound. One freakin' pound! I thought the whole month would be a complete write-off. So I vowed to spend the last slightly-more-than-a-week that was left in the month working hard and trying to make up for lost time. And I did work hard - I was calorie-counting most days (couldn't quite maintain that on the weekend, unfortunately), and biking harder than ever with the snow and ice on the road. I'm actually quite proud of myself that I managed to get my weight loss up to 7 lbs from 1 lb in so little time! Still, hoping to average out to 8 lbs of weight loss a month, I take this month's weight loss as the slightest of disappointments.

Now that it's December, I'm facing a much-shortened month of bike-commuting that's full of Christmas parties, baked goods being brought to work, and various social engagements that lend themselves to over-eating. My goal is to work hard for the next three weeks or so - continue calorie-counting, continue commuting as much as I can - and then weigh myself on the 24th. That way, I won't have to do my monthly weigh-in right in the middle of the holidays! I figure that'll be fair. I'll try to lose weight in the first three weeks of the month so I can relax a bit and enjoy my holidays at the end. Then I'll have the whole month of January to work off whatever I put back on during my week of holidays! Works for me!

MONTHLY CHECK-IN

WEIGHT LOSS THIS MONTH: 6.5 lbs
WEIGHT LOSS TO DATE: 16.5 lbs

I knew my weight loss this month wouldn't be as fantastically awesome as last month. I missed two commuting days because of the conference in Vancouver, another day because I was unprepared for the early wintry weather, and another two days because of illness. That's a full week of lost commuting right there. On top of that, both being sick and being at the conference contributed to periods of poor eating. If anything, I should probably be grateful I still ended up losing as much weight as I did!

And yet, I'm still disappointed. I look back at October and feel the urge to shake my head at myself for not being better restrained, better prepared, and in better health. I know it's unreasonable to make such demands on myself, and I also know that there are bound to be months of greater and lesser weight loss that will hopefully average out over the year and ultimately get me to my target weight regardless. Still, entering into November I can feel the pressure I'm putting on myself to do better this month. At the very least, just be more consistent.

And when in doubt, try some of those Jedi mind tricks they teach us in psychology to make my body work for me rather than against me! But I can't say more about that - in fact, I'm afraid I've said too much already . . .

MONTHLY CHECK-IN

WEIGHT LOSS THIS MONTH: 10 lbs.
WEIGHT LOSS TO DATE: 10 lbs.

Whooooooooooot! I lost TEN pounds in September! That was the goal I set in my head, knowing it was a little on the ambitious side. I kept trying to preemptively find reasons why I may not reach that goal (i.e., I didn't really change my eating that much, the weight gain of muscle in my legs may counteract some of the weight loss of fat from my body, etc.), and now I can throw my head back and laugh triumphantly because I didn't have to use them! HAHAHAHA!

I do take all this with a grain of salt, though. After all, in my experience the most dramatic weight loss happens in the first couple of weeks, then my body gets used to its new routine and settles back into its habit of holding onto the rest of the weight for dear life. I'm hoping that with the approach of winter and how much harder the biking is going to get, not to mention the energy it'll take just to keep my body warm, that might keep me working hard and steadily losing weight. We'll see!

I'm just so happy that the biking has made such a big difference so far. And I even got away with eating a lot on the weekends! Cookies, even, and alcoholic drinks, and movie theatre popcorn and CANDY!

Ahhhhh, life is good!