Sticking to the Paleo Diet and getting enough sleep has been rewarding me with some more weight and size loss. I was able to go a one belt hole farther on my belt yesterday, and today, I was 2 lbs lighter than yesterday. I looked at my Garmin data for steps this past weekend and found that I had only walked an average of 7000 steps, so it wasn’t like I was walking as much or as far as I thought I was. However, being in the cold definitely burned a lot of calories, so I’m sure that’s where a lot of my calorie deficit came from this past weekend.

The bottom line is that I’m so close to being in the 170’s again, I can taste it. Heck, if I continue to be good this week, I may see 179 lbs (or less!) by Friday! That’s exciting!!! With that said, I’ve said it time and time again: the scale shouldn’t ever be your single source of measure when it comes to your health and physical well-being. There are other things to consider like size (how your clothes fit, getting into smaller sizes), how you feel in the mornings, how much energy you have, mental clarity, and even improvements to your health like lower blood pressure, lower blood sugar, lower cholesterol, and better skin (these are all things I’ve seen happen in my own journey with Whole30/Paleo). However, being in the military, I do have to concern myself with weight, and right now, I’m officially over the height/weight standard by 5 lbs. There is an alternate measure called “Taping” where they measure your waist and neck and compute your BFI, but I don’t want to go that route. I know that the BFI process is being re-worked at the DoD, and I don’t want to start relying on it now only to have it change and then I’d have to do something drastic to get back into regs. I just don’t want to go through that.

So, long story short: I’m at 181 lbs this morning. That’s a full 6 lbs less than I was the morning I left for Fort Hood. I can feel it in my clothes, in the way my trousers fit, and I can see it on my midsection. When I see more definition, I know the fat is going away.

The moral of the story is: consistency. My grandfather always used to say that consistency was key to success. “Keep working, and through determination, you will see success,” he would tell me when I would call him and my grandmother to tell them how I was doing in college. His words come back to me all the time when I consider eating something non-Paleo.