This morning I stepped on the scale and saw a number I hadn’t seen in a while. A good number. Now, I’m not going to tell you what it is. Honestly, I’m super bummed I ever got to this weight to begin with but I’m super proud to finally be seeing results on the reg.

When I say that, I mean, I’ve been working on this since 2016. Getting healthy and losing weight are no joke. Here’s the thing, everyone is like, try Keto, try Weight Watchers, try this, try that. I know that in the long term, I’m likely not going to be able to maintain any “diet program”. I want to create a lifestyle where I can eat what I want to eat and still get to a healthy weight.

I’m not so naive as to realize I’m not going to have to make sacrifices. In my case, I call them “choices”. I choose to eat certain things and I choose not to. Here recently, I chose to eat 4 chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese icing. I mentally made that choice and when it came down to it, I knew I had to live with the results. At the time I would consider it emotional eating (screw you Valentine’s Day) but I knew. I knew I didn’t have the calories in my tracker to support eating them and I ate them any way. THEN, I held myself responsible for what I did and when the scale didn’t change, well I earned that.

I think losing weight comes with a lot of mental struggles. Choosing the right food but not allowing yourself to fall into an eating disorder. You have to have mental health in order to get physical health. Now, I’m trying to workout and gain muscle to replace the fat I’m losing. I recognize that I just said “gain”.

When you workout and try to lose weight, I feel like it’s important to know that you might gain some weight at first. Muscle has to grow in order to burn off fat for you while you’re watching Netflix. You’re going to expand before you contract. Your trainer might have you on a diet that will help you with that but you’re also likely going to feel hungrier all of the time due to your metabolism waking up.

Currently I track my calories. It’s REALLY the only way I’m going to know what I’m eating. Am I eating all junk? Do I REALLY go over on my recommended sugar every day? If I eat broccoli with my chicken for dinner instead of french fries, I can have popcorn for a snack tonight! It’s really helpful to keep an eye on what you’re actually putting in your body. It also allows me to have a hamburger every now and then.

I’m not going to lie to you guys, I have bad days where I don’t even track what I had for dinner because I know I went way over. It happens. It’s life and it slows me down from reaching my goal BUT I also know WHY I’m slowed down and hold myself responsible for that.

All of this said, it was just a pound below what I’ve seen previously… but it was progress. For that, I’m proud of my hard work I’ve been doing. I say “hard”, I actually like it. I like working out. I like feeling strong. I like walking my 10k steps every day. It makes me feel athletic and it makes me feel like my old self. Things I can appreciate.