Another small mile stone reached

Well today I reached another goal I set myself and that was to reduce my weight by 5 stone or 32kg's and at last nights weigh in I reached that goal! I now weigh 89kg's which is still 15kg's more than I want too but am well on the road to getting down to a healthy size. I am a comfortable size 16 and really enjoying the feeling of a healthier lifestyle and still reducing my weight while reintroducing conventional food back into my diet.

I believe it is very important to constantly set yourself SMART goals so that it focuses you to working towards a result otherwise I personally find it hard to work out what I need to do in order to move forward. Reaching your goals is all about how realistically you are setting them and each victory is a "positive stroke" which helps you to stay motivated and gives you a sense of achievement. For me this is very important as previously I have not achieved many of the goals I set myself and therefore have felt a failure. When I look back now at why that happened I realised that the goals were unobtainable for several different reasons and therefore not realistic. Small steps as they say and it is so self motivating when one does achieve even a small goal. I keep a record of all my achievements daily such as:

• I drank my 3 litres of water today
• I didn't lapse (cheat)
• I walked 10 000 steps today
• I did well with my portion control
• I stopped eating when I was full
• I left food on my plate and I was ok with it
• I had a sip of wine but didn't have the glass

They may seem minor achievements but for me they are important as it constantly encourages me to move forward and enjoy what I am doing. It makes it exciting! Most people are used to how I look now so I don't get as many "wow you are looking wonderful" or "you have lost so much weight - you look great" as I did in my first 3 months. You don't realise how important it was to get those constant compliments on an ongoing basis as it keeps you motivated. This is not "real life" though and now you have to find other ways to motivate you each day.

Last week we were able to have certain vegetables (raw of course) with our meal and as snacks in addition to one main meal and 3 food packs. I found there were certain days where I couldn't finish all 3 food packs and the meal and others where I could have had 5 food packs and my meal! My body seems to be reacting to the conventional food in that I am getting "hungry", but I am learning to tell the difference between emotional hunger and real hunger! Not easy I have to say but this is what we have been doing for nearly 4 months now. This week we can introduce red meat and fruit. Both these I love but have to be careful of portions. We are recommended not to have red meat more than twice in a week and only certain fruits but only up to around 400grams a day (which is quiet a lot). We also get to have tomatoes so can now have tomato based sauces which is a relief as have been struggling a little with this. I am also interested to see what affect it will have on my body?

That's all for today.