Smashed It - boom!

I said I was gonna lean in, and I did. Weighed in at 249, meaning I lost 7 lbs this week and 48 lbs overall.

Also lost an inch around my chest and oddly enough half an inch off my calf which I didn't think was fat -- LOL. I've seen a marked increase in the definition of my legs overall, so I'm pleased to see that result. Also oddly, my neck seems to have gotten half an inch thicker, but maybe when I took my measurements 2 weeks ago I measured wrong? My neck has been 18 inches for years, even when I was down to 185 lbs in 2012, it was 17. I also lost half an inch off my waist which I was expecting; I have had to tighten my belt down another notch and I will have to do another one pretty soon -- that will make it down to the 4th hole, when I was squeezing myself into the last one when I started and was thinking that I might have to make a new one, or get a bigger belt.

Made a few adjustments to my routine this week:

• I have decided that "Leg Day," which is Tues & Thu will be cardio-focused on the treadmill using high inclines at fast pace, with varied positioning to work my whole lower body. I have ditched the machines I was working out on at the gym; I am not convinced I was getting any benefits from them, and the HIT cardio results this week are pretty persuasive to me. If the results stay in line with what I saw this week, I will stay with it. 
• I have started eating my dinner later in the evening, which has resulted in me not needing to eat essentially a second meal later on. I was able to not eat at all after dinner, or only have an actual snack-sized snack. I was trying this method where I was eating half to two-thirds of my dinner then setting it aside for half an hour or thereabouts, then finishing it later. It wasn't very effective though. I found that I was obsessing on it: thinking about it constantly, watching the clock, planning my next meal before I even finished the one I was artificially dragging out over an hour. And I was still eating a much larger snack -- more like a small meal -- later in the evening. This week, I ate my dinner as much as an hour and a half later -- around 8 pm, and I ate the entire meal (mindfully, which I am going to write a whole post about...) and was not hungry afterward. So, the gimmicky eat-half-now-eat-half-later method is shelved. It was a good idea, but it just didn't work.

I'm thinking about switching to free weights instead of the machines at the gym. I don't know. I still feel a little self conscious, especially with some of the really fit, muscular guys who work out at my gym. I don't worry about them judging me, I worry about me judging me. Regardless, I have been YouTubing some free weight training and advice videos and watching some of the guys at the gym who are really fit and observing which lifts / routines they do, and just letting it ruminate around in my head. We'll see.

I think my goal for last week definitely got met, smashed it in fact. I was struggling for about 3 weeks with a plateau, or my metabolism trying to enforce a new set point, or whatever it was -- I couldn't seem to get down below 260 and stay there. Every time, I would see the scale go down to 259 or less and the next fuckin' day, I would be right back up there -- 261, 263 -- fuckin' 265, and I'm like, OH HELL NO. I really used my mind-body connection this week. I stepped it up at the gym and in my home workouts, I stuck to my diet plan 100% and enforced a 1000 calorie deficit (or more) every day, and pushed myself hard on weight lifting. And it paid off. I am thrilled with the result, and I think I succeeded in getting over that little hump.

Let's recap my actual set goals. I need a little reminder. I did promise myself that my very strict up-tick this week was not going to set a new bar. I'm not very good at holding myself back once I get to a new level, but I also have found a few of my limits in terms of what is sustainable. I know I can't do what I did last week 100% of the time going forward. It was a means to an end, a hard push, not the new normal.

Thus:

• Do something active 6 days a week
• Go to the gym 5 x/wk
• Weight train 3 x/wk
• Do HIT cardio 2 x/wk
• Minimum 300 minutes cardio every week
• Maintain a 500 calorie deficit every day
• Take my meds every day - (in fact, I have added biotin to my regimen, so...)
• AM: 1 biotin, 2 St. Johns's Wort, 1 B-Complex
• PM: 1 St. John's Wort, 2 Tylenol PM, 10 mg melatonin, 3 Valerian Root
• Saturday is "zero day" (meaning I can do nothing if I want, and eat anything I want, but also "zero" because the only caveat is: I will also do zero harm to my other goals while I do whatever the fuck I feel like on Sat.)
• Eat mindfully (my mindful, not someone else's rules.)