Starting Weight: 245
Goal Weight: 120
Last Weigh-in: 151.4
Current Weight: 153.2
Loss for the week: +1.8
Total loss so far: 91.8

Here's something I decided to do and then forgot to mention here: take a scale break. I was under a ton of stress at the end of last month and started gaining back like crazy, which was in turn making me kind of mental, so I thought it would be in my best interest to stop obsessing about numbers for awhile.

Unfortunately the end result was that I used my scale break as an excuse to eat whatever I wanted. You can probably imagine how much more weight I gained than is reflected here. (Six pounds, all told.) So now I am on the way back down, and I'm feeling much better. Part of that is getting the sugar back out of my diet, and part of it is just getting back in control of my reactions to stress. It kind of sucks to feel completely out of control!

Another new development this week is that my sister and I have started a new fitness regime: P90X from Beachbody (the people who brought us Turbo Jam). It's intense, to say the least. I'm enjoying it so far, though, which is kind of bizarre, but nice. I'm also pretty hungry after doing my first cardio session this morning, but I'm working on controlling my calorie intake regardless.

Hopefully between my diet and this new workout program I will finally get below 150 and stay there. I better. The ab workout alone, you guys. It's only 15 minutes and I can barely do any of it. It's horrible, but I'll do it every day if I can get the results other people have gotten. Here's an example of one woman's before and after pictures halfway through the (90 day) program. Her stomach! And look how much smaller her ass is! I realize it's unbelievable to think she did all that in six weeks, but after having done a couple of the workouts, I don't doubt it for a second.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted on our progress.

Another new thing I'm doing is taking melatonin, which is supposed to help with my sleep cycles. I still woke up a bunch of times last night, but I'm not exhausted during the day, so maybe it's helping. I suspect it's definitely helping with my mood, which is a very nice side affect, though cutting out sugar helps a lot with that as well.

Starting Weight: 245
Goal Weight: 120
Last Weigh-in: 151.8
Current Weight: 151.4
Loss for the week: -.4
Total loss so far: 93.6

Okay, so I am two days late. I'm cheating and using today's weight, since Monday's was up (152.2). But here's the confusing thing: I think my period just started again. Two weeks after it stopped. If I am experiencing perimenopause I will flip. I say that with all sincerity. Could be stress, I suppose. My body is pretty out of whack these days. At any rate, I suppose my weight being up could be attributed to water retention from my surprise period.

Speaking of which, I think I have somehow agreed to train for a half marathon in March. That's kind of crazy, considering. But I'm looking forward to the challenge, to be honest. I kind of want to see how much of it I can run. I'll keep you posted on how the training goes.

Starting Weight: 245
Goal Weight: 120
Last Weigh-in: 153.6
Current Weight: 151.8
Loss for the week: -1.8
Total loss so far: 93.2

So after three consecutive days at 150.6, my weight has bounced back up to 151.8 this morning. I am going to go out on a limb and say that it's the amount of sodium I had yesterday, which was kind of a lot. I debated whether to call yesterday's weight the official one for the week, which wouldn't have felt like cheating or anything, but then I decided I would hedge my bets for next week and use the higher weight. Which actually feels more like cheating. Oh, LOL. This dieting psychology is so crazy.

Anyway, the weight has just been sort of falling off me lately, I suppose due to a combination of the amount of running I've been doing and some stuff going on in my personal life. (Good stuff! I think. I hope.) I'm pretty distracted lately, anyway, and that means I don't have to battle myself to keep from eating stuff I shouldn't be, particularly at night. So for however long it lasts, I will take it.

Right now I am going to go run again. It's amazing how much I crave running all of a sudden. Do you remember how much I hated it when I started all this? I certainly do.

Starting Weight: 245
Goal Weight: 120
Last Weigh-in: 155.4
Current Weight: 153.6
Loss for the week: -1.8
Total loss so far: 91.4

Okay, so I am still in the throes of my period, but for whatever reason I decided I would weigh myself this morning anyway, just for kicks. And what do you know, I am down nearly two pounds from last Monday.

That's kind of crazy, especially considering the amount of alcohol I consumed this weekend. I have been running a lot more than usual lately, which is maybe part of it, and I haven't had much of an appetite lately, though I've been forcing myself to eat at least 1200 calories a day. I'm sure my appetite will come back eventually. It's just nerves making things weird.

Anyway, I don't know if my body is just finally catching up with all the muscle I've been building or what, but it's nice to have dropped a decent amount of weight right in the middle of my period. The number should go down a little more after my period's over, but even if it doesn't, I'm pretty happy to be so much closer to 150.

Oh, hey, you know what I just realized? This morning's weight officially pushes me from the 'obese' BMI category into 'overweight'. That's pretty exciting.

Starting Weight: 245
Goal Weight: 120
Last Weigh-in: 156
Current Weight: 155.4
Loss for the week: -.6
Total loss so far: 89.6

Another half pound down. It's just inching along these days, though in the right direction, at least. Granted, I could have done much better diet-wise. Every week I remind myself that if I could just get my diet back under control, the loss might pick up a little. Then every week I think of excuses to eat carbs anyway. It's a process.

Where I am doing pretty well is with my fitness. Yesterday I ran a mile in ten minutes, which is a major improvement for me. For the second and third miles I had to go down to a 12 minute pace, but I'm okay with that. Also my doctor gave me some rehab exercises to do for my knee, and I can't say yet whether or not they're making a difference, but I'm being really diligent about them. If there's no improvement in a month I have to go back to explore more options, but who knows, maybe targeting the right muscles in a specific way will buy me more time before I have to see a surgeon.

This morning, even though I am not working until 4:00 this afternoon, I got up at 5:45 so I could try the yoga workout that's on Oxygen from 6-7 every weekday. It's called Inhale, has anybody else ever tried it? I like the instructor a lot, and it's a nice change of pace from the videos I've done a million times already. If you like Hatha yoga and you have Oxygen and a DVR, give it a try. I don't have a DVR, unfortunately, so if I want to do it I have to get up early. But that's good for me, so I think I will make it my regular Monday routine from now on.

Next week: my monthly water retention will have begun, I'd wager. I hope so, anyway. My cycle has been pretty weird lately, which I am chalking up to increased activity until further notice.

Starting Weight: 245
Goal Weight: 120
Last Weigh-in: 156.6
Current Weight: 156
Loss for the week: -.6
Total loss so far: 89

So that's a half pound loss for the week. Not terrible, but I feel I really could have done better with my food. I'm having trouble with hunger at night and I haven't been very good this week about ignoring it. But my period is due to show up at some point next week, which means the next weigh-in is the last good one for a little while, so I am going to try really hard to stick with my plan this week, and hopefully hit the 90 pounds lost mark next Monday.

I'm wearing a pair of size 12 dress pants that are starting to get a little loose, so something's definitely changing even though the number is creeping down very slowly.

Starting Weight: 245
Goal Weight: 120
Last Weigh-in: 158.6
Current Weight: 156.6
Loss for the week: -2
Total loss so far: 88.4

I think my last weigh-in was technically almost a month ago, but still, I'll take the two pounds. Things are going in the right direction, which is all that matters to me at this point.

Additionally, I am rocking a size 10 skirt today, which I picked up yesterday and it is actually a wee bit big in the waist already. My pants size is still a 12, of course, and really size doesn't even matter, but that little '10' on the tag does wonders for my self-esteem.

( More self-esteem talk. This time with 90% more positivity! )

I forgot to post last week. I wasn't avoiding or anything, I just plum forgot. Then I kept remembering and forgetting again until half the week was gone and it just seemed kind of pointless. Anyway, last week's weigh-in was exactly the same as the previous week's (158.6), but my period arrived a few days early on Tuesday of last week, so that might explain part of that. The fact that I have been mainlining carbs like they're going out of style might have something to do with it as well. And I am still retaining water today, so I have no new weight to report. Well, I did get on the scale and it said 159.8, but that should be water weight. Here's hoping, anyway.

So in lieu of a weigh-in post, I will finally get around to posting some thoughts on body image and why I'm always so hard on myself.

( There are pictures under the cut, if you're on a slow connection. )

Starting Weight: 245
Goal Weight: 120
Last Weigh-in: 159
Current Weight: 158.6
Loss for the week: -.4
Total loss so far: 86.4

I have been forgetting to post all day, so I will take a minute to do that now. As you can see, there's not much to be excited about. I think I've reached the point in my weight loss where I'm going to have to get used to seeing half pound losses for the week. Depressing! But regardless of the fact that my weight has hardly budged since June, people are commenting constantly at the differences in me, so I am taking some comfort in that.

Funny how weight loss is such a public process. I mean, it's such a habit now that I don't even talk about it here anymore; I just go through the paces and assume stories about my workouts and my clothes fitting differently or whatever are as boring to everyone else as they are to me.

But even though I put it out there for discussion here, I don't do the same in my everyday life. Turns out it doesn't matter, though, because people talk about it anyway. It's like your body becomes community property, in a way. Certainly it's impossible not to notice if someone you know loses a lot of weight, and there's nothing wrong with asking about the process or offering a compliment now and then. My coworkers have no boundaries, though. It gets to be a little much sometimes.

On the other side of that coin, of course, is positive attention from strangers. If you've ever been heavy you know how you tend to be invisible to people. Since I'm wearing an average size and dressing myself better, however, I notice that people are seeing me more. Businessmen open doors and smile at me. Strangers make eye contact at work more often (which is not always a good thing, but you take the good with the bad). Store clerks are more likely to offer me help rather than pretending they can't see me. It's strange. Good, but something to get used to after all these years.

Starting Weight: 245
Goal Weight: 120
Last Weigh-in: 159.6
Current Weight: 159
Loss for the week: -.6
Total loss so far: 86

So I meant to post last week about the fact that I tore a muscle in my back and it was interfering with my workouts (and everything else in my life -- we really use our back muscles for everything!), but typing was a challenge and I had all that work to do on becoming the Martha Stewart of pity parties, so I never got around to it.

My period was five days late, to be TMI (as usual), but that's over now and the numbers on the scale are once again starting to inch down, so I'm hoping that now that my back's feeling better and I can work out at full capacity (more or less) again, it'll keep heading that way.

Today's weight is a new low (by all of two ounces), so that's a good sign. It's not as much as I hope to see post-period, but my diet hasn't been the best lately and the workouts were pretty pathetic, so I could hardly expect better. I'm just glad it hasn't gone up, really. Hopefully next week I will be on my way to the middle of the 150s.