A Skinnier Month

Skinny-fying Month 1 is successfully under my one-size-smaller belt!  Despite a couple of trips and birthdays and various mochas and setbacks, it worked!  Honestly, I really need to say all this because, being the perfectionist I am, I generally only recall the 'failures' of the month, and that leads to me wanting to scrap the whole thing and ignore calories as much as possible.

So no, apparently I don't have some amazing metabolism or intractable genetic predisposition.  In fact, I have a couple of heavy relatives who have gone through the gastric bypass surgery and have lost tremendous amounts of weight (i.e., I'm suggesting that they'd have done so if they'd merely controlled the calorie intakes, right?).

It seems I can even splurge occasionally, take trips, eat out and everything and STILL lose weight.  I merely have to carefully watch calories and try to show a wee bit of self-restraint.

Now, we'll see how Month 2 goes, though.  I'm not sure if I'm still doing alright or if I've become more lax with myself, but we'll watch the numbers and see if they continue in the right direction (and they were travelling the wrong direction before the emergence of the Skinny-fying calendar, remember?).

What have I learned from Month 1?  Well, I'd say the first thing is that you can have some pretty fantastic meals at a very small price.  Tasty fillers are the key. 

Honestly, for breakfast this morning, I had--for less than 300 calories--a big sandwich, a bowl of 'soup', a glass of mint water and a mug of hot Scottish Breakfast tea.  Except for the first item, virtually no calories were consumed, as the 'soup' was a tasty veggie broth.  The 'big' sandwich was actually 'big' because of a bunch of buttercrunch lettuce.  Real calorie items consisted of Morningstar Veggie Bacon strips, Tofutti cream cheese, and a whole wheat mini-bagel.

A lunch variation on this often includes the 'soup', a salad, sandwich, and hot tea.  Feels pretty deluxe at under 500 calories.  If I hold off on breakfast and have this as 'brunch', then I can wiggle in an afternoon mocha, a 100-cal bag of popcorn (or even two), plus dinner--and still have a gold-star day! 

Yep, this is a pep talk for me!  It's not so hard if I plan it right--but I have to consider and plan and pay attention.  So, that's what I'm doing.  Not so rough!

Exercise has not played much of a role at all.  I have exercised no more than usual and probably less--only 2-4 elliptical session per week.  I'd like to get that up a little, but I'm not applying too much pressure on that end.  The stamps are maybe helpful, as I feel the need to get in there if I have gone a few days without a stamp, but it's hard to believe that I could have exercised less before.  I don't think it was less, but, then again, it's hard to believe that I consumed as many calories as I did before!

So, hat's off (to myself !) for Month 1's successful completion, and here's to Month 2's commencement!  Wish me diligence, perseverance, and another month of properly metered-out tasty treats!