Halfway!

When I stepped on our crappy old scale on June 30, and it read nearly 137 lbs (62 kg) for my 5'2" frame, I knew it was enough. Fed up with my thickening waistline, with the crotch of every pair of pants I owned wearing out in a matter of weeks due to the size of my thighs. I thought, that's it.

I'd like to say I jumped right into a diet plan with a minimum of effort and oodles of willpower, but I'd be lying through my teeth.

Some years ago, my husband got sick of me whinging about my pants not fitting (and it says something about my lowering standards that I was at 125 lbs at the time) and proposed that he become my diet coach. That, for three months, he in essence was the boss of me. Well, the diet didn't last three months, but I did drop about 8-10 lbs and I was very happy with the result. Unfortunately, a sedentary job for several years and a gradual laziness setting in amounted to me feeling fat, despite protestations to the contrary from my friends. Hey, they didn't see me naked. Clothing can hide a lot.

This time I asked my husband if he would consider doing it again. I'm not the kind of person who can start a new habit like this without lots of help and a ridiculous amount of encouragement.

So, first thing we did was buy a new, ultra-modern scale. To be sure of its accuracy, we weighed an unopened bag of flour on the new scale, and it was only off by a tenth of a pound. Then my hubby weighed himself on the old scale and the new scale and found a three-pound difference: the old scale was actually under! So I weighed 140 lbs. Marvy.

So now, five weeks into my ten-week diet, I have lost at least ten pounds: weigh-ins are on Sundays so I don't know my exact weight right now. (Okay, I do, but I'm not supposed to weigh myself more than once a week, so shhh!)

I am eating smaller portions, healthier food, and exercising a lot more. I have only had potato chips once in the last month. When I ate bacon with my eggs this past Sunday, I found I couldn't even eat it all, because it was so salty. And yesterday, I worked so hard in the garden that I lost my appetite and couldn't eat more than half my chicken salad for dinner. (But it had bacon in it, so maybe that put me off a bit.)

We are keeping a meal and exercise diary, which my hubby has brilliantly rendered in MS Excel. We seem to be either underestimating the value of my exercise, or overestimating the caloric value of what I'm eating, because mathematically I've only burned about a third of the calories needed to drop 20 lbs, but I've already lost half the weight. I'm not complaining, just confused.

For exercise, we're counting my shelving work, biking to and from work (10 km total, about 6 miles), Tae Bo, and DDR, which, for the uninitiated, is Dance Dance Revolution, a dance pad game available on multiple consoles. The workout function lets you count the calories you burn.

So my ultimate goal is to get to 120 lbs by my 30th birthday, which is September 8. I'll be rewarding myself with a tattoo on my new hot bod.