Day 65: This Isn't Fun Any More

::Sigh:: Now that my accounts have been restored from the lovely hack job done on them this past week, it seems there are no more excuses to prevent me from posting something I completely did not want to post... at all.

Days remaining: 158
Pounds remaining: 145
Inches lost/gained: +0.25
Pounds lost/gained: +2.5
Percentage weight lost: +1.01%

In looking at the inches lost, my top half gained, but the lower half lost big time - which is kind of the whole point I'm trying to achieve here. An additional bonus is that five of my twelve measuring points are holding rock steady... and most likely will until the next large weight drop.

All of this is very statistical and fulfills my self-imposed requirements... and serves to try to skirt around the point that I've been trying to avoid talking about or posting for a while now: the past two weeks have been terrible from a dietary and exercise standpoint.

It's one thing to build a higher-calorie day into your diet, but another thing entirely to overdo it for the whole weekend. It's one thing to have a couple more bites of something at one meal and another thing to blow an entire meal later in the day.

Shortest way to say it - the week before last was a slippery slope. I saw the signs and decided to ignore them; primarily because it was more convenient to eat whatever and whenever I wanted to. Last week was full-scale plummeting with no attempt at keeping to a diet or getting to the gym.

Why? I suppose part of it was I was tired of counting calories, of early-morning jaunts to the gym, of trying to rearrange food choices to be more attractive or filling, of passing on desserts and sodas. It simply was too easy to do nothing.

Granted, there was a bright side to all this sliding. Even on the highest-calorie days, Jason and I would split the Subway foot-long or the Wendy's frosty or the WaWa turkey bowl instead of eating a whole portion each. Each time I went to Starbucks, I would chose a Tall instead of Venti drink and, on occasion, pass on the whipped cream.

So, I suppose progress is being made... slowly. But it's too slow and I desperately need to pick up the pace if I'm to make it anywhere near my goal. I have a phrase I use when a once-attractive pursuit becomes odious and onerous - "This isn't fun any more."

I have certainly hit the "this isn't fun any more" point in this project and, quite frankly, knowing how I normally operate, I'm surprised it's taken this long to get here. The distance I have to still go is discouraging and somewhat depressing. I promised honesty and here it is. Not pretty, somewhat embarrassing... but true.

At this point, I am working through my "feelings" by praying and trying to get to the bottom of why this kind of slippage is happening. I am back on the diet and have gone to the gym twice this week already. I really don't want to quit and don't intend to... I simply need to re-energize and re-commit.

Day 59: Surprised by the Inch

Well... this past week had an interesting surprise! Take a look:

Days remaining: 162
Pounds remaining: 142.5
Inches lost/gained: -4.0
Pounds lost/gained: +1.5
Percentage weight lost: +0.99%

Basically, I wasn't able to exercise last week because I became fairly ill on Monday and Tuesday, leading me to make the call and not exercise the rest of the week. It seemed my body was telling me I was doing just a bit too much.

With the gain of 1.5 pounds, I was initially discouraged... that is, until I compared my body measurements with last week's results. Another four inches has fallen away from my frame and I could not be happier (even though I'm still trying to reconcile the fact that inches lost even though pounds are gained is a good thing).

This week, I seem to be struggling more with diet choices and exercise regimen... I sense a re-dedication of effort on the horizon for me!