Time Keeps on Ticking

I was in a slump at the end of January as my weight went from 193.6, down to 188 in one week, and then shot back up to the 190s for 2 weeks in a row.  I posted on 3FC and got some wonderful insight and advice on how to get over a plateau, and look what happened! Two weeks later, and I am down to 183.2.  Happy days!

The best bit of advice was "push yourself harder at exercise" and I realized that - yeah - I wasn't pushing myself nearly hard enough.  I did start the conservative Couch to 5K, but I am doing it at my own pace.  You are supposed to move up increments every week, but I am moving up when I can, so its basically taking me 2 weeks per phase.  But the awesome news is, I can do 1:50 jogging and once I did 2:20 seconds! This is amazing to me and I feel SO accomplished.  I know it doesn't sounds like much (even to me if I think about it too much), but the fact that I have never exercised EVER and couldn't walk a block a year ago, my goodness.  I'm awesome!  I can't wait 'til I can go for 30 minutes.  I am going to feel great!

I never followed through on my WiFit every other day plan.  I am going to look for a DVD that has a free-weight toning routine for upper body and see if I can't follow through with that.

Another goal I am working on right now is to get grains out of my diet entirely and to up my protein intake.  I am hoping this is going to boost the last 50ish pounds of loss.  My realistic hopes is that by the end of this year I will be at goal.  My FANTASY is that it will only take half that time.  So, to try to achieve the fantasy, cutting carbs more seems to be a step in the right direction.

I hardly eat grains now except my morning oatmeal.  So my first step is to stop eating the oatmeal (cry) and switch to eggs in the morning.  I am also going  to forgo my half-sandwich lunch and start eating more yogurt and probably salad AND soup (instead of one or the other) and also up my legumes which I have been avoiding due to calorie count.  We will see how this goes.  It has been 13 months of oatmeal every morning and I am used to the feeling of fullness.  Lately though, I have been getting hungry at 11:00 and 4:00.  I think my added jogging has done this, and I need more calories (I'm only doing 1200-1400 now) but instead of upping calories, I'm going to try this shift of food stuffs.

In non-fat related news, we are looking for a house!  This is the first time in a year I have had my thoughts concentrated on something other than weight loss. It is strange.  I have devoted so much emotional time and energy to learning about nutrition and keeping track of calories, and now suddenly I find that I am thinking about ways to save money (still working on the dang down payment) and mortgages and if we can afford to live in the part of town we want to live in... it's a complete shift of perspective.  I am not NOT thinking about weight loss (obviously...).  It is just bizarre to have something else going on in the back of my mind all the time.

Until next time...