Weight: 328.2 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (174 days): 87.8 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 95.4 pounds
Percentage of goal lost: 43.90%
Caloric limit: 2140 per day (reduced)
✓ Next Milestone: Lose 76 pounds (making it the biggest weight loss I have had in my life)
Next Milestone: 100 pounds lost (50% of goal)
Target Date: August 19, 2015 (222 more days)

Yesterdays food log is HERE

Yesterday was Super Bowl XLIX (49)… Good game.. went to some friends house and had a really good time…

I knew it would be rough since there would be lots of food and I would have no real control over it other than what and how much I ate… over the course of the game I had little bits of a lot of stuff.. Hot wings, chips with cheese sauce, deconstructed potato skins, carne asada taco, cod taco… even a chocolate chip cookie and a brownie!  When we left I didn’t feel good about what I ate… I felt like I went overboard… I should have eaten less hot wings (I had 8).. I should have had either a cod or beef taco, not one of each… shouldn’t have had the brownie…

When we got home I added everything to my calorie counter (myfitnesspal.com) and realized I did okay… while I was over my calories for the day (by 283 calories and only because I had popcorn with butter after we got home) it could have been (and usually would be) so much worse… I started entering it and realized I ate really small amounts of most of it… a little nachos.. a little deconstructed potato skins.. I ate veggies too… normally it would have been 3+ cookies.. a big brownie (what I had was literally one bite)… not a plate full of wings but a couple at a time spread out over the whole game… sure I could have eaten less but I realized I did pretty good… I didn’t eat much before we went… I didn’t have a Rumchatta even though I did serve a couple… all in all I would score myself a B-… could have been an A if I hadn’t had the popcorn and the sweets…

Got on the scale this morning expecting a sizable gain… and had a small loss instead… Very happy about that.. inching closer (12.2 pounds) to the next milestone of 100 pounds lost…

One other issue I wanted to mention is the increase of energy I have felt recently… instead of coming home from work and crashing on the bed watching TV I have been doing stuff… I have made a list and have been checking stuff off.. cleaning the garage… organizing… just staying busier… it’s been a good feeling being able to do stuff…

Weight: 334.6 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (150 days): 81.4 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 89.0 pounds
Percentage of goal lost: 40.70%
Caloric limit: 2140 per day (reduced)
✓ Next Milestone: Lose 76 pounds (making it the biggest weight loss I have had in my life)
Next Milestone: 100 pounds lost (50% of goal)
Target Date: August 28, 2015 (245 days)

Yesterdays food log is HERE

And so it goes on… little up.. little down… overall down…

Weight: 342.8 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (150 days): 73.2 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 80.8 pounds
Percentage of goal lost: 36.60%
Caloric limit: 2140 per day (reduced)
✓ Next Milestone: Lose 76 pounds (making it the biggest weight loss I have had in my life)
Next Milestone: 100 pounds lost (50% of goal)
Target Date: August 25, 2015 (260 days)

Yesterdays food log is HERE

So it has been 23 days since my last blog update (and we know that is never good as I usually avoid posting when I am not doing well)… and a lot has happened…

First HAPPY NEW YEAR!  Hope we all have a very healthy and prosperous 2015!

Okay… so in my last post I had hit my first milestone of losing 76 pounds… and that was on December 17th… after that I got down to 336.2 on 12/22/14…. I got sick on the 22nd also… cold symptoms and just really tired… then on 12/24 I went on vacation…I didn’t go anywhere, but I was off, sick and at home during the holidays… bad combination… With the holidays and being at home able to eat whenever and whatever was not a good idea… my calorie counting became sporadic… I even broke my 140+ day string on myfitnesspal.com 🙁  I was out of control and it was scary to me…  by 12/26 I had gained 10.2 pounds.. that’s in 4 days… on 12/27 I weighed 350.4.. gained 14.2 pounds… that’s a backtrack to 11/28/14… almost a month of hard work gone in only 6 days!!!

About cheat days and backtracking from LessofLes.com

I also had scheduled time off so that I was home starting 12/24/14 and returning to work 1/5/15… 12 days off… my longest break from work I can remember… I was really looking forward to it… not a great idea… I was home, sick, with all the holiday leftovers.. the sweets and deserts… all there for me to eat… I found it very difficult… it is much easier to pack a limited calorie lunch and not have other options at hand… had I of been well it may have been different… I had a lot of things on my To-Do-List around the house, but none of it was getting done… so I wasn’t keeping busy and I was not happy that my list was growing instead of shrinking (much like my waist)… had I of been up and active I think I would have done better.

Since my break  I have calmed down and tried to get back into the swing but have not been very successful… while I have been able to creep back down to 342.8 that is still 6.8 pounds over where I was before Christmas… I am finding it difficult to track everything like I was… I am consistently going over my daily calorie limit where that used to be rare… I just haven’t had that fire… but…

People have been noticing my weight loss… people have been telling me that I have motivated them. I have never had anyone tell me that before… and that has helped me focus more. I am losing this weight for me… for my family and now for others… friends… some close and some new. One of my hopes when starting this blog 4 1/2 years ago was that it (I) would motivate others, mainly my kids, to get healthier… so the fact that people are saying that I am an inspiration has been a huge thing for me and I am trying to use that to get me re-motivated and move forward successfully .

And finally this week I dug out a box of clothes in the garage that I packed when I couldn’t wear them because I was too big (or they were too small)… this is a large moving box full of clothes… It is great to have some ‘new’ clothes that fit me well… I took about 1/3 of them out and tried them on… some are still too small but that’s okay… I plan to go through the rest of the box and repack those that are small.. then go through my ‘big’ clothes and donate them… I am not keeping them because I never want to fit them again.  So happy I kept these… there was a point when I thought I would never fit them again… but I am 😉

Weight: 339.2 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (127 days): 76.8 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 84.4 pounds
Percentage of goal lost: 38.40%
Caloric limit: 2140 per day (reduced)
✓ Next Milestone: Lose 76 pounds (making it the biggest weight loss I have had in my life)
Next Milestone: 100 pounds lost (50% of goal)
Target Date: July 15, 2015 (204 days)

Yesterdays food log is HERE

Today I have accomplished the largest weight loss I have ever had in my life… beating a 75 loss that took me a year and working out everyday back when I was 18-19…

76 pounds in 127 days done by diet only!  Just straight, hardcore calorie counting and limiting… and at age 50 (now 51)… I weight the lowest I have since August 19th, 2008… that over 6 years ago… I must say I am very proud of myself right now!

Now.. just for kicks… If someone gave me 76 pounds of:

•  Gold (at today’s price) it would be worth $1,327,675.40
• Silver (at today’s price) it would be worth $19,395.20
• Gasoline at the $2.505 (at the national average) it would be worth $30.22
• Dollar bills, they would be worth $34,504
• Quarters,  they would be worth $8618.25
• Pennies, they would be worth $13789.20

I am not going to lie.. it has been a difficult process… in the process of losing 76 pounds I have gained (backtracked) 49.8 pounds.. so in actuality I have lost 125.8 pounds.  In the last 127 days my motivations have waned and priorities changed… plus you are trying to control and in some cases reverse what you know.. what you have done for many years or even your entire life…

I got my old home movies converted to DVD and picket them up last week… I haven’t been able to watch them you (no time at all really) but I skimmed through them and one thing I saw really made me think about what I was brought up with as normal… it was a scene from one Easter… probably around 1969.. I was around 6… it’s me and my sister, obviously excited that the Easter bunny had come… the dining room table, which was about 5 feet by 4 feet was COVERED in candy… all kinds of different sugary treats.. it was a massive pile of candy just for the two of us… that is my normal… I am told as a young child that I would eat sticks of butter.. just butter… and they let me do this?!?!?

This is an uphill, life long fight, and I have succeeded to this point.. but I can’t stop…  now the focus has to be on the remaining 123.2 pounds to my goal.