Slow & Steady

Slow and steady. That's my mantra for this journey. It took me a long time to put on the weight, so I don't need to take it all off in 6-8 months. My goal is to average at least 1 lb per week of loss. If it's more, then all the better - but the key word in the previous sentence is "average". If I am able to accomplish that then I will have lost at least 50 lbs by the end of this year. That should leave me with another 20-40lbs to go. Not bad at all considering it took me 25+ years to get to the weight I was at when I started this journey.

Keeping the long term outlook also allows me time to make the lifestyle changes I need to make. The biggest change will be my meals. I am so used to high fat, high calorie meals that I am really having to pay attention to what I choose to eat each day. Thus, the food journal. It is already starting to become second nature to mostly eat low fat meals each day. That's not to say I am going to totally cut out those foods that I have eaten pretty much all of my adult life. Now I will just do it in moderation.

Making those small changes now and incorporating them into my daily life takes work. But it is a long, slow, steady process that will get my brain rewired to automatically think of fruit for a snack instead of potato chips. And that will make this journey successful!