Six Pounds Left

I lost one and a half pounds this week, so I have only six pounds left until I reach my goal weight. A part of me is thrilled that I am almost there, and a part of me is worried that it is going to be a real battle to lose these last six pounds.

There's another part of me that says to forget what the charts say a healthy BMI is and stick with the weight I'm at. Yes, there is still some extra chub left for me to lose around my belly area. But overall, I am looking pretty slender and fit now, and I feel healthier and stronger than I have in years.

I only have four pounds left to lose to reach a healthy BMI for my height according to the charts. The reason for the extra two pounds that I want to lose is just to give me some wiggle room for my weight to fluctuate and still stay in a healthy BMI.

But charts can be wrong. And then again, I know what weight I am comfortable at, and I am not quite there yet.

So I will keep plugging along, keeping myself fit and eating to lose weight until I can change to eating to maintain.

I am trying really hard NOT to focus on the numbers and just to focus on how healthy I feel, how strong I feel and how differently my clothes fit now.

Goodbye Plateau!

I lost 2.5 pounds this week! I have now lost a total of 130 pounds, and I only have 7.5 pounds left to lose until I reach my goal weight! I just have to make sure that I have an equally good week this week.

I'm really enjoying eating extra healthy meals and cooking up new dishes for us to try. I never got around to making the Spanish orange cake yesterday, so I might make it today for our dessert. Tonight I'm trying out a new recipe for meat loaf for our dinner. I've made meatloaf before but this one is from a recipe in my "World Of Flavours" cookbook.

I'll let you know what I think of it, and what the family thinks of it too!

I was procrastinating this morning. I did not feel like doing my cardio exercise today. I kept finding other things to do instead. I just felt so tired. I knew that I always felt good after I finished a workout, but it wasn't enough to push me into doing it.

Eventually, I got off of my sluggish-feeling, tired butt and got on the eliptical crosstrainer. I watched a show I'd missed this week while I got my exercise done, and guess what? I feel so much better now! And I feel like I have way more energy now too! Knowing this is always the result, why do I always find it so difficult to motivate myself to get up and do the exercise?

Planning Ahead & Doing Well

Planning is important when trying to lose weight. If you plan ahead what you are going to eat for the week, it is much easier to avoid those tempting moments when you are hungry, don't know what there is to eat and grab something unhealthy for a quick fix.

With that in mind, Robert and I did a lot of planning ahead for this week. We won the new Slimming World cookbook "A World Of Flavours" at the last Slimming World meeting, so we decided to cook from it this week. So far I have made us two things from the book.

The first recipe we tried was Baked Cannelloni (Italian). We had broccolli as a side dish and the meal was delicious! The recipe feeds four, so Robert, our two teenage daughters and I were all able to have it, and everyone enjoyed it. It was even enjoyable enough for my teenager Angelica that she was willing to eat spinach! (There was spinach in the recipe, and she normally won't eat anything with spinach in it, but she liked the cannelloni.)

Tonight we had Vegetable Lasagne (Italian). It was delicious too, and importantly, it got my teenage daughters eating vegetables without complaining about it! It was full of healthy vegetables like bell peppers, courgettes, onion, and aubergines.

Tomorrow we are having Falafels (Morrocan) and the Tomato & Courgette Flan (French). I'm preparing the mixture for the falafels tonight and cooking it tomorrow. If I have time, I will also be making us the Spanish Orange Cake.

Tuesday, we will be making New York-style Meatloaf (North American) and on Wednesday, we will be trying the Baked Gnocchi (Italian). I am really looking forward to trying all of these new dishes.

I will be adding all of these recipes to my recipe blog as we try them out, along with what we thought about them.

Next week, we might try some of the recipes from the sections for Greece, India, China and Thailand to add even more variety to our meals.

Robert and I have been very, very good this week with our eating and exercise. I've been on the elliptical crosstrainer many times this week, the Wii Fit (using handweights) many times this week, and we've gone on several long walks. We've stuck to the Slimming World plan all week and used very few of our allowed "syns."

I am very hopeful that this week I will finally get past this plateau I've been stuck on for five weeks. My weigh-in is tomorrow night. I'll have a good idea by morning whether or not I will have a successful weigh-in or not. I am probably going to be a little worried until then though, because for the past five weeks, being "good" with my diet and exercise hasn't given me any results. I'm just praying that adding a little extra exercise and getting more variety in my diet has helped.

Challenging The Plateau

I am so tired of fighting this weight! I've been stuck at the same weight for 5 weigh-ins (if you count the week I went up two only to follow by going down two the next week). And this week, my weight jumped up a little right after my weigh-in (as it usually does), but no matter how good I am being, it seems to want to stay up. I am doing more exercise (again, even though I told myself I would never over-exercise again). I am eating completely on plan with hardly any "syns" used at all. But it looks like I might continue at this weight for yet another weigh-in. (I'm really hoping this weekend shows my weight start to drop.)

I don't get it! I lost 127.5 pounds with a pretty steady amount of weekly loss, and yet once I reached the magic ten-pounds-left number, everything stopped, and even changing things up doesn't seem to be shifting it.

And the really frustrating part about this ten pounds hanging on is that I pay £4.75 a week for my weekly weigh-ins and group meetings at Slimming World, but once I reach my goal weight, I get to go for free. So not losing this last ten pounds is costing me money!

*sigh*

I know I should not focus so much on the weight, but it's just ten little pounds! I will not be beat by TEN FREAKIN' POUNDS!

I am stronger now, and that is a good thing. My BMI is probably better than my weight would suggest it is because I have added muscle to my body. My husband keeps referring to me as "tiny" and "petite" (which is music to a formerly morbidly obese person's ears). I have lots of energy too, which I did not have when I was seriously overweight. I can buy pretty clothes in a variety of styles IN MY SIZE, and they look GOOD on me now. I am still losing inches.

And yet that last ten pounds taunts me. I can hear it chanting, "Neener-neener-neener! You caaan't catch meeee!"

But, with my competitive streak in full force now, I know I will beat it. The thought that rises to my mind in response to its taunting is, "Wanna bet?"

Decadent Food

I had the silliest dream last night.

Before bed, Robert and I had been talking about our plan to eat really healthy this week. So of course, I dreamed that we were at a hotel and it was the next day, and there were master chefs there who kept giving us really decadent food. I knew we had completely sabotaged our diets, but the food was so good. I can even remember sampling a chocolate dessert and actually TASTING it in my dream. I was thinking how delicious it was and that I was going to eat it slowly and really savor it.

I woke up relieved that I hadn't really eaten all that food, but feeling as if I'd enjoyed it nonetheless.

Healthy Living Or Losing Weight?

Does it have to be a choice? I only have 10 pounds to reach my goal weight. Back before I'd lost the 127.5 pounds that I have lost, it was so much easier. Not only did the weight come off more easily and with smaller changes, but it was obvious that losing weight really was necessary for me to be healthier.

Now I'm only 8 pounds away from a healthy BMI. I've gone from weighing 272.5 pounds to weighing 145 pounds. It is obvious to anyone who looks at me that I am healthier now than I was. I have more energy. I'm stronger. There are a lot of benefits to being more concsious about the food that I am putting in my body and making sure I get enough exercise.

But do I need to lose more weight? My BMI would suggest I do. But what if, in order to lose that weight, I start restricting my calories more? Or maybe the only way to get that scale to come down fast enough for me is by exercising for several hours a day. Would reaching my goal weight in that way still make me healthier just because I could see the right number on the scale?

There comes a time when I have to just say that I am doing what I need to do to be healthy and the number on the scale will either show that or it won't. But it won't change my eating and exercise regime. I'm going to continue to do things in a way that is HEALTHY rather than in a way that will help me lose weight the quickest.

Patience is a virtue, after all.

When Healthy Living Means Losing Weight

I had a pretty good week. I walked loads this week, from 5 to 10 miles a day. I did a little bit of exercise on the Wii Fit Plus. I ate healthy, only succumbing to a few chocolates from the chocolate tins we were given at Christmas a few times this week.

And yet, the scale says I'm up. It's just a tiny bit up, not even half a pound really, but still up. I hate when this happens, but I also know that it's just part and parcel of this journey. The goal is to be healthier, not to lose as much weight as possible.

And yet, just 8 pounds away from finally reaching a healthy BMI, and just 10 pounds away from my goal weight, I find it a struggle to remind myself of this. I still want to see that number go down on the scale.

I know some people say it's better not to have the scale in the house at all, to just avoid weighing. Unfortunately, when I've tried that, I get lazy, and my weight starts creeping back up. For me, at the moment, the number on the scale is motivating. I'm working on getting away from that though, because I think this focus is counterproductive in my attempts to lead a healthy lifestyle.

I might come down half a pound or a pound before my weigh-in tonight, but I'm trying not to think about it.

Happy Once-In-A-Blue-Moon New Year!

This New Year's Eve had a blue moon. A blue moon only happens once every 2.75 years, but a blue moon falling on a New Year's Eve only happens once every 19 years. Even more unique, a blue moon only falls on a New Year's Eve at the turn of a decade once ever 410 years or so! So last night's blue moon was a once in a lifetime event!

I'd like to think that it means we are all going to have a wonderful year in 2010!

This year is going to be a fantastic year! Dreams will come true this year for most of us!

My dream of being a healthy weight is already coming true, and this year I will be hitting my goal weight. I intend to start focusing on some other goals that are also important to me, and I'm going to approach them the way I approached my weight loss, one step at a time. I will break my goals into mini goals which will consist of the different steps I need to take to achieve them and then I will work towards those mini goals, one at a time.

But since this is such a rare Blue Moon Year, I am challenging everyone to choose a goal that they previously believed to be out of reach for them and to take steps towards reaching it regardless. And to believe that they can actually attain it!

Have an "impossible" dream? This is the year to go for it!

Happy 2010!