Weigh-in Day.

Today's weight: 151. A loss of 5.8 pounds. Now, don't get me wrong; this is totally cool and all, but my weight has fluctuated like crazy the past few weeks, so it's hard to believe that this number will last. Let's take a look at some previous weigh-ins, shall we?

-10/30/09: 156.8
-10/23/09: 157.4
-10/16/09: 153.8
-10/9/09: 152.4
-10/2/09: 156.6

Insane. But, it also kinda makes sense. Those past weeks included a few extreme binge days, followed by extreme workout days, so my body didn't know what the hell to do. I really don't want to repeat a cycle like that again. Weekends are always a battle for me, so all I want to achieve over the next few days is balance. And, with the exception of Halloween, I managed to achieve some pretty damn good balance this week. I've been eating just the right amount of food (and enjoying it!) and I've been keeping my workouts in check by not overdoing it and being more aware of certain cues (muscle soreness, feelings of sluggishness versus feeling energized, etc.).

One thing that has probably helped is not having my regular heart rate monitor that tells me how many calories I burn. I had to send it away to be serviced this week, so I've had to go back to doing estimates on calories burned during workouts. Not my preferred method, obviously, but it has taken some of the underlying pressure off. It's allowed me to just be more in tune with my heart rate and breathing patterns on my own, instead of a monitor telling me where I'm at. I think it just forced me to work out smarter, as opposed to just doing whatever it takes to burn 700 calories at a time.

ANYWHO, in more exciting news, I can now fit comfortably into some size 7/8 jeans I bought a couple of months ago. I think I was more excited about that than seeing 151 on the scale. And a size 7/8 is pretty much where I wanted to end up anyway. Hooray!

Although I'm trying to move away from the numbers game, I can't help but point out that today's weight puts me at 97 pounds lost. Three pounds away from that elusive 100 pound mark. Sigh. I'm just going to take things one pound (and one day) at a time. I think changing up my fitness routine and being more aware of my diet this week really helped to move me in a new direction where I might possibly reach 148 without having to kill myself with stress.

Overall though, 3 pounds isn't going to change the way I look at this point and since I'm finally coming around and sort of loving the way I look now (especially in these jeans), I'm more concerned with just being happy with myself and feeling good.