I haven’t posted anything since before Thanksgiving here on the blog or on my Facebook page. Did you think I bailed at the last minute and was going to leave you readers hanging about what happened with my Eat To Live challenge? A little suspense never hurt anyone!
I wrapped up the challenge yesterday and when I stepped on the scale this morning…………..I was down another 2.5 pounds! So my total weight loss for the 6 weeks was 10.5 pounds. My goal was 10. And when I add that to the 10 I lost last year, I’m down a total of 20.5 pounds. Time to do the Happy Dance!
Third Time’s The Charm!
I’ve actually done the 6-week Eat To Live program 3 times — kind of. Just to recap my overall journey on ETL, in January 2014, I tried out the program for a month to see how much weight I could lose. My overall goal was to lose 20 pounds, and I ended up losing 14.5 the first time around. However, I didn’t do the program for a full 6 weeks because I was heading off on vacation. I ended up gaining some of the weight back over vacation and spent much of the rest of 2014 trying to lose it. When that didn’t work, I decided to go back and try a full 6-week run on ETL in November 2014, and ended up losing the full 20 pounds by the end of 2014.
That victory was short lived, as another vacation in early 2015 and a general lack of following through with the program the rest of the year resulted in putting back on 10 of the 20 pounds I had lost. That’s when I decided to get serious and undertake the 6-week challenge for a third time. I realized that my prior efforts on ETL were timed to end right before going on vacation, so I didn’t have the opportunity to do the maintenance program properly to try to keep the weight off permanently. This time around, I’m giving myself a couple of months to stabilize the weight loss before taking off on another big vacation. Although Thanksgiving and Christmas occur during this maintenance phase, I think I have a much better handle on avoiding holiday eating pitfalls.
How I Did On ETL Over Thanksgiving
I think I prepared myself pretty well going into Thanksgiving this year. I brought all of my own food to the family feast and was able to avoid most, but not all, of the temptations. I’ll admit to having a few pieces of cheese and a bit of vegetable dip, but other than that, I stuck with the program. The day after Thanksgiving, I was up a full pound, but jumped back on the wagon the rest of the week. The result was dropping the last couple of pounds and hitting my goal, and just a bit more!
Next Steps
In case anyone is interested in trying out the 6-Week Eat To Live program for themselves, I’m putting together an eBook about my experience that can be downloaded here on the blog. I’ll try to have it ready by the end of year, so that anyone with a New Year’s weight loss resolution can follow the plan. I’ll include information that I wasn’t able to, or didn’t have time to, post here on the blog or my Facebook page over the past 6 weeks. It will have plenty of insider tips on how to make the journey as easy, and enjoyable, as possible.
Thank you to everyone for all of your support during this ETL Challenge! It definitely kept me going and made the “public humiliation” factor of doing this challenge “live” much easier.
I hope everyone had a Happy and Healthy Thanksgiving!
A says
I’ve just found your blog searching for Eat to Live resources. I hope to read your ebook! There are plenty of ETL recipes and I would like to try some but I’d love to read about your experience.
Amy says
I’m working on the eBook now and hope to have it ready in January in case anyone out there has a New Year’s Resolution! Thanks for stopping by!