reached another goal today...

Well, I did it. I'm back on track.

I lost 4.4 pounds this past week!!

I'm ready to get back to normal, eating, though. I couldn't believe it when Barb actually said 4.4 pounds lost! I worked so hard for it, too! Was so cool, she put a "bravo" sticker next to my weight in my WI little book. It's so cool how a little tiny sticker, like the ones you used to get in grade school on the top of your paper if you got an "A", mean so much!

There's something that our WW leader does that I think is SO cool. He has a little wooden "treasure chest" (he calls it) that he passes around at the beginning of the meetings and it's full of colorful, rubber-coated paper clips. And what you do is take one paper clip from the treasure chest for every one full pound of accumulated weight you lost that week. So this week I lost 4.4 pounds so I took 4 paper clips. And then what you do with the paper clips is you chain them together and wear them as a necklace, belt or just put them in a baggie and keep them as a visual representation of the progress of how much you've lost.

Well, the way I've always done my paper clip chain is all my paper clips are pink except for every 5th one—5 pounds lost means put a dark blue paper clip on. I thought this would be easy so I wouldn't have to count every single paper clip on my chain, I could just count blue ones to count the 5 pound increments. (I know me, and I know how I miscount, so this was my way of knowing that I had the correct number of paper clips on my chain.) So anyway, there were no pink paper clips in the treasure chest this morning. :( You know what's funny? This is what I told myself when I couldn't find any pink ones—I must have used them all up. LOL Isn't that funny?! I now have 93 paper clips on my chain so I figure I must have just used up all the pink ones. :D

So I switched colors. Now, instead of pink, I'll use white. It's still pretty. Doesn't really matter anyways, right? As long as I keep adding them on there, doesn't matter what color they are.

Oh, and the pouch that I keep my paper clip chain in is too small, now. I can't get all those paper clips to fit in there any more. I think I'm going to have to make a new pouch. I crocheted a WW bag that holds my weigh in book, a pen, my bookmark (star catcher) and my car keys and cell phone and has a little pouch on the front for the clips. It just keeps everything organized for me in one place. Oh, and it also has a band that goes around the back of the back where I can slip in a water bottle. I'll have to take a picture of it and post it here so you can see what I'm talking about.

So I've got 6.6 pounds to go till I hit my Challenge goal of 100 pounds lost by Thanksgiving. There are 9 weigh ins between now and then so I think I actually have a shot at it.

I was thinking about what my next goal should be after the Challenge is done. Well, I'll think about that when the time comes. I definitely do want to find a goal of some sort. And maybe it's not a weight goal. Maybe it's behavioral or physical or some sort of food goal. Not sure. But I know that this Challenge has really kept me focused. It's given me new inspiration to make it through this long and winding journey.

I hit another milestone today, too. I reached my 4th 10%. If some of you aren't familiar with Weight Watchers, they give you smaller goals to reach along the way and when you first sign up your first goal is to lose 10% of your body weight. It's usually an easy goal to hit because you have a tendency to lose weight faster when you first start—especially if you have A LOT of weight to lose, like I did.

I started WW weighing 265.4 pounds. So my first 10% goal was to lose 25 pounds. Well, today was my 4th 10% and I actually hit it when I was on vacation, but I didn't realize it. Though since I've been back, I've gained and gained so I would have been above my 4th 10% anyway.

But anyway, I hit it for good!

Now my next WW goal—5th 10%—will be when I get down to 159.4, which will be 12.4 more pounds. Here are all of my interim WW goals:

Start weight: 265.4 pounds on 5/12/07
1st 10% = 239.4 pounds - reached on 8/4/07
2st 10% = 216.4 pounds - reached on 11/17/07
3st 10% = 195.4 pounds - reached on 3/14/08
4st 10% = 176.4 pounds - celebrated today
5st 10% = 159.4 pounds
6st 10% = 144.4 pounds
Goal = 132.8 <--Half of my total body weight when I first started.

By the way, Ned, here's the link to Jen's blog: click here.


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Challenge Update! - Week Eight (updates in bold below)
"18 Pounds in 18 Weeks"

*Please send me your total loss since we started the challenge back on July 12th so I can show how much we've all lost total since we started.

Bento Box Diet (sat WI) - No weigh in since week 4. Total loss 5.5 pounds.
Katschi (tues WI) - No weigh in since week 5. Total loss 3 pounds.
MaryFran (tues WI) - No gain, no loss this week.
Karyn (mon WI) - She's sick this week, down for the count, she'll be back at it soon, though.
Donna (mon WI) - Lost 2.6 pounds! Alright!
Spunkysuzi (sun WI) - Lost 2.2 pounds!!! Sweet!
Cathy (fri WI) - Lost 2.2 pounds! Way to go!
Christine K. Sader - New member. Haven't gotten an update yet. Will keep you posted.

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