Fifty-Three Food Sheets Later

Either chakras take more than a week to unblock, or the de-zombification process

successfully reversed AI's diagnosis that I was among the living dead.

(Hence no blog post last week—I was busy consulting a bioengineer.)

After two weeks of the scale refusing to budge and then another week where it rewarded me with a lovely three-pound gain, I was beginning to think AI might have been onto something.

Thankfully, this week's weigh-in told a different story.

Either my Root and Solar Plexus Chakras are finally back where they belong, or I am officially alive again, because the scale finally moved in the right direction.

Whether it was more water, more movement, less sodium, positive affirmations, or some combination of all four, I'll gladly take it.

Sometimes the scale just needs a little patience.

Or an exorcism.

Thankfully, this week it only required patience.

But as happy as I was to see the number move again, that wasn't actually the highlight of my week.

Friday, July 17th marked something much bigger.

One full year on Program.

Three hundred and sixty-five consecutive days.

Fifty-two weeks.

Technically fifty-three food sheets.

One year.

When I first started, I don't think I fully appreciated what a year would look like.

I imagined weight loss.

I imagined smaller clothes.

I imagined a number on the scale.

What I didn't imagine was everything else.

I didn't imagine learning how to navigate holidays.

Or vacations.

Or work events.

Or baking without tasting the frosting.

I didn't imagine deleting food delivery apps, experimenting with spaghetti squash, measuring charcuterie boards, surviving hotel breakfasts, getting ghosted before dinner, creating accountability challenges with my mother, or wondering whether blocked chakras were preventing me from losing weight.

And I certainly didn't imagine writing more than fifty blog posts.

This year wasn't perfect.

Far from it.

There were incredible weeks.

There were frustrating weeks.

Weeks where the scale cooperated.

Weeks where it absolutely refused.

There were times I questioned myself.

There were moments I wanted to quit.

There were weeks where life got in the way.

And there were weeks where grief got in the way.

But through all of it...

I kept coming back.

I filled out another food sheet.

I went to another weigh-in.

I wrote another blog.

Looking back through all fifty-three food sheets to take this picture...

...I noticed something I hadn't expected.

My very first week on Program and my one-year weigh-in ended with exactly the same amount of weight lost.

How's that for symmetry?

Maybe that's fitting.

Because while the numbers matter, they're only part of the story.

The bigger accomplishment isn't what happened in Week One or Week Fifty-Two.

It's everything that happened in between.

One year ago, I started Program hoping to lose weight.

Today, I'm still here.

Still learning.

Still laughing.

Still occasionally blaming my chakras.

Still filling out another food sheet.

And still moving forward.

I think Grampy would be pretty proud of that.

This week's loss: 9 pounds

Total loss so far: 56 pounds