Weight Loss Update

I am down to 143 pounds.

This is the lowest weight I’ve ever had, in the downward direction.  People have begun to notice, too - my husband’s oldest friend commented on it when I saw him in San Francisco right after Christmas.  And here’s something really cool - the plus-size boots I bought from Naturalizer several years ago because I wanted tall boots and couldn’t fit my calves into normal ones?  They used to be rather snug, but today I noticed they kind of flop around my calves when I walk.

Maybe next winter I’ll be wearing normal-size boots.  Heck, maybe I could wear them now.

A quick history of my weight loss:

• My highest ever weight was 167 (at 5′ 3″ - yikes), when I started Atkins for the first time in July 2002.
• Over the course of several months (I don’t remember how many, exactly) I lost 24 pounds.  My lowest weight was 143.
• I let way too many things intervene.  Too many so-called “low-carb” specialty products.  Too many “occasional” cheats.  And then at least a few periods of several months when I ate whatever I wanted.  Swore I’d never get above 150 again.
• Hit 155.
• I lost a bit of weight for my wedding in 2006 - I think I weighed in at 149.  Swore - again - I’d never get above 150 again.
• In August 2007 I weighed 161.

So I have lost 18 lbs in 22 weeks, a little less than 1 lb a week.

If anyone ever tells you low-carb is a quick fix, send them my way so I can straighten them out.

When I re-embarked on low-carb in August, I made those little graphs you see above to show how long it would take me to lose weight at 1 lb a week or 2 lbs a week.  The red line is the aggressive target, and the gold line is the moderate target.  The green line is my actual weight.

Note the stairstep pattern.  I have noticed that, immediately after my menstrual period, I shed several pounds in just a matter of days.  Then my weight holds pretty steady again until my next menstrual period is over.  For some reason my last plateau, at 147 pounds, lasted through two menstrual cycles instead of one.  Perhaps this is due to my indiscretion with the damn Hershey’s Nuggets; perhaps it has to do with my eating more fruit and vegetable carbs over the holidays that I would ordinarily consume.  Or perhaps it’s just one of those flukes that happens in complex systems like the human body.  In any case, I think the plateaus are connected to my menstrual cycle, a fact that other women who are struggling with plateaus might find reassuring.  I am certainly reassured during those three weeks every month when the scale doesn’t budge, knowing as I do that I am going to drop 2, 3, or even 5 pounds a few weeks from now.

I can’t wait for 142!  That will be my lowest ever weight.  In fact, provided I stick to my guns, every weight I record for a while will be my lowest ever.