Week 7 Progress

OK, I know I missed last week but that was because I was away at a conference for work.  I left on Sunday and returned on Wednesday evening.  The good news is that I wasn't totally derailed by the conference.  At times it was a challenge to find decent foods to eat following the Paleo diet, but I made it and didn't resort to awful food choices.  I weighed in this morning and the scale showed 431 lbs. That is a loss so far of 27 lbs. since starting this personal challenge 7 weeks ago.  I'm still on track to hit my goal as long as I maintain my progress.

My 2 toughest days during this time were heading to and from the conference as I spent about 6 hours int eh car each way.  I was so tempted to just grab fast food or other snacks to help occupy me while I was driving, but I didn't give into the temptation and made it through.  One highlight of the conference was a special event where we had dinner on the USS Midway which is set up as a living history museum.  While the food choices were scarce, seeing and touching the history was awesome.  I also got in my most steps for the week traipsing around the decks and it didn't feel like exercise at all.  Here is a peek at the flight deck:

With that over, it is now time to buckle down ans really make some progress.  A plus is that within our family we have also started our own competition wherein we are each putting up cash for the next 6 months and the person who loses the highest percentage of weight gets to take home the Prize.  Because of the format of weekly weigh-ins and exemptions for the weekly percentage winners, the purse will be a nice $390.  I'm planning on walking away with it.

Week 5 progress

Another week has come and gone and I have lost another 2 lbs.  Not a great loss, but a loss, none the less.  I do need to get back on target to bump up the losses, though.  If I want to hit my goal, then I need to lose an average of at least 3 lbs per week over the next 21 weeks.  Hard to believe I'm already 5 weeks into this personal challenge.

Next week is going to be a big challenge.  I will be attending a conference for work and I'm hoping to get in a decent amount of walking but the food is what worries me.  Finding the best choices may be an issue.  I will do what I can to stay on track, though.  Of course I can worry about that next week. Now I need to focus on this week and eating as clean and healthy as I can.

Week 4 progress

To be honest there isn't a lot of progress this week.  I seem to be on a little plateau as my weight stood at 437 yesterday. Now don't get me wrong, I am ecstatic that I have lost 21 lbs. since I challenged myself, but I was hoping that I might have lost a bit more this week.  I was spoiled by the losses so far and was hoping that they would continue apace. No worries, though as I know that if I do the right thing with my diet I will lose weight.  I am planning on adding a bit more exercise as well just to bump up the losses.

I was bummed last night when I got home and looked at my FitBit page to see my total for the day.  It stood at just 44 steps.  It seems I left it sitting on the bed yesterday morning when I got dressed so all of yesterday's steps went uncounted. It was surprising how upsetting that little faux pas was.  Anyway, today I have it with me and I am back to accumulating steps and distance.

Speaking of accumulating distance, I did get an email from FitBit congratulating me on earning the Japan badge for walking more than 1869 miles.  While that seems like a fair distance, I think it has taken quite a while to get there.  I think my next lifetime distance badge comes at 1997 miles and hopefully that won't take too long to achieve.

So, the focus this week is to avoid salty foods and stay within my goals and hopefully next week there will be significant progress to report.

Biggest Winner 2016

So, here it is, the start of my 4th Biggest Winner weight loss competition as part of the City of Las Vegas' Corporate Challenge.  The weigh in was yesterday and their scale put me at 438 lbs.  I thought it might have been a couple of pounds light and when I got home and on my scale it showed 440 lbs.  So there it is.  Now this is actually a bit heavier than I was on Tuesday and that was a result of eating some salty foods and drinking a ton of liquids.  I expect that increase to disappear in the next day or two as I flush out my system.

What I find strange is that while we have medaled, taking the bronze last year, and I have lost weight in the competition, it obviously has not 'stuck'.  Let's look back just a single year to last year's competition.  I started the competition with a weight of  448 lbs. and ended at 420 lbs. for a loss of 28 lbs.  You will notice that that is significantly less than yesterday's weight and especially my weight of 458 lbs. back on 2/8 when I started my personal weight loss challenge.

What this tells me is that if I set my sights on a concrete goal, then I am actually pretty good at doing what I need to in order to lose weight, but when there is no target I let my eating slip way out of control.  I see that this is not just a short term change that I need to make in order to meet these short term goals, but it needs to be a lifetime change in my eating behavior. I am working to make that lifetime change a reality.

So, until I get to where I need to be, I am going to keep putting short term goals out there and then striving to meet them.  I have my 6 month goal of losing that 80 lbs. and I am going to hit it, no if's ands or buts, but then I am going to continue on until I reach my ultimate target goal of under 250 lbs.

Week 3 progress

OK, here we are already 3 weeks into my personal 80 lbs. in six months challenge.  I was supposed to post yesterday but the time got away from me and frankly it wasn't a priority so I waited until today. the good news is that I did my weigh in Sunday morning and I was at 439 lbs.  That is 19 lbs. lighter than when I started this challenge and I am very happy with that.

In terms of activity and exercise its been all but non-existent this last week.  I got some steps in but nowhere near my modest goal of 7,000 steps per day.  I also squandered another week of nice weather and didn't get on my bike once.  Part of the reason is that I have been holding back pending tomorrow's weigh in for the start of the biggest winner competition.  I know it's a lame excuse (and really no excuse at all) but I wanted to save some of the weight loss for during the competition where it works for a dual purpose - a 2 in 1 loss as it were.  So after tomorrow I am removing that excuse from my head and will be getting back to it much more actively.

Not much else to report on this week, other than I am starting to see a difference in my body which is a good thing.