My slow decline into a smaller me is continuing nicely.  I’ve been exercising five times a week, skipping usually thursdays and sundays.   Sundays are nice because I can spend more time with Diana on the weekend, and Thursday is good because of the free tourney I run online every week.  I don’t know how I would exercise otherwise.   Because it’s the summer, I’m taking more time outside lately, which is improving my morale, even if I do end up taking the same route every day there is enough variation just because it’s a living, breathing environment than otherwise.  I still end up doing at least a couple days a week inside though - some days it’s just too late to walk outside, and I’m just not that comfortable with the neighborhood even though it is a very low crime area.   Usually when I am inside I am walking on the treadmill so it is basically the same exercise though.  I have been thinking of splitting inside workouts between a couple of the machines lately - 30 minutes walking on the treadmill and 30 minutes on the crosstrainer, etc.   I used to do the crosstrainer regularly and was fairly proud of it because it seems like it kills a lot of people but I seem to have the endurance to just tough it out.

I’m still having issues with sweating a lot.  Doing the walks outside has helped a bit, because it evaporates some more than when I’m on the treadmill.   I still have to hang my shirts before putting them in the hamper, lest the sweat infect the other clothes with it’s smellyness and wetness.   I was hoping that when I got into the exercise routine that something would change in order to reduce the sweating but it hasn’t happened.  I have a sweatband, but I forget to wear it a lot and the sweat gets in my eyes.

What I do to keep me entertained has shifted a little bit.  Originally in my workouts I was listening to podcasts, and then I shifted to watching anime on the flat screens in the exercise room, and from there I ended up alternating between watching TV on my phone and listening to podcasts again.   Then I got into reading and started listening to audiobooks, which I have been enjoying a lot lately.  In the last two months, I ended up listening through all of the Dresden Files, from the first to the latest book, and now I am most of the way through Daemon.  Audiobooks have a lot of advantages, it’s pretty easy to follow along with the fiction books and I can also continue listening to them on my commute if I want to.   I joined Audible briefly but decided it wasn’t worth the money when I could just get these books from the library.

On to the charts:

The monthly chart shows my progress getting a little better this month, although the weekly loss is still at a single pound per week.  I’d like to work on that so that I can get it up to two pounds a week which is a little faster and will get me to my goal quicker.  I’ve been trying harder to stick to a pretty low calorie diet lately, which has been working as you can see quite well at the end of the month. I’m getting pretty close to my original goal of being under three bills, so I will have to set myself a new goal soon in order to keep me on this path.

I also have been having a problem ignoring the daily weigh-ins, being sad when I am for example suddenly three or four pounds heavier when I weigh in.  It has an interesting effect on my mood, keeping me vigilant of my diet - that could be a good or a bad thing though.  I’ve been trying to keep my progress on a website called Dailymile as well, but lately I have not been adding my workouts there, because I don’t seem to have anyone that I know in real life, and also the people who are on there seem to be more of a fitness crowd instead of a weight loss crowd.

This is the graph that makes me want to keep going.  Seeing the weight just go down, down, down is really strengthening. I just need to keep going and soon enough I will be a much healthier and smaller person.