WEEK 5 -- DAY 29 -- 4TH WEIGH-IN -- 9.5 TOTAL POUNDS LOST IN JANUARY

2.5 lbs. lost this week!!!

9.5 lbs. lost this month!!!

Well it was well worth the wait to finally get on the scale this morning and to see that I've lost another 2.5 pounds this month. That means I've lost 9.5 pounds in the month of January....even though the blog ticker says 10 pounds lost. For some reason it doesn't do half pound increments so I guess I'll have to live with it.

It also means that my plan is working. I'm only supposed to be losing one pound a week and would have been happy to have lost 4 pounds in the month of January....one pound for each week. Instead, I've lost 5.5 pounds more than that. How good is that??

What this proves is that I can do this and really not deprive myself. I was out of town for a few days this month, went into the city to have dinner, went out to lunch with a friend and basically didn't turn down any offers that involved eating like I usually do when I'm dieting. But what I did do is not punish myself if I cheated. Because I'm only weighing myself once a week, I don't even know how the cheating (if you want to call it that) affected my weight.

I'm back in Atlantic City today and tomorrow so I ended up grabbing a package of those Entenmann's blueberry muffins on my way out the door and that's what I had for breakfast. For dinner, I had my favorite tuna salad sandwich at the Metropolitan Cafe with a few fries.

In the past, I'd go out to lunch or out to dinner and then weigh myself the next morning and I'd weigh more than the day before. This would depress me and then I would eat again that day because I was mad at myself. This didn't happen to me once this entire month.

I still haven't added exercise to my new plan and I will be doing that soon. But it's great to know that I've been able to lose almost 10 pounds with just cutting back on what I usually eat. I'm now excited to begin my second month on the "plan".