80 pounds down ... it was a good week

For a week that started off so challengingly, it sure worked out well.  Even though I had to really push myself to work out Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, by Wednesday I was back in my stride and by this morning I was back to my old working out self - - contentedly working through my cardio without too much bother, and only occasionally clock watching.  

And the results: down a ridiculous 3.5 pounds, for a total of 80.5 pounds lost.  That is 24.1% of my pre-workout body weight, and 48% of my overall weight loss goal.  So, net, I am still not halfway to my goal, but it is tantalizingly close.  

I am not going to get ahead of myself and try and predict when I will hit the halfway mark, or when I will hit my next major goal, which is to lose 100 pounds.  Right now there are a lot of steps along the way to either of those goals - - for example, I remember being 242.5 pounds when the Nerd and I were first courting, and I am looking forward to hitting that weight again.  It is relatively unusual for me to know what I weighed on a particular date, since I took as few photos as I could as I packed on the pounds and I seldom weighed myself.  But on that day, I happened to do so, and I have a benchmark I can use to calibrate my weight loss.  It's like travelling back in time, except without the cool equipment.

This week I experienced something even more positive than my weight loss, if you can believe it.  My fasting blood sugars have been excellent this week. 

As you can see from this chart, since December 1 I have had 5 normal fasting blood sugar readings out of 7 - that is, 71.4% of my readings have been normal.  Even better, I was able to do that with a pair of consecutive normal results, and then this morning, three normal results in a row.  I have never seen three normal results in a row before, and I could barely contain myself this morning. 

I am beyond thrilled with these results.  I cannot tell you if they are (finally!) the result of all the weight I have lost, or if they are the result of taking my cardio on the elliptical up to 45 minutes 6x per week, or if it is because I have stopped having my evening nightcap of a rye and diet Pepsi.  The only way to figure out for sure which of those is the trigger to these good results is to vary each of the inputs and see what happens.  Well the weight is not going up, that's for sure (not intentionally, anyways!), and I am comfortable with the 45 minutes a day on the elliptical, so I can only really vary the amount of alcohol I consume.  What's that, you say, I need to drink more?  Finally, science can be fun!

On a related note, apparently moderate alcohol consumption is more healthy than complete abstention.  But "moderate" apparently means 8 drinks a week, which means I will need to dramatically increase my alcohol consumption to fit into this group.  It's funny how my habits have changed - - since I started logging my food (and beverages), I have really cut down on my alcohol consumption.  I am sure it is better for me in the long term, but it is interesting to see how habits can be changed.