Build me up, Buttercup.

Sometimes you 'need' to read stories like this one; it's a first-person piece titled The Power of Gradual and Consistent: here

The long and short of it is that if you commit to starting something, and then you make a habit of doing just a little bit- but doing it consistently-you will eventually be surpassing goals you couldn't have imagined reaching in the first place. Before the author gets into fitness he talks about money and putting away just 1% of his meager pay checks and then adding a percent until suddenly he was saving 10% of his income. I want to go back and edit out the word 'suddenly' (but I won't) because the whole point of that person's story is that things DON'T happen suddenly; it takes work over the long haul. On the fitness side, he now runs 5 miles a few times a week, but he started by doing 1/4 mile runs- that's it. He could have done more but he wanted to go slowly, and he states that he was able to work up to regular runs completely injury free. How many times have you started an 'exercise plan' and been sidelined by pulled muscles or an aching lower back and then let the habit slip away? I've personally done that plenty of times.

In the past 35-odd days since I restarted low carb high-fat, I've neglected exercise. Part of me wants to cling to the theory that exercise will only crank up my appetite and that I should allow the diet to do its job. I do believe that food intake is 80% or more of one's weight loss success, but I'm ready to give myself an exercise-related 10-20% boost. I also live in a building with an elevator, I commute an hour each day to work, and I sit for 8 solid hours at a computer 5 days a week- so I re-heallly don't move much. The additional calorie burn, though, is less important to me than how I feel when I move my body and actually sweat. This morning before breakfast I went to the gym for the first time since October (!) and did 30 minutes, then I walked to the bank and the grocery store before returning home. The entire act is putting me in a super-productive, positive mood, and I'm spelling everything out so that I can come back here and read it when I'm losing motivation to get out of the house on the weekend.

My next weigh-in is this coming Tuesday; February 11th is day 40. As of day 30 I was down 9 lbs since Jan 2, but I lost zero lbs between day 20 and day 30. Without limiting myself or freaking out, I decided to begin tracking my food intake via My Fitness Pal. Here is what's going on: my nutrition breakdown has been coming out to 5-6% carbs, 70-75% fat, and 20-25% protein. Those macros keep me in purple tinkle-stick ketosis; I am rarely hungry, and I completely ignore simple carbs like a champ; however, my calories are pretty high. I'm eating 2100-2300 calories daily which technically gives me a deficit but if I keep that up and I don't expend more calories I will lose at a glacial pace. I set my calories at 1900 and now my plan is to keep to the 5% 70% 25% macros but stick to 1900 or less calories per day.

Oh, by the by, I added the MyFitnessPal weight-loss ticker to the top and it reads 17 lbs lost because it reflects my entire loss from Sept 2012 on rather than just the current plan. I'm looking forward to Tuesday's weigh-in because I'm confident I will break my stall, and I'm also excited to hit 40 days on plan. Enjoy your weekends, and see you Tues!