Checking In

Still 80ish pounds down. I'm glad I track my weight weekly on my handy-dandy spreadsheet. It feels like I haven't lost anything in months. Overly dramatic much? Looking a gift horse in the mouth much?

I've lost 80 pounds in 8 month - part of me tells myself to quit my bitching. The spreadsheet helps to bring me a bit back to reality.

Turns out, I've lost 10 pounds since the beginning of December. 10 pounds over the last 2 1/2, almost 3 months. So, more than nothing but definitely not setting the world on fire.

For essentially all of January and February, I have bounced around between 221.6 and 215.6. The good news - I've gotten a taste of maintenance and I think it will be fine. I haven't been making the best choices. Been eating too many sweets, not enough protein, not enough water, too much grazing. But, staying pretty steady at about 218 ish.

But, 218 isn't the goal. Time to kick this into gear.

I've had many of the inevitable internal discussions with myself about to fill or not to fill. Do I need one? Can I eat too much? Is that the issue. I had an appointment with my Doctor for tomorrow and I just called and rescheduled it for April 4. I've decided my fill level isn't the issue.

Now, I can eat a whole bunch of things. I've had rice. I've had bread. I've had toast. But, my portion size needed to get full is still pretty minimal. For example, I made steak for dinner on Sunday. I've never cooked a steak before. I'm always afraid I'll ruin it but it turned out great.

So, for dinner I had about 4-5 bites of salad with a few pistachios, asiago , vinaigrette, about 4-5 bites of my steak, about 2 bites of bread and about 4 bites of mashed potatoes. Plus maybe an ounce or two of red wine. I could eat everything. I had to take small bites and chew well. This was a very modest amount of food though and I was full. Very satisfied. Plus, we had this for dinner and I'd had very little to eat throughout the day - essentially just coffee and a spoonful or two of chunky peanut butter.

If I want to continue to lose weight, I need to limit the sweets and up the protein and water. It seems like I lose if I'm between 800-1000 calories a day. This seems like nothing but I think I can actually eat that much and be satisfied. I'm starting to track what I'm eating again so I can get a real sense of my calorie intake and protein intake.

Does anyone else get the shoulder pain still? I find that my shoulder hurts both when I'm really full and when I'm hungry or I should be hungry. I don't eat much during the day on the weekends (as long as I'm busy) besides coffee and I find that my shoulder starts to hurt well before my stomach starts to growl. I've gotten used to it and it's not awful but it's sort of funny.

I saw 215.6 this morning. Hopefully we'll see it again (and lower) soon! It's time to go shopping!