February comes and goes

Sad news today. And yesterday to a lesser degree. I read that Paul Harvey passed away. I always enjoyed listening to his news reports... there's a major part of Americana gone with him. And then yesterday was the last day teh Rocky Mountain News was printed. I remember doing an internship in Holyoke, Colorado 25 years ago and being so enamored with the size of the comic section in the Rocky. It's kinda sad to see it go.

Okay, so, time for an end of month report. I'm typing this without my contacts so, if i'm making big typos I can't see, so forgive me in advance.

This morning I weighed in at 355.0. My measurements were 59.5 chest, 59.5 waist and 51.5 hips. So if I remember right (I did just go back and read last month's numbers a few minutes ago, so if I'm wrong it's... um... yeah, my contacts are out, that's the ticket! (Better that than admitting to bad short term memory). Anyway, I was 59.5 on the chest, 60 waist, 54 in the hips, so right now it looks like it's the hips that are doing the best. I was at 367.6, so in February I lost 12.6 pounds. And, that puts me at 38 pounds overall, almost 20 percent of my goal.

I'm really happy with how things have been the last couple weeks. I've done well at avoiding any kind of binges or serious falls off the wagon. Granted, on South Beach, y ou have more flexibility in foods than Atkins, they encourage adding more carbs into your diet. This is far less restrictive than when I was on Atkins, for example I have oatmeal most mornings (whole grain, not the instant stuff -- more fiber and lower glycemic index) and some breads, some whole wheat pasta, stuff like that. And with the intensified exersise the past couple weeks, it's all going really, really well.

Walking for the month, I did just over 41 miles. I've been tracking it at www.mapmyrun.com, so that's why I'm not reporting it here so much now like i was doing earlier. I think there's a widget I can put on here that shows my progress from that site, so I'll have to look into that. I only did 8 miles on the bike... mostly just very cold weekends. Now, of that 41 miles, 30 of it came in the past two weeks. So I'm very pleased with all of that.

Two more days until the final weigh in at the Biggest Loser group. Now I'm finding I'm a couple pounds heavier by the end of the day than i am at the beginning, and so adding on 3 pounds for clothes, right now I'm figuring I'd weigh in at 360, which is 8 pounds down from the last weigh in. And of course it depends on progress the next 2 days too... i'd love to nail the 10 pound mark for the week! That would feel like a good sense of accomplishment. But even still, right now that all puts me at 26 pounds down if i'm where i think according to their scale... not bad for 6 weeks.

If I can keep at that pace i'm going to be pushing 300 by the Bolder Boulder... yikes! Or even if I look at the overall pace of 38 pounds in 3 months (including Christmas)... another 3 months like that and i'm at 317. Still very very nice.... this is getting really encouraging, seeing signs of being a bit thinner, feeling a LOT thinner...

Here's to a great March!