Yes, I was down again yesterday for loss of:

- 1.4 lbs.

That makes it a total of six pounds even.  Woohoo!

This brings up two questions.  Why deep fry all these foods?  I rarely eat fried food and can’t imagine frying my dessert.

The second question is Who eats these items?  From the looks of it — a lot of people.

I think it’s the idea of eating something that’s not available the rest of the year.  It makes it an special event.

I like fair food- but it’s the grilled corn on the cob, giant cinnamon rolls and funnel cakes.  I’ll leave the deep fried treats for the rest of you.

Photo: Some rights reserved by Steve Snodgrass

He doesn’t need to cut back as much but I don’t want to miss out on In-n-Out fries!  Anyway, despite the challenge I did track and it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

The result…..

LOSS: -1.2 lbs.

Here’s moving on to a new week.  We’re going to start an exercise plan and I’ll let you know how that goes.

How did your week go?

I’m not surprised to hear it’s better than others I’ve tried (Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig, etc.) But it’s nice to know it is considered a better choice for weight loss than the Mediterranean or DASH diets.

The descriptions of the various plans are thorough and include tabs for recipes, nutrition, reviews and helpful tips.

How does your food plan rank?

Photo: Some rights reserved by maistora

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) unveiled a replacement for the food pyramid this past week.  This new symbol is a plate.

It better represents visually the recommended healthy diet for Americans.  Most obvious is the fact that half the plate is filled with vegetables and fruits.  Other recommendations include:

• Half the grains eaten should be whole grains
• Switch to fat free or low fat dairy products.
• Avoid oversized portions.
• Compare sodium levels in food to reduce sodium intake.
• Replace sugary drinks with water.

All seem like pretty good advice and are fully supported in the Weight Watchers program.

What do you think about the new food plate?

LOSS: -3.4 lb

I’m thrilled and to be honest, it wasn’t even hard.  At least for this week.  Of course, my husband is out of town so I mostly lived off frozen meals.  Last night’s dinner was a fast food salad with grilled chicken.

So, I’ve adjusted the progress bar to the right and we’ll keep on going.   How did you do this week?

It must be about the 12th time I joined.  Why do I keep going back?  It’s simple.  Because it works.

As long as I stay on the program and track; I lose weight.  It’s when I get lax, start eating off plan that it all goes haywire.  Then when the weight starts going up, I stop going to meetings and so the cycle goes.

I’m planning on a different outcome this time.  This time I have you on my side.  The accountability of this blog and public pronouncement should do for my weight what it’s done for my finances.

To help track progress, I added a progress bar to the side.  It tracks progress to losing that first 20 pounds which was one of my goals for 2011.  Once that’s met, I’ll adjust it, but didn’t want to make the goal so large it seems overwhelming.

For a person of at least average intelligence; I can’t learn the secret to maintaining weight loss.  I am determined to learn it though to regain health and enhance my golden years.

If I can quit taking a medication or two, that would be great but my real goal is to be healthy and able to physically do the things we want to do in retirement: enjoy the grandkids, travel and have fun.

This is my journey; it may be similar to yours or not.  I hope you join me and share what works and doesn’t work for you.  It might help me and others.

What’s your weight loss story?