Finding the right "mix"

Once again it's been a while since I posted. I definitely meant to post after my jumpstart week but then time just got away from me. The result of that week was a 5.5 lb loss. I was obviously very happy about that. That was more than a month ago now and the bad news is that my weight continues to be about the same as where it was after losing that 5.5 lbs. Not ALL bad, but the fact that in another 5 weeks I basically haven't lost anything is annoying.

Oct 2015

Not annoying because I'm doing everything right and the weight just isn't coming off. No. Annoying because I can't seem to string together more than a few days of being on track. I am trying so hard to find the right mix of healthy eating and indulging to keep my sanity and motivation.

I can't believe 2015 was already 2 years ago because it feels like it was just yesterday. In September 2015 I decided to try yet another way of losing weight and that was by simply tracking what I ate 4-5 days per week and not tracking 2-3 days per week. It was basically be very mindful of calories Mon-Thurs and get to be more lenient Fri-Sun. This post from Oct 1st talked about how my first month doing that worked.  I can still remember it really doing wonders. I never felt deprived because I would just tell myself if I still wanted it over the weekend I could have it. I took all the guilt and stress out of losing weight and in a little over 3 months I was down almost 17 pounds.

Oct 2016

You might be wondering why the heck I didn't just keep doing this after those first 3 months. Yea, me too. It was September when I started so it was December when I fell off the wagon and then struggled to get back on track until well into 2016. I've talked about it several times on this blog, but I seem to have such a hard time from about December to April. I broke that streak this year by getting back on track in February. And, even though I've been "struggling" since hitting my lowest weight on May 1st, I have maintained my weight within 3 pounds of that weight for the past 3 months.

Not only that, but I finally feel like my running is improving. I kept getting frustrated because I wasn't seeing the improvements as quickly as I wanted, but I am definitely starting to see them. I'm finally back to averaging under a 13 minute/mile for the majority of my runs and I am STOKED about that! I was just reading a post from 2016 where I posted about my longest run since 2012. I was SO excited about that 5 miles and didn't even care what the pace was. I don't even remember what intervals I was doing back then, but I think probably 3/2. Fast forward to my 5 mile run with my mom last weekend and we covered the same distance in 13 less minutes doing 3/1 intervals.

So I am back to believing that what I was doing in 2015 really was working. I remember thinking it was the least stressed I had ever been when trying to lose weight. I think I may finally be figuring this all out though. For the first time in a LONG time I can look at my weight from the past 3 years and see that I weighed less in July '15 than July '14; less in July '16 than July '15 and less today than in Aug '16. As much as I would have loved to have been at my goal weight by now, I am moving in the right direction. The key to focus on now is to stop the re-gain that I seem to encounter every year. I have re-gained some this year already, but we're talking 3 pounds. In other years I have gained back either all + more or most of my weight lost.

It's time to get the scale moving in the right direction again so that I can meet my next big goal. And in case you're wondering that next big goal is 199.9 - the elusive ONEderland! I haven't seen onederland since 2011 and even then I only saw it for a few months. My goal is to hit that benchmark before the end of this year.