Non-Scale Victories

I think it's time I take my weight-loss focus away from pounds and start focusing on non-scale victories, inches lost, goals accomplished, etc...  I am 15 pounds away from what my ultimate goal was back in February when I started this journey, and the pounds are coming off slower and slower these days.  Granted my beer consumption has gone up these days, but I'm sure that has no affect on my weight loss ;)  I am one of those people that weighs myself daily - I know some people are 100% against this, but it totally keeps me in check!  I only take my loss from Monday - Monday as my 'official weigh-ins' but I like to see where I am at each day.  I know weight can fluctuate a huge amount from day to day, so I try not to get too discouraged when the scale creeps up a couple of pounds.  I feel like I have been losing and gaining the same 5 pounds over and over and over for the past 6-8 weeks, but I go back and look at my weigh-in chart (I track my weight everyday in an app on my phone called 'Simple Weigh-in') I realize that I have lost about 8 pounds in the last 2 months.  This is just another reason that I like to track my weight daily, I love having all the data, seeing the graphs, seeing the progress I've made.

While I try not to get discouraged with what the scale says, I would be lying to you if I said I didn't get discouraged with what the scale says.  I know that there is so much more to this than what the number on the scale says.  Back in September when I did the BodPod I found out that my body fat percentage was 28.6%, which is in the 'moderately lean' category - which was a GIANT shock to me!!  I can only imagine that that number has improved during this class - I can't wait to see what my percentage is after 8 weeks of the class, maybe that will be motivation to keep up strength training on my own.

During the last 6 weeks that I have been doing my strength training class through work I have only lost about 4 pounds, but I know that the inches are falling off!  I wore a newer pair of jeans today that have fit me pretty snug in the past, but they are falling off of me today!  They feel huge in the waist, thighs and butt - that's pretty concrete evidence that I'm losing inches!  And while I LOVE that my newer jeans are falling off of me, I can't afford to keep buying new clothes!  Maybe I need to switch my whole wardrobe to spandex? Yeah? That would be pretty awesome, right? And if everything I wore were spandex I'm sure that I would get more than a couple of months use out of them.. seems pretty genius to me.

With all of that said, here are some things that I am going to try to shift my focus on:

Inches lost - I know that I have some measurements from back in April - I am going to compare my current data with these old measurements and see how many inches I have lost and then continue tracking.

Strength - I am going to start tracking how many push-ups and crunches I can do, as well as try to do a plank a day and time myself and keep a log of it.

Running - my running has improved SO MUCH in the past 6 or 7 weeks.  I have been very consistent with running 3-4 times a week, and I can totally tell that it's paying off!  My average pace has gone from 12:30/mile to right around 10:00/mile - that's a huge improvement!  Current goal is to be able to run a full 5k without walking - this has been a goal of mine for, well, I don't know, 3 years... haha, time to get this one crossed off the list!  The next 5k is the Turkey Day 5k - exactly one month from today.  If I can keep up on my training, I've got this!

Clothes - seeing how differently my clothes fit from week to week is a huge motivator!  Granted I hate losing a favorite pair of jeans, but if that means I can buy a new pair in a smaller size, so be it!

Weight - while I am going to try to not focus on this number... I have it in the back of my mind that I am 12 pounds away from a "normal" weight by BMI standards.  I know that BMI is not really the most accurate thing to go by, but that fact that I am this close to being NORMAL is huge to me - I have never, ever, ever been in a "normal" weight range - so this will be a huge accomplishment for me!

This is where I am going to put my focus - expect lots of charts and graphs from me in the future...they're coming!