So this month was a little bit frustrating because I was stuck on a plateau for three weeks. For the first 2/3 of April, my weight either stayed exactly the same at 203 or fluctuated up to 207 and back down again (I HATE holding on to water, so frustrating!) I stayed consistent and kept working out. I ate intuitively and ate when I was hungry and didn't when I wasn't. I was SO excited when I stepped on the scale to see 202, the plateau was finally broken! My consistency paid off, and I experienced a "fat whoosh" and FINALLY got down into the 190's! I ended the month at 198 and I was SO excited, I have wanted to get to "onederland" for so long!
The theory behind the "fat whoosh" effect is that sometimes, when you are losing weight, your fat cells start to shrink but fill up with water as a place holder. When you've been overweight for a long time, or you have been inconsistent with your diet in the past (as I have been), sometimes the fat cells give themselves a fallback of sorts, in case they need to fill back up with fat. It is sort of a survival technique, if you were in a situation where you were suddenly deprived of food and starving, your body would work to protect you by keeping fat stores readily available. When you're losing weight and your progress gets stalled by a plateau, it is super frustrating, but it helps to remember it's just a natural biological function of your body trying to keep you alive. I guess we can't really fault our bodies for trying to help us survive! Anyway, in this case, I was definitely experiencing this. Around the time that I started seeing the scale move, I was sweating and peeing like crazy - all of those fat cells were letting go of the water they'd held on to. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, down to 198.
Another fun thing that happened this week was this post went "viral" on Instagram! For whatever reason, this post was featured on the "explore" page and raked in somewhere around 4,700 likes! With the announcement of my "onederland" milestone, I also announced a 50% off sale for my e-book, and the traffic on my post brought a lot of traffic and sales to my site! Pretty cool for someone who only has about 2500 IG followers :) If you're interested in the 50% off sale, visit my site here!
The one thing I'm still struggling with is accepting the fact that I ever got this heavy, and that it's going to still take a while to feel like I look better. 198 looked a lot different 6 years ago, the last time I was in the 190's. Everything looks different now and it sucks to lose almost 70 lbs and still be so overweight! I know I just need to stay consistent and keep doing what I'm doing, and that I'll get there eventually, but right now it's just a little bit hard. I've also seen more loose skin in my upper arms and inner thighs. I knew that would be a side effect of this weight loss journey, but I expected it more from my stomach and my arms, I'm surprised to see it in my legs. Here are my before and after Keto pictures, in which you can see my arms starting to look a little "deflated":
The pictures on the left are from January 29th, three days before I started Keto again, and the right is from yesterday! Three months into Keto.
The one thing that gives me a lot of hope is my belief in the Ketogenic diet and the results I've seen so far. If I've made that much physical progress in three months, what will six months, a year, 18 months, etc. look like?! It's exciting to think about and that keeps me going :)
My goal for this month is to get to 190. I want to go to the gym more often and be a little more active than I was this month, and do a couple days a week of intermittent fasting.
What are your goals for May?
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