:fish: :fish: :fish: :fish: Erik...
I bet any man would love to zip up a woman wearing one of those bikinis!!
You say you are now swimming longer and with more intesity. If you are working out harder and longer, then try adding just a *little* more food to your diet. Sometimes an extra apple and banana, or other healthy snack CAN make the scale go down. For instance. This last week my weight had been standing still and I've added a little more food on the days that I swim and I looked at the scale this morning, and it has gone down 1 more pound. I am doing Weight Watchers now too (for the last 2 weeks)... and this is something that they promote. I think the theory behind it is-- The more you work out, the more food/fuel your body needs. Working out will increase your metabolism, so if you don't feed it enough, your body will still hold on to what it has. Feed it, and you will begin to shed what you don't need. I hope this makes sense, as I'm not really good at paraphrasing things. Also, generally speaking, the first 10 lbs or so can usually be attributed to water loss, anything after that will take longer to come off. Also, remember, you are most likely gaining muscle too... and muscle weighs more than fat. So, you may be shrinking in size, but not in weight.
I felt really good a couple days ago when I went to swim. First, I was feeling lazy, and didn't really want to go. But I did. There was another "fluffy" girl (better than saying fat!) there and was sharing a lane with me. I am much larger of a girl than she... probably by 50+ lbs. Now, considering I still have 107 lbs to lose (about 48 kg), I felt really good that I could swim like I do. I really tried to encourage this girl... she could only swim 1/2 lap without stopping, and would walk the last 10 ft to the wall in the shallow end. When she first got into my lane with me, she asked me how many laps I swim, and I told her I generally lose track at about 30 laps (prolly swim at least 40 laps easy). She says, "that many!!". I told her it does get easier, and not to give up! I can swim 10-12 laps without stopping at all, then when I do stop it is only for about 15-20 seconds to catch breath... usually it is in the deep end so I tread water instead of stopping completely.
Sorry this is such a long post....just wanted to share a little victory. Sounds like you are doing great and having victories of your own!! Keep up the awesome work! Keep me posted! I love to read your posts!