273.8

Starting Weight: 318.2 lbs.
Weight Last Week: 274.2 lbs.
Current Weight: 273.8 lbs.
Weekly Change: –0.4 lbs.
Total Weight Lost: 44.4 lbs.

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Good afternoon, friends!

This week I had a very minor loss: less than half of a pound — the exact same loss as the Friday before last. I am a little disappointed, but, thankfully, life goes on. Obesity is not going to win this time — I’m just going to keep moving right along and, hopefully, I’ll see a bigger loss next week.

Nothing about my week was drastically different, but in thinking about it a little, I did realize that a couple of scenarios could possibly be responsible for another minuscule loss: 1) I changed up my exercise routine just a bit (which I’ll talk a little more about when I update you on the 1,000 extra steps challenge); 2) I went out for dinner on Wednesday night at a mom and pop shop and was forced to guesstimate my points usage, and while I did the best that I could, I certainly could’ve accidentally over done it if my estimations were wrong; and 3) the Red Tide moved in this morning, and though it never causes me to gain weight, it could very well be responsible for a less-than-normal loss.

So yeah. Those are my best guesses. Honestly, though, I’m not going to dwell too much on why this weigh-in was less than spectacular. The number on the scale didn’t go up, and that, in and of itself, is a victory. I just want the weight to come off, and as long as that continues to happen, then I’m happy.

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My activity level has been awesome this week even though it started off a bit rocky. In all honesty, my activity level has been awesome since I started the 1,000 extra steps challenge on January 12th. I’ve been more consistently active these past couple of weeks than I have been over the past year+ — truthfully. I was very sedentary prior to joining Weight Watchers last September, and even at the beginning of my weight loss journey I was still pretty sedentary. These days I’m really making an effort to get up and move, though, and I feel really good about that!

Here’s a detailed look at how the entire challenge has gone for me thus far:

As you can see, I’ve managed to meet/surpass my 5K a day goal each day of the challenge except for one (Friday, January 16th). I’m very, very proud of myself for doing so well with this challenge, and I’m also very thankful to each and every one of you, too, because you all sincerely do keep me on target. I do so much better and achieve so much more when other folks come along for the ride, so I know that much of my success can be attributed to my little community of blogging walkers! You guys rock! 😀

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After injuring my arm earlier this week (I’m totally fine, by the way — some ibuprofen, ice, an Ace bandage, and a few days of rest fixed it right up!), I decided to cool it for a little with the arm workouts. Without that extra added movement, though, I was coming up a bit short in the steps/activity department, so I came up with a plan to compensate.

I made a couple of fun playlists on my iPhone, and then I decided to just go for it — I decided I was just going to dance around my house no matter how silly it looked! So for the past several days, I’ve stopped every hour or two (when I’m home, that is) and chosen 2 or 3 songs off of the playlists that are between 3 and 5 minutes in length, and I dance through the chosen songs without stopping.

Let me tell you… When you’re 270-someodd pounds, dancing for 12-15 minutes straight is tiring! But it’s also great exercise! My heart rate really gets going, and I end up pretty sweaty and out of breath by the time I’m through. I’ve really just thrown myself into the dancing, and since no one aside from my puppy is around to see me, I don’t really care what I look like flailing about, which means I end up getting in a great workout!

I try to do this 2 or 3 times a day at the very least now, and it really racks up my step count!

It also wears me out and leaves my muscles feeling nice and sore (the good kind of sore!).

Last night as I was dancing in my bedroom, I looked in the mirror and just smiled because 44.4 lbs. ago, I’d never have been able to dance. I just didn’t have the physical ability to do that then, and it made me feel so good to realize what my body is capable of these days.

I feel so good!

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My eating was pretty decent this week. I suppose there were times that I could’ve made better choices (like when I ate an 8P+ powdered grocery store donut simply because I had the points to do so or when I knew that my Dunkin Donuts Large Carmel Latte Lite wasn’t actually a Lite because I definitely know the difference between fake sugar and real sugar but I just drank it anyway), I still did OK. I stayed within my daily point allowance almost every day, and I didn’t use any of my Active Points. I dipped into my weeklies and used 5 of them spread out over the course of the week, which isn’t that bad.

Overall, I made good choices.

Like I said above, I did go out to eat on Wednesday night, but I really did my best to make healthy choices. It was my aunt’s 49th birthday, and my folks wanted to take her, her husband, and my cousin out to dinner, and they invited me along. We went to a really delicious little mom and pop Mexican restaurant, so there wasn’t any nutritional information available for me to check and use to pre-plan, but I did budget all day prior to going, and I saved 21P+ to use at the restaurant.

I had 5 homemade corn tortilla chips dipped in the house-made salsa, and then I ordered lemon water instead of alcohol. For my main dish, I chose an order (4) of chicken al carbon tacos. They were street taco style, and typically those kinds of tacos run about 4P+ each at commercial restaurants. When I put “chicken taco” into the search bar of my Weight Watchers app, though, it said 5P+ each, so I just went with the higher estimation. Best case scenario, the tacos cost me 16P+ total, and (hopefully) the worst case scenario is that they cost me 20P+ total, which is what I tracked.

Compared to the fried disasters everyone else chose, I think I made a pretty wise decision.

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So that’s what’s going on.

I hope you all have had a wonderful week and that your step challenge is going well!

I wish you all a wonderful upcoming week, too.

Eat well. Be well.

rachaelxoxo