Skipping Dessert … and taking the stairs

271. That’s where I was this past Friday, May 20. A little more than ten weeks after getting started. My years of starting and stopping this journey tell me the first few pounds are tough, and that was true through March this time as well.

I also know once the snowball starts rolling downhill there will be some easy weeks. Accordingly,in April seven, eight pounds melted right off. Since then I’ve been on a pound-a-week pace. Which is exactly what I’m looking for. Only 64 weeks to go.

Did I forget to tell you about the overall goal? Yeah, I intend to drop 80 pounds. By, roughly, my 45th birthday.

Of course, LOSING twenty-eight percent of my starting body weight – more than a quarter of my pre-Lenten self – is the easy part. Not gaining it back … that’s the tricky part. But we’ll cross that rickety mental suspension bridge when we get there.

You know what makes the biggest difference? Eating intentionally: Do I really NEED to clean my plate? No. I just want to.

Can I get whole-wheat pasta at that restaurant? No? How ’bout we eat somewhere else then?

I’d like to tell you I always make the right decision when the bread bowl comes by my place at the table, but there’s no point in lying. The scales, they never lie to me, so I’ll be passing along the unvarnished truth to you.

The really good news is that even with backsliding – the things I eat that I know will put the brakes on my downhill ride – I’m still ahead of schedule. Which means when I hit the first plateau I have that trick up my sleeve.