195.6 - 70.6 pounds to go!

I have no idea how I managed to lose 3.4 pounds this week, but you won't hear me complaining. There were days I was over, there were days I was under, like all weekend while we watched our 8 week old niece. We didn't get to the gym at all during the week and even had to postpone our personal training session due to babysitting, so it really makes no sense in my head. But, I'll take what I can get after that plateau!

We bought a mirror this weekend at Ikea (mad <3 for Ikea!) so now we'll be able to see ourselves full length. Looking at myself in the mirrors while picking one out I think I noticed that I look a little bit smaller, but not much. I still see the big gut hanging, my slightly smaller shirt clinging to it because it protrudes. Years of wearing pants as they got smaller has made my stomach essentially look like it was cut in the middle. It's not quite muffin-top as it gets bigger below the waistline as well. And it's taking it's sweet time getting smaller, which is really aggravating. I really wish it would at least firm up so that I can stop worrying that I'm just going to have a bunch of loose skin hanging.

This week I'm going to focus on not being so freaked out if I go over on calories on some days. Losing 3.4 pounds in a week is great in terms of numbers, but realistically I know it's too much. So while on one hand I'm thinking "Who cares?! Let the numbers fall fast, that means we'll be in smaller clothing even sooner!" but I also know that slower is better. So while I'm not going to eat more than my daily amount, I'm not going to flip out and feel like the next day I should punish myself if I do.

199.0 - 74 pounds to go!

Not sure if I had mentioned this previously, but our trainer is leaving the gym we go to (and not by choice.) So part of me is pretty excited since lately she moves our appointments at the last minute, and part of me worries we won't get someone else who will do half hour sessions. The big positive at the moment is that the guy who taught the balance class we sampled will most likely be our new trainer, and he will definitely kick our butts!

Classes have been keeping us from the gym lately, which is really frustrating. I had planned on going Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, but lately we need Mondays and Wednesdays to study or work on projects. We end up going on Friday a) because we have our training session and b) it's habit at this point, and then we slack off and don't go on Saturday because we're too sore and tired. This last weekend we spent a lot of time cleaning though, which I hope helped burn a few calories. We'd been so busy the last 2 months that housework had been neglected. I got tons done and made sure to move all the furniture and really deep clean. There's still so much left to do though. I'm really hoping the motivation to do more will stick for a long while so I can organize things as well!

Now on to the weigh-in! I'm quite happy I lost .8 pounds, considering I was supposed to come off maintenance calories beginning Sunday and instead pushed it back. We went out on Sunday to give our sweet baby niece back and they chose to meet at a Japanese steakhouse (our downfall!) So I purposely left my calories alone, knowing it would end up around 2,000 anyway. But I ate close to that amount all the way up through Wednesday too. So, considering I only had 3 days at a decent deficit and one day at the gym (plus one day of power cleaning), I'm okay with only losing about a pound. I am anxiously awaiting lower numbers though since I can't recall when I would have seen them last! I started HS at a size 16, but anything lower than that was obviously before that, so it's a bit exciting. Exciting and scary! I catch myself looking in the mirror lately, trying to imagine what I will look like as I keep losing. It's foreign to me, that skinny version. What will my face look like? I've never known it to not be fat. Will it always look fat? I guess only time will tell.

199.8 - 74.8 pounds to go!

This happened...FINALLY!

I could not be more thankful that this plateau is over. I will miss the extra 400 daily calories, but not as much as I miss seeing the scale show me lower numbers every week!

The week was pretty uneventful. I saw the nutritionist on Friday, the day that picture was taken. It was the first time I had ever seen that number and was completely taken aback. At our meeting, I explained to her that I had increased my calories to 2,000 per day to break the plateau, and I swear she looked at me like I started talking a foreign language. I pointed out that I started out January at 203, and then I ended it at 202, so clearly something was wrong. In my opinion, after 45 pounds lost, it was due. From the look she gave me, she doesn't believe in plateaus.

So aside from the look of crazy, we discussed working on smaller dinner portions. I usually had 600 or so left for dinner, and get kind of panicked at anything less than that, but she apparently wants me to eat around 400. I'm not making any promises, but it's worth a shot I guess.

201.8 - 76.8 pounds to go

For the first time ever, I completely forgot to weigh myself yesterday morning! I think being on maintenance calories just kind of pushed it aside in my mind since I knew I really wasn't going to lose anything. So, being as I had already eaten breakfast by the time I remembered, I shaved a few ounces off the number it displayed to keep the number the same as last week. (This morning it read "201.2" so I don't feel bad now.) It was a bummer because I am so far off of where I wanted to be. MyFitnessPal just told me today that I've logged in for 170 days in a row, so I am 10 shy of 6 months. If I can lose three more pounds (unlikely), I'll be at 40 pounds lost in 6 months. Granted, I know that's good, but I was aiming for 50 so it feels like a let-down. I know, I know, 40 pounds is substantial, it could have been nothing (or a gain), I could have pushed myself harder, I plateaued, etc. etc. etc. but it's just that feeling of not meeting a goal. It will happen eventually, I am well aware of that, but it doesn't make it any less disappointing from a goal standpoint.

On another note, I've learned to not doubt what I think is happening to my body during this whole process. Last time I met with the nutritionist, she acted like I was overreacting to not have lost in a couple weeks and pointed out how I had been slacking off in my workouts. Her point during all of it was that the scale would eventually go down and that at our next meeting I would be under 200, so it wasn't worth worrying over. Over the weekend, I realized my next meeting with her, the "you'll be under 200" meeting, is next week, and guess  what? I don't think I'll be under 200. I'm okay with it, because there's nothing I can do about it, but it proved to me that both times now that I've mentioned an issue with the scale not moving, it's been downplayed like I'm just trying to hurry things along and I was correct! Something wasn't right! So, the takeaway here is listen to yourself! I knew what the scale had been doing, and I knew it wasn't time for it to start creeping downward. I'm just glad I decided to go on maintenance when I did vs. waiting a few more weeks to see what would happen!

I almost forgot! Saturday we did our measurements since we were busy the weekend before. Somehow, almost every single one of my measurements went up, which displeases me. I swear I need to get tattoos of dashed lines where my measurements should be taken. Here are the numbers from 01/01/12 and 02/04/12:


Neck: 14.25" / 14.75"
Bicep: 13.5" / 14"
Chest: 44.75" / 45.5"
Waist: 46.25" / 44.5"
Hips: 46.75" / 48"
Thigh: 23.25" / 23"
Calf: 16" / 16"