I promised myself I would make a real effort to control my eating for two weeks, and then reassess. The key factor for me was to keep the stress of dieting to a bare minimum.

Well, my two weeks are up, and I need to decide what to do next.

How’ve the two weeks gone? I have been good about keeping a food diary. I have been trying to eat lots of fruits & vegetables. I have been drinking lots of water. Basically, I’ve done what I’d hoped to do — I am starting to re-build the healthy diet habits that will be necessary for me to lose weight. I don’t know that I’ve cut back enough to actually lose weight, but I’ve stopped gaining, and that’s a major step in the right direction.

I haven’t been so good on the weekends. The first weekend we were away for a romantic getaway, the second we had houseguests and a big wine-tasting dinner party, plus a brunch. I did better the second weekend, but not enough to lose weight. There is room for improvement on the weekends, but I’m not trying to be perfect here, I’m just trying to be better than I had been in the weeks and months before coming back…

Starting back, I also told myself it would be nice if I could exercise (walk) twice a week, but that if that was too much, I’d work it in later. I’ve exceeded the walking goal both weeks, and it’s actually been one of the highlights of my day a few times.

I decided to do this without a scale for a while. I know I weighed 202 on Oct 14th. I don’t think I’ve lost much weight since then (good weeks, but not so good the weekends). My body is still pretty messed up from the miscarriage and pregnancy hormones, and I am bloated and still not fitting into my clothes. Since right now I feel pretty motivated to keep going on this path, and I feel like the scale won’t add to that, I’ve decided that it’ll stay in the closet a while longer.

So, at the end of two weeks what will I do? I’ve decided I’ll do the following :

1) Keep on the same food plan (food diary, low starchy carbs, some cooking, and lots of water, fruit & veg)

2) Keep to exercising 2x a week but making it a formal goal now

3) Continue working w Dr Hope and maybe begin to work on a “prepare to lose” series of reflections & posts on this blog (I don’t want the two to conflict, however, so for the time being we’ll prioritize Dr Hope).

The key for me is still to keep it low-stress. I’m guessing this approach will keep me gently moving on my way through the holidays, and I will re-assess again sometime in January. Maybe I’ll be ready to have a real “weight loss” approach then.