Yes, I have the weight blogger's typical (but totally understandable!) habit: I put off posting for weeks and months if I don't have anything to boast about. In 2014 I did keep updating my weight in the log to the right, no matter how depressing the numbers might be, but otherwise the first nine months of 2014 did nothing to motivate me to write new entries: I started the year at 289.5 lbs., then stayed in lose-a-little-gain-it-back mode all the way through September. I was not very happy about this, weighing so much and making no real progress.
In October, though, my birthday started approaching and so did (more distantly) a December trip I had planned to New York. I don't like feeling trapped in a weight rut when my birthday rolls around, partly because that's so often been my target date for major weight loss goals that didn't materialize. And the New York trip would of course involve plane travel, and I hate Flying While Fat: I hate imagining as I walk down the aisle that people are thinking, "Please, God, don't let him be sitting by me", and I hate worrying that this will finally be the trip when I have to ask for a seat-belt extender.
Whether either of those feelings was the actual cause or not, in October I somehow started gaining a bit of traction, eating more carefully and saying "no" a little more often. I also tried to get on the elliptical more regularly.
Then in November I became curious about various kinds of intermittent fasting/calorie restriction, approaches like Michael Moseley's 5:2 diet and Krista Varady's Every Other Day diet. Being me, of course, I bought used copies of their books on Amazon, then based on their ideas decided to try eating only 500-600 calories two or three non-consecutive days a week, but to let myself go (within reason) the rest of the time. No forbidden foods, and no day-in-day-out regimen.
So far I'm getting good results from it: today the scale put me at 250.5 pounds, 39 pounds down from last January 1st and 43 pounds down from my worst 2014 (and lifetime!) weight, 293.5 on July 10th. I like not living in perpetual self-denial, too.
The question, of course, will be how well this might still be working in 6 months or a year. Like every chronic dieter, I've had initial success with various approaches that didn't prove effective or sustainable in the long run. Intermittent calorie restriction seems more promising right now, but only time will tell. And in the meantime, I feel a bit like that elephant in the picture!
