Day 30

Weight:  177

Woo hoo!  Another pound down the drain!  I do, however, have a confession... I cheated again.

I did really well with watching my food intake yesterday... until cleaning up the dinner dishes.  My husband grilled a 6 ounce sirloin steak for me,  which is my usual portion, and it’s therefore already packaged in that size in the freezer.  On this diet, I simply cut them down to the appropriate weight, sometimes before cooking, sometimes after.

As I was cleaning up, I just wanted one more little piece, so I cut a little piece off of the left over…and then another little piece…and then before I knew it it was gone.  At the very least, it wasn't a brownie and that, in and of itself, is a victory.

It didn't hurt that it only started out to be an uncooked 6 ounce very lean tenderloin steak but when I looked up the calories on FitDay.com I was really surprised; the allowed 3 ounce portion is approximately 152 calories but going up to 5 ounces was 254 calories.  The grilled chicken I eat for lunch has 202 calories!

I'm not sure if that's a pleasant surprise or not; I guess pleasant because I've always assumed that steak had so many more calories.  That's probably the difference between a high-end lean steak and the more affordable steak that most of us Americans usually eat, I suppose.

I'm going to look at this outcome as a result of my "steak day", while keeping in mind that I truly did not follow the "steak day” protocol.  However, I finally feel full, and satisfied, this morning, and I truly see no reason that today's food consumption won't proceed normally.

I was a little bit worried early in the day, too, that I wouldn't lose any weight because I got a bit of a sunburn on the back of my neck when we were at the driving range.  I have very fair skin, and sunscreen with SPF 45 is a staple in my morning routine.  However without being able to use any lotions, sunscreen has been out.

Overall, I'm very pleased with my progress, as today I can officially say that I have lost 30 pounds since April.

On a side note, with my reduced portion sizes and lack of carbs, like rice and sweet potatoes, my husband has lost 7 pounds!

He is the cook in our family and made the observation yesterday that one of the steps in our overall progress towards good health and maintaining this new weight will be to revamp the menu to reduce the overall amount of carbs, whole grain or not, that we eat throughout the week, and I agree with him.  We did it once before when we went on Atkins, and now we can't imagine eating the old way.  I think that will happen this time too.