#47meals

well, i was hoping to hit 224.something this morning... and i came in at 223.6! I’ve hit 22lbs dropped since i started this 1 meal a day thing!

so, that was a nice way to start the day.

over the last few weeks, things have been ... difficult in the motivation department. i’ve been sticking with my 1 meal a day pretty well, but it hasn’t been easy - especially seeing my weight jumping up and down due to not handling the weekends very well. 

but i’m looking at my weight history on the fitbit site where i track it... and i’ve realized that i’m actually losing about 1lb per week! that’s a pretty good rate of loss, at this point... it’s not dramatic, it’s not unhealthy, it’s not... fast. but it’s steady. it’s just about a constant rate of drop right now.

today, i weighed in at 225.6 which is the same as I weighed last week at my lowest. i’m hoping tomorrow, i will be in the 224 range.

the week prior to last, i was 226. prior to that, 227... 228... 229... it’s a pretty steady rate of decline at about 1lbs per week.

in spite of that not being as fast as i want, i’m ok with this. at least i am continuing to drop.

at the current rate of 1lb per week, it will be January or February of 2016 before I hit my target goal of 190lbs. 

according to the fitbit site, if i hit a strict limit of 1500 calories per day... consistently... i could be at that weight by September. 

i’m not sure i want to hit the 1500 limit every day. i need a little reprieve now and then, even if that reprieve comes in a single meal that day. 

weighed in 231.8 today. guess i had one too many tacos for lunch yesterday. 

whatever. that will go down again.

but something strange is happening right now.

yesterday was the last day of my 1 meal a day challenge. i wasn’t perfect, but i got close.

today is the first day of not having that restriction. i can eat two or three times, or 10 times today. but ... do i want to?

so i’m sitting here in my client office, talking with a friend about lunch and dinner, planning what i’m going to eat so that i can keep my calories down

and i find myself feeling guilty about planning to eat twice today

soooo.... after 47 days of hating what i was doing, now i want to keep doing it because i feel guilty about not doing it?!

i guess i’ll keep at it for one more day, then.

weighed in at 232.2 this morning

took the kids to the donut shop this morning. haven’t been there in a number of weeks. the kids really like it. i sat there thinking about my previous attempts at losing weight, and how the weekly donut shop visits have always been a problem for me. 

i like spending that time with my kids, and letting my wife sleep in for a bit is a bonus to make her happy. but we clearly need better habits than eating donuts together.

as i approach the end of this 47 days, i want to keep going and continue what i’ve started. and i know that donut shops or other breakfast places will be a problem for me if i’m not careful. 

if i eat breakfast, i’ll end up eating lunch and dinner, to control my blood sugar better. 

weighed in at 233.4 this morning. that’s better.

and currently eating second lunch. 

finished first lunch 30 minutes ago, at Freebird’s World Burrito. I got on their nutrition calculator and found out that the burrito i ate had less than 500 calories in it. that’s wwwaaaaaayyy too few calories for one meal a day.

so i stopped by Rudy’s BBQ and picked up another ~900 calories of brisket, cream corn and potato salad.

weighed in at 235 this morning... which is a bump up from the weekend of not eating well. although, it was less of a bump up than i had expected

having hit day 41, i’m down to the final week of this. sunday, april 5th is the last day of my plan.

ok, so i kept to my not eating until after 5pm for the last 3 days. 

but that doesn’t mean i ate well, or ate a low amount of calories while i was at the conference, and hanging out with people at parties / bars / restaurants.

i decided to eat lunch today, since i got home in time to go to lunch with the kids. i’ll skip dinner tonight. tomorrow (Monday) i’ll probably do lunch with my coworker, and then skip lunch on Tuesday. 

I weighed in at 234.4 this morning. That’s 11+ lbs that I’ve lost in 36 days.

That, in itself, is a worthy accomplishment.

But I screwed up last week, and ate lunch (day 30). So I failed, right?

Technically, yes. I did fail my stated goal. 

But you know what? I’m still here. I’m still moving forward. 

The 47 days challenge that I put myself through wasn’t supposed to be just about the 47 days. It was supposed to be a kickstart for me to lose weight - yes, the challenge was important to me because it gave me something to focus on. 

But I’ve lost 11+ lbs, already, which is a far more important metric than the one big frowny-face on my chart of big red Xs. 

It still sucks that I screwed it up. But doing that was also a very liberating thing for me. I don’t feel confined to the strict form of what I was doing before. I still want to complete this in some way, and I am working on 1 meal a day still. But I’m changing when that meal is, as needed.

I ate lunch 2 days in a row this week, and skipped dinner (to the best of my ability, while avoiding blood sugar crashes and danger from that). Today, I’m skipping lunch because I expect to take my kids to dinner tonight. Tomorrow? We’ll see which I choose to do.