I'm in...are you?

I've lost almost 20lbs since the beginning of August. That's fairly quick weightloss. Ok, scratch that...it IS quick weight loss. But I do have quite a bit to lose. I have just under 200lbs now to lose. WHOOHOO! I'm so happy to be under that number. Speaking of numbers though. I find that I'm upset if I only lose 2 or 3lbs in a week. I eat well. I eat a lot of veggies and if I snack it's almost always a fruit. I've cut my sweets consumption to just a few a week. And by few I'm counting 1 oreo as an entire sweet. Not the two that's recommended in the package or a whole row in THAT package or the package itself. (see this USED to be me) I'm trying to be mindful of what I'm putting into my mouth and how it is going to affect my body and weight loss. I also do SOMETHING every day as far as exercise. I either walk 40 minutes around my neighborhood, or I do Wii Boxing for 20 minutes AND a Chris Powell DVD for 15 for a total of 35 minutes. Or I'll pop in my WATP dvd and do it for 45-60. And this is every day. Now, I'm not super quick. I'm not very agile. I huff and puff and about DIE during some of these moves. And they are truly NOT hard moves. But I'm THAT out of shape. But I'm doing them. Yet, the scale isn't moving much. And that's ok. I'm not going to stop. Right now, I'm going to do them until they get easy, then I'll move up the intensity until IT becomes easy. So long as the scale keeps creeping down, I will be satisfied.

I realized though that since I'm on a journey of better health, there are a myriad of other markers that I'm going to have to pay attention to. YES, the scale because of the sheer amount of extra weight I'm carrying. BUT, inches across my body, how my clothes fit, how much more distance I can cover and how fast I can cover it, how easy those killing moves are becoming, how strong I am becoming, how my seat belt fits, and how my body feels in general. I have to keep these things in mind or I'm going to get bogged down by that number on the scale. The scale doesn't determine just how fit I'm getting.

And it doesn't for anyone else either. It's a marker, just like the measuring tape, but they PALE compared to blood pressure, blood sugar, beating your own personal best time, pushing yourself just a little harder and doing it with EASE, running that race you NEVER thought you could RUN because walking hurt too bad, or any other benchmark in this journey to health that we're on.

I'm in it to win it, how about you?