Day 33

Sunday Rundown:

Weight: 209 lbs

Weight lost this week: 6 lbs
Total weight lost: 28 lbs

Bust: 43" (1" lost since last week, 3 7/8" lost total)
Waist: 38 1/4" (1 1/4" lost since last week, 2 1/4" lost total)
Hips: 50" (1/4" lost since last week, 2 7/8" lost total)

Holy crap, guys. Holy crap. Six pounds. I am psyched! I thought I'd had kind of an off week, I figured I might've lost like two pounds or so. I'm so floored, and relieved as well - I was worrying I might fall just short of my HFFC goal of 200 or less by the end of the eight weeks, but now? No doubt in my mind I'll make it.

I slept pretty well, considering that we had an Oklahoma-worthy storm going on all night. I actually woke up like an hour before my alarm went off, so I got to do some early-morning gaming. Got a cardio and some strength training in before lunch (which I didn't really eat, damn anti-inflammatory pill ...). I got to hit my yoga class, too, which was much-needed; I missed it Friday for the lake, so it felt really good to stretch out.

Food situation's odd, but I've pinpointed why - I have an appetite at breakfast and dinner because I don't take the stupid anti-inflammatory pill until after breakfast and dinner. Thus, it's lunch that gets totally skewed by my stomach's reaction to it. Granted, I'm still losing weight, but missing meals is not good regardless! And I have to take the stupid pill for FOUR MORE WEEKS ... like right on past the end of HFFC. The pills will follow me to Norman. Damn.

It really feels good to have dropped the kind of weight I have; the handful of shirts I brought get baggier all the time, and my jeans sit so low on my hips that the cuffs are getting grass-stained from dragging the ground. I'm sleeping so much better, I'm feeling healthier (most of the time, anyway), and I'm getting seriously addicted to the workouts. Even when I go on my own, unsupervised, and can choose between a good hard workout or an hour in the hot tub, I end up doing a long hard cardio and perhaps dipping my feet in the hot tub before I head home.

It really is incredible how big a difference the right mindset makes. I mean, we've been grappling with my steady weight gain for over ten years. We've tried normal diets, supplement diets, Weight Watchers, exercise, personal trainers, and even a hypnotist; none of them worked. I was promised various rewards for making the effort to take care of myself; no dice. I'm not reward-motivated. I had to want this, and pursue this on my own impetus for no other reward than self-improvement. 

Thank God it worked; I feel like I was approaching a tipping point, and that before too long I would've been on a downhill slope I couldn't have pulled back from. It makes me think of a line from the Day the Earth Stood Still remake: "... it's only on the brink that people find the will to change. Only at the precipice do we change." If I wasn't at the precipice, I was pretty damn close; I'm lucky to have changed when I did.

Tomorrow, we dive back into new recipes - we're running out of time for me to try new things, so no more falling back on the quick and familiar. Nothing too heinous, I hope, but there's no telling some days (eggplant ...). Wish me luck!