Week 19 End - A Different Kind of Success

Week 19 saw a very small loss, and in the interest of full disclosure, I will  admit that I put off my weigh in for 24 hours because I woke up on Saturday morning with some fluid retention (swollen hands and feet). I only dropped .4 lbs. This occurs from time to time and is often a result of sodium intake. I have been trying to watch, but I have a real weakness for pickles and on Friday I had a generous helping of sauerkraut which is of course a LOT of sodium. I drink a lot of water every day, usually in excess of 1 gallon, so there are times when my tissues hold a lot of extra water weight.

While the weight loss was minimal, I received the results from my bloodwork, and I have to say, I was absolutely thrilled with the progress there! My A1c is now down to 6.1 from a high last year of 8.5, my blood pressure was "outstanding" according to my doctor, and my combined cholesterol was down to 209 from 253 in January. Those are the kind of numbers I wanted to see. While still not ideal, it is amazing results for a 4 month period of time.  The scale is a big thing since my goals are centered around continued weight loss, but the whole purpose of this journey is to reclaim my health and this is a great move forward regardless of what the scale says.

The week was a bit different in the fact that I only got out to walk a couple of times. I was worried that it might be an issue, but I think it was fine. I definitely had to be much more diligent about my meals and calorie intake, but it's good to know that I can continue to move forward even when circumstances interrupt my routine. I do not blame the small weight loss so much on the reduced exercise. I believe it to be more the natural ups and downs of this process. After my last "bad week" I posted a huge loss the following one. So it's not time to panic.

I have devised a plan for when I do hit a plateau. If my loss in very small or non-existent next week, I may try it out. My idea is to step up to a maintenance level of eating for a week or two to sort of reset my body's metabolism. When I say "maintenance level" I mean eating the full calorie intake that allows me to stay at my current weight. At this point that would be about 3500 calories a day, about 1500 more than I am doing now. I think we can sometimes get stuck and need to shock our systems into moving forward again. I think if I eat just to maintain for a week or two, then drop back to loss calories again, it should jump start things. Of course I will wait to see what the coming weigh in will bring. I don't want to stop the forward progress if it is still occurring.

I know this posting comes very late. Tomorrow is weigh in for week 20 and I'm just getting around to publishing last week's post. I will try to do better going forward in posting in a timely fashion. Thanks for the continued support and encouragement.