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Another good week!

I had another good week!  Down two more pounds!  Yes...I am going to be happy about 2 pound losses!  Even my nights away for work have been good, I haven't spent the evening working and eating cookies! I increased my exercise to 3 workouts of 30 minutes and one workout of 24 minutes.

I finally watched the rest of last week's The Biggest Loser. I was thinking about how they are disappointed if they don't have double digit losses...I would love to have double digit losses every week -but it isn't practical to think that I can lose that much in a week. The contestants on TBL are working out every day for hours...that is not the real life way to lose weight and keep it off long term.  I know that I could push myself to workout for an hour a day 5 days a week and I would lose more weight - but I would end up hitting a plateau and having no where to go to get past it!  I know this from past experience so this is my philosophy of healthy living and weight loss:

Start out small - work your way up...then when you hit a plateau you can easily increase your workouts to start losing again.  I started out doing 4 twenty minute workouts a week.  The second week I did 1 thirty minute workout and 3 twenty-four minute workout. I am up to 30 minute workouts - so I will do 4 of them a week for a couple of weeks and then I will increase to 5 thirty minute workouts a week.

This is what has happened to me in the past:

I start out doing 5 thirty to forty-five minute workouts a week and eating 1300 to 1500 calories a week.  I lose weight fairly quickly - I even had a week that I lost 11 pounds in one week (Biggest Loser numbers)!  I get about 15 pounds away from my goal weight and guess what?  PLATEAU!!!  No more weight loss for two or three weeks.  So...I think I have to increase my workouts so I start doing 60 minutes 5 days a week. I end up exhausted or I just plain don't have the time to do that much since I work full time.  So - I decide I have to eat less - I try to cut back to 1200 calories a day - my new weight might indicate that I can eat that little -but guess what again?  I can't. 1200 calories isn't a realistic amount of food for me to eat a day -so I end up snacking and eating too much.  I am so close to my goal - but I just can't get there!!

So - this is the reasonable way to eat. I am eating about 1500 calories a day - yes if you are smart and know how to figure stuff out you can figure out how much I weigh.  As I lose - my calorie allowance will go down, but I will also be increasing my exercise which will allow me to eat a little more and still lose weight. I am not a fitness professional - but I know what works and what doesn't work for me so instead of listening to what a bunch of supposed 'Gurus' say, I am doing what I know will work for me. It is my personalized plan - I will continue to keep you posted!!

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