more than just talking about it

I just realized that I didn't make a post on Monday!!

Week 23 results: I had my first gain. .4 Honestly, I am not sweating it. I was on vacation and even though I stayed on plan, I was completely out of my routine. And I started on Saturday, so I know I was up from that. I am doing my very best every day and that's all I can really ask of myself.

I did learn on my vacation that I am just 1 candied pecan away from weighing 368 lbs. On Saturday my mom and I went down to Amish Acres for their annual craft fair. Of course I passed on all the temptations and actually my calories were pretty low for the day. I bought Steve a Small bag of the candied pecans. When I got home instead of just giving them to him, I opened them, had 2 or 3 and then gave them to him. Now even though I was keeping track in my head of my food that day, I hadn't written anything down. We had eaten lunch and dinner out at places that I didn't have counts for, so a lot it was that "looks" like 1/2 of a cup. Normally I weigh and measure everything. The nuts I just had. And the combination of not logging, not measuring just triggered the old hand to mouth routine and I visited the nuts several more times that night. On Sunday morning, I was trying to decide what to have for breakfast and what I wanted was a cookie. A COOKIE!?! That damn mental switch had been flipped! But It hadn't gone immediately from On to Off, it was hanging around in the middle. I held on with my fingernails and weighed and measured everything. Even on Sunday night I wanted something that would have put me 70 calories over my limit and I was tempted to say it was fine. But it wasn't fine. That's how it starts, a little here, a little there and next thing you know you are making all kinds of concessions and you are gaining weight. So I stuck to my plan 100% and have continued to do so. I know how easy it is to fall back into old habits. It's just the drop of a hat and you go from doing awesome to sucking wind. I have been doing that for 20 years. I still have 120 lbs to lose. This is not the time to loosen the reins!!!

This week the scale hasn't really been moving. I have been exercising and keeping my fat % under 30 and it's just saying the same number every day. I fear another low number this week which will put month 6 less than 10 lbs lost. I don't think that losing 10 lbs a month is an unreasonable expectation for a 289 lb woman. I see it those kind of results all the time. I actually see much better as well. I must still have blinders on about some part of my lifestyle. Maybe the scale will catch up this weekend. Fingers crossed.

Thanks for all the kind comments about my progress pictures. I am pleased, but now I just have to keep it up!