Don't know what to do next!

As I mentioned this morning, I have made it to my goal. Well, kind of. I have made it to the number part of my goal, but the goal states that I will make it through Thanksgiving at this number. That obviously implies a lot of discipline, maintaining this weight through this glutton-fest that is Thanksgiving. I think I am up to the challenge. I am going to my friends' place in Missouri which will be great, but will mean that I will be away from the gym. I would like to incorporate walking into my trip up there, and will work hard on portion controls but probably will not say no to any of my normal Thanksgiving favorites.

This sudden and dramatic weight loss has me absolutely baffled. If you recall, a long time ago I had a goal to make it to 249.4 by September 21 ("50 by fall"). Obviously I didn't make that and have been hanging out in the mid 250s for quite awhile now. I decided it was time to saddle up the horses and get going on the weight loss thing and, voila, it just drops off. Bizzarre.

There are a couple hypotheses I have as to why the weight could be falling off so quickly.

• It's like the initial weight loss all over again. When people start to lose weight, the first 5-10 pounds fall off so so quickly.
• I started to exercise again after an almost 3 week time off of that. My body's metabolism could be really revved up.
• I am eating a lot more fruits and somewhat more veggies than usual. Maybe something do with that?
• It could just be a fluke (but I don't really think so -- 1-3 lbs can be a fluke; 5 lbs is starting to be "real" weight I think).

The weirdest part (to me) of this loss is that I have been making ok but not stellar choices. For example, let me talk about what I ate yesterday. For breakfast, I had 3/4ish cups of fat free cottage cheese with a ton of fruit salad on top (fresh pineapple, strawberries, blackberries, papaya). I also ate two oranges throughout the morning to keep me from being hungry. Like I mentioned yesterday, lunch yesterday was catered. Turns out it was catered by Qdoba -- delicious! Bad stuff first: I had some chips and cheese dip. Cheese and cheese dip definitely are definitely weaknesses for me. For the rest, I had a reasonable portion of rice, black beans, a little steak, some cheese, sour cream, guacamole, and a lot of corn relish and pico di guillo. Not too bad. For dinner, I went to Jimmy John's and got my usual (#5 Vito, no capicola, extra lettuce, tomatoes, onions with Skinny Chips). At night, I had a huge bowl of cherry tomatoes and also a pear. I would say that is a decent day of eating, but nothing stellar. Certainly nothing like 1200 calories. For exercise, I did my usual 1/2 hr of aqua abs and 1 hr of water aerobics. It was good. I would have expected to be at a calorie deficit but nothing extreme, and CERTAINLY not enough to justify a couple pounds.

Oh well. I will take it. I am ecstatic to be working toward my goal and am committed to doing this the natural and healthy way (i.e., eating "real" foods not shakes, eating a balanced diet, being able to find something to eat in what everyone else eats, etc). Plus, I love carbs way too much to ever do something like the Atkins diet!