The recent days have been a blend of several non-scale victories and several non-scale fails. A quick recap:
NSV: I made it the full week between scheduled weigh-ins without sneaking a peak at the scale, which made seeing the loss today highly satisfying.
NSF: I caved. I had coffee this morning. My sleep may or may not suffer, but I honestly can't even say I'm that upset about the coffee. This presents an interesting experiment opportunity at zero caloric expense.
NSV: I chose moderately healthy options for my meal out on Thursday, last night, and this morning, and succeeded at staying within my calorie limit every day this week.
NSF: My moderately healthy brunch choice this morning, it turns out, was actually not that healthy. Nutrition calculators are wonderful and terrible at the same time -- if only I had looked in the moment instead of after the fact! It blew up more than half of my daily limit!
NSV: I still stayed within limit today by severely adjusting my meal plan for the rest of the day. Lunch was a banana, my PM snack was carrots, and my dinner was steamed broccoli. It sounds extreme, especially on a day when I got a good cardio workout in, but you know what? I'm not hungry! This isht is working, y'all.
NSF: I didn't get to the gym all the days I should have this week. I could have done more good if I had.
NSV: I still hit my step goals every day this week, and I did still make it to the gym a few times.
NSF: No more data -- which means NSVs outnumber NSFs!
NSV: I managed to fully prepare and portion out my meals for this week in spite of having company staying with me -- a LOT of work and sore feet, but also highly satisfying!
The lesson for me here is that we have a right to choose what we chew, and we can even allow a few calorie-dense selections into the fray. My Thursday and Saturday meals were both dinners this week, meaning I could budget my intake throughout the day and go into the meal knowing exactly how many nutritional points I had to play with once I had the menu in my hand. That worked well. Today, since my meal out was in the morning and of higher caloric value than either of my other meals out this week, it was more painstaking to stay under my limit because there was so much time left in the day. But not only did I make it work without feeling deprived, I also felt more motivation to work out as a result. I will keep my right to what chews I make because I know how to operate within the rules.
And my body knows it. It shed 4.6 pounds this week.
That means I'm gonna crush those 4 new DietBets. Ahhhh, this is more like it!
It also means I'm at -7.8 pounds so far for the month, and solidly within reach of losing the 12 pounds I wanted to lose in January. It's going to take some hard work, but my 3 weeks of habit forming are now officially in the books.
Let's rock.