Ten pounds

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Lao Tzu

Well, if we stick with Lao Tzu's metaphor, I have walked the first 100 miles, because I have lost ten pounds in the last couple of months

Of course, the first 100 miles are probably the easiest; after that you start to get tired of all the walking. Also, I am still in familiar territory; it will take another ten pounds to get down below the range in which my weight has fluctuated for the last 15 years or so. I have a feeling this second 100 miles may be much harder.

I like the walking analogy, because losing weight is definitely not like driving 1,000 miles, or like hopping on a plane. It's a slow slog. With the amount of weight I want to lose, it's actually more like walking 10,000 miles. Did you know that you could walk to Argentina in a year and a half? I think you could. You would probably start getting discouraged somewhere in California though.

And while we are on walking, that is one thing I have added to the routine. I still don't usually walk on weekends, but I go almost every day at work. I work near the water in Seattle, so the walking is nice. I'm not very enthusiastic about most exercise, but I do like to walk.

The other main thing I have done is to start tracking what I eat. I am not very strict about it, but even keeping track of some of my meals has helped me focus on eating smaller dinners. I use an online program called MyFitnessPal that helps track calories and nutrition, plus my daily weight. When I started, I was probably averaging over 1,000 calories every night after I got home, maybe way over. Now, I keep it down to 700-800, which is OK for someone my size.

MyFitnessPal keeps track of fat calories, carbohydrates, protein, salt, and sugars. Invariably, almost literally invariably, I eat way more fat and salt than MyFitnessPal recommends -- usually something like twice the salt or more. I usually eat extra protein. And my carbs and sugar are way, way lower, than their goals, like maybe 1/4. Appropriate for a diabetic, I guess.

And about the diabetes: the biggest change I have seen so far is that my blood sugar levels have gone way down. I am taking less insulin, and I skip some days when my blood sugar is low, but my daily readings are much better than they were a few months ago. I even had one incident when my blood sugar dropped way too low -- all the way down to 42 (even my endocrinologist's eyes widened at that) -- but I made a couple of changes to keep that from happening again. Health-wise, keeping my diabetes under control is about the best thing I can do, so this has been great news.

If I lose another ten pounds, I'll write another post about it, hopefully in a couple of months. Five pounds a month. That will be enough if I can keep doing it.