Month: March 2017

Yea! I made all my goals for the first 12 week challenge. I had a goal of 12 pounds and I lost 13. Plus I did record everything I ate for the entire 12 weeks, I reduced my sugar consumption from really a lot to just a few things on two days and nothing on 5 days of the week and I made drinking tea an almost daily habit. I’m very pleased and am feeling much better.

Other successes include actually wearing my top tucked into my slacks the other day (although I did have a jacket over top!), running 5K weekly as part of my exercise routine, hiking up and down the mountain in Steele Creek Park several times, and basically feeling like I’m on my way to being a slimmer me!

On to the 2nd 12 weeks of 2017. My weight goal this time is just 10 pounds, which would be another 5% of my initial body weight (my ultimate goal is to lose about 20% of my body weight and I’ve lost 6.5% so far, so this would bring me over halfway to my ultimate goal.)

Behavior-wise, I want to record all my food again – I’ve already made another record keeping booklet and dated all the pages, so I’m set to go on that. Other things are hard to set exact goals, but I want to establish a habit of eating any sweets that I do decide to indulge in after 9:00 in the evening, in order to prevent whatever it is from setting me off on a binge for the remainder of the day.  I also want to be better about pre-packaging things that I can have so I don’t overdo the portion size. But neither of those is a regular activity, so it is hard to set a goal. So mainly, just lose that next 5% by doing what I’ve learned to far.

But first, I’m going to celebrate today, because I worked really hard last week!!

I haven’t been losing much and was sort of worried about even making my goal before Monday, so Thursday I got really serious. When I weighed Friday I was 3/4 pound under my goal and today I was a full pound under. So all I have to do is not gain that weight back this weekend and I should be good for Monday. I’m sure I won’t eat much tomorrow to make sure of that, though! But I haven’t been starving the past two days. I had spaghetti for supper last night and pudding before bed. Same things planned for today. Then tomorrow I’m making a chicken, which is a pretty light meal if I don’t overdo it.

I’m finally, at 13 pounds lost, feeling like I’m getting thinner. Great feeling. I often forget, when I have a big goal like this 40 pounds I wanted to lose, that after the first 15 pounds or so, you are actually thinner, so enjoying your new body even while you lose the rest. It isn’t like you are fat every day until suddenly you hit your goal and are, all of a sudden, thin!

I’ll admit I’ve long been jealous of the relationship Erica and Kylene have as sisters. I’ve never been close to my sister, even when we were still at home. Since then, we’ve barely had any contact.

This weekend Laurie and Bob stopped for a visit on their way to Florida. We’d invited them when they mentioned in their Christmas letter that they were heading south and they surprisingly took us up on it. I was pretty nervous about the whole thing, but we actually had a great time. They got here Friday around suppertime and left this morning (Sunday) after breakfast. She had mentioned that she doesn’t eat gluten, but that didn’t really prove to be a problem. Nor did bringing their two adorable dogs – a St. Bernard/black lab cross and a basset hound/dachshund cross.

Did we ever talk. And talk. And talk.  Mostly Laurie, but I knew from the times I’ve seen her briefly that this would be the case. But I genuinely wanted to hear what she wanted to tell me about this time, and I was more able to see it, not as bragging, but as wanting her big sister to be proud of her accomplishments or simply wanting to share with us something she’d found funny.

I can’t even describe how tired and “talked out” we were by the time they left. We literally did little other than talk (and listen) the whole time they were here.  We went hiking and walked around downtown a bit, but the talking continued through that! But now that they are gone, I feel that we’ve made up for a good portion of the years we missed and that we are ready to move on as “sisters.” We really have a lot in common – a love of dogs, being physically active and working with clients with their fitness (she’s a physical therapist), enjoying culture (she’s more into visual art, though, and not music), and building things. She is actually an accomplished woodworker, making elaborate cabinetry and so on. She has many funny tales of trying to get salespeople to understand that is she who needs supplies or a tool or whatever, and not her husband!  And I can totally relate after all the time I’ve tried to convince salespeople that I actually know what I want when I’m looking for a plumbing or electrical part for a remodeling project.

So, anyway, I have high hopes that this may be the start of a new phase of life in which I actually have a sister in much the same way Kylene and Erica have a sister!

I passed the 10 pounds lost mark this week, which is very exciting! I am  now 30 pounds from not being overweight, which means I have dropped 25% of the weight I would like to lose. It is slow, but not a terrible sacrifice, really. (And I’m 1 1/2 pounds from my goal for the challenge, with 3 weeks to lose it.)

And in other successes, I have now run 5K twice as my regular twice a week run. I actually ran it last Monday and this Monday, because Friday is my other running day and we went to festival that day, so I had to exercise while it was still dark. I like our neighborhood, but am not really comfortable going out without Abby when it is dark. And there is no way she can run 3 miles. She is walking one mile okay now, but it has taken a while to get to even that. So now I know that I could sign up for a 5K race and know I could make it to the end without dying. Not fast, of course. That is the next challenge. It takes me just over 40 minutes now and I’d like to see that drop to around 30 minutes, but that won’t happen until I’m that 30, or at least 20, pounds lighter!