Trying to get back on track

So far this week I have made it to the gym twice, and was down 2 lbs today at WW, so back under 240 (239, in fact- but only because they make us wear clothes at these meetings.) Though I was a bit grumpy in my last post, I am mostly optimistic about this work and feel like I am in a pretty good head space. I am working hard and making progress. Even in weeks that I don't have much loss, my clothes are still fitting much better than they did when I started. I am managing my emotions and not eating to self-soothe.

I scaled back to week 1 on the C25k program after two months of not going to the gym at all. But I did my usual 45 minutes Sunday and then went back yesterday and stayed on week 1 but picked up the pace a little bit. My pace was not off much from where I was last, considering my long absence.

My eating has been good, although I have not been good at tracking my WW points. Actually, I know I am eating quite a bit less than my daily points, not eating any of the weekly points or activity points. My metabolism is slow and I know we hear that we need to eat enough to keep it up, but I've done the research and the reading I've done suggests it really only slows at under 800 calories or so... and I am not eating that little.  Probably closer to 1200-1400 calories, although WW says I should be closer to about 1800 because of my size.  Anyway. I am working really hard to avoid simple carbs.  These have been my go-to foods:  chiobani greek yogurt, spinach and cherry tomatoes, spinach/fruit smoothies, chicken.  I tend to eat pretty light throughout the day until dinner, and then whatever my husband sticks on the plate at dinner, but he's trying hard to be supportive and has helped scale back the too-big portions that he's prone to serve up.

This week marks the end of our academic semester, and I lost a total of 31 lbs this term. Nothing to scoff at, huh?  And, I can officially say that I now REALLY "only" have 100 lbs to lose according to the WW goal... I never wanted to say "130 lbs to lose" but it sure will feel nice to have "less than 100 lbs" to lose. It feels achievable.  Ok, maybe I can't imagine myself weighing 138 lbs, but it certainly feels like 200 lbs is within my reach.

Here is a picture of me right after my treadmill run, red-faced and exhausted and sweaty. I haven't worked up the courage to post body shots yet. Maybe I will regret it later but I've spent so many years trying to keep my body out of any photo that it is hard to get in front of the camera now to allow people to gawk at how terribly heavy and round I am. Maybe I'll reconsider this next week or so.

I have weaned off Skinny Cow (because I am trying so hard to avoid HFCS in all forms) and have transitioned to frozen bananas, which I make in to an ice cream-like treat in my Yonana Ice Cream Maker. Check it out on Amazon, I'll post a product review in the next few weeks.  :)  Really pretty good.

Also- pedometer- it's nice to track steps and is sometimes motivating, and isn't as big of a pain to wear as I had imagined. If nothing else, it helps confirm or refute my own perception of how much walking I've done. And it's eerily accurate, even when I walk/jog on the treadmill.  The one I am using is made by Omron and was $30. It does so many things that I don't even know how to use all the functions- but I can scroll through each day in the memory since I started using it, and it calculates in steps,miles,  km, and calories. It has a total number based on my start date as well as a daily number. (300,000 steps since I started using it, I'm averaging about 7k a day).

That's all tonight... if you stumble upon this I hope that you are encouraged in your own journey. The path is bumpy for each of us- just keep putting one foot in front of the other.