Progress

My first status update was that I lost 4.4 lbs the first week.....wow was that a tough act to follow.  I got a bit discouraged after that.  While I knew it wasn't a realistic expectation that it would continue to come off at that rate, it was still a big bummer and frankly depressing when the next few weeks numbers weren't as high.  So for week 2 I just didn't feel like posting an update.  After that, I just got busy and behind.  I knew I wanted to move the blog, so I wasn't updating as regularly as I planned.  My bad.  But I think I am back on track now.  I want this to be the good and bad of this journey.  I don't want it to be the sugarcoated "look how fantastic I am doing and how easy this is for me" perspective.  That is not true.  This journey is a challenge every day.  There are good days and there are tough days and there are bad days.  But I am trying my hardest to keep my goals in perspective, remember what's important (getting healthier for myself and my family) and continue to be proud of myself for the accomplishments I have had.  And I have to keep telling myself that the goal was that the blog and my followers were going to help keep me accountable.

It has been 5 and a half weeks since I officially began focusing on making healthier choices for myself.  I am happy to say that I have finally hit the 10 pound mark....10.2 pounds today to be exact.  That is a good number.  I am glad to see the progress continues.  But again, I struggle to not get discouraged that it has taken me this long to get only that far.  So to help myself cope with this I decided to break it down.  10.2 pounds in 6 weeks is an average loss of 1.7 pounds per week.  An average weight loss of 1-2 pounds per week is said to be the healthiest and most likely to sustain/maintain long term.  (Below are a couple of the interesting articles that I ran across when validating my research)


http://www.livestrong.com/article/232374-healthy-average-weight-loss-per-week/
http://healthpsych.psy.vanderbilt.edu/HealthPsych/weightfacts.htm

So that tells me that I am right on track.  Actually on the high end of average.  Ok so not too bad for just making dietary changes so far. 


I still haven't been able to get the exercise part started consistently.  While I had been hoping to be doing both by now, I have realized that for me it may have been a wise choice to get the food consistency down first.  I am not sure I could have handled the difficulty of trying to modify my food so drastically AND introduce exercise (which I do not like at all) all at once.  I think that could very likely have been a recipe for failure.  So now that I realize that I am having success with the food changes, not feeling deprived or unstable, I can begin to focus on adding in the exercise.  I am hoping that by adding in the exercise, it will help the weekly loss number be higher which would help motivate me to stick with the exercise.

So that tells you how I have been doing for the last few weeks.  Keep checking back for updates - I promise to do a better job of being more consistent.  Thanks for checking in!