Numbers

This time last year, the scale said 195.
Today, it's 175.

My fasting blood sugar two days ago was 113.
This morning, after a low-carb dinner, it was 94.

My myotape tells me my dimensions are 40/31/42.25. My thigh measures 25.75.

I've lost 3 points in BMI (29.6 to 26.6).
I've shed 20 pounds, 10% of my original body weight.
I'm still 4 pounds from losing 10% as of starting this blog.

This is the least I've weighed since October of 1990. I was a newlywed in a sweet little apartment, still unpacking my wedding china. My mother was in the hospital and they couldn't quite figure out what was wrong. My husband was in his second year of graduate school and we were all very young (24, in my case).

It took me a several months of inefficient effort + biliary stones to lose the first five pounds and 21 weeks of changed behavior to part with the last 15. If I had to give advice to myself a year ago? "It's the food, foolish person." Exercise is great, but eating mostly whole grains wasn't enough; I had to cut way back on grains/carbs and also find a way of eating them spaced out with other foods (protein, fiber) so they didn't do weird and undesirable things with my blood sugar. Once I started eating monstly good quality food and moderating the sugar spikes, I didn't get that Feed-Me-Seymour style hunger anymore. I also have to admit that for me, a cheat day is key. The thought of giving up breads and cookies forever was just too upsetting. I attach a lot of comfort and pleasure not just to those foods but to the process of preparing them, and while I'm happy to enjoy them just once in a while (happier, really, than scarfing them daily), the thought of Never Again was not acceptable to me.

This blog has been so important. Partly for accountability (embarrassing to post a gain). But really more for the peer group. My virtual peer group eats really well and keeps finding challenging new workouts and I don't want to feel like an outlier, you know?

I can't wait to see what we can accomplish in the next 21 weeks.