Mood:
celebratoryNow Playing: Black Water by The Doobie Brothers
Topic: Weight Loss
When I went to the doctor one month ago today for the infection in my calf and weighed in I wasn't pleased. I spoke with my doctor, she tested my blood - turned out I was hypothyroid. I started taking the replacement hormones two days later on 08/28/09.
So - it is 09/26/09 today which is one month since I was weighed at the doctors office. I bought a high grade scale, I think the exact one my doctor has so I can be sure that I am keeping track of my weight accurately. As of this morning when I weighed in, I have lost 27 pounds. That's 27 pounds lost in one month, only half of which was on Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet.
I still have two more days before my full month is up of taking the replacement hormone, so in two days, I'll weigh in and see just how it has gone. The blood test from this week came back with good news; they do not need to raise my synthroid dosage - 25mg is just fine.
My goal was to lose 20 pounds the first month. I did that. If I can lose 3 pounds in the next two days, then I will meet a 'dream goal' that I didn't think was possible - 30 pounds in a month! I'm hopeful, but as I said, it is a dream goal, so I won't be upset if I don't make that. This isn't about a single month, this is about a long haul down to my high school weight which is still a long way from where I currently am. AND THEN, about keeping the weight off permanently. I have pictures of myself from my youth around as goal pictures. I was once in good shape and I will be again - I know it!
Overall, I am very positive because I know that my underlying problem was my hormonal imbalance. Still, I didn't help by eating the greatest food known to mankind BREAD at every meal and sometimes AS a meal. I was addicted to bread, seriously. Major addicition to bread. Yet, after two weeks on Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet I do not crave bread anymore. I know I am now allowed to have whole grain bread and such on Phase 2, but I don't want it - I don't need it. I'd rather have a bowl of lentils or beans, or an egg white omelet.
I'm feeling good and that's the most important thing to me right now. Once I am down to a lower weight that will make it easier to exercise I plan on starting that. I am saving up for a tredmill. Where I am going to put it, I haven't a clue. It might be time for me to rearrange the furniture in the house to make space for it. Perhaps my husband Matt will have some ideas. Still, I am going to get one, and now I don't have to buy one of those super expensive ones that is made to accomadate my weight - a normal one will do. That in of itself makes me happy - something 'normal' about me instead of extra huge or jumbo or whatever. That was one of my goals - buy a treadmill made for normal people - and I think it is possible now.
Somehow, I am doing this all without being utterly obessive about it. I'm careful about what I am eating and was able to go to a restaurant for a business lunch on Wednesday and still lost weight eating the grilled salmon, broccoli, and a bowl of red pepper tomato soup. They of course gave me bread which I made them take off my bread plate, and a huge mound of potatoes. Not as big as Richard Dreyfuss' mound of potatoes he carved the Devils Tower out of in Close Encounters of the Third Kind but not far behind it. Seriously, there had to be two huge cup fulls of mashed potatoes if not more. Most of the plate was potatoes. I resisted the temptation imaging what it would do to my blood sugar and my body and tried (successfully) to think of the potatoes as terrorists out to destroy the peaceful harmony of my blood chemistry that I created in my body. Thinking that way totally worked. I've mentally made myself allergic to them - telling myself they are bad for me and they'll make me not feel good - which is true. It's like people who avoid nuts or strawberries because they are allergic - that's what I tell myself - they are bad don't eat them and so I don't WANT to eat them now. Same with pasta, bread, white rice, sugar. It's working for me, so I am using it. Use what works, right? As long as it is keeping me feeling good and healthy, I will stick to the mental brainwashing thing on myself.