Excuse my bad language, but I had a total craptastic week on the weight loss front. I am only down .2 lbs. since last Sunday (172.0 today) -- awful. But even worse, this time I can't blame my bad week on my body holding on to weight -- this week it's my own fault I haven't lost weight. My eating this week has been the worst ever since getting sleeved. I've partaken of donuts, cupcakes, crackers, and rice chips -- all that junk food, ugh. I have been frustrated with not losing weight so I have fallen into my very bad pattern of dealing with frustration by eating junk.

However, I will say, I am owning my bad behavior, and this morning I did something about it. I got up out of bed, got on my walking shoes, and did a killer one hour walk on a trail near my house (which has a monster hill that goes a mile and several hundred feet in elevation). Yah, baby! THAT'S the way to deal with frustration -- not putting crap food into my mouth, but doing something healthy and (dare I say) fun.

I was SO proud of myself doing this walk today. I had walked on that trail a few times before surgery (when I was 220 lbs.+) and it darn near killed me. On the hill part, I would have to take it in sections, like walk 100 yards, suck wind really hard until I felt like my heart wasn't going to explode out of my chest, and then walk another 100 yards, until I got up that hill. Today was the first time I have walked that trail since surgery, and man what a difference losing 60 lbs. makes. The hill starts out gradually, then gets really steep for a while. Once I got to the steep part, I could feel my heart get going faster, and I was thinking, "Oh boy, I am going to have to stop soon," but I decided to just keep going until I couldn't take it anymore ... and lo and behold, I never had to stop ... it did get tough at some points, but I just kept walking. To me this is a MAJOR NSV because I can do something now with relative ease that I would have keeled over dead trying to do pre-surgery. Another thing that was really cool was that my husband did the same walk as me, but he used the reverse course, so we passed each other halfway. He made it home before me (he is not fat) but when I walked in the front door his first words to me were, "You're home already! I am really impressed! I just got home a few minutes ago myself!" Yay!!!! And you know, right now, as I am writing this, I am eating a lovely breakfast of cold watermelon and feeling darn good. My energy level is really good. My legs are a little sore from walking but nothing major -- it's a good kind of sore that tells me I challenged myself and did good.

So anyway, some key lessons learned this week are that I still obviously emotional eating issues; but I can do something about it and deal with my emotions in a healthier way.

My 4th of July goal was to get to 169 and I am 3 lbs. away from that goal. I am going to do that hill walk every day this week, by gum, and see if I can get to that goal. I was doing so great earlier in the month and thought I had that goal in the bag ... but now I am really going to have to fight for it. And I AM going to fight for it!