This was a great week for my Operation Melt journey. The weather was marvelous and I was able to exercise outdoors every day and was even able to catch a beautiful sunrise while out running.

Plus I continued to shape the future of Operation Melt with some new milestones along the way. So please read on to learn more….

New weight loss milestone

Last week I talked about how I was almost at the 100 pounds lost mark. Well, as has become my tradition, I never hit 110 pounds lost mark exactly, I blew right past it! On Monday morning, I stepped on the scale and it said that I was 111.2 pounds down. That was a great surprise.

Then I continued seeing results after that and got to the 112.2 pounds lost mark this week. My app is projecting that I will hit the 125 pounds lost mark between 6/13 and 6/17 based on my current weight and rate of loss.

So I am cautiously optimistic that I will hit my revised goal of being under 200 pounds of total weight within a year.

You can’t win every day

If you can accept losing, you can’t win.
Vince Lombardi

People ask me if I have ever had setbacks along the way in my journey. They ask me if I ever have days where I fail to lose weight. They ask me if I ever hit weight plateaus. Basically they are asking me if I ever fail along the way in my journey.

Yes! Something I know today that I didn’t know a year ago is that weight loss is a game of ups and downs. There are days where you step on the scale and you are amazed by how much weight you lost in just one day and overall. But there are the other kind of days too, still amazed but not positively.

My body (as are most) is very susceptible to temporary weight fluctuations driven by a couple of factors. Two big factors that lead to weight fluctuations for me are higher alcohol and sodium intake. Both things cause you to dehydrate a bit and your body to retain water in your cells. Water has weight to it and you will see your weight go up. It isn’t “true” weight gain because, as long as your calorie balance is right, it isn’t possible to gain fat in that short time. It is just water weight and a temporary fluctuation.

This week, after having a huge win with getting to the 112 pounds lost mark, my weight went the other way. Then, for the next 4 days, my weight went up about a pound per day. Super frustrating!

I know the increase is a temporary fluctuation and that is should all drop plus some on Monday or Tuesday, it is still annoying. So I am just going to keep going and I will get there.

Helping other people through Operation Melt

I have said before that one of the things that keeps me motivated is when I hear that my story has inspired somebody to start their own journey. It is energizing when I find out that something I have shared is a motivation to get started or that I helped somebody figure out how to get past some obstacle. I really love helping people melt their obstacles and help equip them to accomplish any important goal, fitness or non-fitness.

For example, sharing stories about my setbacks and the ups and downs along the way may help somebody not get discouraged the first time the scale goes up one morning. This could make the difference between continuing forward or giving up and I want to make that decision easier to make in the positive.

This is what motivated me to attend a conference in Columbus this week, CMH Startup Week. This conference provided great information, panel discussions and mentoring to people who currently run startups or are considering starting a business. It was an amazing conference and I learned so much.

My goal for the conference was to get some knowledge, some expertise and some coaching on how to grow an idea into a business. I wanted this because I have an idea…

I want to turn Operation Melt into a business. I want to help others achieve their goals, whether fitness or not, and feel more successful. I want to help tackle the obesity epidemic in the US that is expected to grow to 50% of Americans being obese by 2030. I want to turn my newly formed passion for fitness into a career.

It will take a ton of work to turn Operation Melt into a business. But, if I have learned anything along this journey, I am not afraid of a little hard work to achieve my goals. I just need to make a decision to do it and know why it is important to me. Then I need to build a plan and measure progress every day. After that, it is just working my ass off!

Operation Melt Instagram

Earlier this week, I finally launched an Operation Melt Instagram account (@OperationMelt). This is something I have been wanting to do for a while but just never made it a priority. Well it is there now and I am pretty active.

My goal for Instagram is to show everybody how I am living a healthier life in more of a semi real-time manner. The website is great for telling and explaining and giving updates, but Instagram gives me the added ability to make it visual.

So please follow me on Instagram in addition to Twitter and reading the site. I will share tons of healthy tips and tricks and even some of my hacks. Plus, you will get to see some of the fun places that I like to go when I exercise.

That is all for this week. Check back next week for exciting updates about my job search as well as an update on where I am with the preparations and training for my first ever 5k race. The countdown is on to the big day, the anniversary of kicking off Operation Melt is just a few weeks away and there are lots of milestones left to hit between now and then!

Check back next week for more!

Last week’s stats (4/30- 5/6):
Distance walked/run: 52.6 miles
Total calories burnt: 27,848
Total calories consumed: 16,769
Weight change: 3 pounds lost