I'm only 90% the woman I used to be!

Yay! Last night I finally reached my 10% weight loss goal. It took a little longer than I'd hoped to get there but I GOT THERE!!

Last week, after a 1.2 gain, I was hoping I would at least have lost that plus the 0.9 that would get me to my 10%. As I stepped on the scale, I told the receptionist, "Well, here's hoping that I at least get to my 10% goal." And she looked up at me and said, "Well, you did that plus some!" The scale showed that I'd dropped 6 pounds! That brings me to a total loss of 43.6!

I certainly didn't expect that, but it certainly was nice after a month and a half of yo-yo'ing. I was hoping to have lost 50 by Labor Day, but that didn't happen either. But that's OK....I'm still losing!

I hope that after such a big loss I don't start with the yo-yo'ing again. I'm not quite sure what I did right this past week - I did make sure to drink my water, tried to plan ahead and track ahead (I think that helped a LOT, I have noticed that on weeks that I was lax in my tracking is when I do my worst at weigh-in) and stick to what I tracked. Tal and I also did a good bit of walking last week.

I have been working really hard this week on my portion control. I also have started doing the "eat 1/2 and then see how I feel before I clean the plate" thing. That seems to be really working for me. For example, the elder Mrs. Gleck made spaghetti for supper Saturday evening. I did dish myself up a rather large plate of it, but then I only ate half. I also had a pretty big salad with Newman's Own lowfat Sesame and Ginger dressing. I did eat almost all the salad. But never fear, the remaining spaghetti did not go to waste - we had a very big and happy pup on our hands afterwards (Smokey - Tal's canine "brother").

And on Sunday, Tal and I stopped at Cracker Barrel on the way home from his parents' house this past weekend. I had the grilled chicken tenderloins with mashed potatoes and some white gravy on the side, baby carrots, corn, 2 corn muffins, and 2 biscuits with butter and apple butter. And I washed it down with some unsweet raspberry tea. I decided I would eat half of everything, and I did. Then I boxed up the rest and had it for breakfast (biscuit and apple butter w/ an orange) and lunch (the remaining half of the chicken, potatoes, corn, carrots, and corn muffin).

I did the same thing Monday night, only eating half of my meal and boxing the rest for lunch the next day. Tal is not practicing this method but then again he really doesn't have to because his method seems to be working well for him! :-)

Speaking of Tal and his weight loss - he and I did something rather unconventional last week in order to solve a problem that he had recently developed. Our wedding bands are the same type, and so I had an idea for us to exchange bands since mine was a couple sizes smaller than his and I have the engagement ring to hold the band in place. And so we did. As Tal stated, he has not removed his wedding band since the day we were married. I can't make that claim, as I have had a few surgeries that required me to remove all jewelry - and as a woman I am also known to slather hand cream on and don't want to get the rings all goopy with lotion. Tal has stated that the only time he would allow his ring to be removed, it would be removed by me and replaced by me. And so, upon exchanging our rings, we did so rather ceremoniously. I removed his ring and he removed mine and I placed my band on his hand and he placed his on mine. And so they will stay until both of us start having trouble keeping the rings on.....THEN we will take them to be re-sized. :-)

Next mini-goal: 1.4 pounds for next week. That will take me to 45 pounds removed!