Weekly Wrap-Up: How I Lost 10 Pounds in Six Weeks

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As I sit here starting this post, I still don’t know if I actually lost 10 pounds, but when I did my midweek weigh-in on Thursday morning, my total weight loss was up to 9 pounds. So, I’m going to go out on a limb and call it close enough for this story. If you want to know if I actually reached the 10 pound mark by the time Monday morning rolled around, keep reading to the bottom of this post!

Here are the 5 things I did to make the first third of my weight loss happen quickly:

Tracking Food
I think my diligent use of My Fitness Pal is one of the things that has been the key to my success over the last six weeks. Over most of this time frame everything that went into my mouth Monday-Friday got logged and I really watched it. On those days, I tend to keep my calories well in check and even run a good deficit many days. I create a greater calorie deficit after factoring my daily exercise. I don’t typically log Saturdays because that is considered a cheat day. It’s so hard to determine how to log food when you eat in small locally-owned places or make things up as you go along that I think I would get stressed out, so I just skip it. If you are trying to lose weight and are experiencing varying levels of success, I would really recommend giving calorie tracking a try. And, if you decide to do it through My Fitness Pal, please send me a friend request! My username there is kkdaughtrey.

Staying active
Movement has also been a huge component of helping me lose weight over the last six weeks! I’m running four days a week and doing strength two days a week. I’m adding in extra walks when I can and we almost always take a family walk before breakfast on Saturdays! Based on Apple Health, I burned about 3724 from Monday to Saturday. Once I added in my burned calories from my “long run” that puts me well over 4,000 extra calories burned this week. As much as I love food, there is no way I could lose weight this quickly without staying active. Here are my workouts from this past week:

• Monday – 3 mile run, 10 minute walk, 20 minute walk
• Tuesday – 10 minute cardio warm-up and 25 minutes strength
• Wednesday – 3 mile run
• Thursday – 10 minute cardio warm-up and 25 minutes strength
• Friday – 30 minute run
• Saturday – REST DAY – 2.25 mile family walk
• Sunday – 4.5 mile run (okay, it was a 3.1 mile run followed by a serious bonk and then mostly walked the rest of the way–thanks for nothing heat and humidity)

Meal-planning
I talked a little bit about meal-planning a few weeks ago, but I want to be sure I emphasize how important it is not just to weight loss, but also maintaining a bit of sanity in our family of a toddler, two demanding careers, and a desire to stay healthy. This past week, I was able to make adjustments to my diet on other days because I knew that Wednesday I would be eating out for both lunch and dinner. When you spell it out for the week ahead of time, you know where your higher calorie days are going to be and you can accommodate that kind of plan. This past week looked like this:

• Monday – Pork Vindaloo
• Tuesday – Sweet Potato Noodles with Shrimp and Thai-style Almond Sauce
• Wednesday – Out to dinner with my team from work at 1618 Downtown – I had a small steak with a bomb-tastic chile relleno that was 10 times over worth the extra fat and calories
• Thursday – Glazed Maple-Mustard Tempeh with Collards
• Friday – Fish Tacos
• Saturday – Ribs from the smoker with fat-free curried potato salad (recipe coming soon) and sauteed asparagus
• Sunday – Summer Vegetable Risotto and Salad

Family support
I’m not going to lie. I don’t think I would be able to have even close to this amount of success if my husband wasn’t behind me. He is on this journey too, with an equal amount of weight to lose. We alternate cooking nights, we both get out of bed before 5 AM to get in our workouts, and we share our eating habits throughout the day. I know it is always helpful to have people supporting you, but it is even more helpful to have your partner in life become your partner in your fitness journey. And it isn’t like this is something new for us, we’ve always made a habit of trying to get in a workout as a family pretty frequently. As for Penelope, she isn’t as much of an external support (that whole being 2 thing gets in the way), but that she is willing to eat whatever we are eating for dinner and doesn’t mind long stroller rides on the weekends is definitely helpful!

Keeping Track of my Progress
In the education world, we call this progress monitoring. If a student is at major risk of falling behind, we check in with them every week to see how they are doing. I’ve been doing the same with my weight. Each Monday morning, before I get dressed, but after I  go to the bathroom (TMI?) I step on the scale. I’ve also been weighing in on Thursday mornings. The Thursday mornings help me know where I am for the weekend and where I might need to adjust, but Mondays are my “official” days. Knowing where I am each week helps me keep motivated.

So where to next? I have lost about a third of the weight I wanted to lose, so I’m nowhere near finished. I’m revisiting My Fitness Pal to see if I need to make any calorie intake adjustments for the weight I have lost to keep me moving forward at a good pace. I’m also going to start taking body measurements every two weeks to give me another indicator as to how things are going. Finally, I’m starting physical therapy for my Achilles and hip this coming week, so I’m hoping that will help me gradually increase my running mileage over time. I’m also adjusting my goal slightly. I know that as I get closer to the 20 pound weight loss mark, it is going to get harder and harder to lose at a quick pace each week. Therefore, I’m setting my sights on 8 weeks for my next goal. The Thursday before the 8 week mark we leave for our Australia trip where I plan to relax, eat great food, but continue to stay active. Then, when we get back to the States in mid-October we will get right back on track and keep up the good habits we are developing now.

So…

Now for the big reveal…

9.8 pounds. I’m trying really hard not to be disappointed or second guess that final rib I ate Saturday night, but it’s hard. Still, that’s a lot of weight lost in a short period of time and I feel like I’m relearning some good habits I had when I was in much better shape, so I’m really happy about it. The needle is moving in a good direction! And look at what My Fitness Pal dashboard says!

To read more about how others are doing on their journey through life, be sure to visit Wendy and HoHo‘s Weekly Wrap!

Here is to the next 10.2 pounds!