Week 20 End - Seeking a Sustainable Lifestyle

63.4 lbs. lost to date

This week was a little disappointing. Though I lost 2 lbs. which is my set goal per week, I was hoping for more and didn't see it. I wonder if I am approaching the dreaded "plateau". We will see what the coming week brings.

I have made changes to my program in the interest of creating an ongoing sustainable lifestyle. While we can all lose weight with diet and exercise, I am trying to adopt a new lifestyle that will not only allow me to reach my goal weight, but also maintain it into the future. I find that I cannot maintain a strict regimen of dedicated exercise with my current obligations of work and family. While I enjoy the exercise, finding time that I can dedicate to it's pursuit is difficult. I have been doing it at the expense of other things over the past few months. I think that it was honestly needed to jump start my program, but I now believe that it is necessary to find a more permanent solution to continuing toward my goals. I am hoping that I can go back to working some overtime at work and some other activities that I have put on the back burner and still continue to progress.

I am making efforts to be more active in my everyday life. I try to spend more time out of a chair and standing/walking. I try to choose activities that will add to my daily "activeness" and of course I continue to log my food and count calories. After last weeks disappointing loss of only .4 lbs. I was indeed pleased to see an increase, but was hoping for a bit more. However, it has shown me that I am not "chained" to dedicated exercise periods and can continue to move forward while coming back to some of the things I have neglected over the past several months.

Only the future will prove or disprove my theory here, but, I am making the attempt because I know that for me, the only way to lose this weight and maintain it, it to be able to continue a healthy controlled lifestyle long into the future. I have lost weight many times and once it was a whole lot of weight. The problem was that as soon as "the diet" ended, I fell back into back habits and unhealthy choices. I very much look forward to being "thin" again and this time staying that way. I never want to go back to where I was. The benefits I have seen at a 60 lb.+ loss is just more motivation to get to the place I need to be. I can't begin to express what it feels like to have energy where there was none and be relatively free of pain. It's absolutely amazing.  I can't go back.

Thank to all who have shown support, and thank you for your ongoing encouragement. There are so many times when it seems this road is overwhelming. But, with the support of friends and family, I know I can do this. There's only more great things to come in the future.