It works!

189andFalling

If you're an accountant think of it as compound interest . Eat clean for a year, throw in some exercise, and I reckon you'll get there quicker than you think!

Aliciaaah

Also a couple of suggestions in looking ate your food diary...

1) are you drinking water and just not logging it? If you aren't drinking you should be trying to get a minimum of 64 ounces a day.

2) You could work to lower your sodium intake, which would also help with water retention.

Just a couple of thoughts.

I do (usually) drink tons of water! Well over the recommended 64 oz. And I also eat a lot of fruits and veggies that contain a lot of water. My sodium is definitely crazy some days. Part of this is from those days that I do add something processed to my meal. (For example, I made a stew-like casserole and put some puff pastry on top - killer!) That ALWAYS pushes me over the edge.

Another part is that the last two nights I ate out. (which, while bad for me, I view it as a challenge because I failed my first few night eating out and totally ate regular. Now I'm much more careful, and stay under my calorie goal). Most of the restaurants I eat out at aren't in the database, and there's no information on them, so I try to pull up comparable meals and restaurants. So the things I ate weren't necessarily what was on my diary. In these cases I ALWAYS try to overestimate because you never really know.

Also, in regards to having a couple hundred calories I could cut out, that's what I meant when I said that I overestimate food and underestimate exercise. Also, I don't always eat my exercise calories back. I do all of this because I know I have room to lose more than one pound a week. However, I don't want to feel like a failure if I go over my goal, so I keep it moderate. On a weekly basis though, I'm always quite a few hundred calories under my goal.

Thanks for all the support guys! It really helps hearing that you're doing well, and also what you could do better. Sodium is a killer! I'm just glad it hasn't affected anything - yet. I'll continue cutting it and drinking tons of water!