Nearly 10lbs for the month!

The journey continues with nearly 33lbs lost since July 5th. I'm beginning to see the difference and people at work who don't know about my weight loss journey are noticing that I've lost weight.

I think I may need a smaller size of work pants soon. The 18s I've been wearing are a bit on the baggy side. I may try a 16 soon.

I also had a date yesterday. A guy I met on Chemistry and I went bowling around lunchtime yesterday. We seemed to hit it off; he seems to want to see me again. He's really cute and really funny, and definitely would have been out of my league before I lost 30lbs. I think he's still a bit out of my league now but I'm still losing, and I'm a lot more confident and outgoing now than I used to be. Maybe that shows.

My Christmas Goal

Some of you may have noticed the new ticker at the bottom of the page. It's for my Christmas goal of getting to Onederland (i.e. weighing in the 100s) . When I first put up the ticker the starting weight was what my weight was that day (I think it was 227) but then I changed it to have the weight I started with at the beginning of my journey.

Christmas is a tad less than 3 months away, and I have about 26-27 pounds to lose between then and now. It's what I'm shooting for. It will be my Christmas present to myself.

Back on track, I guess!

The scale this morning said 225.8! A consequence-free pigout! I shouldn't get used to that.

I'm going out to lunch today with my grandmother and I'm going to be very good. I see a guilt-free chicken platter from Chili's in my future. I think it's less than 500 calories, but it has an astonishing amount of sodium. Later this afternoon I'll go to the gym and probably sweat most of that extra salt out anyway, so I'm not going to worry about it.

Yippee, 225.8!

Stalled at 226...

I've been stalled at this weight for a few days now, and I have a terrible feeling the scale is going to bounce tomorrow morning.

I went to happy hour with a couple of friends and had a big frozen strawberry margarita and an order of onion rings. Yikes. That kind of stuff always packs on a couple of pounds even though logically speaking it shouldn't, since it doesn't weigh a couple of pounds and it doesn't have enough calories to make me gain an entire 2lbs. I don't know why the scale fluctuates like that, but it does.

Oh well. Will face the music in the morning and if it does bounce up a couple of pounds, big deal. I lost them before, I'll lose them again.

30lbs lost!

According to the scale, as of this morning I have lost 30.2lbs, or 11.8% of my body weight.

30.2lbs is quite an accomplishment! I feel very proud of myself today. It motivates me to keep going, keep going, keep going!

BP getting closer to normal

My blood pressure this morning was 138/84 and my heart rate was 72BPM.

For someone who was sent to the emergency room in May with a BP of 172/120 something and a heart rate of 120BPM, that's pretty good. My BP was normally not higher than 150/100 but even that is very high. 172/120 apparently constituted a medical emergency. When they took my BP after an hour of sitting in the ER, it was in the 130s/80s range, but that's after sitting still and reading for a full hour.

I do have white coat hypertension to an extent, but my average BP readings at home have dropped by about 10 on both the systolic and the diastolic, and my pulse rate has fallen by over 20 beats per minute.

In other words, my BP is nearly normal even though I'm still obese. By the time I get to my goal weight, my BP readings will probably always be in the extremely healthy range!

Single again, and nearly 30lbs down.

Scale said 227.4lbs this morning. And I'm single again. My on-again, off-again, on-again boyfriend is now off-again, and this time it's for good. I'm not even upset, I don't love him anymore. I'm just irritated, and afraid I'll die childless and alone.

In other news, I've lost nearly 30lbs since the start of my journey. That's almost 30lbs in a little over 2 months. I have 28lbs to lose before I get to "onederland", i.e. weighing under 200lbs, so I need to keep this up. My medium-term goal is to reach "onederland" by Christmas.

Plus if I ever want to find another man I have to lose weight. Most men in this city seem to be of the "no fat chicks" variety.

My virtual model

There's a site called My Virtual Model where you can build a little computer model that you can customize to look like you.

I couldn't find one that looked just like me body-wise or hair-wise, but I tried to get as close as I could.

On the left is my virtual model at 257lbs, near my starting weight.

On the right is my virtual model at 228lbs, near my current weight.

I guess what's really depressing is they don't look all that different! When you flip back and forth between the two images you can see the smaller one shrink, but looking at them side by side they look almost the same.

I'm not sure how this is supposed to motivate me.

28lbs exactly

I've been trying to lose around 10lbs a month, but I don't believe I'll do that this month. On September 1st I weighed in at 233.6 lbs, and today I tipped the scales at 228.6 lbs, a loss of only 5 lbs with the month more than half over.

Oh well...I'm still losing and that number on the scale continues to get smaller, not bigger. That's all that counts. That and the measurements of my chest, waist, and hips. In the last month I have lost 2" off my chest, 3.25" off my waist, and 2.25" off my hips. I think that's pretty decent!

Hurricane Ike Disaster Relief

This is meant to be a weight loss blog, but I'm going to put that aside for a minute to encourage people to donate to the American Red Cross to help victims of Hurricane Ike.

I confess that I live in Texas, a state that was hit extremely hard by this storm. Beautiful, historic Galveston lies in ruins and parts of the Houston metro area were destroyed. The storm cut a path of destruction through east Texas, also affecting Beaumont and the lovely city of Tyler.

You can help the victims of the storm by donating to the American Red Cross.

http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ntld_main

It will take weeks and months to rebuild after this storm, but in the meantime its victims need food, shelter, and medical care.

Thank you.

Out of the 230s!

I woke up at 3am and weighed myself just for funsies. I didn't wake up in order to weigh myself; I woke up because I had to pee. After peeing I stepped on the scale and it read 228.8 lbs. I was thrilled. I weighed myself again at 6am, expecting the same result...and it was 229.4 lbs.

So, that's the weight I recorded. I try to be strict about that and only record my 6am weight. I don't know where that .6 lbs came from, but it doesn't really matter. I'll see 228.8 lbs again, and soon.

So far I've lost 27.2 lbs. I feel awesome. It's such a sense of accomplishment and I feel more confident and in control. I feel especially blessed to be out of the 230s because on Sunday I pigged out on chips, queso, and flautas with sour cream when I went out for Tex-Mex with a friend of mine...then again I had nothing but fried food from Sonic when my BF came over last night.

I have no idea what the caloric content of the Tex-Mex was so I didn't record it. About all I can say about it was it was "a lot". Probably in the 1800-2000 calorie range for the meal. Luckily, Sonic publishes nutritional information so I did record that. Even with a snack-size popcorn chicken, regular fries, and mozzarella sticks I stayed under 1600 calories for the day. Awesome!

Ike Schmike

After days of warning of power outages and flooding, nothing happened here. Nothing. It rained all day, but it didn't flood. It was windy, but not very windy.

My thoughts are with the people who were affected by Ike, though. I hear it's terrible down on the Texas and Louisiana coasts.

Ike

I have not revealed where I live, but I am in an area that will be affected by Ike in the coming hours.

I really hope the power doesn't go out.

10% ACHIEVED!

This morning I stepped on the scale and it said 230.8. That's a loss of 10.1% of my weight!

YIPPEE!

In other news, I think my on-again, off-again, on-again boyfriend is now off-again for good. I'm tired of his fickle moods and the way he keeps blowing me off, so I'm not going to bother with him anymore. He made a date with me for tonight, then abruptly cancelled it yesterday. I texted him back to ask why and he never responded. So, to hell with him. I'm going to go to a meetup.com thingy tonight after work and meet new people. Onwards and upwards I guess!

Stuck right above my mini-goal

I've been hovering between 232 and 231 for several days now. It's getting a little frustrating, particularly since I have been somewhat constipated since I started trying to lose weight and it's annoying. I do not want to take laxatives because the side effects are painful and laxatives can be habit-forming. I'm trying to introduce more soluble fiber into my diet and I'm trying to remember to drink more water to get things moving, but so far nothing.

I think I really need to re-examine my diet but by the time I get home cooking is the last thing on my mind. I need things that are super-easy. I also live alone, which makes cooking more tedious. It really is a pain in the ass to dirty up 2-3 pots and pans just for myself. When I was married I cooked pretty much every day and it wasn't a big deal because I was cooking for 2 people, not 1.

I really hate living alone.

Men are pigs

My on-again, off-again boyfriend is flaking out on me again.

So, I've decided to cut off communication with him. I'm sure he will not attempt to make a date or contact me; I always have to initiate everything, so if he really wants me he'll try to see me. He doesn't, so he won't.

I fucking hate men right now. The thing is, I knew it would end up this way when we got back together. Why did I do it? Afraid of being alone, I guess. I'm sick of not being the most important person in anyone's life. I'm not even the most important person in my own life.

10% is just around the corner

I am a mere .6 lbs (six tenths of a pound) away from losing 10% of my starting weight.

This is awesome.

I'm very excited.

I know that once I achieve this goal I will have merely another mini-goal to achieve (15%, 12.9 more pounds to lose) but it's still exciting.

1.6lbs away from 10%!

One of the unpleasant side effects of reducing food intake and changing the nutritional content of one's diet is constipation. It's very common and usually goes away with a few tweaks to the diet.

Me, I had to eat a bowl of Raisin Bran to get things moving again. Right now they're very sluggish, but I had not gone in a couple of days. Everything I'd eaten since Tuesday was backed up in there. Ouch.

So I went and am now at 232.6. Yippee!

Stalled....

I'm still at 233.2 lbs and to top it off, I have a cold so I can't work out as hard, if at all.

Sigh.

Getting closer...

Weighed in at 233.2lbs this morning.

I'm only 2.2lbs from meeting my next mini-goal of losing 10% of my weight! That's a total of 25.6lbs since early July. Of course I have other mini-goals after that, but passing the 10% mark will be awesome.

My next ones are:

• 15% loss (38.4 lbs lost)
• 20% loss (51.32 lbs lost)
• Under 200 lbs (57 lbs lost)
• 25% loss (64 lbs lost)
• 30% loss (77 lbs lost)

Baby steps people, baby steps!

Each mini-goal that I achieve indicates significant progress, and doesn't make the overall amount of weight that I need to lose so intimidating. Meet one mini-goal, work towards the next. Meet that mini-goal, work towards the next, with one eye on the big prize: GOAL.

23lbs lost, nearing 10% weight loss

I've lost 23lbs of ugly flab in a little under two months.

I feel awesome even though I've got almost 85lbs to go to reach my goal. I feel energized and positive about reaching my goal. I know I can do it. I can do pretty much anything I put my mind to doing.

I'm now a mere 2.6lbs away from my second "mini-goal" of 10% weight loss. What an achievement that is. I'm really proud of myself today. At the rate I'm losing, I should hit 10% next week, probably Thursday. Hehehehe!