One down, ?? to go

You may have noticed some odd changes in my progress chart. My middle number there has jumped up to 28.8 lbs from a paltry 1.5. I passed my first 10% lost today!! (with a total loss, so far, of 32.3 lobs!) So, I made sure to set my next "big" goal: my next 10%. That's about as big a picture as I can handle right now.


What's also nice about breaking this journey down into 10% increments is that each one gets a little shorter as I go along. For my first 10%, I had to lose 32 pounds--which at the start of this adventure seemed like a lifetime away. This time around, it's "only" 28.8 pounds. If I did the 32 pounds, the 28.8 is definitely doable.


It's around this time in the weight loss journey that people may start asking: "What is your ultimate goal?" My honest answer is, "I don't know." Based on the expert charts, I'm supposed to weigh no more than 155 lbs. Now, the last time I weighed that, I was in high school. I'm not sure if that is a realistic expectation. I will be consulting with my doctor in August when I have my annual check up, and oh will she be surprised when she sees so much less of me this time!!! ;) I've been thinking a lot about the ultimate goal lately and it just doesn't feel right to set a specific number. For now, I've come to a compromise. I'd like to get to the weight I was when I was married almost 10 years ago, which was around 200-210 pounds. Here's a picture to show you what that looked like. Once I reach that point, I believe that will be the right time to make some major decisions about how much farther I want to go. But, once I start going down that track, I get that sense that I'm trying to wrap too much around my poor brain. That's why mI'm sticking with 10%s as my major goals. It's significant, yet attainable, which are two must haves for any goal.


I think this kind of thinking also fits in with my decision that this will be a lifelong journey and not just a diet. Even when I hit that final goal weight, the journey isn't over. It will be harder to keep the weight off than it was to lose it...