Finally! My plateau seems to be over, at least for now. I’ve been struggling with the same 2-3 lbs., going up and down, up and down, until I thought my head was going to explode. It would have been easy to just quit, believing that my workouts weren’t doing any good, my change in habits not helping. But I kept on even when I was feeling a little discouraged. Because you know what? Things would have been a whole lot worse if I went back to my old habits. And the perseverance has paid off. I was happy when I got back down to my lowest weight. So I was even happier when I saw, this morning, that I had lost even more. So this is a lesson to all of us. Don’t give up. Don’t think a plateau means you’ve stopped losing weight. Maybe it’s just your body resting for a bit. If you do hit a plateau, you can sometimes get past it by eating things a little differently. For instance, you can cut down on carbs and eat more protein. Or you can do exactly the opposite, cut down on protein and eat more carbs. Change which veggies and fruits you eat. Drink more water. Just do something DIFFERENT. This has always helped the Weight Watchers members I taught when I worked there. But the most important thing is to not get discouraged. If you continue to expend more calories than you take it (unless you’re eating too LITTLE and your body thinks you’re starving it), you’ll eventually lose the weight.

I also want to invite all of you to comment here about your own weight loss/healthy living struggles. I do want to encourage anyone who needs it. Sometimes just putting it out there and sharing with others helps. So every Friday, when I post Fitness Friday, feel free to share your own stories in the comments. Let’s do this thing together, okay?

I haven’t been sharing stats since my weight has been all over the place and wouldn’t settle down. But I’m back to sharing now. So here it is.

Stats for this week:
Beginning weight: 193
Today’s weight: 169
This week’s loss: 2.5 lbs.
Total loss: 24 lbs.

P.S. Update on my dogs. My old dog, Chipper came back yesterday, and he’s still home. However, Duke did not come back. We looked again at his broken harness, and both hubby and I determined that it HAD been cut. So someone must had tried to steal him that night and just couldn’t get hold of him, and it might be those same people that have him now, although there’s no way to know. We’ve canvassed the neighborhood, and no one will claim to have seen him. 😦