Progress report on my fat loss plan:

Today's Post: Sunday, 3-21-2010

As some of you may have seen, I've posted on fat loss topics, and, since early January, this year, I've been following a sustainable, multi-strategy effort to lost 14 pounds on the scale and to lose or at least begin to lose over 4 inches from my waist.

My January monthly check of my first efforts after just a couple of weeks, I'd not expected much. But I did lose some weight.

My February, check after 6 or 7 weeks on this new plan, lost some more for a total of 5 & half pounds.

I decided to check half way thru about 2 weeks ago and found no progress.

So, I came up with a new method to remove an additional 100 calorie a day.

That method plus the main methods I've done the whole time, finally got results. And,so this month I DID lose 2 pounds since the month before!

I believe that's significant and useful for two reasons.

1. Having a multipart program will ensure results if one part is temporarily side tracked.

2. One effective way to overcome problems is to add a new and effective method that you weren't using before -- even if the effect is small.

How does that follow from what I did this month?

This month I lost 2 pounds despite some adverse events that might have derailed a program with fewer parts.

On two days on a weekend this month, I ate a good bit more of things like home-made cookies that I hardly ever have any of and simply ate more than usual -- AND I drank about 3 more alcoholic drinks than usual. My Dad had recently died and that weekend was the two day memorial for him.

But the other days of the month, I did all the things in my program. And, even on those two days I did some things right from my program.

Also, about half way through the month, our commute changed in a way that removed a two daily walks on weekdays of about half a mile each. So now, I'm getting 500 or more calories a week LESS exercise.

But my new extra 100 calorie reduction plan is on track and will cover that.

I've also found a way to add two one mile walks a week back to cut the lost calories a week from 500 to 300.

Bottom line, these adverse events happened; but I lost 2 pounds on the scale anyway.

The other result was that I lost half an inch on my waist. I had to cancel doing jumping jacks two days a week and go from two to four days a week doing jump rope since the jumping jacks were causing my left knee to not feel right.

That's actually worked out well since I'm now making faster progress on the jump rope which I think will help my goal of losing over 4 inches on my waist.

This past week I had a truly horrible cold, so I had to do only half my set on my jump rope and cut back some on my other exercises. But by becoming more skilled at the jump rope, once I get over the cold, I'll be able to do more and resume making progress.

In short, adversity plus a multipart program plus small upgrades equals progress anyway!