Weight Loss Update Week 9

It has been a few weeks. I'll just say it right here and now- I didn't post because it feels like I have plateaued. I literally had nothing to share because I've had so little change over the past 3 weeks that it didn't feel worth writing about. Here are the stats-

6-23 Weight 210.8 Waist 46 Chest 45 Hips 43.75 Neck 16.75 R Bicep 12.5 L bicep. 12.25 R Thigh. 26.5 L thigh 26.75

7-14 Weight 209.6 Waist 45.25 Chest 45.25 Hips 43.5 Neck 16.75 R Bicep 12.5 L bicep. 12.5 R Thigh. 26.5 L thigh 26.5

As you can see, there is some change, but it is so small on a weekly basis that it's enough to get a guy discouraged. There is one bright point in there. My waist is .75" smaller. I hadn't realized that until just now, but one thing that I've learned is that the other stuff can bum you out and sabotage your resolve.

I've been hovering around 209-210 and it is driving me crazy. For the past three weeks, there has been a mid week day where I've dipped down into the 208 range, but it keeps popping back up each week before weigh in on Saturday. The traditional criticism might say that I need to stop weighing myself everyday. That these daily fluctuations aren't really weight loss, but just water weight transferring around. I'm used to the daily swings, but before, I was hitting progressively lower low points each week. That hasn't been happening.

Now it would be easy to pout, to blame it on someone else or to blame it on stuff that is out of my control. Genetics, situations, inconvenience, but I'll confess. I've been a little loose with the diet. Most days start off great. Perfectly portioned and composed breakfast, great mid-morning meal high in protein. I'm even ok at lunch most of the time. Where I'm slipping up is dinner and snacks at home in the evening.

I spent some time this weekend looking through my food logs and found that I'm eating an average of 300 calories extra in snacks fairly often. When I was making positive progress, I was sticking to my calorie intake goal consistently. This should be pretty simple huh? What has muddied things up is that I've been using the extra calories burned when exercising to justify extra food. Lame.

I'm putting it out there so you know that I'm aware of it and making changes. I'll be planning out my lunches in advance for the week (perhaps dinners too, need to talk with my wife first) and inputting food into MyFitnessPal before a meal begins so I don't get caught up in the taste and eat more than I should. This is a little too common of a theme than I like to admit. I was already doing this stuff before, but got out of the habit when things got really busy over the last couple weeks.

Back to it!