A little bit of decent news

First, an update on my grandfather: he’s going to begin chemo treatment for his lung cancer. His biopsy showed that while this is an aggressive type of cancer, it also responds incredibly well to certain chemo drugs, of which are mild so there’s no risk of the nausea and hair loss, etc. that most people think of when they hear “chemo”. This cancer apparently responds well enough to this treatment that his doctors believe they can put him into remission with chemo alone without any surgery or radiation, at least for his chest – they will be doing radiation treatment on his brain as a precaution since this cancer has a tendency to metastasis in the brain. We’re hoping his white blood cell count will come back up enough this week that he can begin treatment. Without treatment, the oncologist said he could only expect to live another 2 months. That is obviously very upsetting, but there is still hope as the current plan is to move forward with the chemo a soon as possible. There is another bump in the road, however, as his chemo for his MDS must be put on hold while he undergoes treatment for the lung cancer. His doctors are hopeful that they can maintain the MDS with blood and platelet transfusions until his other treatment is done.

Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers that his blood counts come back up and stay strong as he begins the treatment process!

Now, to maintain my own sense of normalcy and attempt to focus on other things to avoid deep depression we return to our regularly scheduled programming… First things first, I want to say how super proud I am of my cousin Maury for taking control of her health as well as jumping back into the blogging world! I've missed her so much! If you're interested in checking out her journey, you can find her here. :)

Here is an update on measurements since beginning the Starting Strength program:

11/16/13

• Body fat estimation: 32.8% / 31.5% (Definitely more than I would have ever expected in 3 weeks! Used an average of the 3 BF% calculators on Fat2FitRadio.com)
• Weight: 189 lbs / 192.2 lbs (I weighed myself after breakfast – whoops. Although I’m pretty sure some of this is water gain from water retention in my muscles. Probably won’t have a super accurate weight until I take a rest week.)
• Neck: 13” / no change
• Bicep flexing: 12” / no change
• Forearm: 9.75” / 9.5”
• Wrist: 6.25” / 6” (thinking I may have measured incorrectly the first time around, since I have bony-ass wrists and am pretty sure there wasn’t any fat-loss there)
• Across bust: 38” / no change
• Under bust: 35” / 34.5”
• Waist: 34.5” / 33” (Major change!! Gain 3 lbs but lose an INCH AND A HALF OFF MY WAIST? I’ll take that ANY day!)
• Navel: 37” / 35.5” (This was almost more exciting than the above 1.5” change, because let’s face it – this is the area where it’s hardest to lose the belly fat.)
• Hips: 45.75” / 44.75” (WOO!)
• Thighs: 26.5” / 25.75”
• Calf: 15” / 14.75”

And some photos:

I can see the difference, can you? Nolan was helping me! …I need to get a new bicep picture up, also. I feel like my arms are a bit thinner/more defined than a few months ago, but I don’t know that I’ll really be able to tell until I snap a picture.

One of my goals during this Starting Strength program is to more consistently track my progress and take pictures regularly every 2-3 weeks. I look back on my photos and notes, and I know in February I was at about the same body fat percentage I am right now – except that I have no idea what calculator I was using for that estimation, so I really don’t have a realistic comparison. I also feel like my clothes fit better right now than they did at the beginning of the year, but that could very well just be weight shift and not necessarily fat loss overall.

I’m hoping to get up to the local university’s sports medicine center in the next couple months to get a BodPod scan – this will give me an accurate body fat percentage and overview of my body composition in general, as well as my RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) and TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) instead of just the estimations I’ve been using for all these things. So not only will I know what my body fat percentage is, but I’ll also know whether or not I’m eating the right amount of calories every day! I’m excited about it and also terrified at the same time. I’m hoping the body fat percentage will be less than what I’ve been estimating since being pear-shaped can sometimes throw these calculators for a loop, and I’m also hoping that my RMR and TDEE are close to what I’m already estimating and not less… because, well, I like food.

Speaking of food, for those who are wondering I have a daily calorie goal right now of about 2400. This is supposed to be maintenance for me right now. Some days I eat closer to 2100, some days closer to 3000, but I’m averaging right around that 2400 mark and this seems to be working for me. I’m not losing weight and I’m not gaining. We’ll see if this maintenance number continues to work for me as I progress through this lifting program (and once I get my Bod Pod scan results). I’m a-okay with staying the same weight if I can continue my fat loss, and I definitely think taking time off both from calorie tracking and exercise for those weeks was good for me both emotionally and physically. Yes, I gained some fat – but essentially doing a “re-feed” I think will assist in my fat loss moving forward. We’ll just have to see. I think one of the more important things for me right now is watching my diet. Last week my greens went bad and it took me about 5 days before I ran to the store to get a fresh mix… for some reason I also decided it wasn’t particularly important to eat any fruit during these 5 days, either.

Seriously. What.The.Hell.

I definitely need to get back into the habit of doing smoothies for myself, if for nothing more than to get my “5 a day” in. Yes, when I have fresh greens, I eat giant salads almost daily and I have been snacking more on baby carrots and the like, but fruit is definitely important too and an excellent substitute for junk when I get those sweets cravings.

…speaking of sweets, I totally baked some chocolate chip cookies last night using my whole wheat flour for the first time. While I can taste the “wheatiness” in them, they’re still pretty darn delicious – and for large cookies, not too bad calorie-wise (around 180 calories for almost 4” in diameter). 

I want to eat them all.

Ps – I may be changing some things around with the blog. Keep your eyes peeled for adjustments!