Chain Reaction

I believe it was way back in July when I shared with float readers that I was determined to lose some weight. I increased my exercise and started counting calories, with the help of Lah's nutritional analysis of my needs. I was doing great.

But the scale did not budge. In fact, it went up another few pounds.

School started back up. I lacked the time to count calories, but had a shiny new subscription to Cooking Light and began making most of my meals with their recipes.

Still, the scale did not budge.

My weight-lifting regimen began making my hips incredibly tight. I started losing flexibility and agility, which is problematic for someone who needs to crawl around on the ground to give shiatsu. I stopped the weight-lifting, added a yoga class to my routine, and began doing cardio twice a week. 20 to 25 minutes of cardio, plus stretching, requires far less time than an hour long weight circuit, so I benefited from more free time, too.

Yet, months after I had begun, the scale still did not budge.

And then it did, maybe a month ago. The loss was tentative at first, fluctuating between 170 and 169 pounds. I doubted it was really fat loss, assuming I was probably gaining and losing water weight. But soon, the scale was fluctuating between 168.5 and 170. After I held a steady 168 for a couple of weeks, last week that I was down to 166. And this week, suddenly, I weigh 164 pounds.

I don't know why* the weight is now, after half a year of fruitless effort, falling off like slow-cooked barbecue off a bone, but hey, I'll take it. Maybe it just takes a while to get the ball rolling.

*In truth, I think it has to do with strengthening the digestive qi and metabolism over the last 6 months, so that the stage was set.