New strategy, not revolutionary.. actually, slow and boring.

As much as I talked about my calorie-counting and exercising, that was NOT was I was actually doing. I was crash dieting. I did it with good tools, but it nevertheless what I did! I realize now that I would get really gung-ho and seriously overdo it. I would adopt an aggressive diet in my software and under-eat for it, and I would exercise for very long sessions that I got sick of within a couple weeks.

All of this was sustained by daily progress — daily weighings that showed me the pounds were melting off. Well, maybe you see this coming (I didn’t), but (this is how I understand it) my very low calorie diet did my metabolism no good, and it was in bad shape by the time I quit exercising and, burned out, started indulging in my diet. So.. I gained the weight back, and then some. All in the course of a month! I was down eight pounds by day 12, but UP a pound by day 31.

So now I am doing a much less aggressive diet: four months to lose 18 pounds. I’m allowed 2300 calories a day, and — huge change — I EAT THEM. I am (so far) exercising for 30-60 minutes 3-4x a week. And, this part is very difficult, but I am not weighing myself daily. I’m going to look for weekly results from now on. First weighing is this Saturday. Today’s challenges: a potluck at work and an event at a Brazilian restaurant tonight. I’ve already exercised, and I vow not to overeat at either event!