One Year

I have been on track for just a little over a year now.

and in that year

I wrote 112 blog entries

I received 22 comments from 2 people Thanks guys!

I have read countless other blogs for inspiration

Dropped one size

I lost 60 lbs

I began to believe in myself

Writting in batches

I find that I tend to write posts in batches, instead of sitting down and regularly writting something say once a day I tend to sit down and write 3 or 4 posts on what ever I am thinking and just schedule them for later, or just let them sit in the drafts section until I feel like I am ready to post. Which is kind of funny since I might write about feeling some way but might feel totally different once it gets posted. I have about 10 sitting as drafts because I either started something but it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to, I had a thought to jot down and I will go back and finish it later, or it just turned out too personal and I am just not ready to share it yet.

The whole point of a blog is to share your experience with others, get some feedback, some support maybe work out some issues. But it would seem that by posting about something that happened a week ago I should not be getting the benifit. But actually I am, because just the act of writting my problems down help me feel better about them. I have always been like that. I am an avid journaler (is that a word?) I have been writting in personal journal (offline in an actual book! how retro is that) since I was 10. (I actually lost my first journal in a move many years ago, do you know how much I wish I could have that back! To see what 10 year old me was thinking?) and I can't explain how much that has helped me over the years, plus it is a real hoot sometimes to read it 5 or 10 years later. My handwritting is rather hard for even me to decipher and it wasn't any better then.

Weight loss, the desire to lose, the hurt feelings, the lack of self esteem or some aspect of that problem is probably included in every entry in my journals, it is such a big part of my life but I have noticed that the more entries I write on this blog, the more successful I am at losing weight. That hasn't always happened when I write in a journal.

One pound at a time

This is a pretty common theme among other Weight loss bloggers and websites. I googled the topic and got a lot of hits. My weekly goal for weight loss is 2 lbs a week, but mentally I am just working on one pound at a time. 199 lbs *or more* is a huge number but one pound is do-able. Of course I have to do that one pound, 199 times, but I think I can put that thought away and stick in on a shelf somewhere for now.

Now that I have had some success and am reaching milestones I find myself looking ahead past the next pound to the next 100, and I have to put the breaks on that! I know myself. I will get all excited and start calculating how many weeks before I reach goal, and chart what weight I should lose each week, and when I start to slip and am not meeting these numbers I will start to get discouraged. I have totally done this before. So now that I have lost 47 lbs my brain is trying to whip ahead and say "hey that wasn't so hard, in a few more months you can be to goal" I found myself doing that tonight, trying to figure out when I will be under 300 lbs. But you just can't plan for that! Life happens and then Ice cream happens. I am forcing myself to live in the now, and only looking to get rid of that next pound. I just can't handle more.

Finally broke the 350 mark

Yeah! Took me awhile but I finally broke that number! I lost 4 lbs this week to go down to 349. Another 19 lbs and I will no longer be lying on my drivers licence (ha like anyone tells the truth on those).

I am practically giddy over that number. It's kinda weird, I think it has something to do with being closer to 300 lbs now then 400 lbs. Or I just like kicking round numbers in the ass!

30 lbs gone.

"As I accept this award.....wait no award? damn it I had a speech ready and everything, I would like to thank the academy, oh wrong award ceremony. Okay here it goes.....I would like to thank the local swimming pool, my MP3 player for kick ass tunes while I walk, my dog for walking me, my calorie counting app, bloggers that inspire me, and of course myself for keeping with it. I could not have done this without you"

So far so good.

If only I could blog more regularly.

Living one day at a time

It is all I can really do right now. I can't allow myself to think to next week or next month or next year. I can only focus on the present. I can really only focus on surviving THIS MOMENT, THIS DAY. I am just focusing on remaining in my calorie range, and getting what exercise I can in. And hopefully with enough of these good days all racked up together I will accomplish my overall goal. I guess it is also true that if I screw up one day tomorrow is always a new day. I have quit so many times before because I screwed up after 5 days, 15 days, 3 weeks and I felt bad or guilty or that I failed. So I just let the bad days pile up on one another until there didn't seem to be a point to trying to eat healthier. A self fulfilling prophecy of failure. So I think that if I can rack all my "One Days" to equal 9 weeks, then I might be able to handle a bad day now and again. I need to succeed for awhile.

P.S. This is why I am posting all these annoying little Day 1 posts to keep myself honest.

Day 21

1485 cal, 59.6 g of fat

Wow I sure racked up the fat grams today, but I am actually not that concerned about the fat count as much I as used to be (years ago). I think going too low fat just makes you feel hungrier.

So I am excited about my weight loss, that gives me a total of 14.6 lbs in three weeks. Wow I have actually kept at this for three weeks now without falling off the wagon. I know I am still in the Honeymoon phase, the hard work is just starting, but the small success encourages me to keep going.

My mom has reached a bit of a plateau right now, she was having histrionics over the fact she weight 5 lbs heavier in the evening then in the morning. I was finding it hard to talk her down from her anger. I know in a few weeks my body will slam on the breaks as well, and say "WTF feed me" too and I will also get upset, but I don't tend to shout it to the world. But I tend to be overall more laid back emotionally then my mom. I think she is just expecting too much from herself right now. She has done awesome, she is just seriously impatient.

Here is a Happy Elephant to share how I feel today!