Progress without setbacks... is there a name for that? Winning?

Most of you know that February 13, 2014 was my one month anniversary for my surgery. Up until this past week I was discouraged that the weight hadn't been coming off as fast as I had hoped, yet I remained cautiously optimistic. Well...

I have made changes and I'm going to share them. The first thing that I did was undress myself verbally, which is my way of saying that I verbally berated myself and rebuked myself for not doing everything in my power to help progress my weight loss and the second thing I did was recommit myself to exercise. It has been so long since I walked three miles at a brisk pace that I wasn't sure my endurance is there (it wasn't) but I walked 1.5 miles on day one and then on the next day, walked 2 miles, so that when I get on the treadmill tonight, I'm going to take it further. I might have lasted longer if I had remembered the prescribed inhaler that I now have and used it! I'll try that tonight. I was very winded and I don't think that was obesity related, I think that it was asthma related. In any event, I also rededicated myself to logging in daily to myfitnesspal.com via the app for iTunes. If you want to add me as a friend, you can find me with my username: iPinkiiPromise (which is a nifty nod to my commitment to Alpha Kappa Alpha.)

I have to say that, burning the calories that I have burned with the two days of cardio under my belt has felt amazing and I have loved every minute of it, I even love the feeling of sweat dripping from my brow. It’s just a great feeling! My weight hasn’t changed these past few days, but it has remained the same and that is just as good. I have lost 26% of my excess body weight so far! Every time that I do the math on the excess body weight, I feel even more encouraged. It is my body cheering me on, that’s actually better than looking at the scale. (Remember when I was excited that I had lost 20%?)

As I look at my surgical timeline on the wall of my cubicle, (the timeline that I posted like…months ago to countdown to surgery,) I am seeing that this is now the beginning of what should have been my normal bariatric diet, which is basically me maintaining small portions, eating low-calorie foods, watching my sugar intake, and chewing things very carefully as always. Because there is more freedom in the diet than ever before, I now have to exercise more than ever before because a lot of people fail to lose the weight if the habits don’t change. That will not be me. This will not be in vain.

I can’t thank my family and friends enough for the support and the words of encouragement, the well-wishes from afar, all of it. I am going to do this. I am doing this for me, but I want everyone to be proud of me. I can actually see a difference in my body AND I can fit clothes that I haven’t been able to fit into for the past year! Pants are no longer tight and constricting, it’s getting exciting. The changes in weight distribution only make me want to press harder and keep going.