Achievement unlocked - down to my lowest weight in years!

As you know, the fall of 2013 was a difficult one for me, and my snacking (and eating habits generally) took me completely off the rails.  I had reached a low of 188.5 pounds back in September and then got complacent and thought I could eat anything I wanted.  Surprise, surprise, this was not the case (as if I even thought this could be the case.  But I got really complacent, which has much the same result).  I ballooned up to 199 pounds (and at times even higher, I know, although I was down to 199 by the time I stepped on the scale again).

I finally put my foot down right before Christmas, and got back on the program of healthy eating in sensible portions, and stepped up my exercise routine by re-integrating weights and adding the treadmill for walking and a C25K program. Sure, it was a tough time to start a re-invigorated workout program, but I figured if I could stick with it over the holidays, everything that followed would be a piece of cake. Not that I planned on eating cake... or not much.

The results have been positive.  I have started losing weight again, and lots of it.  This week was no exception - - I lost 2.3 pounds, bringing me down to 188.1 pounds.  That's right, lower than my previous lowest weight! (does a little dance)  I am now back to breaking new trail in this weight loss adventure of mine, as it has been more than a decade since I was last at my current weight.  I am no longer simply trying to re-lose weight that I already lost, I am losing weight that I have been carrying around for years.  I am down 145.8 pounds overall, and that feels good.  Really good, actually.

You can see my Q4 disaster in the above chart - - I went from a pretty nice linear downward slope to a pretty wicked 4 month plateau / slight increase.  It is only with 5 weeks of consistent working out and eating well that I have resumed my regular weight loss, bringing me finally back to where I was when everything went off the rails - - and a bit lower, besides.

I still have a ways to go to hit my goal:

...but the trend is once again positive.

 In terms of those pesky goals, I am getting very close to my next goal, 185 pounds (or middleweight) - - I might get there in 2 or 3 more weeks!  And I am less than 20 pounds away from achieving one major goal, normal BMI.  That may be reachable in around 3 months, if I'm lucky.  I am going to have to think about how to celebrate that huge win - - celebrate in a way that does not involve consuming my body weight in cupcakes, that is.

I re-started C25K this week with proper running, and I have done the first two sessions bringing me up to 8 minutes of actual running time in 1 minute intervals.  It is definitely more challenging to run without hanging onto the treadmill for dear life, but I am really pleased to have re-started the program the right way.  My knees are in a constant state of twinge-iness, but not painful as such, so I don't think I need to change anything up right now.  Tomorrow morning will be another C25K morning to wrap up week 1 (again) if all goes as planned.

Coming up next week is the 2-year anniversary of my working out and getting serious about my health and fitness.  That would make it around 2 years ago now that I broke that chair.  It's interesting what gets us started on these life-changing journeys.  In my case, it was a cheap IKEA chair.  But without that chair I would not have had the motivation to keep pushing myself at the beginning, when it was painful just to walk to the corner, and even staying on the recumbent bike for 5 minutes was agony.

But that's a recap for next week.  For now, I am just trying to stay the course and keep focused on working my plan.  I think I will switch up the weights to 4 sets of 10 reps next week, as the 3 sets of 15 reps are challenging, but a little too readily do-able.  The rebooted C25K will continue, as will the endless hours on the elliptical (thank god for books on my iPad!).