I'm happy with the way things are going so far...

The good mood that hit on Tuesday afternoon has remained that that's always a plus when it comes to dropping weight for me.

I decided that I wasn't going to start a formal exercise routine until next week, but I've been getting prepared, making sure my plan is in place etc. 

Yesterday was my birthday and I decided to allow myself a treat.  Unfortunately that tread ended up being much bigger and last a lot longer then I had originally intended.  I'll have to tighten things up a bit over the next few days to meet this week's goal.  But I can do that :D

Oh! forgot to mention - while out with friends I actually confessed to them that I wanted to lose 100 lbs this year.  There was a frustrating moment when instead of "Oh good luck..." or something like that , they both went "What!? That's not healthy! You'll be too thin!"

(This came up because one friend, who is at a healthy weight and always has been, mentioned that her husband wants to lose 50 lbs).

I just had to shake my head at them and told them that I would NOT be too thin - even after 100 lbs I'll still be at an unhealthy weight and that my ultimate goal was to lose 150lbs.  They again had a fit - telling me how unhealthy that would be etc.  I just sighed and let them know that I carry my weight well and I do indeed have 150lbs to lose.  They settled down a bit after that, but as I expected, my friends, though wonderful, are not really going to be much of a support over the next year and half while I go on this journey. 

My husband - while supportive isn't much help either.  He doesn't understand why I need to set specific goals.  He's always telling me things like, "Just try to be healthier..." "Eat healthier and get more exercise" "If you just exercised you would't have to worry about the food you are eating..."  Uh yeah.  I tried "Just be healthier" for a while and go no where (well I might have gotten healthier, but how do you measure 'healthier?', and while exercise is important nutrition is 80% of weight loss.  Just because he can start going for walks after work and skip the bowl of ice cream at night to lose weight doesn't mean that'll work for me *sigh*

But!  I don't need others to make it through this.  In fact it's better that I have my own way and my own motivation - so that I'm not relying on someone else's mojo to get me through.  I'm going to make this happen!

Yesterday had it's ups and downs.

Work had lunch brought in to welcome everyone back from the holidays.  I skipped the Chinese food and stuck with the lunch I brought instead.  I was pretty proud of that.  However...

After work I met up with friends for Happy Hour.  I ate and drank off plan... but! 1) I made sure I drank low carb drinks avoiding the high calorie sugary stuff. 2) I only ate a few slices of pizza rather then the whole thing like I normally would have 3) I had some of the fried cheese curds and didn't eat the whole plate!  4) I hit my steps goal walking to the resteraunt

And - the scale is down today so I didn't screw everything up :D I haven't dropped the Christmas weight yet, but I expect it'll be gone very soon.

I have a goal!

And that goal is to be 200 by July 1st.  I do realize that is aggressive, but I want to be aggressive. I want to push myself and achieve something significant! 

The final goal would be to be 150 by this time next year (130lbs total).  This mean averaging 1.3% weight loss a week! So That goal is my Massively Aggressive Balls to the Wall Goal.    But, I do also have a "Let's not get too crazy here" goal of losing 100 lbs and getting to 180 by Jan 1 2019, but I'll keep my eye on the big prize and then I'll be sure to hit my 'minimum achieved goal' easily. 

How to do this?  Well - I'm going to start with food (as all good plans should)

Pretty typical stuff - Low Carb - Moderate Protein - Moderate Fat - Calorie Restricted.  Right now I'm aiming for 1500 calories/day.  I may lower that as I get fat adapted.  If I do I'll add a weekly re-feed into the mix. I don't want to get into the bad habit of last year where I ate very little every day, but never brought my calories up for a single day to compensate.  So my calories for an entire week will not go below 10,000. Biggest daily goal is to make sure I'm getting enough protein every day. That number is 120g.

Exercise:  My new job has limited my time available for exercise, but I'm going to do what I can.  Goal is weight lifting 4 days a week and 3 days a week of running.  What I may do eventually is limit the amount of lifting I do (like maybe only one large lift a session) to give more time for cardio, but we'll see.  There's also the option for signing up for classes or something similar after work (rather then driving straight home) but that'll have to wait for a bit...I need to get settled into this new routine of showing up at the office every day etc before I add any additional stress into my life.

What else?  drink water, get 8 hours of sleep, lower stress as much as possible... find ways to make all of this FUN!!

New year, so many plans! Blogging more is one of them!

Gained more weight than I expected while on vacation. Sucks!  But I’ll get this off and will be making progress again soon!

Vacation is almost over. Almost time to focus once again on losing weight and getting into shape. I can do this - 50th Birthday is only 382 days away! I’m going to start the next 1/2 century of my life with a bang!