2 Month Weight Loss Progress

I have been following a reduced calorie diet for two months now.  I have set my daily target of 1995 calories per day based on the Mifflin BMR calculation with an activity factor of 1.2 (mostly sedentary).  After three weeks of a weight stall accompanied with decreasing waistline, my scale weight has begun to drop again.  I have now lost a total of 29.4 pounds, over two thirds of which was in the first month.  My waistline has shrunk by 2.5 inches and my hips by 3 inches.  My "fat" clothes are not falling off of me yet but they are fitting much better than when I started this diet.

My wife is also following a reduced calorie diet but with a slightly smaller target calorie intake. She has lost 22.4 pounds so far.  And, yesterday she wore a perfectly fitting dress to church that had previously been too small.

In the past, I had used low-carb diets effectively (lost 85 pounds) and now I am using reduced calorie effectively.  As such, I am beginning the think that it doesn't much matter what method you choose to lose weight as long as you have the proper determination and persistence to stick with it.

Don't get me wrong though.  Nobody is perfect.  Living life to it's fullest means that you have to make room for special occasions and exceptions.  One of these for my wife and I was a wonderful dinner at the Loveless Cafe in Nashville.  Loveless, which has been featured on the food network many times, is world famous for it's biscuits and fried chicken.  I'm pretty sure that they use lard in the biscuits and for frying and I'd hate to even take a guess at how many calories we consumed that night.  Having one dinner there is not cheating.  Exceptions are part of life.  If I were to frame this as cheating then it would eat away at my will power.  Instead, I choose to see it as one of life's rewards.  It's simply a matter of maintaining balance.  And, the fact that we have continued to lose weight despite a few such nights is evidence that we are indeed restoring balance.

Is Ignorance Bliss?

My business travel is at about 75%.  So, I am quite frequently dining out with co-workers.  Because I am using my blackberry (smart phone) to track calories, everyone sees me pulling up restaurant nutrition info on my phone before placing orders and then while waiting for the food, I am usually keying my menu or calorie counts into my phone.  I recently hired two new team members who are now in the process of re-locating from Spain to Nashville, Tennessee.  The other day, I overheard them in the back seat of my car, talking in Spanish about my always entering what I eat into my cell phone.  They weren't really making fun of me but just talking about my new quirk.  Sometimes at dinner, co-workers have begun asking me about their calorie counts, usually while they are eating.  This is a bit dangerous as they are usually uncomfortable when they realize that their pizza is 600 calories a slice or that their 18 ounce rib eye steak cooked with butter is close to 1200 calories.  Most people worry about calories when they are aware of the counts but actually would rather remain blissfully ignorant.