You look fantastic. I wish I had your shoulder width. I think I have pretty broad shoulders, and congrats on getting so close to your goal weight (per your doctor).
So - off topic rant for a moment:
Happy wedding: The 6 of us got you this sugar bowl!!!!
yay! Back down to 178.6. Feelin' good.
Actually - this month I've only lost a little over 4 lbs. That's kind of discouraging to realize. Most months I've lost 7-9 lbs so I feel like this month has been super slow. Plateauing for 2 weeks is what did it, I'm sure.
Yet - I'm happy with my progress. I'm not feeling like quitting at all, it's just suddenly realizing I may be several more weeks away from my goal than I thought.
It's amazing how being aware of calories makes them so obvious. Remember what it was like to just eat whatever looked good and not even give a thought to how fattening it was? I used to eat fast food breakfast EVERY DAY. One of my favorites was the Carl's Jr. Breakfast Burger. Let me analyse this piece of food for those of you unfamiliar.
The Breakfast Burger is literally a hamburger designed for breakfast. A slab of meat with cheese, bacon, an egg, and hash brown circles topped off with ketchup. Doesn't that just seem like a ridiculously bad idea now? Add a side of hash brown nuggets and a coke and I was routinely starting my day at 1500 calories. It sounds disgustingly gluttonous now.
Tom - I hadn't even thought of slower weight loss as evidence of retaining lean muscle mass. But it must be true - I've done light strength training every evening - nothing to make me sore the next day but always enough that I struggle a little. Right now I can do almost 20 lbs more on each leg machine and 10 lbs more on each arm machine than I could at the beginning of the month.