I haven’t posted in a few weeks, so it’s time to get back in the habit.  Here’s what happened in the meantime:

My husband got back from Iraq, which is what has caused the major upset to my routine.  During the week he got back, I gained about ten pounds!  There were so many people who wanted to take us out to eat, etc. that it was just impossible to stay on a diet.  I weighed myself the following Monday after all of the initial craziness was over, and I had gained nine pounds.  However, I don’t think they were all “fat” because in five days I had lost it all again.  It took a lot of hard work at the gym (40 minutes of elliptical to burn 600 calories a day plus the weights workout with my trainer, plus a very strict caloric intake (2 bars plus HNS for breakfast and lunch, then a normal dinner– about 800-900 calories a day), but I did in fact lose it all.

Then, however, we went to Florida for Spring Break.  We stayed with my aunt, who is a big baker and loves to cook, so I had little control over my food choices, and she of course did lots of baking prior to our arrival, which made it even more difficult to make the right choices, even when they were available.  So, inevitably, I put the ten pounds right back on.

As of today, I weighed 169.5 this morning at home (158.5 is my lowest ever weight at home).  So, my goal is to take all of that back off again this week (once again, I’m assuming it’s not all fat, so it should come off more quickly than “real” weight would).  I’m supposed to start stabilization any time now, but they don’t seem to be too worried about it, so I probably won’t go back in this week and maybe the next so I can get back down where I was before I start stabilization.  I have almost accepted that I won’t be where I want to be before stabilization, so I need to just go ahead and do it and then try to take off more weight on my own afterward.

This summer I will have fewer distractions, but I will also have less structure to my days, which tends to make it more difficult.  So, for now I’m going to concentrate on that ten pounds this week, and then I will reevaluate next weekend.  I plan to start posting regularly again– I think it helps me focus, and this week will be grueling, I know, so I need all the help I can get.

Part of the problem, I think, is that when I go so strict on the diet/exercise, I go crazy that next week when I’m “off” the diet.  Toward the end of this week, my calorie intake really went down, and I think it was just because I got over the initial “I can eat now!  Bring it on!” mentality.  This is really something I need to work on for long term maintenance.

weight at home: 169.5