Weigh in day #1

Um....I'm so um....I just don't even know.

Last Sunday, I weighed in at 179.4. I tracked every calorie in as well as my heart rate for all exercise I did all week. No cheating, no leaving things out. Totally honest 100%. Cross my fingers.

I try to get my calories as close to right on as I can. I use a program called Diet Analysis Plus. My husband took a nutrition class early on in college and the program came with his text book. It might sound silly but I use it religiously and it's actually pretty great. It has a huge database of foods. Fresh foods prepared several different ways, processed foods in all kinds of varitations they come in, even fast food and the different sides and sauces and stuff. And if it doesn't have something you eat regularly, you can add a food item with all the nutritional content exactly as it shows on the package. And if you make your own meals, it allows you to put recipes in and say how many servings per recipe to do all the math for you. I'm telling you, it's awesome. The one thing though is that I've noticed some of the calories can be a little bit off from what an actual package says. It's not a big amount but not everything is perfect. So I take that into consideration when I'm doing my tracking.

Then, when I track my calories burned I average out my heart rate. Sometimes, I do interval training and heart rate monitors aren't smart enough to tell how long I spent in each heart rate. So, I just consider the average heart rate for the entire duration. I figure that's pretty safe.

So, I tend to overestimate my food calories just a little and underestimate my calories burned. Very conservative. If I can be sure that I am being conservative then I should be safe right. Well, this week, being conservative of course, I calculated that I would lose 1.5 pounds. Not bad. I was totally expecting that and really excited for it.

Ready for what I saw on the scale? Brace yourself. 173.8

I just don't even know what to feel. I mean of course 5.6 pounds is amazing. But too amazing I think. I've never ever ever ever had that happen before. EVER! I must have stepped on my scale 20 times. I took the batteries out and put new ones in. I moved it to different places in the house as though that would make a difference. :) Every time it said the same damn number. 173.8. I just don't get it. How did this happen?

Here are the things I'm doing differently now than I've ever done before...maybe the secret lies in here somewhere:

1. Eating the Jillian Michaels Master your Metabolism 2 week menu.
2. Taking 2,000 I.U. of Vitamin D every day.
3. Blogging.
4. Daily check in with one of my kick ass work out buddies. We email each other every day with our meal plan for the day and how we did the night before. Very helpful.

That's it. Everything else on my activities for success list has been done before. These are the only newbies. I wonder if Jillian's menu really is that helpful. You know what they say, losing weight is 80% diet and 20% exercise.