I am currently back in my home city visiting my family after moving away 6 months ago. That time coincides when I started the Four Hour Body - Slow Carb Diet, leaving my corporate job and starting working for myself. Yesterday I took my father out to lunch with my children to catch up (I hadn't seen him since Christmas last year).

This morning I got an email from him thanking me for a great time and talking about my children. He also said

Well I haven't been able to post daily for several reason (none of which are even remotely an excuse) but I have done a recent measurement which bears mentioning.

remembering I started with a waist of 111cm (HORRIFYING TO ME NOW WHEN I THINK OF IT) and that 2 weeks ago I was down to 98cm. Yesterdays waist measurement was 97cm. That's half an inch in 2 weeks on kettlebells after 5 months of continuous loss. Very pleased!

I am off to the city tomorrow (that's a 6 hour drive mind you) to buy new jeans as my current ones are falling down.

This snippet of information is 2 years old and its my middle that's not "average", while my weight hips and boobs are getting there

The average measurements of an Australian woman in the regular size range are now a 92cm bust, 74cm waist and 99cm hips, which fit a size 16 on the current Standards Australia garment rating. While the Australian standard is based on a hip measurement only 5-6cm bigger than the bust, the survey showed a 7cm difference.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/bigger-taller-wider/story-e6frg8h6-1111115975557

I have been super quiet here while I was getting the Slow Carb App developed and into the app stores. ( Check it out at http://www.theslowcarbapp.com ). Now it's time to tackle my next challenge - reducing my belly fat and developing abbs (or a close approximation of abbs).

For the month of July I am going to record everything I do to slim down this last bastion of fat storage on my body.

The story so far
Start weight 93.3
Current weight 74.1 kg
Start waist 111 cm
Current waist 98 cm

Photos and measurements will be recorded on a daily basis over July. I am hoping this is inspiration for other over 40 year old women who have the same fat storage issue

I have Sphynx cats (http://www.SphynxCatBlog.com )and I feed them the very best of raw foods. The best raw meats are heart muscle for the taurine which cats can't make themselves ( but isn't really needed by humans). So every week I pop into my local butcher on the day he gets his delivery from the abattoir and buy a couple of beef hearts or half a dozen or more lamb hearts.

The butcher always asks me "why are you wasting that good meat on CATS?!??!!" and I just laughed and scuttle off clutching my paper covered parcel. This week the old butcher kind of guilted me into trying some... I kinda was double dared into doing it.

So tonight I sliced up an onion and some garlic. I cut a large piece of heart muscle meat and sliced it into stir fry sized slivers.

Then in a heavy based frypan I browned the onions and garlic in a splash of macadamia oil , removed them from the pan and then pan fried the heart meat in the garlicy/oniony oil. When the meat was seared both sides I tossed the onion and garlic back in and stirred. Added some steamed veges to the plate and viola see picture.

I will be fighting my cats for their food from now on. To say the heart was delicious was an understatement. The texture was like calimari cooked the right way, soft but slightly chewy. The flavor was beefy but not strongly so.

I think I was expecting something like liver, strongly flavored with memories of gagging childhood, but this was entirely different. Highly recommended!

Day 128, 17kgs 37.5lbs lost

I get the feeling it's time to add another set of then and now pictures to the blog as it's been 50 days and 6kg more lost since the last lot.

My fitness levels feel so much higher, sane with energy levels. I think j would even describe myself as moderately active these days as compared to completely sedentary.

I'll grab some new pictures this afternoon if possible and put them up tomorrow.

I'm back from a week of not exercising (my MS was playing up and the pain and misery was just too much to add swearing to ;) . I was happy to see I did not put on any weight while I sat around doing not much.

As soon as I exercised the scales started their downward march again.

Yesterday was my cheat day ( see pictures) but I also spent it doing hard (for me) physical labour helping the neighbors build a new room. Over a 2-3 hour period I carried about 100 1-3 metre long boards across a yard. My fitness levels have really improved because I would never have been able to do that last year.

This morning I jump on the scales and see, for the second time since I started SCD that I lost weight after cheat day.

Total loss 14kgs (30.9 lbs)
93 days

This morning I cracked the 80 kilo barrier. This is despite not exercising all week due to illness. I am totally ecstatic :)

See the full gallery on Posterous How much is enough? It's a difficult question if you didn't have that magic 20-30 grams of protein per meal mandatory requirement. Add your 1/2 cup beans per meal and a bunch of vegetables. On top of that eating till you are full and never feeling hungry. If you look through my previous meal pictures you can see they are "man" sized servings. No starvation diet for me , nor should it be for you. Pics are of recent meals SCD and binge days combined. The Indian banquet last night was amazing!

You can bet your bottom dollar that if I didn't have MS I would be using kettlebells like a mothereffer to get myself more defineted and muscular as I do the 4HB. But I do have MS and I am forbidden under doctors orders to use free weights of any type because the nerve signals to my hands are likely to fail as soon as my body temperature rise when exercising and I would end up killing somoene, hurting myself, or puttinga hole through one of our mud brick walls. That being said I am still pleased and proud of my results so far even though they will not be the same as someone who can exercise their core and get "cut".

I not only frequent the Four Hour Body Participants page on Facebook but other online sites too checking out what people are doing, adding and receiving encouragement. I was on one of those sites this morning after someone commented on my then-and-now pictures I had put up. He was not encouraging at all, in fact what he said took the wind fair out of my sails. Basically he said my results are terrible and that I am doing it all wrong...which is weird because I follow 4HB as closely as possible.

I am going to shrug it off (after I obsess about it for a couple of days) but this is the type of thing that can make you crack and give up. It's so easy to find excuses why not to do something and having negative commentators like this is a pretty good reason. But I won't give up, I will just never go back to the 4 Hour People forum and will stick to our friendly and encouraging Facebook page.

Day 77

Total loss 13kg

I am amazed at how consistently the weight is coming off. If the line continues as it is then I should make my goal weight around June. Yay!