It's just less of me to love

Back on November 12th I started a diet. Because of a discount I was able to get through the federal employees union I was in when I worked for the government, I signed up for NutriSystem. The way I figured it, having all foods pre-packaged (except for fruit/vegetable/dairy items you're supposed to add yourself) would be easiest since I'm not exactly one for cooking. I can microwave with the best of them, though. :P

I actually only bought two months' worth of NutriSystem -- the minimum number I needed to get in order to get my discount as well as the extra meals they included each month with two months' worth of orders. (And for the record, overall their food is adequate at best. Some items are decent, some are not very good, and for the love of all that is holy, if you're going to try NutriSystem customize your order and avoid the so-called "beef" patties!) So I'm not eating their food anymore. I'm sort of following their plan, though, eating breakfast/lunch/dinner entrees and morning, afternoon and evening snacks, with my own modifications of having a salad with lunch and dinner and two bananas a day, one with breakfast and one later in the day.

I really never needed NutriSystem, though. What I've learned is something that I pretty much always knew but never applied: if you want to lose weight, don't eat so much. Smaller portions. Don't eat all fatty foods and fast food and such. Drink lots of water. If you drink milk drink nonfat milk. Don't drink lots of soda, especially if it's not diet soda. This is something I never thought I could handle. I've always hated diet soda and anything less than 2 percent milk. But since I started this I've had nothing but nonfat milk and have no soda at all at home -- and if I'm out, it's been almost always diet soda.

It's not like I'm denying myself completely. For Christmas my mom made me a ceramic Santa Claus boot. Inside the boot was a bag of Hershey's Kisses and a bag of M&M's. I just followed the label and ate a few at a time as one of my daily snacks. And if you saw me at Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner or, more recently, my niece's birthday party, you'd never know I was dieting by the way I ate those days. ;-)

Okay, so by now you're probably wondering about my weight. When I started, I weighed 261 lbs., which surprised me because for years I've been pretty much in a range between 265 and 280 or so. As of today, I'm down to 230.8 (it's a digital scale) -- a loss of slightly over 30 lbs. in three months. And I've been dropping at a slow and steady rate. I weigh myself every Monday and my weekly loss has always fallen between 1.4 and 3.4 lbs., except for one week where I gained 0.8 -- that Saturday night I was watching a football game at a sports bar with a friend from out of town, and had a big dinner and a Long Island iced tea. I'm guessing the drink contained a lot of calories. After the first week I only lost 2.8 lbs., and I was a bit let down, actually. I thought I'd lose a lot more in the first week. But it adds up.

I wish I had taken a picture before I started, for a before-and-after comparison. I should try to find and scan a picture of me that was taken many years ago at Disney World...yikes. I used to joke that the baby was due any day now.

I still need to get more exercise, though. I try to get out and walk a bit, and I've hopped on my exercise bike a few times recently (first time in years), but I can do better in that department. Still, I'm happy. I feel like I can lose more -- I don't really have a set target weight, which I think goes against what the experts advise, but I figure the closer I get to 200 the happier I'll be -- and I feel that I can keep it off.