As of today

Hey, how are you?

... that's good. Yeah, me too... enjoying this weather. Mm-hmm.

...what? Oh! How nice of you to say that. YES, asamatteroffact I HAVE LOST WEIGHT.

ONE pound, to be exact. A package of ground beef's worth. A jar of spaghetti sauce. A large Velveeta. IS GONE FROM ME. I guess you could say the diet (stupid WORD) is going well. :) I'm not feeling (overly) deprived, although I do feel some hunger late in the day, before dinner. Hunger is good -- it means it's working. But last night I had 2 chicken drumsticks, FRIED ones, and green beans and Stove-Top Stuffing, and felt pretty darn satisfied with that. And stayed within my calorie limit. In the beginning really, it's calories in versus calories out and NOTHING MORE. Sure, as you get good at counting cals you start to want to refine other things, like your percentages of fat to protein to carbs, your sugar intake, etc etc. But for now, just limiting portion sizes and paying attention to what goes in my mouth makes a great deal of difference. I've done this before (lost weight) and I remember that's it's sorta FUN even, to try to balance In vs. Out and make the numbers line up just right. Maybe it's the same brainwave that made me enjoy algebra in high school.

The working out, too, has made an enormous difference in my outlook. Yesterday I got the heart REALLY pumping. This will sound silly, but I just love working out in my house, all alone, with only the dog watching me. (He is concerned for my mental health, I bet. He watches quizzically.) It's embarassing to admit LOVING Denise Austin's workout shows on LifetimeTV, but during the commercials I will run around the first floor circuit (this is where a house with good "flow" is quite helpful) or do step aerobics on the bottom stairs, and it's just fun. And goofy. And a little goofy can go a long way, sometimes.

I keep waiting for a President to name Denise Austin the chairperson for the President's Council on Physical Fitness, like Ah-NOLD was that one time. Maybe she's been asked and turned it down because of being a mom (and having her own very lucrative stuff already going on). Maybe she doesn't want to give up working out in the Turks and Caicos 3 times a week. I sound like an ad for her and I don't mean to. But I do think about the (primarily) women that she's encouraged to "get up off the couch;" women who might otherwise have felt fat, depressed, unlovable, even hopeless, and I gotta give her a high-five for that.

One pound in one week = perfect progress toward my Christmas goal. The goal is 132 by Christmas -- 132 being my "happy weight," the number where my body seems to rest easily, within the "Normal" BMI. Today, I'm at 140.