2391334189_d61c947cbc Oh, the manipulations we weave on the path to weight loss. 

I had a feeling on Sunday I was going to relax a bit on the eating and exercise thing. And of course I did, because I went to the Star Trek movie, (loved it!) and had movie theater popcorn and potato chips with my home grilled hamburger for dinner. A salt and fat orgy.

So I weighed myself Saturday morning instead of this morning figuring I have a week to make up for Sunday's indulgences. Saturday I was feeling pretty good about myself and I didn't want to lose that feeling.

So on Saturday I weighed 154 lbs and lost another 3/4 inches from my waist (33.75)!

How do you like that? Half a pound lost since last week. Not a lot, but the article Maria provided about lean muscle weighing more per volume of fat helped. My waist measure keeps going in the right direction, plus my clothes are perceptively looser. The best thing is I just plain feel better.

The challenge this week is to continue to:

  • Step up my workouts: intense 45 minutes at least 4 times a week with lighter workouts (20 minutes of yoga or horseback riding) twice a week.
  • Stop eating around 7:30 or at least two hours before going to bed.
  • Try to apply the hunger scale and stop eating when I've reached a 5.
  • Pay greater attention to the quality of my food.

I feel the need to cut out all salty snacks and sweets just for the week as an experiment. We'll see how that goes.

The hunger scale thing could do better, too. Research says that we humans are programmed to keep eating once we've started and, boy oh boy, I know what they mean. Not eating isn't as hard for us as stopping once we've gotten started. It really sucks when our brain is our own enemy

The few times I've shoved my plate away with food still on it I gave myself major snaps for doing the right thing despite the devil whispering to me about being wasteful. Will this ever get easier?

Just for fun. Were you disappointed that Helen won Biggest Loser? There's a lot of chatter on the blogs about how she looked too skinny and how people don't like her much because she appears self-centered. One commenter couldn't get over how Helen 'threw her daughter under the bus.' Something about her bugs me too, but I feel like a petty bitch mentioning it. I was rooting for Tara.

Puzzled about Helen's win? Here's a fun activity to distract us from our weight woes, provided to us by Janice Taylor, Our Lady of Weight Loss. Enjoy!

Photo courtesy of lobstar28 via Flickr