52 Days......

52 Days.......seems easy enough, right?

Not 52 weeks. Not 52  years. 52 DAYS.

I have decided to embark on a new challenge. Back in February I was making new goals/challenges for myself each month. I did pretty well with that for a while and my weight was steadily dropping from February to May. My weight has not moved since May. That's not totally true. My weight has moved up, then down, then up, then back down.....you get the idea. It's been GREAT that I've been basically maintaining my weight; but I'm not at a point yet where maintaining my weight is a good thing.

I've posted a lot about trying to find the right mix to get the scale going back in the right direction. I still haven't found that right mix. I'm trying to do things I know worked in the past, but they aren't working now. Well; I'M not working them now. Tracking during the week and being more lenient on the weekends is fine if 1) I'm actually restricting my calories enough during the week and 2) am not going totally crazy during the weekend. In September when I was trying to do this again I was eating over 2,000 calories most days during the week (because I was still "in the green" in MFP) and then going totally crazy on the weekends.

Sigh.....

It was time for some more soul searching and for a decision to be made. It was then that I decided to challenge myself to 2 things for the next 52 days (from October 2nd to November 22nd):

1. NO WINE

2. Track and stay within MFP calories EVERY DAY. 

That's it. Two things that should be easy enough, right? But, of course, if they were that easy it wouldn't be such a damn struggle all the time. Staying within MFP calories amounts to keeping my calories at 1300 NET each day. This is actually not a hard thing to do MOST days. Most days I earn so many extra calories from activity that I can eat 2300 and still have calories remaining. The days that I don't exercise will be MUCH trickier to stay in my calorie range. 

Again I am not going to put pressure on myself as to where those calories come from. I do believe that if I track and keep my calories in the MFP range EVERY day for 52 days I WILL lose weight. Of course I just re-read my blog post from Feb 1st where I talked about how my calories were within my range most days in January but I still gained weight. So I am once again feeling uncertain about my goals and whether or not I need to just suck it up and restrict myself more. 

Looking at things from January more closely though I see that I had my NET calories set at 1660 instead of 1300 so that should make a difference right there. Regardless; tracking EVERY day and staying in MFP calorie range has got to do something positive. 

So 52 days. Today is day 2 and so far so good. I will weigh in each week to check my progress. I am going to make Thursdays my weigh in day since day 52 is a Wednesday so that means my "final" (for this challenge) weigh in will be on Thanksgiving Day. I have a goal in mind for that weigh in, but I don't think it is a realistic goal and frankly, as long as the scale goes lower than it was on May 1st I'll be content. I will pick a more realistic weight goal range for that weigh in when I weigh in on Thursday morning. 

I am also toying with the idea of blogging every day during this challenge to help keep me accountable and on track. So get ready for more posts!