This heavy bag weighs 100 pounds.

I should’ve posted this a week ago when my average weight over two weeks (what I’m calling my “true weight”) dipped below 350 pounds, which means I’ve now lost over 100 pounds since 16 June 2008.  My weight loss has been slow but steady as of late, although I can’t honestly say that I’ve been doing everything I should to lose weight and get fit as quickly as I know I can.  I think my weight loss pace will quicken when the weather gets warmer and it’s easier to get out and walk places.  I’m really looking forward to getting another running go at fitness this Summer.  The Winter has been particularly brutal this year and made it harder to go out and exercise.  I still go to the gym regularly, but I find that I tend to lose more weight when I walk outdoors a lot than I do from lifting weights or even from walking on the treadmill.

For those too lazy to do the math, it took me just a little over nine months to lose this first one hundred pounds.  I’m posting a picture of a “heavy bag” because I like the metaphor, but the next time you’re in the supermarket, pick up a pound of butter and try to imagine a hundred of them.  That’s how much weight I’ve lost.  With this milestone I’m about 40% of the way to my goal, with my new milestone being 125 pounds, or 50% of my goal weight.  Ideally I’d love to get halfway there by the one-year anniversary mark of my new Clean Livin’ lifestyle, but even if I miss it by a few weeks I’ll still be doing great, and I’m well on my way to being consistently fitter than I was last week. Every time you see me I’m a little healthier and in better shape than the last time you saw me.  That’s something to celebrate!

I crossed another small milestone this week by losing more than 75 pounds.  I’m calling these “small” milestones but really I’ll probably celebrate a little every 25 pounds.

I’m a little nervous about Thanksgiving and the holiday season coming up. I think I can do okay portion-wise, but let’s face it, come Thanksgiving I’m going to have some stuffing, candied yams, and maybe even a slice of pumpkin pie for dessert.

Still, I’ll be celebrating by getting a KitchenAid stand mixer so I can make my own healthy bread.  The stuff I can find in the store tends to have a lot of sugar or high-fructose corn syrup in it, and even with all the bad stuff tends not to taste very good.  Of course, I’m eating a lot less bread these days, but I’ll still have a few slices per week, and the KitchenAid is something I’ve been wanting to get for a while and is another device that will help reinforce my fitness goals.

I lost twice this amount of weight in twelve weeks.

After twelve weeks of my healthier eating and exercising, I lost my first 50 pounds, which was my first major milestone.  Yes, that’s really fast.  I lost a lot in the first few weeks and my progress (but not my dedication) has been diminishing over the past few weeks, as I knew it would.  I remain undaunted and am still seeing results every week.  Plus, with the exercise and weight-training I’m doing, I’m putting on more weight in muscle, so my fat loss is even better than it sounds.

It took years and years to put this weight on, so it’s going to take even longer to take it off.

Here’s a photo of 26 pounds of butter.  I’m amazed that I’ve lost almost twice this amount (and within a week’s time, I’ll have lost at least twice this much).