Weigh in #31

30 weeks of weight loss.  3/5ths of a year (just about) and I am pleased to say I am about 7 pounds shy of 3/5ths to my ideal target.  I did break my plateau this week and got back on track with my weight numbers.  I actually had somebody tell me I should stop losing weight this week because they thought I looked good where I was.  I appreciated the sentiment, but I am not at a healthy or sustainable weight right now.  I found my blood pressure cuff last week and started keeping track of that.  You may remember from when I started the blog that was one of my largest concerns was my blood pressure.  I was considered pre-hypertensive and certainly felt it.  Since January my average blood pressure has gone down about 25 points on the systolic and my diastolic about 20 points.  In fact the diastolic has been excellent in every reading, between 74 and 82.  My resting heart rate has also fallen from near 100 bpm to an average around 72.  Those are huge improvements for my health, but I could still bring that first number in my blood pressure down another 10-20 points and my resting heart rate could be closer to 60 in a perfect world..  I certainly feel the difference, though.  I actually get light headed when I stand up to quickly sometimes.  I imagine that my body isn't really used to a normal blood pressure.  Here are the numbers for this week:

Current Weight: 314.8 lbs
Starting Weight: 440.2 lbs
Weight Loss This Week: 4.8 lbs
Weight Loss Total: 125.4 lbs

Very positive results.  It seems the one week in 4 with poor weight numbers pattern has continued, but the rebound afterward has remained part of the pattern as well.  If you look at the average for my last 8 weeks of weigh loss I have lost 3.1 pounds a week, or just shy of 1% of my current body weight.  That is with three weeks of tight schedules and lazy work from time to time.  That may be the thing I am most pleased with recently.  I have not had time to cook as much as I like.  I have let my good habits with record keeping and calorie tracking slip occasionally.  I have not had the kind of focus on my weight loss I had before, necessarily because of the focus my show is requiring, but it is still an obstacle.  With all of that I am still going in the right direction.  I have shown that I cannot afford to stop doing the little things that got me positive results, but I am making the larger habits, the life changing things, part of my life permanently, and mostly unconsciously.  I know when I haven't eaten enough fruit or veggies in a day, I know when I have overeaten, I know when I need water.  Those signals were lost or ignored before.  It is the struggles of the last couple weeks and the need to rely on unconscious training to get me through that helped me realize that.  I think a learning experience like that is a fair trade for a bad week with weight loss.