SQUEE!!

Social Networking sites make it so easy to forget to blog. I make announcements about my progress without posting here. Perhaps I should just save the micro posts, put them all together to make a coherent, full blog post and just link everyone to it.

Anyway, the past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind for me: My boss was out on vacation and I was preparing for more family to visit. Speaking of said family, this weekend, I threw careful eating and exercise to the wind and I STILL lost weight. I'm now down to 169.5 lbs. That makes 50.5 lbs. of weight loss since I started my journey 4 years ago. 

I'm a little overwhelmed and I still can't believe it. I mean, I only have 2.5 lbs. to go until I reach my mini goal! I said that I would reward myself with some new ink once I got there, but I think that I'm going to wait until I reach my full goal. 

I know in my last post, I stated that I didn't want to lose weight due to wardrobe issues, but it gets me so excited when I see the return on my work...especially when I can still stuff my face from time to time! I said that I wanted to get below 170 by August 4th in my last post and I'm there on July 25th. It's a great feeling. 

Last weigh-in: 173 lbs

Current weight: 169.5 lbsRecent activity: Still hiking (and loving it!), gym (mostly strength training)
Short Term Goals: More toning, more weights. Possibly get down to 160-165 by the end of August? 

Down 5 more lbs!

June was a pretty lax month for me. I celebrated my birthday and my mom and sister flew in from New Orleans to visit me. Admittedly, I gorged myself on the fine wine and cuisine that the Finger Lakes area offers, but with no regret. It was my birthday and I'd be damned if I wasn't going to enjoy it. All that being said, I still lost 5 lbs since I last posted. I'm quite pleased with myself the rate of my weight loss. Not too fast, but not too slow.

Hell, after years of being in a size 14, creeping up to a 16 and 4 subsequent years of being in a 12, I'm really starting to take notice of the continuing changes in my body. I decided to do an experiment. I walked into my local consignment shop and tried on a few size 10 pieces. Granted, all brands of clothing have different measurements and aim for different body shapes, but THEY ALL FIT! I was in such a swoon, that I almost walked right up to the register to buy everything that I tried on. I have to admit, though they all fit, most of the pieces that I tried on were dresses and skirts. The skirts weren't uncomfortably tight, but too tight to be comfortable, if that makes any sense whatsoever. I will label myself as a small size 12, but I see that official 10 quickly approaching. I haven't seen that number or the single digits that I hope will follow since high school.

I know that I can really make it happen if I focus more making calorie counting a religion and hitting the gym 5 times per week instead of 3-4, but all my clothes are falling off of me as is. I'm not really in the financial situation to go out and purchase a whole new wardrobe, so my focus is going to be more geared towards toning and strength building. I'm going to incorporate more protein in my diet to increase muscle building.

I always had and will always have big arms and legs, thanks to my not-so-dainty German heritage. I need to focus more on toning the aforementioned areas, or else I'll look like Chun Li from Street Fighter II.  My waist is shrinking like crazy, but I still have this blasted belly fat. This has been my biggest challenge. I see my abs trying to form, especially when I "suck in".  It's frustrating.

Alright, well, back to life. Today is a holiday and I plan to enjoy every minute of it.

Last weigh-in: 173 lbs
Recent activity: Hiking (3.5 hours yesterday alone!)
Short Term Goals: Toning things up. Remember to drink water! Maybe get below 170 by August 4th?

Zoom post!

• Maintaining weight at 178 lbs
• Drinking lots more water
• Goals for this week:
• post more to this damn journal
• SQUATS! I need to get my 2008 legs back!

P.S. I just washed my bathing suits ... 2 of which are bikinis! squeeee!!!

Ugh

Unfortunately, allergies have put my gym plans...and all my other plans on hold. I'm about to fall into a Benedryl coma, so this will be a rather quick update.

I've been trying to get into the habit of doing weigh-ins and setting little goals for myself every Sunday to prepare myself for the week. I think that I'm going up that to twice per week...just to make sure that I'm staying on track.

Here are a few things that I had in mind:

1) Stop being lazy with the calorie counting! This WORKS for me, but I hate having to dedicate the time to record everything that passes through my mouth. I can see it happening already. I've started to snack a little more and pretending like it doesn't count toward my daily total. NOT COOL.

2) MORE WATER!!! I don't drink nearly enough. I need to keep it pumping through my system all damn day. It'll keep me full and (duh) hydrated.

3) Fitness Goal: Maybe do a little less cardio and up the weights. I need to do squats and pleiometric exercises. Bathing suit season in upon me and I need to shape up these legs!

4) Weight loss goal: Maybe I'm being a little too ambitious, but I'd like to lose 10 lbs by June 23rd. If not 10, then I would be satisfied with 5.

Alright! I think that'll do it. Sunday's post will be a weigh-in and reaffirmation of goals.

ENOUGH!

I'm so tired of making commitments to myself and never following through. I have a tendency to put these kinds of things off until they become unimportant. I wasn't really angry at myself until I saw my fat pictures again.

I really have to admit that I have more success when I become my own watchdog. I was so embarrassed that I got back up to how much I weighed when I started this blog. I mean, I worked so hard to get to where I was when I dropped my original 40 lbs. I'm proud to say that not only have I reached the same weight when I lost the 40, but I'm now 2 lbs. under that!

I really stepped up my game. I moved to Ithaca last Fall, I joined a gym.  Recently, I not only started counting my calories but I started making them count! I changed up my cardio routine and I saw immediate results. Don't get me wrong, I still have a long way to my goal. With continued discipline, hard work and moderate allowance to "cheat" every now and again, I know that I'll reach it.

Last weigh-in: 178.0
Will work out more goals later!

Keep me motivated!

Keep on trucking!

Okay, so I said that I would post some pictures. I'm a little self-concious about this because I'm picturing everyone who is reading this journal running for the hills after seeing them. I know that won't be the case, because I'm surrounded my supportive people. Maybe I'm the only one who will run for the hills. Oh well, at least I'll work up a sweat!

Without further ado:

Pictures of yours truly on the fat side:

 Where I was:

Where I am now:

At least I'm not back to square one! Look, I still have cheekbones!

Sunday 3/21 weigh in: 192.5
Friday 3/26 weigh in: 188.5 (-4 lbs)

Benchmark Goal: 180 by may 16th
Temporary Focus Goal: Alt b/w cardio, Toning arms, toning legs
This Week's Goal: DRINK MORE WATER

Last week's workouts:

• 
  
  Biggest loser 30 day jump start
• Biggest Loser last chance workout
• RUNNING/JOGGING

This week's workouts: TBA

Okay, well, that's about it for now. I'm a little on the sleepy side, so I can't end this plog in my usual clever, witty style. Good night, all!

Heeere we go!

First of all, I'm starting to this blog as a commitment to myself. I don't know if anyone will ever read it or even be interested in it if they do. I'm just going to type as if I have an audience of exactly 1 million adoring fans. And critics. Everyone is a critic. I'm looking at you, my pseudo-audience.

Anyway, my goal is to post to this blog at least once per week. I will include pictures of all my glorious weightloss and fitnesses! I'm asking you to bear with me at first, as the first couple of servings may be a bit lumpy!

Don't get me wrong, I don't see anything wrong with (these lovely lady) lumps or anyone else's lumps for that matter. If one is happy with what one's rockin', go on wit yo bad self. I'm just trying to get back in the habit of eating healthy and living an active lifestyle. I lost 40 (count that, FORTY) pounds between the Summers of 2007 and 2008. I've managed to keep it off until about the Fall of 2009. I've become a lot more sedentary and I really haven't been paying too much attention to what is and how much is going into my mouth. I'm a snacker and I love things like cookies and bagels and pastries and... and...doughnuts. I work in an office setting so you can imagine how once I let my guard down, my willpower took a nosedive.

I'm going to be honest here for all the world to see. I'm 5' 7" tall and I weighed about 220 lbs at my heaviest. I was a big girl...hell, I still am in the BMI's opinion. When I saw those three numbers drop down to 180, the gratification that I felt was indescribable! I still had a way to go, but I lost the equivalent of a grade school child! Over time, I seemed to forget all the satisfaction and got lazy. I started a new job in the Summer of '08 that entails a 45 minute one-way commute at the very least. It's kind of a high-stress and fast pace place a lot of the time, so I was expending most of my mental energy at work. I made one thousand and one excuses on why I didn't want to work out each particular day the opportunity presented itself until I never wanted to do it anymore.

Imagine my horror, when I hopped on the scale a couple of weeks ago an saw that I gained back SIXTEEN pounds. I was horrified but not surprised...bad habits are so tough to get rid of. It wasn't until Saturday that I received the impetus to get serious again. That's when I decided to do things a little differently. So, here I am, starting a public blog. I'm going to invite anyone and everyone to read if they are interested and hold my ass accountable (literally). I was never one to starve myself, so I won't start that now. I'm going to count my calories, but I won't bore you with those details. Who knows, if I get a following, maybe I'll post some recipes and workouts that I use.

Okay, on with the stats!

Weight I never want to see again: 220 lbs. (Just so it's out there)
Current weight: 192.5 lbs. (I forgot to mention that I lost some weight after my initial 196 lb. weigh-in from being sick.)
Goal weight: 180 lbs. (I want to reach this weight by May 16, 2010)

We'll see how it goes! Wish me luck.