Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Fast Checkin

Weekly weigh-in: 186 on the nose. That's 1.2 for the week, 87 altogether. Diet progress is progressing.

As I explained over here, I'm up against the wall with work and stress, so I don't have time to say much else here. Remind me later to tell you about my pants, though. And I finally got around to ordering some new bras. I'm taking a chance on the 40D. Wish me luck.

Next week will mark the end of my first full year with Weight Watchers. I'm hoping the stress will have faded enough by then that I can do it some justice.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Dooby Down

Weighed in at 187.2 this morning -- that's 2.2 lost this week, nudging my total over 85. Which feels a little weird, because I honestly don't think I did anything much different this week from last. Stupid scale, phase of the moon, moisture in the air, blah blah blah. (I ought to be jumping with excitement, but it's just not that kind of day, for reasons having nothing whatever to do with dieting.)

I feel smaller this week, though. Last week, I was thinking I should probably get around to ordering some new bras soonish, as all mine are on their tightest hooks. This week, I'm thinking I need to hurry up and get on with it, because they're feeling loose and not terribly supportive. Maybe last week's smaller loss was accompanied by some internal shifting-and-tightening that's only now making itself felt.

And speaking of progress: It's impressive enough to have lost 85 pounds since I started this diet, but I've been heavier, and this is really close to being an unofficial milestone for me: When I got pregnant with Penny, I weighed 285 pounds. Which means that right now, I'm nearly 100 pounds lighter than I was about seven years ago. That's pretty cool, I have to admit.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Addendum

Okay, I'm not quite ready to go full-time with the M. I put on another shirt this morning, and it pulled sort of unpleasantly and obviously across the chest. Alas.

Which doesn't make the shirt a wash -- another ten pounds or so, and it'll probably fit fine, so I'm confident I'll be able to wear it eventually. It's even a year-round color. It just means I need to set it aside for a little while. And in the meantime, I need to keep trying on clothes in multiple sizes.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Shrinking

Weigh-in was yesterday: 189.4 means 0.6 lost last week, and 83.6 total. Not fantastic, but after the taco-and-chips fest this weekend, I'll take any loss and call it a victory.

I'm about 10 pounds from my fourth 10% goal (and maybe 15 from finally dropping out of the "obese" BMI category and into merely "overweight"), though given how much my loss has slowed, I'm thinking it may take me to the end of the year to get there.

Which is fine, really, since I think the last time I reviewed my loss goals, I'd been hoping to get to my third 10% goal by the end of this year. I should probably re-consider those, but I'm kind of saving it for a few weeks from now, for my one-year diet anniversary. Dietversary? Whatever.

Also, a mild dilemma: This loss pinged the WW website into dropping another daily point from my minimum. I'm now at 24 points a day, and I need to figure something out. If you estimate a point as about 50 calories (give or take, depending on fat and fiber, but that's a reasonable rule of thumb) then I'm right on the cusp of the rule I heard in college, which was that no diet should ever drop you below 1200 calories a day. Anyone else ever heard that rule? Anyway, I'd been having my best and steadiest success with losing when I was eating about 25-26 points a day -- but at the time, that was also a good 2-3 points a day less that my daily minimum. So was it eating under minimum that was making me lose weight, or is it just that 25-26 points is about the right amount of calories for my metabolism to burn at optimum efficiency? Because starting now, eating 25ish points a day is going to be cutting into my weekly points, which I almost never actually do. And when I do, it usually shows... but those tend to be splurges or screw-ups rather than a steady 1-2 points a day, so I don't know how much difference it makes.

So I'm waffling about whether I should be eating 23-24 points a day, or 25-26. Which is only maybe 100-150 calories' difference (ish), but... bleh. I just don't know.

Anyway, I could've posted this yesterday morning, even though I was taking a vacation day (to clean house -- I surely got my APs in for the day!) but then I wouldn't have been able to wrap it up with this bit of triumph: Among other errands, I dropped by Old Navy to try to find some fall shirts, because everything with long sleeves in my closet is from last year and almost 85 pounds ago. And I grabbed a few cute things, still reveling in that simple, unadorned "L" tag... and one of the shirts was positively baggy, so just on a whim, I tried it in a "M". (I am, after all, hoping to lose more weight, and it would be nice if my fall-weight shirts were also available to be worn if we have a warm snap in the winter, or even in the spring.)

And whaddya know -- it fit! It wasn't even stretched tight over my chest. Granted, it was a loose-fitting style. So out of curiosity, I tried on some of the other styles in a M as well, just to see.

And only one style actually looked better on me as a L than a M (and at that, more because I liked it a bit on the baggy side rather than skin-tight). I came home with one size L shirt... and four glorious Ms!

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Resuming

Today's weigh in: 190.0, which is down 2.6 from last week, for a grand total of 83 pounds lost. This despite my having not one but two fairly large pieces of cake this weekend (I did count those points, though!) and only going to the gym once during the week.

Obviously, the path to my success is to eat more cake and exercise less!

Nah, I don't really believe that. I suspect it has something to do with my tightening up control on the random grazing and the nighttime snacks. And possibly also to do with the fact that my scale is crap.

Though taking most of a week off from exercising might have turned out to be a good idea for other reasons: when I finally got back to the gym yesterday, I thought I'd try running the elliptical backwards a little bit, because it's a nice litmus test for my knee. Usually, I get all of about three revolutions done before I start getting a screaming, tearing sensation under my kneecap. Yesterday -- not even a twinge. So I did a whole 2 minutes backwards, which doesn't sound like much but trust me, if you'd felt the pain I was having, you'd want to be cautious about encountering it again, too. And the whole time, the worst I got out of it was a little twinge. Even more tellingly, it doesn't hurt today, either. So maybe a week of rest helped it finally finish healing? It's not a totally preposterous notion.

At any rate, I hope this means I'm over the little diet-slump (can't quite call it a plateau, but it sure was flatter than I like!) I've been on for the last few weeks.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

FINALLY.

I only lost half a pound this week (0.6, technically, since the scale said 192.6) but that finally puts me officially over the 80-pound mark that I've been flirting with for the last four weeks or so. So even though it wasn't a big loss, I feel mostly satisfied.

I'm trying to decide if I've been getting careless/sloppy about my eating habits, or if my metabolism has shifted and I'm just going to be losing weight that much slower, now. Both seem vaguely likely. I could deal with an overall slowdown if I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong.

(Except that I am doing some things wrong, and I just can't seem to help myself. I need to figure out how to get a grip and get my sense of discipline back into line. And also to stop having food in the house that pushes my triggers.)

This week will be challenging -- big family birthday meal Saturday, plus my gym is closed today and tomorrow and Monday. Even if I dust off the Wii Fit (and it is very hard to do that in the evenings when I'd rather be doing... well, almost anything else, really) it's not as good a workout as the gym.

So we'll see what we see, I guess. Wish me luck.