-13.5 pounds
With the new blog space, I decided to make some changes from the way I used to keep track of my diet on my unofficial blog. First, I decided to stop keeping track of the “day” number I’ve been on the diet. Too complicated. The simplest way to put it is I started the South Beach Diet in earnest March 28, 2004, I took a break from the diet when I went with my family to Hawaii (the break lasted a bit longer than the trip, from June 6 to June 23), and then I got back on the dieting wagon about three weeks ago.
Second, I decided to just go back to counting my total weight lost. Originally, I was going to start counting my weight loss starting with my return from Hawaii. But that proved too complicated; one of my loyal readers told me they were kind of confused about how much weight I had lost all together. So I’m back to that figure. What that means is since I started this thing, I have (as of this morning) lost 13.5 pounds. I had gotten down to -15 pounds, I gained about 3 pounds in Hawaii, and I’ve lost about 1.5 pounds since we’ve been back.
So it turns out the last loss I reported was indeed a bit of a fluke.
I think I might have to accept the .5 to 1 pound a week weight loss until fall term starts because I’ve found it too hard to stick religiously to the “phase 1” part of the South Beach plan with all of the various things going on this summer. Besides various holiday events, festivals, and parties, we are making a road-trip to Iowa to see my parents and my side of the family at the end of the July and Annette’s parents coming for a visit the first week in August.
The school year gives my life a bit more discipline, especially in terms of a “regular schedule,” so my hope is I can stick on the more lenient “phase 2” plan yet this summer and then more easily move back to the more disciplined “phase 1” plan at the beginning of September. I’d like to lose more than a pound a week yet this summer, but I guess I’ll have to take what I can get.