191.8 (new scale) (with clothes) (9:15am)

I expected to be lighter than this today. I *feel* lighter, so I think the scale just hasn't caught up with my weight loss yet. It's going well here, I am still sticking to around 1000 calories per day. I might try to go a tiny bit lower today, although I am not sure if it is possible without drawing awkward attention to my eating.

191.4 (new scale and facility scale) (8:10am) (in clothes)

It's going well here. I can see what all the meals will be for the day and preplan what I will eat... I can generally pick and choose enough of the meal to be spot on where I want to be nutritionally. I have to eyeball sizes, which is the worst part. I brought a tiny food scale with me, but it would be weird if I used it, so I will be unable to.

Yesterday I had a deconstructed ham and egg wrap with salsa and sour cream. Maybe milk for breakfast? For lunch a deconstructed meat and cheese sandwich. For dinner a green salad and milk. For snack peanuts and diet soda. I probably ended up around 1200 calories, which is a little higher than I would like, but was really close nutritionally to what I want to stick to. So I am super happy with it.

Today I will be navigating through a breakfast cereal breakfast. Lunch tacos, dinner roast beef and potato meal and snack of oatmeal cookies and milk I think. So I should be able to get spot on with some planning ahead in Fitday.

I walked about half an hour as well yesterday. I will try to do the same today I think. Maybe even a touch longer.

191.4 (new scale) wearing about 2 lbs of clothes (7am)

I think I am probably back under 190. :) Super exciting. I was tired of being in the 190's. I have 3 more weeks here in Indiana and then I will go home. I think I should be able to pretty strictly be at -1000 calories per day, so I am hoping for 6 pounds of weight loss during this time. That would be best case scenario of course, but even 4 or 5 lbs would be great. I am so ready to be back below 185 and able to focus on getting into the 170's.

It's going well here... just trying to get through the days until I can go home. I miss DH and the dogs horribly.

191.2 (new scale) 4:30am

I didn't get a weigh in for some reason today. Maybe they don't do them here? Not sure. I just had lunch. It was a meatball sub with baked chips, cauliflower with ranch, carrot sticks and celery and orange sherbet. I had the meatballs, the diet coke and the raw vegetables. Hopefully I can lose weight while I am up here. It looks pretty definite that I will be here for the next 23 days. I will find out for sure tonight or in the morning.

192.0 (new) 6:30am

This has been a lazy low carb day out of town. I go to work tomorrow. Kinda nervous as usual, as I haven't been here before. My back hurts from driving so far. Going to go to bed early.

191.4 (9:30am) old scale

I had cream with caffeine free hot tea for breakfast yesterday. We went to Golden Corral for lunch and I had a green salad, a bunch of veggies, pork steak, a bunch of battered mini shrimp and 2 bites of carrot cake. For dinner I had a McDonalds side salad with ranch with a cut up double cheeseburger on it. (no bun).

190.4 (old) 191.0 (new) (7:50am)

I will continue to weigh in on both scales for two more days, then I will take my new scale with me on my business trip. They are close enough to be the same to me. Some days the new one comes in a little higher and some days a little lower. It's all fine. I am just tr.ying to get a good idea of the trends. The both seem pretty consistent (get on more than once and it gives the same reading).

Yesterday I ate coffee with heavy cream, beef roast with carrots and onions (and about 1/3 of a white potato). I think I ate around 12 ounces of cooked roast and about 10 ounces (raw weight) carrots. I was somewhat surprised that my weight was as low as it is today (ALTHOUGH, I was really hungry and struggled with wanting to eat more all night). Oh, I also did eat one snack size Butterfinger. And I drank an entire 2 liter of diet mountain dew. I am going to try to quit that. I won't have any from now until Thanksgiving. Maybe I can continue on after that as well.

I am getting anxious about leaving. I will be gone from November 2nd through November 26th. I am worried about my dogs. My MIL and DH will be watching them, but that is not the same as my being here. Other than that, I am just eager to have this trip over. I will be driving up to Indiana. I will leave Sunday and spend Sunday night in Saint Louis and then drive the rest of the way Monday. It's just too far for me to comfortably do in one day.

192.2 (old) 192.2 (new) 7am

193.6 (old scale) 194.0 (new scale) 8am

192.4 (old scale) 192.0 (new scale) (7:15am)

192.4 (9:30am)

Ate around 1500 low carb calories yesterday. I didn't measure my food on my digital scale.

192.6 (8am)

We went to Outback last night and I had the 6 oz sirloin, side salad with blue cheese and croutons and broccoli side. I had water to drink. I got blue cheese on the side so I could gauge how much I used. I felt like the brocolli had a lot of butter on it or oil of some kind. I am down a pound from yesterday, but woke up with a headache. They said they don't use MSG there, but I don't really believe that. I woke up with a headache this morning which is really unusual anymore. Anyway, I ended up consuming about 400-500 more calories than I wanted to yesterday, but kept it low carb and did my best. Sometimes social obligations are just hard to navigate. I had never been to outback either, so was kinda confused about how to choose the best option. It's raining this morning. I don't have any big plans for today. Today is my husband's Friday. He's been working a lot of overtime recently, so I am looking forward to his weekend and hope we can relax together some. (And that it doesn't make it difficult for me to stay on track!) It's now 9am and I just at a large (15.75oz) can of drained canned salmon mixed with about 1 oz of diced onion, the juice of 1 1/2 limes, salt and pepper. I am stuffed. It's pouring outside. I am boiling a chicken leg quarter, carrots, onion and celery right now for my husbands chicken and dumplings dinner. It feels like a yucky day and I thought cooking bone broth all day might be nice. I might steal a cup of the broth for myself before I put the dumplings in there. I make some amazing broth if I say so myself.

193.6 (9:15am)

So I ate 100% low carb (+ about 10 thin restaurant tortilla chips last night) yesterday, but ended up at around 2000 calories (I didn't perfectly weigh everything, but did keep track). I am pleasantly surprised to see I am at 193.6 lbs this morning, as that is my low carb, normal prior day of eating weight. I have 13 more days before my goal date, so could potentially lose 4.6 lbs in that time... which would put me at 189.0. That would be very good.

I spend a lot of time on this blog writing only a quick snip of my weight and how I feel about that. This journey has been long and I am sure, my attempts to be a lower weight will continue for the rest of my life. What seems to be working for me may not be the answer for others. But it does appear that when I stick to a no grain, no sugar, low starch diet, I can now manage (with effort) to keep my weight sub 200 lbs. For people who haven't struggled with their weight, that doesn't seem like much of an accomplishment. As someone who topped out at 261 (naked morning weight) and thought I was destined for a muumuu, it's a miracle to be pretty much a normal american chubby 39 year old (versus a visually obese woman). I fit in now. I don't feel tremendous shame at family (mine or DH's) get togethers. I don't feel like people are talking about me specifically when then mention a fat person or something about weight. Taking off these 67.6 lbs (as of today) has really changed my life for the better. It is worth every sacrifice of eating "normally". It is worth all the weighing of food and falling off track and getting back on track and struggling with myself every day. I hope to get further down the scale (at least 20 more pounds, but I would LOVE to take off 50 more lbs)... but today, I am just taking a moment to be grateful for how far I have come and to appreciate how much it has changed my life to lose 25.8% of my body weight. Losing another 25.8% from where I am today (193.6) would put me right at 143.6. So, I still do have a big battle in front of me, to not only lose more, but maintain what I have lost. I am not sure it is even possible for me. BUT, if you would have asked 261.2 lb past me if it were possible to get back below 200 lbs, I wouldn't have thought it was possible either. Now it is my new normal. I have been sub 200 for about the last year. It feels GREAT and NORMAL now. I think I am mentally ready to lose more.

195.2 (8:45am)

It's now noon and I have had coffee with cream and am now having a kippered snack. I feel like today is going to be hard.

196.0 (6am)

I was hoping for a lower weight this morning. I ended up at 994 calories yesterday... higher than I wanted. Too much swiss cheese in the evening. I had a kinda weird stressful day. I am hoping that good relaxing things happen today and that I am able to stay on track and meet the macros I have set for myself.

197.4 (10am)

197.4 this morning after eating off-plan for the last 4 days?... I don't know, it's been so long since I have been consistently ON PLAN that I kinda have trouble remembering. I DO know none of the jeans that I was wearing last winter (so comfortably that I could sleep in them - and often did), fit anymore. They all can get on and buttoned, but it is torture to wear them. That sucks. I have been wearing a lot of yoga pants. That is a path of danger, and I know it. I have been having trouble caring unfortunately. I WANT to care, I just don't. I have something coming up in 15 days though, so I will be reining it in and being 100% on track through that time. My clothes will need to fit. I will be going out of town again for about 3 1/2 weeks. If I could manage to keep myself together for that whole duration (until the day before Thanksgiving), I could conceivably get down to 180. (About 4 pounds of this weight is food and water weight). I don't FEEL like doing that. But I guess I am going to. I am having my coffee with sucralose and 50 grams of heavy cream right now. It has been some time since I was consistently making coffee each morning. (How I correctly start out my day). All I know is that I am going to make today and good day and get back under 195 lbs asap. DH got a promotion at work last Friday, so the last few days have been celebratory. But that isn't a reason to disregard my health.

(10:15am) 191.0

193.4 (4am)

I had coffee with 50 grams heavy cream, 1.6 oz mixed dry roast nuts and two bowls of my homemade chicken vegetable soup yesterday (soup was made with 1 chicken leg quarter cooked for about 4 hours and deboned, deskinned and shredded... and then baby carrots, 2/3 a green bell pepper chopped, 1/4 onion, 20 oz julienned yellow squash (to mimic noodles), 3 small roma tomatoes chopped, 1/4 cup mild pace picante salsa and about 3-4 oz tiny hamburger meatballs). (I needed to use up the ground beef and felt the soup could use a tiny more meat). The soup ended up really flavorful. I think I ate about 40% of the batch it made up. I was happy to see my weight back down to 193.4 lbs (especially at 4am when it should have been higher because of the early weigh-in and the copious salt I put in the soup). I will probably have roughly the same meal plan today.

194.6 (6am) after eating chili & fritos + ~2200 low carb calories the day before

I am just so frustrated with myself. I know what to do, and just can't seem to do it.

194.0 (8am) after chinese food, popcorn and raisin bran the prior evening

So I was pretty happy to see this was my new carb bloated weight. Day before yesterday was this weight clothed, weight reduced, carb reduced... so that seems about right. I am back on track today. I am pretty excited to get these ten pounds off.

192.8 (5:45am)

Traveled all day yesterday, so hopefully have swelling water weight. I wasn't expecting my weight to be this high this morning.

189.6 (9:30am)

190.6 (6:00am)

Almost back under 190.0. Will be glad when that happens. I have been at 700-1000 calories for the last five days. I am going out of town for three days early tomorrow morning. Two days of that will be driving all day. I hope to keep myself on track. I WILL keep myself on track. For the last ten months I have been up and down, up and down, up and down. It really is time to lose a little more weight and stabilize again. Minimum, I would like to stabilize sub 175. I WOULD really like to get under 163 (which I haven't been under for probably 18 years). I did get down to 163 briefly in 2002. By fall of 2003 I was back up to 190's though. (I think??). Anyway.... I haven't been in the upper 150 for SURE since I was 21 years old. So a real strong goal is to get to 159.8. That is 30.8 lbs from now. I know I can do that, I don't know if I can calorie restrict enough after I get there though to stay there. I would like to think that it's possible. I just don't know though. I often dream of getting clear back down to 136, but I honestly don't know if my skin would just look horrible that far down anyway, and it would be major calorie restriction every day and consistently being hungry to hold on to that weight. I am trying to find a happy balance of a weight I look good at, feel healthy at, and can maintain fairly easily with a proper lower carb diet. It looks as if (from my experience from the last year), that anytime I eat high carb, it gives me crazy hunger and I consistently gain (at the rate of 1/2 lb per day). If I eat low carb without calorie restricting at all, I maintain. If I low carb AND calorie restrict, I can lose weight. I would like to think that I could get down to a lower weight than this and not have to calorie restrict too much, but that remains to be seen.

198.4 (7:15am) ate a bunch of junk last night.

This is the first day of my period. So that means I shouldn't be fighting the progesterone food monster today. Maybe it wasn't realistic to think that I could fight it and win yesterday. I go through this each month, I don't know why it continues to surprise me a year and a half later. 198.4 this morning (7:15am). This is my fully carbed up, food bloated weight. I think I should be able to be down to about 191 one week from today. I have exactly 13 weeks till the new year. I would really like to utilize this time period to take off some weight. Specifically, I would like to go hard core (I've said this before over the course of the last 11 months, I am sure), and stick to 800 calories per day, 45-55 g protein, low carb. It is technically possible for me to get down to 163 by the end of the year. I sure would like to. That is such a normal average weight. No fighting my BMI all the time (BMI 25.88... SO close to sub 25 which would have at 157 lbs). I think I need to go to the grocery store today to pick up some diet soda, to help me over this initial week which is always ROUGH.

197.2 (10:30 am) carbed up junk weight

199.2 (10:00am)

I don't know what is wrong with me lately. I truelly don't.

199.0 (11:45am)

Ate dutch apple pie ala' mode, red baron pizza, taco bueno, regular can of soda, etc yesterday. I don't know why I keep doing this. I fall off track and then really don't care, even though I KNOW how quickly I gain weight eating junk. Self-sabotage? Not sure what's going on. I understand it is a physical drive (once I have strayed), but still am confused about how I don't make better choices. Today will be tough. I am brewing coffee right now. I think I am going to do a really low calorie stint for a while. It seems to be equivalent to fasting, but protein sparing if I watch my macros and drink enough heavy cream in my coffee to guarantee gall bladder flushing. 108 days left in 2014. 15 weeks and 4 days. I will be away from home for about half of those days, so think that I can average 2 pounds when I am home and 1 pound when I am out of town. I have 6 pounds of water weight carb/food bloat on me now. 199-6=193 base weight 15.4*1.5=23.1 minimum possible loss 2.5 pounds per week is maximum amount I could lose per week with minimum 1/3 days away from home. = (10.2 weeks x 2.5)+(5.1 weeks x 1)= 30.6 maximum amount of possible loss 193-23.1 = 169.9 maximum weight 193-30.6 = 162.4 minimum weight Almost 1 year ago today (on September 19th, 2013) I made it to 199.0 (where I am today). It's been a long year since that time. A lot of ups and a lot of downs. Anytime I stuck with low carb eating calories I stayed the same weight. Any time I ate low carb restricted calories, I lost weight and any time I ate whatever the heck I wanted I gained weight. It was really easy to see again and again. I am 23 pounds over the lowest weight I saw, which is not good, but I am not broken up about it. (Perhaps that is why I keep regaining whatever I manage to lose??) I am ready to get down in to either the 160's or the low 170's and stay there for a while. I will regroup at that point and consider how hard I want to work to go/maintain even lower. I NEED to get into at least the 170's and stay there though. It's funny, because if you would have asked me a year and a half ago if I even really thought it was possible to get and stay under 200 again, I'm not sure if I really believed it was possible. Maybe I still feel that way about being sub 175. I don't know why the 25ish pounds between here and there are even a consideration though. I am 62 pounds down from where I started (highest weight). That is not that much more. I really, really DO want to make this happen for myself... and I AM glad that I have given my skin the best opportunity it could possibly have to bounce back by losing this weight so slowly and giving it a break. I am READY though to take the next step.

196.4 (9am)

Day 2 of period. I've been eating low carb for the last 30 hours after eating 1 1/2 days high carb. My weight is way higher than I expected it to be today. It is very upsetting. All I can do is what I am supposed to do today though, I guess. This gets old sometimes.

189.0 (9:15am) 36.7% BF, 29.8 BMI

190.0 (8:45am)

I ended up at 1118 calories (low carb of course) yesterday, which is the highest I've been in a while. This weight is really just clinging to me with everything it's got. I am pleasantly surprised how much my upper arms have shrunk back down though. I was excited to be sub 190 yesterday, but as I didn't weigh until noon, didn't feel like I really owned it yet. This is my PMS week, so hopefully weight will go down as well as appetite next week. I still feel like I have some ankle and knee joint swelling.