I have made my Weight Watchers goal of 10% with flying colors... having dropped 6.6 pounds in the last week. Actually... it's been nine days since the last weigh-in, but still, that's the biggest one-week drop I've had.

It has come together like this:week 1198.4 lbs.(total)week 2194.2 lbs.-4.2-4.2week 3190.0 lbs.-4.2-8.4week 4188.2 lbs.-1.8-10.2week 5187.2 lbs.-1.0-11.2week 6183.8 lbs.-3.4-14.6week 7183.0 lbs.-0.8-15.4week 8182.2 lbs.-0.8-16.2week 9182.0 lbs.-0.2-16.8week 10175.4 lbs.-6.6-23.0You can imagine that weeks 7-9, I was getting pretty discouraged... and then THIS WEEK happened!

The key for me is focusing on my daily points allotment, and treating my "flex points" as "mistake" or "unavoidable" points. After I drop another .4 pounds, I'll have to eat two fewer points per day to continue the weight loss. I already have a plan, and it involves a lot of these.

After being "on program" for ten weeks, there are two things that I am much better about doing now. First, I plan ahead for food... not getting stuck in a situation where I'm starving and the only thing I can put my hands on is fast food or a candy bar. Second, where there are opportunities to make choices... even choices between bad and worse, I can make healthier, satisfying ones. For instance, at our church's dinner theater, the meal was baked cornish game hen, steamed vegetables, and "chocolate pyramid anglaise." In olden days (when a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking...) I would have wolfed down the whole pyramid, but since I had fueled up on the half-hen and veggies, I felt full and only went about halfway through the pyramid... knowing that I was eating it for the taste and not the "fulfillment." When I knew we were having "breakfast for dinner" this past Wednesday night, I ate a low point (morning) breakfast and low point lunch so that I could eat the higher point scrambled eggs, bacon and hash browns for dinner.

One wonderful side-effect of this eating plan has been that my acid reflux issues are much less severe. I still am on Pepcid AC BID, but I don't have to supplement it with other antacids (like I did sometimes.)

How low can you go? Weight Watchers says my healthy range is 145-165. I think I'd really like to land in the 150-160 range. I'm making my next goal 160 and then decide whether I want to go for 155. I don't think I've weighed that little since I was... oh... maybe fourteen?