I did it!

I went to Weight Watchers today for my weekly meeting and weigh-in, and I lost 3.2 lbs! That's even better than I'd expected, and means I got both another 5 lb. sticker for hitting the 10 lb. mark, and I got my 5% sticker as well. Yay!

If nothing else, this week was a great example of how you can eat a lot and still lose weight as long as you're still within your points. And that if the points you're given aren't enough for what you want to eat, you need to exercise. Without the 31 activity points that I earned, this week could easily have been a 3.2 gain! I'm feeling reassured that I can make it through football season and anything else ahead as long as I'm smart about it and am sure to do enough exercise to offset what I eat. A new week has begun, and so far, so good. Some fiber cereal for breakfast and half a Subway sandwich (meat and lots of veggies) and half a bag of Baked Lays for lunch leaves me with 18 points for the rest of the day, and it's already almost 2:30. Plenty of points to have a buffalo chicken quesadilla and a margarita or beer while I watch the Patriots tonight, and even enough for a WW ice cream bar for dessert! I'm not sure you're supposed to make your days so point-heavy at the end, but it's working for me so far. I'd much rather have a light breakfast (I pretty much never skip breakfast though) and have more flexibility later in the day. If I find myself hitting a plateau, switching that around will be one of the things I try to break through it, but for now, I'm not changing a thing.

I'll update my Mini Goals every time I reach one of the goals, or the date by which I was supposed to reach a goal. So here we go:

My Mini Goals:
10 lbs. by September 12  Done, on schedule!
15 lbs. by October 10
18 lbs. (my 10% goal) by October 24
20 lbs. by November 7
25 lbs. by December 5
28 lbs. (my 15% goal) by December 19
30 lbs. by January 2
35 lbs. by January 30
38 lbs. (my 20% goal) by February 20
40 lbs. by March 5
45 lbs. by March 26
47 lbs. (my 25% goal) by April 9
50 lbs. by April 23 - GOAL WEIGHT!!

I'm a pound ahead of where I planned to be today, which means I have four weeks to lose four pounds and reach my next goal. I'm hopeful that it won't take that long (and really, I'm determined that it won't) but I wanted to give myself some leeway when making these goals because I'd rather overestimate the amount of time and be pleasantly surprised than be too aggressive and be continually disappointed if I don't hit the marks. It's working so far!