Week
1, Monday, 10/5/15, Weight: 148.8 lbs.
Week
2, Monday, 10/12/15, Weight: 145.2 lbs.
Week
3, Tuesday, 10/20/15, Weight: 147.0 lbs.
Week
4, Monday, 10/26/15, Weight: 146.2 lbs.
Week
5, Monday, 11/2/15, Weight: 145.2 lbs.
Week
6, Monday, 11/9/15, Weight: 142.4 lbs.
Week
7, Monday, 11/16/15, Weight: 142.0 lbs.
Week
8, Monday, 11/23/15, Weight: 142.2 lbs.
Week
9, Monday, 11/30/15, Weight: 143.4 lbs.
Up 1.2 lbs from last week, and down 5.4 lbs overall in 8 weeks.
Week
10, Monday, 12/7/15, Weight: 140.6 lbs.
Down 2.8 lbs from last week, and down 8.2 lbs overall in 9 weeks.
Not
surprisingly, I gained weight the week of Thanksgiving, but strangely, I lost
that weight and more the following week.
Perhaps weekly weigh-in’s aren’t so accurate. But regardless, it feels good to be back in
the right direction (down). And overall,
my weight loss isn’t so strange or large: less than 1 pound a week, on
average. So yes, I may meet my new goal
(another 3.4 pounds to lose in 4 weeks), but I still have to navigate through
the perilously dessert-laden Christmas and New Years holidays!
My
progress with my goals during the past two weeks:
1.
I jogged three times each week during the past two weeks. I am making a concerted effort to keep this
up, and it feels good. We ran the Turkey
Trot 5K on Thanksgiving morning, and that felt good too. I’ve decreased my running times and speed on
the treadmill a bit, but I’m feeling OK about that, as long as I keep jogging 3
times/week.
2.
I’m consistently keeping up my food diary.
So that’s good, and it’s interesting to look back to see what I’ve been
eating.
3.
The good news on my eating is:
a. I ate green veggies every day the past
two weeks (cool!), but I’m not always meeting my goal of twice a day. Right now, it still takes an effort to get
the green veggies scheduled in, but I definitely am eating more of them than I
used to, so that’s cool! I even brought
an additional veggie meal (a big salad) for the Thanksgiving holiday at my
in-laws, instead of the cherry pie I was planning on making. That’s progress, right?!
b. I only ate out on one day each week. Once was my birthday, and the other was a family
gathering. I’m not really that concerned
about eating out, since it isn’t currently my weakness (especially fast food,
which I’m not interested in).
c. I’m sticking to mostly water and tea,
with a little milk and a few occasional holiday beverages (eggnog, hot cocoa, and
hot cider). I’m not worried about this
either.
d. Every breakfast for two weeks was
vegetarian (no meats!), and I had several whole days that were all
vegetarian. Now I just need to up the
ante with one solid whole-foods, plant-based vegan meal per week!
4. The bad news is:
a. In general, I’m still eating too much at
my meals: controlling my portion sizes continues to be difficult.
And boy,
some days I ate a LOT throughout the day!
(Though other days I really ate much less, so that’s good.) Some days I snacked a lot, and not on healthy
things—I especially craved sugary items.
b. For the past two weeks, I’ve still been
eating a LOT of “sugar” in its many forms: sugar and white flour in homemade
goodies, jam, maple syrup, honey, and even candy and chocolates. Dessert is my huge weakness: I only skipped
having dessert on one day each week.
Sweets are just empty calories, with almost no nutritional value. I really need to rethink what I’m eating,
because as I eat more and more sweets, those dessert cravings hit more frequently
too—sugar is so addictive!
c. I
baked six times in two weeks: squash rolls (twice!), then cranberry bread,
banana bread, cherry pie and corn tortillas, and lemon cake bars (for a family
gathering). Fortunately, we froze a lot
of what I made (rolls, pie, breads, bars).
I can feel the holiday baking itch coming on, but I’ll have to rein it
in a bit if I’m going to meet my 1/4/16 goal.
5.
I think we really tried to get a bit more sleep, on average, this past couple
of weeks. Unfortunately, I’m not sure
how good of quality sleep I always get.
I am going to start tracking my sleep habits better, such as getting in-
and out-of-bed times, and approximate sleep hours and restfulness.
6.
I have to get going on deep breathing and relaxation soon, because I’m
convinced it will help. I’m currently
reading a book called The Gabriel Method,
in which Jon Gabriel discusses his “Revolutionary Diet-Free Way to Totally
Transform Your Body”. With that slogan, I’m
leery that it’s just another dumb weight loss book. But so far, it sounds like he is going to
address the mind-body connection in weight loss, which is pretty cool, and not
all that common in most “diet” books.
Also, he advocates: 1) not dieting (yay!), and 2) not making foods off-limits,
but rather, ADDING healthy foods with lots of nutritional value. So far, I like those ideas. I’ll keep you posted on what I think once I
read it all.
Sugar
plums are dancing in my head, but not in my mouth (yet). Onward march toward the holidays, Little Drummer Boy!
Forward
Flavor!
