WWLC: Weeks 4, 5 & 6

I dropped the water weight from the previous week, but that was pretty much the extent of my weight loss. Some major frustration kicked in, in weeks 4 and 5. This is when I really started to make exercise part of my regular routine -- I was working out at least 4-5 days out of the week. I continued to eat healthy and even though carbs were technically allowed back in my diet, I continued to limit my consumption as much as possible. The first time I had bread (albeit 100% whole wheat) I felt kinda shitty after -- both mentally and physically, so I just didn't bother with it after that.

WEEK 4:
Starting weight: 139.4 lbs.
Week #1 weigh in: 133.8 lbs.
Week #2 weigh in: 131.9 lbs.
Week #3 weigh in: 137.0 lbs.
Week #4 weigh in: 134.4 lbs.
Progress: -5 lbs.

I went 2 straight weeks of not seeing a single digit drop on the scale. Every morning, I would weigh myself and every single morning I kept seeing the same number. It made me angry. All I kept thinking was "why am I going out of my way to eat healthy and exercise, if it's not even working?!". 

I came very VERY close to quitting.... in fact, I might have even said the words "I'm not doing this anymore" in my head a million times, but just didn't have it in me to actually quit. I knew I'd be letting myself (and my husband) down. So I pushed on.

WEEK 5:

Starting weight: 139.4 lbs.
Week #1 weigh in: 133.8 lbs.
Week #2 weigh in: 131.9 lbs.
Week #3 weigh in: 137.0 lbs.
Week #4 weigh in: 134.4 lbs.
Week #5 weigh in: 134.4 lbs.
Progress: -5 lbs.

I did try to switch things up a bit with my diet. I figured that I may have hit a plateau because I was eating a lot of the same foods day in and day out -- and although the diet I was following recommended I eat 6 small meals a day, I was starting to think that the calorie intake was just too high for me. I mean, I should typically consume about 1200 calories a day, but in order to lose some weight, I knew I had to lower that number. 

So I began tracking my calories using the My Fitness Pal app. It isn't totally accurate, but it was better than nothing. It made me a lot more conscious of what I was consuming, and how incorporating exercise made a difference in my day-to-day. I dropped my calories to 1080 per day, with hopes of getting a little bit closer to my goal weight in the last 2 weeks of the challenge. Sadly, I was a little late in my attempts -- to safely get to my goal weight by March 22nd, I would've had to start cutting calories at least 4 weeks prior. Oops. 

But the app was telling me that if I continued to have 1080 calorie days, I would be 121 lbs. by April 12th. 

I continued to cook every meal at home -- and I seriously mean EVERY SINGLE MEAL was usually made from scratch. I think I went out to eat once, maybe twice in a span of these next 2 weeks. (It starts to take a toll after a while, when you're having to prepare all of that food. And doesn't food always tend to taste better when someone else cooks it?)

I'm not complaining though, because I really do love to cook -- especially because I always came up with something different every night and my husband was very appreciative of my efforts.

Sometimes, I would binge cook. Here's an example of a night where I cooked 5 separate meals in 2 hours:

It always helped to have food pre-made, just in case stuff came up during the week (like Xander's soccer class) that would interfere with our evening.

WEEK 6:

Week 6 is when I fiiiiiiinally got a bit of relief -- I'm not completely certain what happened, but suddenly the numbers started dropping again and I was beyond ecstatic.

Starting weight: 139.4 lbs.
Week #1 weigh in: 133.8 lbs.
Week #2 weigh in: 131.9 lbs.
Week #3 weigh in: 137.0 lbs.
Week #4 weigh in: 134.4 lbs.
Week #5 weigh in: 134.4 lbs.
Week #6 weigh in: 132.6 lbs.
Progress: -6.8 lbs.

By this point, I think I was just all over the place with diet and exercising -- after coming off a frustrating couple of weeks, I was just trying anything and everything. I stopped eating eggs for breakfast because I thought they were too high in fat...so I tried steel cut oatmeal for a while but then realized that each serving was 170 calories and I figured that was too high. Ugh. It was a revolving door of "what's right and what's wrong" in my head and I felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants.

And then guess who decided to pay me another visit?....

Yup, Aunt Flo.