I have 2 great bits of news to share with you today:

1.  Tuesday is weigh day and I lost 2 more pounds which means I have lost one stone this year already.  In three weeks, I have lost 1 stone and 1 pound.  There is now 15 pounds less of me than there was three weeks ago.  Yeehah!

2. I wanted to have some health checks so I visited a Doctor today who carried out various tests.  One result I was delighted about was my cholesterol.  I have, surprisingly/luckily, for someone as overweight as I am, never had a problem with my cholesterol.  I do NOT have any underlying conditions that may make the numbers go in the wrong direction.  For that I am very grateful.  However, the numbers in the past could be improved.  Today, the Doctor I saw said he could not remember seeing such good cholesterol results.  My total cholesterol number was lower than the lowest number in the healthy range and the HDL (the cholesterol we want to be high) was higher then the upper limit in the healthy range.

I asked the Doctor if cholesterol values can be changed in a short period of time i.e. could the ultra healthy diet I have been following for 3 weeks, plus the additional exercise, be contributing or was that too soon to make a difference?  He was sure that 3 weeks would have been enough time to improve my results.  I was so pleased and more motivated than ever to continue with my way of eating and to maintain as a minimum (but try to increase) my current exercise rates.

Having said that I didn’t manage any exercise today as I am still looking after a poorly boy.  But the eating was good.  Breakfast was a fruit salad which is not enough for my new regime but it was what I was given at the Doctors as I had to fast before my visit.  They give people fruit salad and a yogurt afterwards but I declined the yogurt – dairy and sugar.

Lunch was quick and easy as I was catching up on work.  Stir fried rice (60 g cooked rice) with nearly 3 eggs, onions, garlic, lots of spinach and Cholula hot sauce.  Cholula hot sauce has negligible calories in 1 tsp i.e. zero which is good news 🙂

400 calories Supper was a very easy to prepare baked potato with salmon and tenderstem broccoli.  Instead of the butter I would usually smother the potato in, I mashed half with 1 tbsp coconut butter and half with half an avocado.  I had a small half of one fillet of Wild Alaskan salmon.  This was much less salmon than I would usually eat but there were unexpectedly 3 for supper, I only had 2 fillets and to be honest, this was plenty.

582 caloriesI have looked at my weekly assessment on my calorie counting app.  I set my daily calorie limit at 1,200.  I went over that on 3 days but was under on 4 days.  My net calories for the week are 106 under my weekly goal.  I am delighted with that.

I have been completely disciplined and tracked every calorie consumed.  I mainly drink teas and coffee without milk but I do have one or two with soya milk which I add to my tracker but don’t bore you all with.  I am really pleased I have maintained my discipline around eating well and tracking everything.  Interestingly the Doctor told me I could eat up to 1,500 calories a day and still lose weight.  I will stick with 1,200 but if I sometimes go up to 1,500 I won’t panic.

Here’s to the next week !