Happy Dance Crying

Well, hello there! It's been a while hasn't it? Like...um...4 months or so? Before we do the numbers, let me get you caught up:

The holidays happened. I basically survived on a diet of cookies and turkey. Surprisingly, this was not a great recipe for weight loss. (I know, right? Who'd have thunk?) My only consolation was that I didn't *gain* any weight during my holiday adventures. I did, however, fall WAY behind on my goals to stay on track to winning the HealthyWage challenge. Months behind. It's not a good feeling. But I haven't given up yet! The race ain't over 'till it's over!

So, after ringing in 2016 and vigorously shaking off the sugar coma, I woke up to find myself in a desperate position calling for desperate measures. I decided to try cutting out carbs. I have been notoriously bad at sticking to any kind of diet plan that restricts what I can eat, but I needed to get back on track and fast, so I thought I'd give it a shot. First order of business: I set a goal for myself to not eat baked sweets (you know, the things I'd been living off of for the last two or so months?) for 100 days. Call it lent. Call it crazy. Call it what you will, but I'm on day 61 of 100 without cheating and I've stopped having dreams where I casually start eating a cinnamon roll before I realize what I'm doing and wake up riddled with guilt. I am counting this as a win.

Next on the agenda was to cut down on all the starch in my diet. Mostly big obvious things, like pasta and rice and bread and potatoes. Basically an experiment in gluten free-ish to see how it would go. Not too shabby, I'm pleased to report. It helped that there's a pizza joint near my house that does a pretty awesome gluten free crust. And at this point, I wasn't too crazy (read: strict) about it. A breaded chicken breast or a rogue crouton here and there weren't ruining my life. Mostly I was actively making myself more aware of where my calories were coming from.

It's probably worth noting that I am still using MyFitnessPal to track my calories, as I have been since the beginning of this adventure. I also learned that it's significantly easier to achieve my daily calorie goal when I'm not loading on the calorie heavy carbs at every meal. One of those "duh" moments.

This was enough to get the weight loss ball rolling again, but I was going to miss my February goal by miles. I was discouraged and defeated and beating myself up for the months of wasted time, not to mention getting desperate, so I started doing more research.

What I found was the ketogenic diet. (Think Atkins on steroids.) The goal of the diet is to put your body into ketosis (hence the name) which is basically the state in which your body starts converting stored fat to use as fuel (fatty acids and ketones (incidentally, the name of my ska band: Fatty Acid and the Keytones)) instead of relying on easy to burn fuels like carbohydrates converted into glucose (sugar). It's a high fat, moderate protein, super low carb diet. I found a guy who had written a 4 week diet plan complete with recipes that sounded delicious (spinach and cheese stuffed bacon anyone?), convinced my roommate to jump off this cliff with me, and off we went!

We are in week 3 of 4, and have been really successful so far. We've been cooking dinner almost every night. My roommate bought some keto test strips so we can make sure our bodies are doing what we want. We found a recipe for keto friendly ice cream which is really the only food I'd been craving. I've been drinking more coffee than ever before in life (part of the diet is "Bullet Proof Coffee" for breakfast every morning. It's a cup of coffee with a tablespoon of butter, a tablespoon of coconut oil and a tablespoon of heavy cream blended in with an immersion blender. I add a bit of liquid stevia for some sweetness. It's actually pretty delicious.) and have lost a serious amount of weight in a relatively short time. About 10 lbs in 2 1/2 weeks.

And with that, I would like to reveal to you today's weigh in:

198.7

YOU GUYS!

I'm still behind schedule. The Feb 15 goal I missed was 183. I'm still not there yet. And it's going to be a serious challenge to get to 160 by May 15. BUT YOU GUYS! I'm under 200 lbs for the first time in the last probably 20 years!

I had to weigh myself twice because I couldn't believe it. The second time, when I did believe it, I stood on the scale and cried of happy. Then I did a happy dance. BECAUSE YOU GUYS! This was a HUGE milestone for me.

It's still a race for the finish. And I'll be honest, I don't know if I can make it at this point. But I'm stepping up my game and not giving up. It's my race to lose and I wanna win. Badly enough to give up donuts for 100 days. Badly enough to try the first "crazy fad diet" I've ever done before. (I will say, it helps that I can basically have all the cheese and bacon I want. Sounds like a diet win to me!)

P.S. My mom used to tell me that losing weight would make my boobs smaller. Turns out, she was right. My bras are now all too big. It's a pleasant problem to have, in my book, except that bras are expensive and I'm pretty broke, so I'm annoyed. But happy annoyed. Annoyed in the best way possible.