The Weight Loss Adventure Continues

Now that the term is pretty much done, it’s time to get back to work on improving my fitness and…losing weight.  During the school year, I decided that I just couldn’t make weight loss a priority, given my schedule.  For me, anyway, there’s a certain amount of stress that comes with trying to lose weight.  I find that it takes mental fortitude to consistently make good food choices and turn down those not-so-healthy temptations that arise, and when I’ve got the stress of school and trying to fit in the rest of my life, well, there’s not a ton of energy left to devote to weight loss.

To give you a quick recap of my weight loss so far, my weight at the beginning of the school year was 147lbs, per this post.  I didn’t track it diligently, but it hovered just about 145lbs for most of the school year.  Oh yeah, except for over Christmas holidays, where I ate like crazy, didn’t work out much at all, and gained, like, 8 lbs over 2 weeks.  Luckily, I went back to my more healthy diet and the weight came off fairly quickly, and then held fairly steady.

As of this morning, I weighed in at 148.4lbs.  I gained about 3 pounds over the last couple of weeks, and I can definitely chalk that up to the fact that I basically sat at my desk 12-14 hours per day and ate more junk food than usual.  Sure, I got in a couple of workouts, but they weren’t enough to balance out the lack of activity and increase in chocolate consumption.

I never dreamed that I would be able to make it through 3rd year without gaining back some of the weight I’d lost.  As some who’s struggled with emotional eating, I wasn’t confident I would be able to manage the stress this school year without resorting to chocolate and starches for comfort during tough times.  Now that I’ve managed to maintain my weight-loss through a very stressful and busy stage in my life, I feel confident that I’ll be able to lose more and then maintain that, too – as long as it’s reasonable weight, I suppose.  A net 1.5 lb gain at the tail-end of the end is not a big deal in my mind, considering I’ve lost over 30 lbs since the end of my first year of dentistry.

To go from maintaining my weight to actively losing weight means that I have to make some changes, though, and I don’t just mean physical ones.  I have to be mentally committed to weight loss or else I won’t be able to make the long-term changes I need to.  Keeping that in mind, I’m laying out some short-term goals for the week:

1. Go through The Beck Diet Solution Workbook and get ready to make the mental shift for weight loss.

2. Track everything I eat at least 5 days this week.

3. Eat at least 4 servings of vegetables per day at least 4 days this week.

4. Limit my treats to 3 this week.  The fact that this is cutting back is a clear sign that my diet is definitely not as healthy as it was at the beginning of the school year.

I’ll be back tomorrow with fitness goals for the week and maybe some pictures of beaver bones, per Kat‘s request in her comment to this post.