Happy, happy day! I'm now, pound wise, at the half way mark. [doing the Cabbage Patch happy jig] This week, I dropped 1.2 pounds and 1 inches. Overall, that's 12.6 pounds gone, and 10.5 inches adios! It occured to me that I have not taken any pictures of my progress during this whole 10 weeks, so for all you people know, I could be making all this up. So, here's a picture I took this morning in the jeans I wore when I started this weight loss journey in June. I can't tell you how good it feels to be a dozen pounds lighter!
The status report after the jump.
In the last 10 weeks, I have had a total of maybe 4 Diet Coke cans. The last 2 cans I had, I did not finish because my body just rejected it big time. Last week, FitSugar shared with all of us that sodas are closer in acidity to battery acid than pure water. Seeing that information was the nail in the diet soda coffin for me. Dropping weight this time around has been so much easier than previous times, and I keep saying this, but I really believe the elimination of diet sodas from my "menu" has been the key, for my body, to let go of fat faster.
Last week, I also did a "Ideas for Healthy Food Week" and it was a success. Many of you liked just looking at the food photos. I appreciate that! My goal was to try and make healthy eating while you're dieting look stylish. Pictures of diet foods always look kinda lifeless or plastic in my opinion thus reinforcing the "Die-it (you)" feeling, at least for me.
I've been slacking in the vegetable department. I started off the program diligently eating at least two vegetable dishes a day. Now, I'm only getting one veg dish in. Chinese Broccoli Beef is about as close to veggies as I have come this week. Tonight, I'm making stuffed red peppers with ground turkey, zucchini, and brown rice with a garlic tomato sauce. It's one of Matt's favorites too.
I went to the gym 4 times this week which is an improvement from my one time last week. The first two days back in the gym, I had to take it slower than the 56 minutes of cardio I was doing before. I only did 35 minutes on day 1 and 40 minutes on day 2. Still, I got in some good sweating.
It's been 10 weeks, and I have yet to do any weight training or resistance training. I know. I know. I know. I hate doing weights, and I know at some time I'll have to do them. In my defense, I am doing a great deal of mountain climbing on the treadmill. I can now do 17 minutes at 15% incline @ 2.6 speed. When I started, I was lucky to do 2 minutes at 15%@2.5 speed. I've also been adding in 20-25 minutes at 11-13% incline @ 2.6-2.8 speed. My leg muscles are getting a nice definition especially in the thigh area.
I'm still on the emotional roller coaster. At the beginning of week 10, I was wading in a serious pity pool of depression. Interviewing with all the Internet kids was truly hitting me hard emotionally much, much more than I thought it would. In one interview, the person sitting across from me was like 28 or 29 years old, and she asked me, "If you started a blog network of your own in the beginning (I started with 4 blogs 2 years ago), why didn't you keep it going, and build your business?" I froze in terror as no one has ever asked me that question directly.
Of course I couldn't tell her the real reason, "Well, cause I'm a frickin' scaredy cat and gave into the fear. And now I'm sitting across from a cupcake who has no fear because she still has beginner's mind and less emotional baggage from years of corporate torture, and is creating her own web destiny while I bask in the excuse of "I'm too old" scary monsters." Oh geez!
See how I took a swim in the pity pool. I shouldn't have but ya know what. This week there was just no "super confident, you can do whatever you want" Stephanie around. Nope, all the insecurities came out front and center. And did I overeat, you bet I did. But, I did make myself go to the gym as a compromise to the extra eating. I also did a great deal of introspecting and writing, not to mention "letting go of pain" type crying.
But the week ended on an up note. God answered some of my prayers, and I'll share more of that later. I'll just say for now that I have a really different outlook on things, and am feeling like I'm walking on a cloud. It's amazing how things can change on a dime for the good.
