Thanks Stephanie!

Down another 2.4 to 241.4 for July 1 weigh in. I have no complaining today. Last weekend was the anniversary of something very hard for me, and I'm sorry to say I gave into my emotions and ended up going off plan. Friday night after work I was just tired and upset and my daughter wanted Chick-Fil-A for dinner and I just decided to give myself the weekend off. Those fries tasted fantastic.

Saturday we were out most of the day and we ended up going to our favorite Japanese restaurant. Most of what I ate wasn't too terrible and probably close to keto, but the rice was obviously not even remotely low card.

Sunday was the actual anniversary and my sister had my niece's birthday party that day as well. The combination of having party foods all around me while trying to keep everyone from seeing my emotions was just plain bad and I definitely binged.

I went to bed Sunday night feeling disgusting and telling myself I was going to stop acting like an idiot when I got up the next day. I did. I woke up and decided to start intermittent fasting. I did it almost naturally years ago, including when I was able to get down to the 180's and I've read a lot on the benefits of incorporating it into Keto. I stuck to plan all week, undid the damage from the weekend and feel good about getting out of that slump effectively and quickly.

So July 15th I'm off on my long weekend trip with my best friend to Vegas. I am not going to be at the weight I was hoping for when we planned the trip months ago, but I will weight less than I do today, less than I did a month ago and less than I did the first day of the year. I'm just going to keep going, stay on plan to the best of my ability and be happy with every small success. I've made it through over half the year with no major set backs. I am not where I wanted to be at this point, but I have managed to lose and keep off a decent amount of weight. I haven't been able to do that often in life so I'm happy and proud of myself for making some real progress this year.

You're always hearing doctors recommend losing between 1-2lbs a week. When you have a lot of weight to lose you don't want to hear that and you don't want it to be the reality. But you also hear and see a lot that people that lose quick end up just gaining it back. I'm trying to keep in mind that maybe losing weight slow is a good thing because it's less about the numbers and more about changing your mind set about your body and food. Losing slower leaves room for mistakes and adjusting when needed. Being obsessed with the scale is nothing but bad. When you have an expectation that isn't met, the emotional disappointment is the easy way to lose focus or give up. I definitely think it was a good idea to stay off the scale more and only weight 2 times a month. It leaves room for natural weight fluctuations to even out. Tomorrow I might actually weigh 2 lbs more or 2 lbs less due to whatever the heck is going on internally, but I get to avoid the emotions by not stepping on the scale at all and that definitely is freeing.

Ok, done rambling for the day. Things to do, weight to lose. ;)

I'm not gone! Shesh it's been a month. Ok, so to get caught up. The week before my trip to Vegas I had a ragging, awful hormonal TOM. I was leaving for my trip soon so I was just like F it and went off plan a few days early. I didn't go absolutely crazy but I knew the scale would go up on the 15th so I just decided to skip it.

My trip was okay. Saturday afternoon when I get to the airport I find out the flight is delayed and with the new time it looked like it would be tight to make my connection and while I'm sitting there trying to make up my mind I get another notification that the flight is delayed again. UGH. So I went up and had to rebook a flight for Sunday morning. I was REALLY bummed because my friend and I coordinated our flights so we'd meet at our connections and be able to flight to Vegas together. The second flight actually ended up being delayed as well but when I checked the flight status my first flight still didn't land until 15 minutes until after it had taken off. Good call or I would have been stuck in the connection overnight.

I actually didn't eat bad at all while we were in Vegas. Since I got there late I was really only there for 2 days. We were so busy that we ended up only sitting down for 2 meals. I didn't over eat at either of them and the rest of the time I basically ran off small snacks and coffee. :) It was way too short but we had a good time.

The real trouble was when I got back home. I took off the rest of the week because my brother and his kids were down to visit. My mom always stocks her house with garbage when they come to visit and she cooks a lot of the meals we all love that are super indulgent and carb loaded. By the end of the week I actually felt disgusting and was looking forward to going back to my low carb.

I got on the scale Monday the 24th for the first time since the 1st and wasn't surprised to see it had jumped up to 250.6. I was actually pretty glad it wasn't more. I knew most was water weight and would come off quickly the first week back low carb. 242 this morning doesn't get me lower than my 7/1 weighin, but it was really good progress after my vacation week.

Making a few changes. First I'm not doing the by monthly weighins right now. I think that might have ended up back firing on me. When I would mess up I'd tell myself "Oh well you have 1.5 weeks to get back on track, it's fine." And repeat. In the long run it wasn't doing what I wanted it to by staying off the scale. So right now I'm doing daily weighins, might go back to weekly or longer at some point, but right now with getting back on track I need the accountability. I'm not going to log them here, I'm doing that in other group threads. I'll still post my updates here on the 1st and 15th every month.

I set a weight loss goal for the end of 2017 of 175. I have a long way to go, but right now I feel really committed and good and I'm going to try like he!! to stay focused and make some real progress for the rest of the year.

I started strength training back up on Sunday. I'm going to also really try to commit to staying active. I know it isn't necessary to exercise for weight loss, but I also want to start shaping my body into what I want. I've had years of researching muscle tone and sagging skin and I don't want to lose all the weight and still have a doughy, sagging skinned mess. I want to get those things changing now as well. Right now I'm going to focus on strength training only. Later on I'll likely get some cardio going again. I took measurements and photos (depressing) this morning and I'm going to start doing so on the 1st of every month. With Keto they strongly suggest doing this because so many people see changes in their bodies that aren't reflected on the scale. I really hope to start seeing the progress more soon.

So that's where I am! Back on track (again) and hoping to stay that way for the long haul this time!