SECOND PLATEAU

I hit my second major plateau. A plateau is when you don’t gain or lose any weight despite efforts to the contrary. As much as I know about them and expect it to happen during my weight loss journey, it never stops frustrating me. With the number of calories that I’m ingesting, I should be losing something. Anything.

During those times, my logical side remains on the backburner while the other part of me thinks I should just start eating more calories if it doesn’t matter how many I cut out.

Of course, logic wins because this is a normal part of losing weight and it’s nothing to be upset about. In fact, I expect it to happen a couple more times before I reach my goal. I also expect my weight loss to slow as I come closer to my target, as much as that prospect disheartens me.

Weight Loss and Fitness

On the bright side, to date I have lost 38.1 pounds (17.28 kg) since June, which is pretty great. I lost 5.1 pounds (2.31 kg) since my last journal two weeks ago. I didn't realize how much I had lost during this period because I was focusing so much on the plateau. There were a few days where I lost about a pound, then it flattened out (see daily numbers on bottom of page). My scale could be janky, which is absolutely a definite possibility. I'm not sure, but I'm more comfortable with a steady loss instead of these steps.

I’ve come to the point where I need to wear a belt because my pants now fall off completely. Ladies? I’m joking! But it is pretty awesome how much loser my clothes fit now. I can’t wait to do one of those pictures where I hold the waist of my pants out while I’m smiling goofily at the camera in utter amazement. Who wouldn’t want to do one of those photos, am I right?

I’m going to preface my next statement by noting that I’m not getting ripped because I’m not doing any type of crazy weightlifting exercises. However, I am noticing muscles that I never really had before. I do a small workout routine every morning, and I’m starting to notice some results. My original motivation to do any type of exercise is because it’s important for maintaining lean muscle mass during weight loss.

I now feel that it might be a good idea to do something a little more extreme since I still have a little over 20 pounds to go. It would be easier to build muscle while I have fat to lose, rather than building while attempting to maintain my weight.

I have no interest in looking like a body builder, but I’d at least like to be toned and have some muscle definition. Even when I was much thinner, most of my muscles were in my legs because I ran. I don’t run anymore due to the harmful environmental conditions I find myself living in (extremely poor air quality). I mentioned this previously, but this is why I do all of my exercises inside my apartment. It’s difficult to do anything too crazy without the proper equipment, and without angering the neighbors below me. I would also need to adjust my caloric intake if I drastically change my exercise routine.

Sometimes when I’m sitting at my computer, I enjoy holding myself up by the armrests of the chair. Then I remember that this chair isn’t built for that and I’m probably going to rip off the armrests, which just so happen to be holding the back of the chair to the seat. So I stop. But it is fun! I digress.

Sleep

I’m finally sleeping again. For at least two weeks, I got 3 to 4 hours of sleep. Sometimes less, never more (Lenore?). I was so tired! Not to mention, not sleeping means I’m awake longer. Wow, excellent deduction, Sherlock! But seriously, being awake longer meant that I was hungrier more often and it made it much more difficult to stick to my diet.

Suddenly, one night I was actually able to stay asleep. I’ve had trouble falling asleep my entire life, but for those couple weeks, I couldn’t stay asleep. Even better, I’m sleeping at night now. My brain hates sleeping at night. If I allow it, I can so easily transition to sleeping during the day. It’s actually incredibly difficult to train myself to sleep at night, but I prefer it because that’s when normal people sleep.

And I want to be normal dammit!

So far, my brain has cooperated with me and hopefully I can maintain this sleep schedule. I find that I’m much more productive during the day. At night, all I want to do is watch Netflix or read. During the day, I’m able to accomplish much more. As long as I never have to work overnights again (did it on and off for years), then I’ll try to continue sleeping at night.

Recipes

From now on, I’ve decided to post one or two recipes in each health journal of some of the food that I eat nowadays. It may be a dip, snack, or a full meal. I’m doing this partly because I have no idea what else to discuss this week, and partly because I thought others who are trying to lose weight or just want delicious food ideas would like to know.

Some of the recipes, especially the dinner ideas, aren’t exactly what you’d refer to as low calorie, but I’ve made them with success fitting them into my caloric budget.

This week, I figured I’d begin with my once and always obsessions: tzatziki and bruschetta.

Tzatziki

Tzatziki is a Greek yogurt dip that I’ve taken way beyond it’s intended use for my diet. I eat it on toast, with carrots, bell peppers, cucumbers (even though there’s a ton of cucumber in it already), as a salad dressing, the list goes on. For some reason, I can’t get enough of it. It’s extremely flavorful, low calorie, and healthy. After all, it’s mostly cucumber and plain Greek yogurt.

There is some controversy in the tzatziki world about adding lemon juice. I put it on mine, but it’s my understanding that this is not necessarily an authentic addition. You can omit it if you’d like, but I feel that it adds a certain je ne sais quoi that I quite enjoy.

Bruschetta

I mentioned this many weeks ago, but I want to say again that this is not traditional Italian bruschetta. Bruschetta varies drastically by region, but you never mix all of the ingredients together like this.

Traditional bruschetta includes a few fresh ingredients (not always tomatoes, though that’s generally what’s thought of, at least here in the States), then you rub garlic on sliced fresh bread before toasting or grilling it. Add the ingredients to the toast and drizzle with some good olive oil (I feel like Ina Garten right now, with her “good” everything). All of that together is what’s referred to as bruschetta.

This recipe, on the other hand, is basically all of the ingredients mixed together at once, sans bread. It also contains a few things that aren’t generally seen in bruschetta, but I feel that they add a lot of great flavor. I’m all about flavor.

Doing it this way allows you to make it in advance and put in the fridge to enjoy whenever you desire. It may be sacrilegious to my ancestors, but hopefully they’re not too upset with me. I absolutely love traditional bruschetta; I just prefer to make a larger batch in advance that I can eat anytime.

This version is great on toast, on top of chicken, or even on a burger if you’re so inclined. It’s fresh, delicious, and healthy.

The original recipe can be found here: Balsamic Bruschetta

Conclusion

Thank you for joining me here this week! Hopefully you like the addition of recipes to the journal. It won’t be the major subject, but I thought it would be nice to show you some of the food that I eat. It was especially difficult for me at the beginning to find foods that I could consume without going way over my caloric budget. Perhaps this will help others who are having the same trouble I was.

As always, a daily breakdown of my weight and caloric intake is listed below.

I hope you are all happy and well. I’ll see you in two weeks!

Daily Breakdown of Weight and Caloric Intake

Date	Pounds	Kilograms	Caloric Intake
4 September 2016	197.0 lb	89.36 kg	1114 calories
5 September 2016	196.2 lb	88.99 kg	1088 calories
6 September 2016	195.5 lb	88.68 kg	1490 calories
7 September 2016	195.2 lb	88.54 kg	1130 calories
8 September 2016	195.3 lb	88.59 kg	1292 calories
9 September 2016	195.8 lb	88.81 kg	1135 calories
10 September 2016	195.3 lb	88.59 kg	1201 calories
11 September 2016	195.7 lb	88.77 kg	1140 calories
12 September 2016	195.4 lb	88.63 kg	1123 calories
13 September 2016	194.6 lb	88.27 kg	1272 calories
14 September 2016	193.8 lb	87.91 kg	1299 calories
15 September 2016	192.9 lb	87.50 kg	1158 calories
16 September 2016	192.9 lb	87.50 kg	1284 calories
17 September 2016	193.0 lb	87.54 kg	1293 calories
18 September 2016	191.9 lb	87.04 kg	---