Finishing What I Started: Weight Loss

It's been a journey. But it's a journey that stalled about a year ago.

My goal is to weigh 173 pounds. That should put me in the healthy weight category.

I have blogged a good bit about how I lost 40 pounds at stressrelief4teachers.net. I even wrote a few posts about trying to lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks. I lost seven. Still a win, right. Except, I gained it back. The 7 pounds that is, not the 40!

This blog is a record of me losing the last 15 pounds. I'm not sure how long it will take. But I think 10 weeks is reasonable. 

Here's my plan:

• Keep a food log for the first five days. I'll use myfitnesspal to help.
• Weigh myself every morning
• Blog about it every day (except Sunday)
• Lay off the processed foods
• Avoid fried foods
• No desserts except fresh fruits and foods made out of unprocessed items
• No soda
• Exercise six days a week for at least ten minutes. I know that sounds wimpy, but I'll actually exercise more than the 10. This minimum gets me up and going at it
• I'll tweet about it ( @artfling ) regularly
• Concentrate on eating my GBOMBS (greens, berries, mushrooms, beans, onions and garlic, seeds and nuts)
• Get 7 to 8 hours of sleep

Why? Pain. This is me fighting joint pain. This is me dealing with stress. 

As a rule, I expect to start each day with a green smoothie. Green smoothie's are my friend. My weight loss started by consuming a quart of green smoothie everyday. 

I will also eat a salad every day at lunch, and often at dinner time. I am pretty sold on the idea of a plant-based diet, but not vegetarian. I will still eat eggs and meat. 

Fight the White is another post where I laid out my ideas on how to lose weight. 

So why haven't I seen the scale sing 170 something to me yet? 

Mental. 

I think I just said I'm mental. 

Here's the thing: everyone deals with obstacles and road blocks. Getting down to 185 was so cool. I over did the mental patting myself on the back. 

I think it's good to congratulate myself for about five minutes. Then it's time to move on. 

This whole process is about changing my mindset and my habits. New thinking habits and new food habits.

By the way, I don't think I'll write much every day. This may turn out to be the longest post in the series. Truthfully, part of this is just to give myself a topic to write about every day. And this sounds like a challenge and like fun.

Fun. Hmm. And I expect to write about the challenges I am facing. Okay, I'm going to leave out some details to protect my loved ones. 

I'm going to work on my attitude. I'm here to tell you that some days mine really makes a big ole slurping noise. 

Part of the fight we face no matter what the goal is attitude. It's our attitude that makes us want to quit. How do I know? I'm a middle school teacher. I see it every day in kids. I see them quit before the magic happens. 

I invite you to join me. You can follow me here. And I would love to hear what you have to say, if you are so inclined. I could use your encouragement and would love to offer you some of my own.