-14.5 pounds

Feeling pretty good about the progress thus far. I've managed to lose weight even during shark week (time of the month) and that's usually a time when we gain some pounds.

Going to cook up a big batch of chicken breasts today, oven baked. Cooked chicken is super good to have handy when the munchies strike. I love snacking on cold sliced chicken. Also stocked up on premade sugar free Jello cups. I find that when i make it from powder it goes runny after a day, the Jello cups stay Jello-y for EVER.

Took my measurements again this morning, not going to post them here because it wasn't too long since I posted the last ones, and I'm pretty pleased with the results. My tummy measurement is down in the 2 digits again (this is METRIC people..) and my waistline keeps on shrinking. The pants I bought new a week or so ago are already starting to feel loose.

From the medhelp website, this makes me happy:

Goal

Goal weight:

141.0 lb

% Goal Complete:

32.6%

% Time Complete:

22.8%

Days left:

115

Cruise Phase week 4. Still going strong.

Today is the middle of week four of the cruise phase, I weighed 172 pounds this morning at the daily weigh in. Total weight loss to date 13.2 pounds.

I'm feeling super proud of the accomplishment so far. Went and bought a new pair of jeans, two sizes smaller than the last pair I bought, and feel very please with how they fit. I'm anticipating a few more pieces of clothing will appear over the summer but for now I'm good with the pants. Hard to go shopping crazy on a budget.

Food wise I'm still doing ok. It's starting to get a little bit dull with the same things over and over so I will need to switch it up a little here and there to stay motivated. I'm loving the Dukan Galettes for breakfast tough, with the lean breakfast ham and a cup of Earl grey tea. I look forward to eating it every morning. I spice my galette up with some cinnamon and Splenda.  Also made a dleicious topping for my oven baked chicken breasts. Greek yoghurt mixed with Dijon mustard, low sodium soy sauce, black pepper and oregano. It makes the chicken taste absolutely divine. making the hubby taste it tonight, he's been a little standoffish towards my foods, but this one I'm sure he will love.

Yesterday was a PV day. Made a marinara sauce from scratch and fried up some ground meat patties and added them to the sauce. I ate it with steamed asparagus for sides and the rest of the family had spaghetti. It's nice when i can make things that everyone can eat. Cooking 3-4 different meals every night is too much added stress.

Cellulite

Day 24.

173.8 pounds.

11.4 pound weight loss in 24 days.

Let's talk cellulite! The amount of water I'm drinking has definitely had an effect on my backside. I don't have a full length mirror in the house so I haven't really seen what it looks like but I felt the backs of my legs this morning were much smoother than normal. I asked dear hubby to look and he said it's definitely much less than before. This deserves a *happy dance*.

My super lean breakfast ham experiment has turned out well. No excess water retention or uncalled for weight gains. I will eat it with my oat bran pancakes every morning and make my brain think it's bacon.

I'm having some motivation troubles to get off my ass and do the exercise every day. So far I've only skipped one day. Have to make sure I keep that up or I'll start slipping in other areas too.

The tracker below makes me happy, too bad I didn't have it from the beginning. The medhelp.org website has some very useful graphs to fill in for the weight and measurement and it shows a nice downward trend, which lifts my spirits every morning when I fill it in. BMI is slowly coming back down towards "normal" range again.

The 10 pound mark has been broken

Scale showed 174.4 pounds this morning. I'm officially 10 pounds lighter than 3 weeks ago. I'm feeling pretty excited about this fact.

Yesterday I tried on my "soon" pants. The "soon" pants is a pile in my closet that I put aside because they were just slightly too tight. They all fit!! I got rid of all the smaller clothes a few months ago, because they made me depressed. Soon I'll go to a thrift store and find more pants and shirts that fit. (love thrift stores)

I've been eating pretty well lately. Turns out I actually like asparagus. I'm such a grown up...
Other than asparagus it's been lots of chicken and tuna. Yesterday I made oven baked turkey breasts covered with Greek yoghurt and Dijon mustard. So incredibly yummy. The yoghurt was fat free of course.
Found some super lean breakfast ham that I've been frying crispy and pretending it's bacon. It's working out pretty well so far.

Other than that I make sure to get my 30 minutes a day of exercise, either on the stationary bike or as a brisk walk, and drink the prescribed amount of water. Haven't had any more issues with #2, for which I was eternally grateful.

I'm thinking this diet is definitely the one for me. I have had no cravings since that one cookie I wrote about the other day.

Cruise Phase Week 2 Day 3

176.6 pounds this morning. Still going strong.

I haven't cheated once... though there is a cookie on the counter right now, left by one of the kids, that is looking way too delicious.

The past two days I had a slight weight gain, but this morning it was all gone again and 0.2 pounds less to boot. I think I had eaten too much salt and retained some extra water. I cut down on salt and drank more water and it seems to have done the trick. I tried to not freak out over the tiny gain, but it was difficult. Have to make sure I don't start obsessing too much.

I'm trying to get new meal ideas and try new things to eat, but so far I haven't really found anything I feel strongly about. Tried to make eggplant chips last night, but without oil and salt they really didn't turn out that well. The meringue has definitely become a staple, going to try different flavours for them next time. Possibly some cocoa powder for a chocolatey treat.

We ordered chicken the other night from our favourite rotisserie. I ate a chicken breast with the skin peeled off, but I think that all in all there's just too much fat and salt leached into it for it to be eaten very often. I'll stick with my own oven baked chicken breasts instead.

Cruise Phase Week 1, day 5

As anticipated the weight loss is less rapid, which is a good thing. The scale this morning showed 177.8 pounds. That's a 7.4 pound total weight loss so far. My pants are starting to fit much looser than before and one of them even requires a belt to keep on. The flabbiness under my chin is also slowly going away and for that I am super excited. I hated having a double chin in every photo.

As far as the food goes I think I've been doing very good. I have not cheated one single time, which for me is a HUGE thing. I of course enjoy the PV days immensely more than the PP days, but I do not find it an unbearable rhythm to stick with.

I had been fairly upset that I was unable to find any ground beef or ground turkey that had a low enough fat percentage to be allowed, I miss my meatloaf.. meatballs.. burgers.. all the ground things. Yesterday however I DID find something lean enough.. ground horse meat.. only 4% fat. I know some people have a problem with horse meat but where I grew up it was a very common thing to eat. I plan to make some sort of meatball with it, using fresh herbs.

Cruise Phase Is starting today.

Vegetables never tasted so sweet. Ate my usual egg, oat bran with cinnamon/splenda and tea for breakfast but I added in some cucumber. I love cucumber.

Had a boiled egg for snack, with some Pepsi Max.

For lunch I ate a salad with cut up chicken, spring mix, cucumbers, two tiny pieces of carrot and home made tzatziki. Made the tzatziki with non fat greek yoghurt, shredded cucumbers (!), 2 cloves of garlic and some pepper to taste. It was a marvellous meal.

The scale showed 179.4 pounds this morning, which makes my total attack phase weight loss 5.8 pounds. Pretty damn close to the 6 pounds calculated on the Dukan site.

So.. 38.4 pounds to go until I reach my True Weight. I don't anticipate any problems sticking to this diet.

From now on I might not make an update every day, since it's going to be a fairly uneventful 4-5 months as far as weight loss goes. It's supposed to be about 2 pounds per week, provided I don't cheat.. which I don't think I will.

Attack Phase Day 7

This is it, my last PP day. Scale showed the same this morning 179.6, but at least it's not a gain. I think I both ate and drank too little yesterday and my body thinks it's starving or something.

As promised I've taken my measurements and compared to a week ago:

March 25, 2013

Waist 98 cm (38.58 inches)
Stomach (widest part) 108 cm (42.52 inches)
Hips/butt (widest part) 112 cm (44.09 inches)
Thigh (widest part) 64 cm (25.02 inches)

April 1, 2013 (yeah I know.. but this is NO joke!!)

Waist 93 cm (36.6 inches)
Stomach 104 cm (40.94 inches)
Hips/butt 108 cm (42.52 inches)
Thigh 61 cm (24.02 inches)


I feel very encouraged by these visible results, in combination with the 5.6 pounds lost so far, and I'm sure that my cruise phase will be a success.

Very much looking forward to tomorrow when i can have some greenery on my plate. Planning to make pan fried chicken with spinach leaves and mushrooms and a dash of lemon squeezing for flavour.

Sleep last night was awful, kept waking up and staring at the clock. There was also a mouse in the wall (old house = mice) that kept scurrying very loudly and it was hard to go back to sleep after that. All in all.. even with only 5 hours, all broken up, I still feel fairly refreshed today. I think the lack of carbs and sugar in my system is really making a huge difference. I feel more awake, less sluggish.