A Shout-Out to Sheryl at *Bitch Cakes*

This is a great entry on rebounding from missteps and lapses by one of my favorite weight-loss bloggers, Sheryl at *Bitch Cakes*. Check it out!

Bitch Cakes: How Do You Recover from Tough Times?

Lost Territory Regained

Lake Mileage: 9k
MP3 Player: Madonna, The Immaculate Collection
Currently Reading: Satyr Square: A Year, A Life in Rome (Leonard Barkan)

I was pleased with the number on the scale this morning: 226 lbs. Not only is this figure comfortably past the 50-pound mark, but it's also the weight I'd achieved late last September, before I started to backslide through early January.

Obviously, I wish I'd spent the months between late September and now losing additional weight rather than re-gaining and re-losing some poundage, but at least now I'm back on track. In fact, I'm once again on track in the overall "100 pounds in 2 years" plan, as shown by the graph on the right-hand side of this page. I'd like to start putting up some numbers below the tracking line, but at least I'm no longer sitting above it.

And who knows? Maybe this recent delay allowed my body to get accustomed to weighing less than 280+ pounds, and that will help in the long run. Only time will tell about that. Right now, though, I'll happily settle for being on track again.

One Year, 43 Pounds Later (and Lighter!)

Unbelievably enough, it was a year ago today when I decided to add weight loss blogging to my list of ways to motivate myself. It's definitely been an up-and-down year in terms of success, but here's how I would sum it up the key points.

-I began with yet another effort at low-fat and restricted-calorie eating, which wasn't nearly as effective as it had been in the past, and then in May 2009 I tried the low-carb Atkins approach, which was definitely more effective and did take some weight off. I really appreciate an eating plan where I'm not feeling food-deprived all the time, which I'm sure was part of the reason that the restricted-calorie diets didn't work in the long term for me - that, and the fact that carbs messed up my blood sugar and made me even hungrier.

-I had periods of solid weight loss, but I also hit some plateaus and had one dangerous backslide in the fall, when I regained 15-20 pounds after reaching a good low at the end of the summer. Unlike a few other times in my life, though, I didn't stop weighing myself and gradually give up when I saw things heading in reverse. (A definite benefit of blogging: if I hadn't committed myself to posting my weight here every 10 days, the scale might be gathering dust by now while I played the Denial Game!)

-I made a lot of progress in terms of exercise. Last year I was satisfied with 25 minutes on the elliptical machine; now I do at least an hour every time I climb onto it.

So here I am, one year later, with a lower resting pulse and a net weight loss of 43 pounds. How do I feel about that? Honestly, I was aiming for at least 50: my goal was - and to some extent still is - to take off 100 pounds in 2 years, so I fell a little short this past year. On the other hand, I got most of those 50, and 43 pounds is still a substantial amount of weight; the calculator tells me that's over 15% of the 280.5 pounds I started with.

So overall, it was a good year. I guess I should celebrate by starting Year Two off with an hour or so on the elliptical!