Weekly Update - Week 28

(end of week 27/beginning week 28)

On the Scale
Lost this week: 0

Starting Weight: 265.6
New Weight: 197
Total loss: 68.6

I'm feeling pretty good about that zero. I know what I've eaten for the past 27 weeks where every week I have lost something and I know that I didn't do the same thing this past weekend. I'm a logical girl and the zero makes perfect sense. I wanted to be under 200 for Christmas, and I am. This weekend for Christmas I decided to eat like I was maintaining - to induldge in a few things but not slip into a zone of eating whatever I want and ignore the impact it will have on my health and fitness - which is what I've always done in the past.


When I am living in maintenence world I should still weigh my options and only eat things are good for me in some way. It was good for me to eat some chocolate on Christmas morning. It was good for me to eat some desserts. Doing those things on Christmas will pay off later - I won't look back and feel deprived. I'm doing something sustainable not just for losing but for maintaining this healthy lifestyle that I've worked hard to build. I decided it wouldn't be good for me to eat chips and dip because that is something specific I can point to in the past that has been a problem for me. There are few regrets, things that didn't make a difference one way or another on the scale, but that were tiny mental failures for me. I think I've learned to learn from those.

I'm still going to wait to start measuring and counting calories until New Years Day - this is kind of an experiment - I want to see how I do "naturally". I'm going to eat my normal, healthy foods, with the health and portion savvy I've built over the past six months. I'm going to pay attention to every bite but I am going to enjoy the break from counting and recording.

Tuesday, January 4th it will be exactly 16 weeks until my birthday. January through April is the home stretch to 100 lbs. I enjoyed my "goal" of getting under 200 by Christmas. I view this birthday goal as a similar challenge. My final goal weight is still a mystery to me but it helps me to have mini goals attached to dates. For years at the New Year I would look at my weight and calculate how many pounds I could lose by my birthday. When I failed I would recalculate to summer, then Christmas and I never followed through. This year I AM doing it and these little goals are undoing some of the emotional damage I've done to myself by allowing all that past failure.

This year time instead of making excuses I'm setting and reaching goals.