So... 18lbs lost this month.
I really did not intend to lose this fast. Here is what happened.
I noticed my friend Katie's invite to all her friends to join diet bet. I looked into it and almost did it immediately. I thought about it for about a week. One night I woke up several times...feeling like I was suffocating...sleep apnea was my self diagnosis. I decided the next day to join Katie on diet bet.
As I told my, all male, co-workers what I was doing - there was much mocking. They felt collectively that 25$ a month for not much reward was not "worth" the effort. They wanted to be involved in something that had higher stakes. So they started throwing out crazy numbers - 500$ each in a pot for the first to lose a set amount of weight. I resisted these crazy amounts. After some negotiation I got caught up in their mania and agreed to 350$. So, 4 of us have now pleged 350$ to the individual who loses their set amount of weight.
Sigh.
So, now I have a little bit of buyers remorse and wish I had not done that. Now I'm in a contest with 4 other very ambitious and competetive individuals in ADDITION to dietbet. I was very happy with the slower and likely healthier approach dietbet was leading me down.
I have been using Myfitness pal to track calories. I've been targeting 1565 calories a day. And doing some execise. A few days I've gone over that target... one 4500 calorie day... and a couple of 2500 calorie days.
So far it seems to be working. I'm also very aware that the first 20-25 lbs will be the easiest. And I know this is not sustainable long term.
The good news is that my blood pressure is back to normal levels and my sleep has been much improved.