dianaschnuth

The good news: The scale is moving in the right direction.
The less-good news: I’m still not maxxing out the program as well as I could.

We didn’t have a Weight Watchers At Work meeting this week, since all the meeting rooms were pre-booked with quarterly personnel meetings. My unofficial weight loss for the week, as measured by our home scale, was another 0.4 pounds.

Aaron convinced me to buy myself some new clothes for work this weekend, since I’ve been bitching about my lack of nice summery clothes that fit for months now, and it really made a difference in my attitude about myself. I think it also improved my posture, since I bought some shirts that are a little more form-fitting than I usually wear; I’m not used to my clothes touching my midriff, so I’ve been sucking in my gut activating my core muscles more during the day.

I’ve also re-started the 100 Push-Ups program — there’s a nifty iPhone app for that, don’t ya know. My pecs are righteously sore, but in a good way.

Weight graphs and food logs after the jump:
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The short version:

Official Weight Watchers weigh-in was 0.4 pounds more than last week. Not surprising, as I had a bit of a snack food binge after dinner last night. Why do I always have a problem with that on Mondays, the night before my weigh-in?

I did write down everything I ate last week, although I didn’t track the Points for all the deliciousness I had over the weekend. Had a bit of a cheat on the Fourth: Myles’ Pizza and ice cream in Bowling Green. We walked nearly eight miles, though, so that kind of balanced things out… almost.

Read on for more details…

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Funny that I’m sitting on a bench, blogging about weight loss, when I really should be out getting in my walk for the day. Anyway.

I was searching my blog for a link to the Three Amigos Chili recipe that Sheryl shared with me a good while ago, when I discovered to my chagrin that I was blogging about the same weight loss issues over a year ago that still plague me now. Needing to get to bed earlier, do more cardio, that sort of thing.

Actually, I stopped blogging weekly weight loss updates because I started just saying the same shit every week: same weight as last week, need to exercise more, getting discouraged with my lack of progress. It’s been quite a while since those weekly updates, and I think it’s time to reinstate them. Maybe, just maybe, being accountable to the entire Internet will give me a little more motivation to follow the guidelines I set for myself each week.

This is a new strategy — or, rather, the return of an old one. I set myself a few goals and guidelines under the category of “what am I willing to change?” This week, the main strategy is staying within my daily Points allowance in order to allow myself a tracking-free Saturday.

See, I’ve been a bit of a tracker slacker, especially on the weekends, and I know that’s been a big contributor to the length of this plateau I’m in. It started out as a normal plateau, back before the holidays… but it just kept going. I stuck to Program, and it kept going. So I stopped caring. Started slacking. And gained back six pounds. I’ve re-lost some of that — this morning, my scale said 192.8, and my all-time low is 189.

I’ll be checking in every week with my progress. I’m counting on my readership (that’s you) to keep me honest. Maybe I’ll even scan in the pages of my food tracker, so anyone can give me detailed feedback (including my WW leader). Who knows?

At any rate, it’s time for me to switch something up. Eight months is too long to be in a plateau that’s 20+ pounds from my goal.

When my Mom came to visit this past weekend, she brought along the family photo albums for me to hang onto. I mainly wanted to check out the photos of me as a little kid, of Mom when she was my age, of my Memaw when she was Mom’s age.

While paging through the later albums, though, I found some photos I’d rather have forgotten: me when I was obese, back in the early 2000’s. College graduation, wedding, that general era. It’s been a good five years since I lost 50 pounds on the Atkins Diet, and I’ve lost another 15 since. I’d almost forgotten how fat I looked and felt. Aaron, too: I literally almost didn’t recognize him in our family photo with Mom, Gary, and Philip.

I’d been complaining that I’ve “lost that lovin’ feeling” when it comes to my diet. If I needed motivation to get back on program (instead of tracking my food and watching my daily Points balance sail into the negative, and not giving a shit), this was the motivation I needed.

I have about 25 pounds to go before I reach my goal weight. That may not be quite as transformative as that first 50, but it will change me, for sure. My goal is to reach and maintain my ideal weight, so that my future offspring literally won’t recognize the “me” in that embarrassing family portrait.

(I look a lot like my Mom, and she was pretty smokin’ when she was in her twenties and skinny. Maybe I can do almost that well in my thirties…)