So-This is Working!-ish

My 4-week DietBet ends tomorrow.  It's my first DietBet - and it's difficult!

The challenge is to lose 4% in a month, which is standard in a month-long DietBet.  I sandbagged a little at the beginning, weighing in for the first time in the afternoon, after a weekend of food and drink related debauchery.  210 point something.

It cost $30, I think.  254 other people are doing it as well, making a pot of $7,950 to be split among all the winners.  If half of us make the 4% goal, we'll each get a little over $60.

I've never done this before, but I've been bumping along, eating and drinking too much, feeling like a failure, waiting for the thing that would make that 'click' happen.  And this was it!

My body isn't used to dieting.  It was so easy last time, to lose 75 pounds.  But this time, the goal is to lose 8 pounds in 4 weeks, meaning about 1200 calories per day.  Before, I was eating about 1350/day and that was do-able.  1200?  Not so much.  So I'm using workouts to earn enough calories to not feel like I'm starving.  And there's no room for slips or a day off.  It feels like a "diet."  It's not fun and I'm glad that it will be over in about 24 hours.

But it has gotten me back into the groove of tracking everything I eat again, which is good.  It's gotten me back into the habit of doing some form of exercise just about every day.  It's training me and my live-in guy that we don't have to eat the same thing and the world doesn't end.  All good things.

I'll be strict for another 24 hours and then submit my weigh in for the 4-week DietBet, and I'm through with that.  But I'm also in a 6-month DietBet, where the goal is to lose 10%.  That one is $25 PER month, and takes me through April, I think.  If I succeed there, I'll be back to 187.7.  A do-able goal - which will take me through the holidays.

This reminds me of the challenges we all did.  I still have most of you in my feed, and I see that Nanette, Jo, and Angela Pea are still around.  Glad you're here!

I was awfully smug last year when I was at 175 - thinking that I'd solved the problem of me being fat.  Sooo - it turns out that this isn't binary, diet or no diet.  I will have to manage this and think about it for the rest of my life.  I guess that's what maintenance IS!

Last weekend we went to a pumpkin carving party and I was a little loose about what I ate and drank.  When I weighed later that evening, I found that I'd gained 7 POUNDS from the morning.  I definitely didn't eat over 10,000 calories, so that's how I learned that I'm going to have to be extra diligent.  OK then.  That's what I'll do.

If I'm going to succeed at this, another thing I'm going to have to learn is how to put myself first.  The world will wait while I work out.  Serving dude dinner on time is not as important as me taking care of myself.  Sorry dude.  That's the way it will have to be.

Anyway.  I'm back.  A bit humbler than last year.  Doing it again.