Phase 2, Day 21

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Weight/Measurements:

Weight: 127 pounds
Bodyfat: 26%
Waist, holding in stomach like I normally do: 27.5 inches
Waist, letting it all hang out: 28.5
Waist around my belly button, holding in stomach like I normally do: 31.5
Waist around my belly button, letting it all hang out: 32
Hips: 37
Chest: 30
Bust: 36.5
Thighs: R21.5, L20.5

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Weight: 134 -- 131 -- 129 -- 130 -- 127.5 -- 127

Bodyfat: 29% -- 29% -- 27% -- 28% -- 27.5% -- 26%

Waist, sucking in: 28.5 -- 28.5 -- 28.5 -- 28 -- 27.5 -- 27.5

Waist, hanging out: 30 -- 29.5 -- 29 -- 29 -- 28.5 -- 28.5

Belly, sucking in: 32 -- 31.5 -- 31.5 -- 31.5 -- 31.5 -- 31.5

Belly, hanging out : 34 -- 33.5 -- 33 -- 33.5 -- 32.5 -- 32

Hips: 38 -- 37 -- 37 -- 37 -- 37 -- 37

Chest: 32 -- 31 -- 31 -- 31 -- 30.5 -- 30

Bust: 38.5 -- 38 -- 37 -- 37 -- 37 -- 36.5

Thighs: R22/L21 -- R22/L21 -- R21.5/L21 -- R22/L21 -- R21.5/L21 -- R21.5/L20.5

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My scale records me as down seven pounds in the five weeks on the diet. That's almost a pound and a half a week, which I think is pretty durn good. Sure, I'd *prefer* two pounds a week, but given how lazy I am about exercising I can't expect better than what I'm getting.

I find it bizarre that both my largest and my smallest loss has been measured around my belly button. Not sucking in my stomach, I have dropped a full two inches in that area. But sucking in, I've lost just half an inch.

I know that all abdominal fat is not the same: the stuff over the muscles, the soft squishy stuff, is not the abdominal fat we've all been warned about it. When doctors talk about deadly abdominal fat, they're talking about fat *inside* the abdominal cavity, crowding around all the organs. This fat feels hard, because it's held in by muscle. Ever notice that most men who have "beer bellies," have really hard stomachs? Their bellies don't really get smaller when lying on their backs, for instance, and they can't be cinched with a belt? Most women with bellies, on the other hand, have "jelly bellies." It's usually a fairly discrete pouch, kind of lying there on top of the lower torso. It moves around, can be cinched with a belt, and is very soft.

This is just a guess, but: I think I am losing the hard, internal fat first, and the jelly belly is hanging on. Supposedy, the internal fat *is* supposed to be easier to lose. Would this explain why sucking in hasn't really improved, while my fat-in-repose has shrunk? Or would it be the opposite; so that I'm losing jelly and keeping the hard fat? At any rate, whichever is the case, I'm sure I'm disproportionately losing one kind of fat over the other.

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Breakfast: 1 perfectly ripe pear with cashew-macadamia nut butter. Mmmmmm.....

Lunch: 3 T hummus; White Wave Thai baked tofu; diet Snapple lime green tea

Dinner: 1 c green beans dressed with Trader Joe's olive tapenade; 1 medium artichoke with vegannaise/hot mustard dipping sauce; fake meatloaf; 1/2 c mashed potatoes made with soymilk and nutritional yeast (not SBD, but tasty, I didn't have much, and how can you have meatloaf without mashed potatoes?); glass of red wine

Exercise: 3.5 mile run

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