The scale shows that I’m continuing to lose weight, about a pound a week.

Yay!

Although honestly, this was one of those weeks when I wouldn’t have been surprised to have lost more than a pound, based on how I look. I’m assuming that measurements would have been more telling this week. All I know is that my clothes are finally starting to fit right again, and my body looks better, more how it should.

What this says to me is that the weight is shifting around. While I may say that I’m only mowing, mowing out here is actually a harder task than you might think. I cleared off more areas last night that hadn’t been mowed this year. That means pushing a mower through thigh-high thick grass, with blackberry bramble mixed in. I work up a really good sweat mowing. And I do it for more than an hour at a time.

I started to lose weight before I began keeping the reckoning here. So I’m about 3/4th of the way to my ideal weight. I figure I have between 4-5 weeks left.

Then what? One of my friends asked what I was going to do differently to make sure that I maintain the weight.

I understand what brought about this weight gain. In 2017, I finished the interior of the tiny house. I was also doing a lot of projects at the house in the city, getting it ready to sell.

All that meant that I was doing a tremendous amount of physical activity. I started eating more as a result. When my life finally calmed down at the start of 2018, while I cut back on some of my food intake, I didn’t cut back enough. My weight started slowly creeping up. But it wasn’t too bad. Then the holidays hit at the end of the year, and then January and February of this year, and I gained even more.

So how am I going to ensure that my weight doesn’t start creeping back up?

First of all, I’m staying active. We have gym memberships for days (like today!) when it’s raining. More importantly, I’ve found the thing that I really like at the gym, namely, reading while on the treadmill. It’s actually utterly delightful to walk and fall deeply into a book. Thirty minutes go by so fast. I generally walk forty-five minutes, and when I have a really good novel, it’s effortless.

The best exercise is the one that you’ll do. I will figure out some sort of weight training later this year, after mowing season is over. It must be something that I like and will do regularly.

Second, I will keep up the day of reckoning, as it were, though I’ll stop reporting here once my weight is stable. However, I need to keep weighing myself every Monday morning. One of the reasons why my weight rose in the first place was because I wasn’t weighing myself regularly. I really only started once I realized my clothes were no longer fitting.

Last but not least, I need to ACT when I see my weight creeping up, not just figure, “Eh. It’s the holidays. I’ll lose it later.” No. Instead, I need to pay attention to what I’m eating as soon as I see my weight increasing. If it stays high after two weeks, then I go back to recording every single thing I eat. Just the act of knowing I have to record whatever food I put into my mouth stops me from snacking. (The only exception to this is if my weight increases and it’s the week of my period. I ALWAYS gain weight during my period, and it generally just disappears once my period is over.)

So that’s my plan. Today, I harvest more mint despite the rain. And write. I’ve managed 3000 words per day for the last couple of days on the novel. Fingers crossed I can maintain that pace finally.

What wondrous and exciting things are you doing today?