Three Weeks To Go...

Haven't posted anything lately... not much news to report.  Weigh-in Monday was so-so for me - 3.8 lbs. But, over the last two weeks, I lost over 12 lbs. on the PHC skinny soup diet, so I can't complain too much. A six-pound-per-week average is pretty good this late in the competition. As I have detailed, I have about 13 lbs. to go to goal. A little more now - I'm up some over the course of this week. I'm on a plateau-breaker for the rest of the weekend. Hopefully it will be enough to get me back down to at least a zero... I really don't want to post a gain this week. I started creeping some carbs back into my diet, and predictably, my weight loss stopped. Actually, it went up, even though I am still not consuming enough calories to cause me to gain. Seems to be some water issues... I was up quite a bit yesterday, but it's come back down some.

 

Today happens to be my 46th birthday... didn't do cake or ice cream... had stir-fry veggies and chicken, and had an apple for dessert. Been a good day - , and my wife, daughter, and son each bought me a gift. I wrote a note to my trainer, telling him that I was celebrating FREEDOM from cake this year. Normally, I would have picked out the cake of my choice, and had some for breakfast with milk, and then as dessert after lunch and supper. There will be a time and place for a small piece of cake, but not before May 14th's final weigh-in.

 

The final weigh-in is three weeks from today. I'm not making any progress towards the goals I have set for myself, but I told Brenda tonight that I'm going to give it my best, and if I fall short, I will still have no regrets. I've changed my life, I've lost nearly 40% of my starting weight, and I've already been able to help others in their journey. If I don't make it all the way to 199, I can be OK with that.

 

Tonight I was walking around in Wal-Mart, getting my 10,000 steps in, and I went by a rack of really cheap suits - the Wal-Mart "George" brand. (I don't know who "George" is - probably some poor soul in Bentonville, Arkansas, home of Wal-Mart.) Anyway, they have always had very limited sizes and quantities of these items, and nothing very large. I walked over, looked at the sizes, and found one that sounded close. It didn't fit extremely well, but that was just the cut of the suit, because it buttoned very easily around my waist.

 

I was thinking tonight about writing a pair of top ten lists, but since I probably can't come up with ten in each category, we'll just do it like this:

 

Things I miss because of ABL:

 

Pizza, hamburgers, milk (large glasses of it, any way), french fries, ketchup (you don't realize how much you depend on it until it's gone!), potatoes, corn, fried cheese of any variety (cheese sticks, cheese wedges). Some of these things may be back eventually, in VERY small quantities on special occasions. Where I went wrong was, the things on this list were pretty much all I ate - the tools that got me to 342 pounds. I will have to learn to eat a BITE, not a BASKETFUL... and some things just will have to be "no way".

 

Things I don't miss, THANKS to ABL:

 

Migraine headaches, high blood pressure, "spare tire", belly rubbing the steering wheel, worrying about exceeding "maximum capacity" on ladders, etc., "plumber's crack", editing myself out of church photo albums because I'm too big, being the only one in the room sweating and out of breath... wow, the list goes on and on!!!

 

If I don't hit my goal... disappointed? Sure. Devastated? NO WAY!!! I appreciate what Charles said on TV - might just take a little longer than the end of the contest to get where I want to be.