Progress

I am finally making some real progress with my diet. I've even increased my exercising. I'm jogging most days and walking several miles in the afternoons. I'm keeping my calories between 1200 and 1600, depending on how active I've been that day, on most days. I'm tracking my calories and my fitness and my water intake.

I'm not entirely sure of the reason for the turnaround, although I think a big part of it is that I've joined a new weight loss website that I find to be particularly motivating. (SparkPeople.com) It uses a point system and awards and has some cool tracking options that motivates me to do well. I found them when I saw their diet book on Amazon.com. Anyway, if you're looking for motivation, I highly recommend checking them out.

I've also become more friendly with one of the girls in my mom's group. We've known each other since October, but have only recently began spending time together away from the group. Her husband is also away overnight for work so we have dinner together quite a bit. Not only to give each other company and distract the kids, but also to share the cooking, cleanup and child care aspects of dinnertime. Its been working out really well. She's very easy to be around because we share similar positions on child rearing and she isn't in competition wiht me at all. On top of all that, she is also trying to lose weight and we are jogging/walking together most mornings. We can share our ups and downs with food without worry of censure and we know the other understands. We even have similar food issues. I'm very lucky to have become friends with her.

Everything else is plodding along. I didn't get a chance to post my weigh-in, but I was down to 147 this week. Hoping to hit 145 next week, but we'll see. I know that I don't tend to see much progress on the scale when I'm working out a lot. It'll come off with time. I'm in that awkward phase between pants sizes and I'm hoping to lose enough to get out of my baggy pants and into a size 10. That will be great!