Finally broke the 200 barrier!

Today was the day--and a surprise at that. 199.8!

I had actually planned on getting to 190 by my birthday (Monday), but I suffered some setbacks in August that slowed my progress way down. First, I fell outside while running and injured my hip which led to a hamstring injury that curtailed my running (and which persists to this day). I could still do the stairmaster and cross trainer, but they are not nearly as effective (for me). My avg exercise calories per week went from 6,000 to 3,000.

I also went to see a dietitian in August for some advice on the next stage of my program. She recommended increasing my calories from about 1700-1800 a day to 2200-2300 per day. It's weird, but I found it a lot easier to *decrease* my calories than to increase them. It's like I had a certain amount of food for the day "calibrated" in my head. When I tried to increase, I just started overeating. I also got a little lazy about counting my calories and measuring food.

And lastly--and we have talked about this before--after having lost 53 pounds, I was getting so many compliments--"oh, you look great, you don't need to do any more"--I have to admit I lost a little motivation. I stopped weighing myself and started to fall back into some late snacking habits.

So I stayed in a range of 203 (my low weight) to 206 for the past 8 weeks. I did push the weights a little more during that time and I think it helped because, although my weight did not change, I did lose another inch from my waist.

A couple of weeks ago I just became remotivated. Part of it was breaking some snacking habits, partly it was going to a doctor's office where they not only weighed me with clothes at 206, but measured my waist and discovered that I had actaully lost another inch since August. I realized I had not slipped back like I had thought and that was enough.

I haven't gone back to being as regimented as before, but I did tighten up the routine. A big test came on my birthday when I avoided going out to dinner, getting a cake, etc (actually, that was very depressing, but I like the results).

I do think that the farther along you get in your program and closer to your goal, the more important strength training and focused workouts become to helping achieve success.