My Starting Weight: ~375 lbs (01/01/2017)
My goal: 220 lbs (This would put me in the obesity stage 1 category)
Milestone: 260 lbs (this would put me below the 40 BMI mark for being morbidly obese or stage 3 obese)
Current Weight: 286.0 lbs 7/11/19
Loss this Week: -1 lbs
Total loss: -89 lbs


What's Working/What Needs Work: well, some of the water weight released. It's amazing how that works - 293 yesterday; 286 this morning. That's a lot of water retention, and my common sense sides says that its no wonder i'm having so much trouble seeing progress if my body is holding onto water like that - 7 lbs?!!!!!

Still, I was down yesterday anyway, so that scale reading yesterday didn't help; seeing that 286 today was a great morale booster. We'll see how this weekend goes; its the first weekend in a long time where I don't have a reunion, cookout, or special holiday or whatever, so I should hopefully be able to stick closer to goal for once and not negate most of my progress during the week.

I finally updated my body measurements this week; its been over a year since the last time I updated them. I had gained back about 25 lbs from my lowest weight in the last 18 months, and my measurements were up by about 1 1/2", though I'm thinking that isn't as bad as it could be; most of the clothes I bought back then still fit, at least.

Back to camper building this weekend--we'll be putting the metal on the sides and roof, so there'll be lots of heavy lifting, up and down ladders, and wielding hammers and drills. I'm just hoping for an overcast day so we won't be out in the sun the whole time!

My Starting Weight: ~375 lbs (01/01/2017)
My goal: 220 lbs (This would put me in the obesity stage 1 category)
Milestone: 260 lbs (this would put me below the 40 BMI mark for being morbidly obese or stage 3 obese)
Current Weight: 285.4 lbs 7/18/19
Loss this Week: -0.6 lbs
Total loss: -89.6 lbs


What's Working/What Needs Work: *sigh* I know I should be content - a loss is a loss, and I did register a loss for the week. But I'm still disappointed and discouraged. I did a re-evaluation last week on what my calorie count ought to be and took an average of about 9 or 10 different calorie calculators to come up with what my calorie limit ought to be, which in turn dropped it another 50 calories down to 1450. I'm trying to lose 2 lbs a week, and for a 285 lb mostly sedentary person, that should have been 1000 calories off a week. I know I over ate on Saturday and some on Sunday, but I was also extremely active, working out in the sun both those days. And I stayed under my calorie goal the rest of the week, only counting back a small fraction of my work calories on Tuesday after working hard all day Monday and all evening on Tuesday. So its really discouraging to only see a 0.5 lb loss when I should have been seeing at least 3 times that! I know that even when I go over on Saturday and Sunday, it's not over to the tune of 5,000 calories, when I'm working form a 1,000 deficit a day - there is no way I'm over-eating enough in 2 days to wipe out an entire week's deficit!

I know - the heat index is high, the humidity is up, I know I'm retaining water because I feel puffy, and I've also been putting my muscles through a workout this week, but it seems that I have permanent water retention as this is the same pattern every week! I've been so good the last few weeks - even weighing everything, but I'm still feeling really disappointing in the results of my efforts.

I'm also perpetually stressed which leads to a struggle with low mood and depression, which isn't helping - and not having much success on the scale just makes my frustration worse.

*sigh* all I can do is keep going on. I finally updated my measurements last week; in a month, I'll measure again. Hopefully I'll see results there even if the scale is being stubborn, though I'm not sure how much results I'll actually see if any from measurements if I'm dealing with water retention making me puffy.

I'm also thinking of trying a suggestion I saw on I think it was physionomic's website: he suggested taking your weight daily and then average them all at the end of the week to supposedly help smooth out the water weight bounce. I think I might try that starting tomorrow and see if it gives me any better looking results. I suppose it can't hurt, anyway!

Meanwhile, I'll just have to try to do better on the weekends, I guess. It's easier during the week as I'm working most of the day and its easier to stay structured. But on the weekends, my schedule is off, I eat with the family and not on my own, and I tend to be more active which in turn makes me hungrier, which makes it difficult to stay under budget.

I gained back about 25 lbs or so in the last 18 months, so I can't even consider anything to be progress until I get back down to 270 lbs, and with the way things are going now, I'll be lucky to be back there by New Years!

My Starting Weight: ~375 lbs (01/01/2017)
My goal: 220 lbs (This would put me in the obesity stage 1 category)
Milestone: 260 lbs (this would put me below the 40 BMI mark for being morbidly obese or stage 3 obese)
Current Weight: 285.3 lbs 8/8/19
Loss this Week: +1.4 lbs
Total loss: -89.7 lbs


What's Working/What Needs Work: I knew I'd be up coming off a vacation, despite all the walking, biking, and swimming I did during my camping trip. We came back on Friday, but I wasn't able to get myself back on track, overeating all weekend, and even the last couple of days I've been under maintenance but not under my 1,000 deficit.

I also took my measurements this morning and compared them to last month - absolutely no change, either up or down; I had the exact same measurements. So now I'm wondering if I've actually managed to lose anything at all in the last month or if all I'm doing is shifting around water. My deficit is set to 1,450 calories which is 70 calories UNDER what the MFP calculator says I should be eating at my current weight to lose 2 lbs/week for a sedentary person. I understand that the number MFP gives is an estimate as a person's calorie burn is very relative, but I also know that the difference from person to person is within a few hundred calories and that we can't actually break our metabolism. Even that infamous steady done on the Biggest Loser's showed at maximum something in the neighborhood of a 300-400 calorie difference if I'm remembering correctly, and I'm thinking as well that there were extenuating circumstances for this number and extreme limitations on that study (meaning we shouldn't be taking hard stances on it).

I weigh my food and I've learned to be overly generous when choosing my data entries. I double check as best I can with the USDA website. I know that as soon as you mention on here that you can't understand why you are plateaued and not losing, the immediate answer is that you're eating too much, but I just can't see how I could possibly be taking in maintenance level foods or higher when I'm shooting for a nearly 1100 calorie deficit and am trying to weigh everything and be diligent about it. I'm not talking about last week, either, as I know I was over last week; what I can't understand is why after a whole month, my measurements have not budged at all!

*sigh* I've got to be eating too much I guess, but until I can figure out where I'm getting it from and how to rein it in, I don't know really how to progress. All I can do, I suppose is try to get myself back on track and see how we do next month on measurements.

The hardest thing I'm facing now is that the mental hunger drive is creeping back up. I tried to fast on Monday with no success; I was starving and couldn't strong-will my willpower to ride through it. I may try again tomorrow. I've thought about going to the state fair on Saturday, but if I do, that one day will probably blow my entire week and not because I'll go in there and eat all the time, either. We'll see.

I suppose there is a little good news: the results today didn't send me into a depression spiral like they probably should have; I'm relatively emotionally numb right now, for good or ill.

I am going to contact my Dr. this morning though. She has me on Wellbutrin for weight loss. Right now I'm at the middle dose level; however, I've seen absolutely no effects since I started it last fall or since she upped my dose in the winter - no effects on my weight loss or my mood. So I don't know if we should try increasing it one more time or just forget it all together; that will be my discussion with the Dr. We were trying to replicate the results of Contrave without actually using contrave, but I seem to have a high tolerance against medication.....

My Starting Weight: ~375 lbs (01/01/2017)
My goal: 220 lbs (This would put me in the obesity stage 1 category)
Milestone: 260 lbs (this would put me below the 40 BMI mark for being morbidly obese or stage 3 obese)
Current Weight: 280.5 lbs 8/22/19
Loss this Week: -3.9 lbs
Total loss: -94.5 lbs


What's Working/What Needs Work: well, for once I'm ecstatic! Part of that, of course, is that TOM is now over, so the water I was holding for that let go, but even still, I'm very happy with these results! My intake of food was up this week, so I wasn't expecting too much, though the scale was dropping, but my activity was way up the last few days because of yard work and canning tomatoes.

So here's hoping that next week, I'll be seeing the 270's again!

My Starting Weight: ~375 lbs (01/01/2017)
My goal: 220 lbs (This would put me in the obesity stage 1 category)
Milestone: 260 lbs (this would put me below the 40 BMI mark for being morbidly obese or stage 3 obese)
Current Weight: 284.1 lbs 8/29/19
Loss this Week: +3.6 lbs
Total loss: -90.9 lbs


What's Working/What Needs Work: well, 3 steps forward, 3 steps back this week. However, I know that isn't all true weight gain. The bottom fell out 2 weeks ago, starting when my best friend called asking for a place to stay after her apartment building caught on fire. Last Thursday, I went to her place to help get started on moving. She lives about 2 hours away from me, so I was home very late that night. I went to work the next day, then on Saturday went back to get all the stuff that needs washed since she doesn't have a washer, everything she has had to be washed, and the local laundry mat charges $7.25 just to wash!

I ended up being there very late again because she ended up in the hospital, and is still there now. So I came home late on Saturday night, did my cooking for church homecoming the next morning, went to services to play the piano, then went back down to where my friend lives to visit her in the hospital. I got a hotel room and spent all day Monday packing her stuff and moving it to her new 2nd floor apartment by myself. Thankfully, she doesn't have a lot of furniture! I still made countless trips up and down those stairs.

Tuesday I was on my feet all day long cleaning the new apartment as it was filthy, so I was washing walls and ceilings, wiping out cabinets, etc, while also moving in another load of boxes and working with the utility guys to get the utilities on. I had a time getting to sleep that night because of how my legs were just aching.

Yesterday was spent partly on the road and then in the DMV office because while staying in a hotel while trying to secure a new place to live (she had to call the attorney general to get the management company to offer her another apartment in a different location), someone cut the registration sticker off her license plate - just cut the whole corner of the license plate out! So, since she's in the hospital, I had to file the police report, go to the sherriff's office to pick it up, then go to the DMV to get the new plate. After all that, I worked at the new place a little longer and then went home, arriving at my house after 11, only to be up by 6 this morning so I could come into work.

So all in all, I'm tired and sore and I know that my weight is up because 1) all that hard work has me swelled and 2) since I was staying in a hotel, I was eating out for the last 3 days and there aren't many options there besides fast food and I was trying to minimize costs.

So I'm not actually upset to see the scale rise. It is what it is; all I can do is try to get it back under control this week, though we'll see how that does since I've got to get my own basic house chores done, my grass mowed, my own laundry done, the rest of her laundry done, and head back down to her place this weekend to try to finish getting it ready and to take a load of her stuff down to her. Not to mention hopefully being able to pick her up this weekend if she can get them to discharge her.

Hopefully by next Thursday, things will have evened out!

My Starting Weight: ~375 lbs (01/01/2017)
My goal: 220 lbs (This would put me in the obesity stage 1 category)
Milestone: 260 lbs (this would put me below the 40 BMI mark for being morbidly obese or stage 3 obese)
Current Weight: 281.4 lbs 9/05/19
Loss this Week: -2.7 lbs
Total loss: -93.6 lbs


What's Working/What Needs Work: Funny how the last two digits just reversed themselves comparing last week's weight to this week's! lol

Anyway, I'm glad to see the scale trending in the right direction again, especially as I was still not eating well into Monday. Friday night when I picked the friend up from the hospital, she wanted pizza, so I blew past my limit as I wasn't expecting something like that and had already used up most of my calories for the day. The next day, Saturday, I finished washing walls down in her new apartment, so I had lots of activity, but she had brought cheesy bread sticks home and I ended up eating all 5 of them, not to mention other snacks. So I definitely went over that day too. Sunday was family dinner and not much better - I couldn't stay out of the bread pudding! And Monday I took the friend back to her apartment. It started that morning with her request for blueberry pancakes and went downhill from there, ending with dinner at Cracker Barrel, and while I did order the catfish grilled plain and had carrots and plain hash-brown casserole, I of course ate 2 biscuits, which was well over limit by the time you factor in my lunch and the slider from Arby's.

Tuesday and Wednesday were much better as I was back home and back in my routine. I went a little over both days, but that was me trying to get my protein in, and it wasn't much over so I wasn't too concerned. I'm on track today to be under limit, but even if I trend a little over, I'm not too worried since I have a 1,000 calorie deficit and plan to get some yard work done this evening when I go home. I planted my potatoes in a tower and its time to take the tower apart and see if it worked, and that will require moving dirt around

So I'm okay right now. In fact, I just took my body measurements and while my bust and muffin top (what I call my "high waist") measurements hadn't changed, I've lost a full inch off my regular waist and my hips! The scale may not be cooperating with me, but the measuring tape has made me very happy! lol

Hopefully things will even out now. The friend is in her new apartment and so far, the only crisis that has hit her this week is having trouble getting the cable company to set up her internet. I'm really praying hard that things stay calm for her as she has a very long and difficult recovery ahead of her - and I know she's going to make it even harder because she pushes herself too far, insisting that she has to fix everything right now and will not work with her body. *sigh*

I'm still hoping that I'll be seeing 27- next week instead of 28-, and that I can be down in the low 270's at least by the end of October when I see my PCP again. It would be nice to be back over 100 lbs lost!

My Starting Weight: ~375 lbs (01/01/2017)
My goal: 220 lbs (This would put me in the obesity stage 1 category)
Milestone: 260 lbs (this would put me below the 40 BMI mark for being morbidly obese or stage 3 obese)
Current Weight: 279.1 lbs 9/12/19
Loss this Week: -2.3 lbs
Total loss: -95.9 lbs


What's Working/What Needs Work:*rubs eyes* I doubled checked this weight this morning because I never expected to be that low. Let me say I'm one very happy camper this morning!

As usual, the weekends fall apart for me, though my activity goes up which seems to be mitigating some of that. TOM is here this week which of course leads to water weight gain, munchies, and some emotional fall out, though the last two were milder than usual this time around, thank goodness. But I haven't been sleeping real well and getting only maybe 4 hours of decent sleep the last few nights, so that, coupled with a general blah feeling has had me low on energy in the evenings, and all I've really done the last 3 evenings is sit and read after dinner. It's too hot and way too dry right now to do much of anything outside, especially mowing grass. And I don't have air conditioning so I've been giving in to the general urge to just sit in front of a fan when I can *crooked grin*

So I really didn't expect to see much of a loss this week at all as I only managed to be at a deficit 3 days this week.

We'll see how things go this coming week; the friend is up for a few days, and you know how things tend to go when you have house guests. At the very least, Saturday is near and I don't have anywhere I really need to be, so I can turn that alarm off and catch up with my sleep!

My Starting Weight: ~375 lbs (01/01/2017)
My goal: 220 lbs (This would put me in the obesity stage 1 category)
Milestone: 260 lbs (this would put me below the 40 BMI mark for being morbidly obese or stage 3 obese)
Current Weight: 284.5 lbs 9/19/19
Loss this Week: +5.4 lbs
Total loss: -90.5 lbs


What's Working/What Needs Work: well, one step forward 5 steps backward this week. However, I also know that I most definitely did not over eat to the tune of a 5 lb gain in one week, so I'm obviously retaining water. I had a guest all week and that of course led to a lot of out to eating plus not a whole lot of activity as we spent most of our time either talking or driving somewhere. Though I can't sit still and talk so I do a lot of fidgeting, but still, not a huge amount of activity. Plus I do freely admit I went over my calorie limit every day this week and was probably over maintenance 4 of those days - as you can tell, I don't do well when in the company of other people!

But the house guest went home yesterday so that means I can get back on track today. I'm still hoping I might be able to get back down to 275 by 10/7; we'll see.

On the flip side, I see 2 doctors in the next 3 weeks; my endocrinologist and my regular PCP. Both doctors ordered blood work panels. My blood sugar, cholesterol levels, etc were all in the normal range and many had even improved from last year. However, what has me really confused is that my TSH has made a huge jump in the last year - going from 2.4 to 8.8! I've been taking the same medication level for the last year AND I'm on the name brand due to an allergic reaction to one of the generics, so I'm very glad I see the endo next week as I can't figure why my TSH has gone up so much. I know the previous measurement was taken with one lab while the other was taken at another, but still, that big of a jump is way more than can be explained by differences in the two labs. So I'm a little concerned right now, especially since I had my thyroid removed in 2014 because of thyroid cancer and while I've been cancer free since and all the tests that have been done since then to monitor me have all come back excellent and my doctor told me I was in the bottom percentile for any chance of re-occurrence, meaning the chances of me having cancer again is extremely low, it is still concerning to see this huge of an increase over the course of a year - why has the medication seemed to stop working?

Meanwhile, a TSH value of 8.8 is deeply into the hypothyroid range, so that also explains why I've been struggling with fatigue all summer and why I've had such a hard time in the last year losing any weight. With a TSH value that high, I'm really surprised I've managed to get those 15 lbs off this summer at all!