3 months 30 pounds down

This month's weight loss was slower, as would be expected as my caloric deficit decreases as my weight goes down. Plus, my body adjusts, but I still lost 8.4 pounds this month to put me at 30.7 pounds lost in 3 months. Today the scale said 212.9. My seemingly impossible goal when I dreamed it of getting under 200 by the end of the summer is looking more and more possible.  I hope to get to 205.9 by the end of July and under 200 to 199.9 by the end of August. If I do that, I'll be able to wear my winter clothes again. I have 10s and 12s for winter clothes, so I should be good to go and by NEXT spring/summer I'll be able to wear that closet full of beautiful spring/summer dresses in size 10-12s. I may never fit into the 8s I bought when I was my skinniest, but that's OK!

Tomorrow is measurements day - first time in almost 3 months, so I'm curious as to what it will show. The size 14 shorts that I got are fitting looser, so things are happening!!! I also found a dress in my closet that was the first of the "smallish" dresses I got 3 summers ago to wear to an event. I thought I had gotten rid of it as I got too slim for it, but nope. I still have it and it's wearable - will be more wearable in a week or two - when... I will be going to that SAME event - and hopefully wearing the same dress!

I am actually almost enjoying this trip downward as I've found an easier way for me. I survived a LARGE part last time on protein bars. I had one (sometimes two) for breakfast every morning. With coffee and milk, that had me at 300-500 calories every day. Then I would eat PB and apples typically for lunch - another 300-500 calories and if I couldn't hack it until dinner time, another protein bar or a couple sticks of cheese. Usually by the time dinner came round I was out of calories or only had 400-500 on a 1500 calories a day diet.

Now I'm realizing those protein bars made me hungrier. Yes, they were lower carb, but not low enough carb. I love my skimpy high fat breakfast and snack midday and then totally feasting at dinner. Like last night's dinner was 800 calories, but I ended the day around 1200 calories (or a bit under). I had a HUGE salad with grilled chicken. Delicious and filling... might repeat for tonight's dinner!

I hope it stays this easy. It will make maintenance much easier too if I don't find this terribly hard.

Today I noticed a physical difference and a food difference

Today I went shopping for something silly, but necessary. I needed jeans or jean shorts so that I can do some gardening and other grub work. Since I have SOOOOO few clothes that fit me right now, I only have a couple "good" things for teaching/working and then a couple fitness skirts and fitness tops. That material is more sensitive to snags and staining and I DO NOT want to snag and stain those as I should be able to wear them through the summer as they are stretchy and have a lot of give to them - getting more bang for the buck, but I know me, I will not wear stained or ruined clothes, especially in public!

I first went to Goodwill. Man is it hard to find stuff at Goodwill. I ended up at TJMaxx and got a pair there for $10 - the same price as at Goodwill! They fit now and probably not for long, but I truly need gardening clothes and when I garden? I get DIRTY!!!!! Nothing but jeans material will work - no way.

But, while at TJMaxx I tried on a couple things. I hate that I'm still so big, but I could see in their awful mirrors that I am deflating. Mostly, I'm noticing my gut is deflating. It's where I got the biggest and it's where it is coming off the fastest, thank goodness. 

My husband remarked on it the last time I lost weight and it's true this time too. I don't get much narrower side to side (though I do, of course), but I get less wide front to back. So, today when I was standing at a mirror, I could see I was less wide. I didn't looks "as" fat. Fat, yes, but not as fat as I was 6 weeks ago.

And today with the scale I am down a bit more. here's what it looks like right now:

I have no idea what that top pink line represents. I need to do some searching, but the lower dotted line is the weight loss since I started April 1st. Mostly downward trend, but a few bobbles up. My first month goal was 10 pounds. I got to 9 pounds lost. This second month I hoped for 7 pounds lost. So far I am .4 away from that. That is 16 pounds down in 6.5 weeks.  Oh, if only it stayed that easy and weight kept dropping at that rate! I KNOW that it will just keep slowing down as I get closer and closer to goal, but this quick beginning at least helps keep the head in the game.

And I am finding it quite easy to stick to it. Today I bought donuts for an occasion. I even moved them from the box to a plate - not even tempted to eat one.

I'm finding in general it's much easier to eat less and to have less cravings for sweets and I think I'm beginning to figure out why. This time I am keeping my carbohydrate overall numbers and percentage even lower than last time. I just did a nutritional analysis and it looks like this:

This is still not very accurate, as I don't always put the foods in the right meals, and don't care to get the overall composition of foods right, but calorie number right instead when I input foods (like an entry for taco salad will include more carbs that I eat as I don't eat it with taco shells, for instance).  With that said, it's 'fairly' accurate picture of what I eat. It's proteins and carbs are about equal and fats a bit more. It doesn't like that I eat eggs, full fat dairy, and meat. Notice though, there's more fat from the avocados, olive oils and nuts as I eat more of those than the other.

Anyway, on average I'm eating 87 carbs a day. And that INCLUDES days that I had a big piece of cake, and Easter weekend and Mother's Day. Those were much higher carb days. When I look day by day excluding holidays/special events, it's more like 60 grams of carbs a day. The last time I did this? I was averaging 110 - 120. It's  HALF of what I did before and... I'm less hungry and have less cravings. I thought I had the cravings under control before... no... not as well as this time.

Last time I relied heavily on high protein nutrition bars for snacks and sometimes meals. I ate one every day for breakfast and oftentimes a second one as a snack. That alone was 40-50 grams of carbs right there - those two low carb protein bars! Then, I would eat an apple for lunch and that large apple is about 30 grams of carbs. Now I'm up to 70-80 grams and I haven't even had dinner yet!

So, this time, I'm not eating protein bars. I am finding that for breakfast I'm good to go with just a decaf coffee with a half cup of half and half. I drink that at 7:30 am and then I don't need to eat until noon. At noon I eat an apple with peanut butter (3 tbsp of peanut butter!) or I make 2 eggs with a tablespoon of butter and a sausage patty. That keeps me full until dinner at 6:30 pm. At dinner I then eat a HUGE helping of non starchy vegetables. Like HUGE helpings of veggies, with a 6-8ozs piece of meat.  And then I'm full for the rest of the day. Well... full isn't the right word. I don't stay full, but I don't get hungry!

Lower carb is the way to go for me. Even lower than I thought I needed to go last time. Or, it at least seems that way for now!