25lbs gone in pictures

This morning I weighed 202.8 (2 pounds up) but I know it's just fluctuation (maybe last week was low) since I didn't do anything drastic with food so I'm sticking with 25lbs gone! Here are the pictures. Posting it next to my start pictures since that really shows me there is progress.

I can see a difference :). For some reason my back view is not really improving but oh well, at least the lumpiness on the back of my thighs is going away. I think I'll be more satisfied when the rolls on my side go away and all I have to focus on is getting smaller.

I joined Mary from a merry life in making some goals for the end of the year. Mine are

1. Be high 180's to low 190s by 2011. Once I get to 185 I'll be excited because that was my set weight for most of my adult life so anything under that feels "skinny" to me.

2. I want to fit into all my size 12 clothes by January 2011. Right now, I'm a 14.

3. I want to be able to hold a plank for one minute.

To all those on this journey, keep going. I'm not losing super fast but I think it's best because I am making lasting changes and I don't think once i get out of this mode, I'll be piling it back on (knock on wood).

I'm 25 and knowing that i still have pregnancy (cies?) ahead of me, I want to be as fit and slim as I can be now so that my after children figure is something I won't cry about. I know, I think about weird things.

Good luck guys!

Quarter of the way there

I weighed myself on Monday and I am happy to report I am now 200.8lbs! This means 25lbs off my frame. I am finally beginning to see some changes when I look in the mirror and I'm excited.

I just moved countries so blogging will not be as frequent but the weight loss should speed up because there is not as much junk food and processed food here. I am excited to be almost under 200 and hopefully I'll be in onderland next week!

I owe you all a picture and can I mention how AMAZING it is to begin to fit into my old clothes. Another 7lbs or so and I should be back in my 12's!

Keep going everyone. Slow and steady will win this race!

Numbers Game - Statistics edition

I updated my sidebars with a whole bunch of statistics. Talk about an eye-opener.  I'll preface this by saying, I am very happy to have lost 20lbs. That is 1/5th  of my journey. However, an average of 3.1lbs a MONTH is just a leeeeetle ridiculous. I mean, I want to lose slowly but I'm going to have to step it up if I want to meet my goal.  At this rate it'll take me 32 months to lose 100lbs. I'm not on that kind of plan.

I think I just need to step up my physical activity and build more muscle. I also should spend a little longer at the gym. To be honest, the weight I've lost so far has been more from refraining from very bad junk than eating healthy. I don't know if I make sense but it's like, I've stopped going to a lot of fast food places for lunch and I don't buy as much snack food. I haven't really improved what I've eaten by THAT much and I only marginally increased exercise.

Anyway, I'm glad I did this. I think I was patting myself on the back a little too much. I love loseit! because I was able to log in and get a 6 month summary of my weigh-ins and export to excel.

Weighing In

I did my weigh in on Monday. 205.2lbs. I'm happy.

A lot is due to the fact that I couldn't/can't eat solid food because of my tooth. I drank a lot of naked juice and "ate" some custard. Other than that I didn't do much of anything else. Funny enough, I didn't get terribly hungry. I'm able to chew a little bit now but it seems like so much work I'd rather just drink.

Well this brings me to 20.6lbs lost since I started this blog. You know what that means! Time for a picture update. I'm posting side by sides of when I first started versus now.

Some short term goals I have. I would like to be in the one hundreds by November. That is very doable I feel. I have a wedding to attend December 18 and there is a beautiful size 12 Nicole Miller dress that I spent an obscene amount on in my reckless days. I have never worn it and I would love to wear it to the wedding. It's very form fitting and so it has to fit better than "I can zip it up". Finally by next year, I would like to be under 185.

185 was my set weight for about 6-7 years before I gained a ton of weight. So to me, anything under that is "skinny". What I mean is that as an adult, I don't have much experience being under 185. I was around 165 freshman year of college but I never really used to pay attention to my weight then.

Anyway, enough rambling. Here are the pictures. I have lots of other things I want to talk about (fat and dating) but I'll save them for some other post.

It's been a long time...

Shouldn't have let this blog languish for this long. Thankfully, it's not because I've fallen off the wagon. Last Monday I weighed in at 209.2lbs! I am definitely making progress and I am at a weight where I don't FEEL so fat. I look fat but i don't feel it like i did when i was in the 220s.

I'm 16.6lbs down so it's almost time for a new picture update. Since i've been gone, my laptop was stolen. I just got my wisdom teeth pulled (2) so that wlll definitely help weightloss. The good thing is that this is happening right before my period so it has combated the monthly bloat a little since it's effectively killed the cravings. I don't think this Monday will be anything too great (like a pound maybe) but I expect a great number the Monday after.

That's my update. I see so many others doing well. I'm sad I couldn't join Syl on the 30 day shred challenge. One day I'll be able to do the whole thing!

I ran a 5k!

Well ran/walk.

On Friday, I went to the gym and did my usual on the elliptical. When I was done, I felt like sweating a little bit more so I decided to use the treadmill. I told myself I would run/walk 1 mile. This is something that is fairly challenging for me.

I did the first minute walking to warm up. Then I started running. Immediately, I noticed my breathing was easier than what I'm used to so I decided to cover up the time and just run till I felt I couldn't go on. I know sometimes when you focus on time, you can sell yourself short. Imagine my surprise when the song I was listening to ended and I was STILL running. I ran for a little bit longer before I felt the need to slow down. I looked at the time and I had run a little over 3 full minutes. Some of you might be laughing to yourselves (aka, the people that can bang out a mile at 6.0) but this was a major first for me!

I felt like a runner.

Wow, Deranged must really have upped my aerobic capacity.

The next day, I woke up with this thought in my head "I want to do a 5k". So many people in the blogosphere talk about it. First things first. I had to figure out how many miles that actually was. Google told me 3.1 miles. Hmm, so I had to do what I did the previous day 3 times. I was pumped, I felt I could do it.

And I did. The longest I ran was 4 minutes. I played with the speed to keep things interesting. I walked a lot, don't get me wrong. Definitely had to catch my breath. By the time I was done, I was DONE. I had no more energy left in me - I could feel it. Kudos to all y'all that do this on the regular. It was HARD! When I got home, i had to just sit and be. Sweat was pouring out of every pore.

Looking back, I probably should have eaten a little more before (I had a slice of toast and peanut butter) but I am so proud of myself.

I know some of you have some things you think you could never do. Running is that for me. I read all these blogs where people ENJOY running and I think to myself that our genetic hardwiring must be different. I can do the elliptical, I can weight train, I can swim but I am NOT a runner. That's what I used to believe.

I'm not officially a runner now but I can at least envision myself as one later on in the future. I don't know if I'll keep it up but it's nice to know that dramatic change is possible.

Monday Weigh-In

212.

.2lbs lost. I'm not too pleased. Did a 5k on Saturday (need to talk about that) and was generally good with food. I might have eaten too little on some days and I DID have thai food yesterday so that might be causing retention. I'm gonna MISS next monday's weigh-in b/c I'll be travelling. Hopefully by the time i come back, I will be closer to 200 (in my head, I'm hoping I'll be under but that's not realistic). I might just bite the bullet and weigh-in on Sunday.

We'll see

A picture is worth a thousand words (or multiple blog posts)

Without further ado, I present 11 pounds gone.

Blogger is being weird and I can't get them right next to each other.  It seems photoshop is the only thing that allows you to merge two photos in one. If anyone has other ideas, let me know.

Okay worked slightly better for this set. Finally, back view

Thoughts

I'm pleased with everything except for the back view. I actually think I look bigger in the after picture. It might be how I'm standing because there is that line down my back that's not in the 2nd picture. My belly has definitely gone down which explains the loose pants.

Mind you, this was from like 2 weeks ago so there's been some change. Next pics will come at 20lbs gone. I still have pictures to post from before and after deranged and I have another full blog post coming later today.

Stay tuned.

Monday Weigh-In

213.

I'm down 2.2lbs. Yay.

I quit halfway on Jillian Michaels, I'm sorry to  say.  Made it to Day 4 and then one day I went to sleep late and it was hard for me to get up. I never got back on the wagon after that. These days my work schedule make it soo much harder to workout. It's doable but I need more discipline to make me go. I went on Saturday and worked out hard though.

Calorie wise, I was very good. In fact, I might have been soo good it was bad. I was a little down Thursday through Saturday and so I ate very little. In a twisted way, I'm happy. I didn't know I was on of those people who lost their appetite when they are sad. I am definitely the opposite when I am stressed. The good thing is that my stomach seems to have shrunk and I get full faster.

Syl over at Live, smile, run is going to start a 30 day shred challenge. I might join her and start over. I really would like to do the whole thing for once At least make it to level 2!

I finally took pictures. I'll post them later on today. Crazy what a difference 10ish pounds gone makes!

Monday Weigh-In

Official numbers.

215.2. In the three weeks, I lost 2 lbs. That's not a huge amount but I am down 10.6lbs since May.  Like I said, I'm not too bummed because my body shape has changed a little and I know I did put on a little muscle. Also, my lady friend showed up yesterday morning so overall, I expect a bigger drop next week.

I'm up early so I can get going with day 3 of the 30 day shred. I hope  can keep this motivation level for the next 27 days.

I promised y'all pictures every 10lbs so I'll be posting them later today.

Have a fabulous day!

Back from training

Tomorrow is my official weigh-in after 3 weeks of bootcamp. I stepped on the scale already so I know there's NOT much of a difference in weight. This makes me so happy that I did not bring my scale with me to training because I would have been discouraged. There IS a change in the way my body looks so all is not lost. I'll post some pictures tomorrow. Truth be told, I probably COULD have lost some weight but I pretty much went over my calories every single day.

I learned that juice is not your friend. Liquid calories really eat into your daily budget. Also, I need to come up with some low calorie snacks. Making 500 cal meals can be challenging sometimes and it is ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to eat out and stay on track. I went to PF Changs, one night and even after I split my meal in 3, it still came up to about 800 -1000 cals  for the meal. What are they doing? Pouring butter and sugar into the food?

Anyway, I started the 30 day shred. This time around, I want to get past day 4 (I've never even seen the level 2 &3 exercises). Yesterday was day 1. I thought that three weeks of bootcamp (1 hour and very intense) would make it easier to do the video since it's only 20 mins.

Wrong! 

Jillian kicked my butt. She does the exercise for longer (especially strength) and that tires me out. I can keep up with the jumping jacks now so that's an improvement.

If anyone wants to join me, let me know in the comments. I'm going to supplement it with 3 days of cardio (probably Monday Wednesday and Thursday). Hopefully by the end of August I'll have some decent progress. I'm not doing too in pushing the scale down!

:(

So, I just realized I tried on the wrong pair. Ah well.

When I tried on the correct pair, I could zip and button them up but it's not as great a fit as I thought. Hopefully, by next week, it will fit as well as I thought it did this morning.

How I felt when I thought it was real was great so I hope to get to that point for real soon.

I guess stuff happens. I know I've still lost some inches so I'll try to focus on that and not be disappointed.

Is this real?

Omg.

I am so excited today. I have been faithfully going to bootcamp 6 days a week for the past two weeks. Sometimes, I give it my all and sometimes I've only given 20%. No matter how I felt though, I had decided to go everyday.

It's been tough. Some days my muscles hurt and I just wanted to sleep. This workout is high intensity guys. It's pretty much a version of the insanity dvds.

I mentioned that I didn't bring my scale with me. Well, I still wanted to be able to judge my progress, so I brought a pair of pants (14) that were just a tad to small for me. I could get them on but I couldn't close them. I took a picture.

Last week, I told you that I could zip it up but it was still really tight and had little rolls over the top. Well, this morning, on a whim, I tried them on and THEY FIT! Perfectly. Like no hassle or squeezing or anything. I actually took them off to look at the label and make sure I was trying the correct pair.

I almost shed a tear. Just know, it's possible guys. It's been about 2 weeks and I've gone down a size (it's probably more like a 1/2 size). I haven't been eating anything far fetched. I've gone out to eat at places like red lobster (although not that often) and chipotle and still made progress. I've gone over my calorie limit everyday and still made progress

Speaking of which. I want to know if 1500 is adequate for someone my size that exercises. If I have any 200+lbs  readers, could you share around how many calories you take in a week if you know. I'm beginning to think that 1500 might be too low.

Anyway, I'm really happy. Can't wait till next week when I can put before and after photos as well as post my new weight.

I'm being practical and I know I might only have lost like 5lbs because of the strength I've built up (hello pushups and 10million squats) but at least I have the fact that something that didn't fit before now fits as motivation!

P.S I went to Ann Taylor loft and fit a large skirt (I had sized out of regular stores) and a M workout pant from wal-mart. I really want to go to stores I regularly shop at to see if I've truly gone down a size.

Overcoming Inertia

Inertia  (-nûrsh)
1. Physics The tendency of a body to resist acceleration; the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest or of a body in straight line motion to stay in motion in a straight line unless acted on by an outside force.

2. Resistance or disinclination to motion, action, or change: 

A while back I was reflecting on my current state of affairs. It occurred to me that the force of inertia was holding me back in so many ways. I didn't want to DO anything. Not exercise, not cook, not go out. Nothing.

I felt like I was stuck and that was certainly not helping me in my quest to lose a 100 pounds by my next birthday.

I'm happy to report that that is no longer the case. Thanks in great part to a boot camp class that I joined, I feel alive again. I think I mentioned that the class is called deranged. It's about one hour of absolute madness and I think I am addicted. I have gone every single day except sunday (no classes) which means I've worked out 6 days of the last week. I even stay for the 30 min ab class they have 3 days a week.

For me, watching the instructors is inspiring. They are extra extra fit and strong. Seeing them do the exercises ten levels higher than me and not get winded is motivation for me. They are just regular people who do this on the side. Not olympic athletes or bodybuilders who devote their life to being fit. If I could be just half as fit as they are, I would be happy. Hell, if I could run for two minutes without being winded I would be happy.

Anyway, the side effect of working out is that I make healthier food choices. The funny thing is that I ALREADY knew this about myself but for some reason it wasn't enough to make me start. I've gone out to eat with people here (red lobster) and I was semi-grossed out by some things (eww butter, cream). I just had mental images of the cream in my arteries.  I don't eat when I'm full and I like this way of being.

Its easier for me when I don't WANT the unhealthy stuff. I think about food more in terms of what it is providing my body. This doesn't mean I don't eat processed food. I still do but not the way I used to before. I can actually just have a little bit of something and be okay. I bought a bag of animal crackers a little over a week ago and there is still something in the bag. I have just a little at a time. Before, I could easily polish the whole bag in one or two sittings.

The upside of this is that the pants I brought with me that couldn't zip up, CAN now. Its still tight but its only been six days. I'm super glad I didn't bring my scale but I can't wait to get back and weigh in. I think 15lbs might have been too ambitious as I'm probably building a lot of muscle. At this point I think I would be happy with about 7lbs. I'll post the before and after pics of the pants at the end.

The point of this whole post is to let you guys know that sometimes you just have to DO
SOMETHING. Just start and sometimes that is enough to get the ball rolling.

3 Week Challenge

Like I mentioned in my last post, I'm away from home for  3 weeks.

I decided that by the time I return, I want to lose 15lbs. That will bring me down to 202 (well I guess I want to lose 15.2 lbs). I'm aware that's a big number but I find that when I'm away and forced into a routine, I can stay focused. So I'm looking at this like a jump start.

I'm already on a roll. I found this aerobic boot camp class and it's kicking my ass! I'm serious. Today was the 2nd day and I had to peel myself off the floor. It's basically high impact cardio and resistance but without any weights.  Lots of squats, planks and basically it's an hour of the 30 day shred! I hope to see awesome results even if it's just in inches lost.

I've been pretty good about eating too. Sticking to around 1500-1700 calories a day. I could do with a little more fruit in my diet but I'm finding it easier to stick to my calorie goals.

I'm not sure why but I'm suddenly overcome with a feeling of wanting to be the best me I can. Maybe it's because I'm single and it's really hitting me that I'm generally not attracted to unfit men and then I think to myself, well people probably think the same about you.

I like that i don't have a scale here so I won't weigh myself every day. The plan is to go to boot camp everyday except Sunday.

Wish me luck!

Monday Weigh-In

I'll try not to make it a habit to do Monday weigh-in's on other days.

Without further ado, I'm down 3.8lbs to 217.2. Factoring the 2 lbs gain from last week, that's a total of 8.6lbs gone.  So close to 10 (and a new picture).

I'm away from home for the next three weeks so I'm not going to post a weigh in till the 16th or so. Didn't pack my scale so hopefully it will be a big drop!

Monday Weigh-In

On Saturday.

I was up 2 lbs on Monday (221). I wasn't too upset because I expected it. My period did indeed come and I went to a weekend long cookout.  I learnt how much more you eat when you don't have an actual meal and just eat as things come along.

Ooh, someone brought potato salad? Let me try that. Chicken fresh of the grill? I'll have a piece. Your girlfriend just baked some brownies? and she's serving it with ice cream? Okay, just give me a little.

I am proud of myself for still tracking it all. Usually, that's the point I go into denial and pretend like if I don't track it, it didn't happen.

Foodwise, I haven't been too bad this week but if not for the 20 min walk each day to work I'd have had no exercise!

Some big goals coming up for the next 3 weeks but I'll post about them later on this weekend.

No, it is NOT brave/courageous, it's STUPID and Dangerous!

Warning: Major Rant ahead.

I was watching dance your ass off on Bravotv. It's basically a show that's a mixture of dancing with the stars and biggest loser. Fat people trying to lose weight through dancing.

I watch every reality show related to weight loss.

Anyway, one of the biggest contestants, Briana tore her ACL (it might have been some other one not positive) during dress rehearsal. Backing up a minute, even though she's the biggest girl, Briana is usually the most energetic and she has consistently amazed me with what she is able to do with her body (effectively killing my idea that I'm to big to do some dance moves).

They basically ask her if she still wants to perform (otherwise she gets eliminated) and she says YES!! What?? I'm still reeling from the decision and then the performance starts. The choreographers had modified the dance to place less stress on her leg but she's still trying to go full out and FALLS! You can see the pain in her face and she almost gave up but she kept going till the end (she definitely toned down the energy).

My point is that I don't think that's something to envy or admire. I think it's stupid. Yes, olympic perfomers have performed on a broken leg. Those people have trained for that event most their lives and maybe they feel more invested. Even then, I don't think I would do that. This is not the olympics at any rate and WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO PROVE? That you can hurt yourself further by dancing on an injured foot? I think it's one thing if you were dancing with a sprained foot or something not so serious.

People, we need to take care of our bodies. This includes not pushing it past healthy limits! I don't know why this bothered me so much but I think it's because I see that message being spread in the media so often. Even the biggest loser where they have made totally unfit/too heavy people do things i don't think they are ready for. To me, it's not admirable and it's not about courage, it's Dangerous!

Okay, rant over. No more exclamation marks.

I can't believe it!

I lost .4lbs!

A loss. Even after going 4845 calories OVER my weekly allowance and doing no exercise except for walking 20 mins to and from the train station! Color me tickled!

The scale said 219, which is 6.8lbs into my journey and 10lbs down from my highest weight! I'm excited. Some of my clothes are beginning to feel loose and I can't wait to start wearing the clothes I have in "hibernation".

This just shows me that if i had put in the effort to at least exercise, I would have kicked some serious butt! On a side note, I just noticed I have cellulite :(. Never had it before. I hope it goes away as the weight comes off!

This weeks goal is to step it up in the gym arena. I've only been once this month and I want to meet my monthly goal of going 15 times since I don't have a food goal this month.

I hope you all are doing fabulous!

I'm probably going to gain this week

I don't know what it is but I can't stop eating. I think maybe my period is coming. It's not an excuse but it's probably why I polished off about 800 cals in cookies yesterday. Ah well. At least I'm still tracking! I haven't thrown it all to the wind and buried my head in the sand. It does pain me to log all those cals and sometimes I wait till the next day to do it. Apparently, it doesn't hurt enough for me to not have two breakfasts!

I also haven't been going to the gym. This one I blame on the horrendous heat wave going on in the east coast. 102 degree weather and the elliptical? No thank you. Thankfully, I have to walk about 1.7 miles everyday to get to work so there's SOME activity.

In an ideal world, I'll stay exactly the same but I'm pretty sure I'll be up a pound or two.

Monday Weigh-In

219.4!

Yes! I'm down 2.6lbs from last week! So I'm 6.4 lbs lighter than when I started tracking! 93.6lbs to go. The plan is to lose about 2lbs a week but since I slacked in the first month and actually gained I'm trying to step it up now to catch up a little.

I fully expect to lose something every week. calories in vs calories out really works. I find that i end up choosing healthier food items because I want to get more "bang for my calories". So while i have not banned any specific foods, I find that setting a calorie limit encourages me to avoid some high calorie items because they are not filling.

I can already see a difference physically and with how my clothes fit. Another 5lbs or so and I think I should go down a size! Yes!!  That means I'll have a whole new set of clothes available to me. I have avoided buying larger clothes unless it was a necessity and so my wardrobe choices have been limited for the past year or so.

I'm revising my goal for July. I'm not mentally ready to give up carbs. I think I'll save this for September. So I'm thinking up a new Food goal for July. If you have any ideas, let me know.

A couple more pounds and it will be time for a picture! I can't wait to see what that looks like.

End of June wrap-up

Checking in to see how I did on my goals for June.

1. Drink only water: this was a sort of pass. I drank pretty much water and slipped up on about 5 occasions. 2 were deliberate (close to the end of the month I really wanted lemonade bc it was SO hot), 2 were unconcious and one was were I felt forced to take a shot (of alcohol).

2. Go to the gym 15 times : FAIL. I went 10 times. I slacked in the beginning but started going regularly during the last week and a half but it was not enough.

I lost 3.8lbs this month.

For July, I want to try the same excercise goal: go to the gym (or dance studio) 15 times in the month.

Foodwise, I'm thinking i want to see what some version of the atkins would be like. Low carb I guess? Anyone had experience with that? I'm afraid I'll lose a lot then gain the month after! But if I'm counting calories, should it matter?

That's all for now. I hope I lose around 10lbs this month.

Monday Weigh-In

222lb.

Went down .2. Not a lot but at least it went down. It doesn't feel on par with my effort but hey, in biggest loser they usually plateau in the 2nd week. I'm hoping next week is more tangible. Till then I'll just enjoy "feeling smaller."

Weight Vs Size

Official weigh-in day is not till tomorrow. However, I was excited (because I've been so "good" with my calories this week) that i stepped on it a day earlier.

Up .2lbs.

I tried not to be too bummed about it but I was. I mean, I went over my calories last week and dropped 4 lbs. I only went to the gym twice. This week, I've been under calories almost every day and significantly upped my exercise. I was expecting at least a 2lb loss.

This got me thinking. Why do we place so much emphasis on your actual weight? This week I noticed my jeans felt looser. At the end of the day, I care more about what my body looks like than what I weigh so I'm going to focus on that.  My goal is to lose 100lbs in a year. However, I want to be about a size 4/6. If that happens at 80lbs lost, then that's were I'm stopping. I'm not letting a number that is influenced by so many little things dictate how I feel.

Whatever the scale says tomorrow, I'm ready. I know my body is in better shape than 2 weeks ago and eventually the weight will follow.

It works! It works!

I think I might marry my iphone.

So, like you all know, I've been trying out this new app called Loseit! (I'm not an affiliate or anything) and it's been helping me track my calories (food AND exercise). I had set a calorie goal of about 1500 a day and every single day of last week except for 1, my net calories were over that goal by about 1000 calories!

So why did I lose 4lbs! this morning? I must have been eating a whole lot before I started tracking. Now this has pumped me up and I'm extra motivated because I kept thinking of what I would have lost if I had stayed within the range and exercised everyday!

Speaking of exercise, I'm now at 5/15. With only 9 days of the month left, it seems like I will be failing this goal and have to roll it over to next month.

Finally made it to the gym

Can I tell you how much I love the loseit! app! For one, it breaks your meals into breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. I had 1835 cals the whole day and 1205 of that was snacks! A real eye-opener for me.

The good thing was that it made me realize I couldn't skip the gym so now i'm at 3/15 for the month. I set my goal on the elliptical to burn enough calories to negate the extra I consumed (plus a little more). So 52 or so mins of elliptical burned 643 cals and my net cals for the day was 1192. Not bad.

If I go everyday for the rest of the week (which I plan to) I'll be halfway through my gym goal for the month!

Monday Weigh-In

226.2.

Up 2 lbs.

Guess you can't lose weight when you eat a whole box of pizza over the weekend and don't excercise.

Started using Loseit! and gave my self a calorie limit of about 1500. Going to the gym today. 

Hope you all are doing better than me.

Success, temptation and motivation.

Still at 2/15 in terms of exercise. I'm going to step that up this week.

I almost had another moment where I accidentally had a drink. I went out to dinner with a friend and the waitress came over to ask what we wanted. I asked for a Shirley Temple and when she was almost halfway across the room, I yelled for her to come back. "I'm sorry, can i just have a water?". She must have thought I was crazy but I felt proud. This experiment is really showing me how much I might inadvertently take in calories.

My eating has not been so great though. I'm not looking forward to tomorrows weigh-in as I'm sure there will be a gain.

I recently got an ipod touch and just downloaded two apps I'm excited to try out.  One is the Jillian Michaels app and the other is called Lose it! They are both free. I'm not really sure what the Jillian Michaels one does but the Lose it! app is a calorie tracker.

I've found counting calories to be great for losing weight so hopefully since i carry my ipod around, this will help. I'll update as I go along.

Will report back tomorrow

Peer Pressure

First things first. I went to the gym today (yay). Did an hour on the elliptical. It got hard towards the end (showing me how out of shape I've gotten) but music kept me going. So now I'm looking at 2/15. Good. I should be able to make that goal.

The weekend was fun. Went to a friends birthday party where my nothing but water plans got derailed. I was very sneaky and good in the beginning. I had told her beforehand about my goal and that I wouldn't be drinking. Her response "but it's my birthday, you have to!". I know better than to argue so for the first part of the night, I just pretended to drink but I was really just drinking water. This worked well until she insisted on having the waitress make a special drink for me.

I got out of that by handing it to someone else as soon as she walked away. She came back and asked where the drink was and I told her I had finished it but then another friend told her I didn't drink it. She started to get upset that she had gotten a drink just for me, and it was her birthday and... (she was drunk) so to shut her up, I bought her a shot and had one with her.  Figured calorie wise, it was better to have a shot than a mixed drink.

This is an interesting experiment because when I chose this goal I thought it would be quite easy to achieve but it's only the 7th day of the month and I've broken it twice. Oh well, I guess it's making me more aware of what I'm drinking.

I'm going to try to up my water intake because lately I've felt a little dehydrated and that makes me crave "refreshing" drinks which in my head are things like lemonade and iced tea.

Advertising works y'all.

Monday Weigh In

Weighed in today. 224.2.

I lost 1.8lbs since last week and 1.6lbs since I started.

98.4 lbs to go.

I'm going to write a longer post today about peer pressure.

My favorite blogs

I used to read a lot of personal finance blogs and they were really helpful so I thought I would see what they could do for me in the realm of weight loss.

Well, you're reading this so this is one of the things I've been encouraged to do. Be Accountable. It's very motivating when you have to report back to a bunch of readers (I experienced this with PF too).

Anyway, I started off reading about Tyler over at 344lbs. It's amazing what he has done. He started off eating what he liked too, just in moderation. I think he's such an inspiration and his blog feels very interactive.

One of his posts led me to check out Jen over at priorfatgirl. She's awesome! She's no longer in the losing weight phase as she has lost almost 100lbs and looks great! I love her blog because it has loads of useful and interesting recipes and it's very honest. Right now I'm just waiting on her bf to propose - teehee.

I also read Mary's blog but this one is a bit different. She's very open and honest (lots of picture updates and videos) but for me she shows some of the thinking patterns I want to avoid. I think her blog embodies what theantijared was talking about in this post. The two things that stuck out in his post were;

Great weight loss bloggers are very supportive:

"I know you gained six pounds, but that is probably water weight! There is NO WAY you can gain that much weight by eating a few slices of cake!"

I am supportive, but to a point. I love to help people, but it is hard to give advice to those who want to make excuses for their weight loss or failures.

                                                        AND

Weight loss bloggers think about the future, and do not think about the present:

"Well, I ate a lot today, but tomorrow is a new day."

I know that if I can not do it today, then I will not do it tomorrow.

I don't have that many readers yet but I implore you. Don't leave "encouraging" comments when I don't do what I should. I don't want to foster an environment that keeps saying that it's ok to fail (even though I know that it is (once in a while)). I started this blog so i could be accountable and that does not include making excuses. To use biggest loser terms, I prefer a more "Jillian" approach than Bob. I WANT to be told when I'm messing up and when I'm making excuses. Even though most of the time I know that's what is happening, for some reason it's different (and for me motivational) when other people say it too.

Just to be clear, this is not an attack on her blog. I love her positivity and and willingness to share. She has also lost approximately 40lbs! I just think that it's good practice to learn from other people's mistakes when you can.

If you have any other favorite weightloss blogs, let me know.

Failed challenge

Wow, only on day three. To be honest, it wasn't intentional.

I was at the mall, feeling hot and bothered and I passed by a vending machine. I thought to myself "an iced tea would be very refreshing" and I bought one. I started drinking it and then halfway, I was like "$%$@! I gave up soda/other beverages". I threw what was left away but then i remembered earlier that afternoon I had bought a strawberry lemonade.

I guess when it's hot I think about "refreshing" drinks. This is probably how calories slip in when  I'm not paying attention.

Still trying it for the rest of the month though. Gym was a no-go yesterday so still sitting at 1/15

I prefer morning workouts!

Day 2 of the June Challenge. Did not go to the gym today so sitting at 1/15 or the challenge.

I didn't go for a very dumb reason. I forgot my headphones. Technically, I could have gone home, picked up the head phones and gone to the gym but after battling traffic for close to 2 hours, I just didn't feel like.

This is why I like working out in the morning. It doesn't give me time to make excuses/reasons for why I can't work out. I wake up and just go before my brain has time to turn on. Working out after work gives me a whole day to think about why I don't want to work out. Plus, its easier to get headaches and such.

Unfortunately, my gym doesn't open till 6am and I have to leave for work at 7am so morning workouts are not an option.

First day of challenge

Well, yesterday went pretty smoothly. I didn't have any issues drinking water at work. After work I had a really bad headache and after driving with it in traffic for close to 2 hours I really didn't want to go to the gym. But I did. One because, it was Day ONE and I promised you guys and two because priorfatgirl is always saying that you have to go even if you don't want to.

I didn't have the best workout. 20 mins on the elliptical. I wanted to do 40 but the machine kept going off, so I did it while it was off. Somehow not seeing how many calories I was burning and not being able to change the resistance made it really boring. I'm glad I went though. My headache went away after that brief stint.

I noticed something weird. When I got home, I had some m&m's (instead of real food!) and once I did, I wanted some soda. I didn't have it but I think it was interesting that I didn't think of soda until I had junk food. Something to think about.

Anyone joining me in this challenge?

June Challenge

Weighed in yesterday. 226. I hadn't started focusing yet so I'm not surprised.

My challenge for June is to only drink water. I'm going to give up alcohol too. The only other thing I'm allowed besides water is milk in my cereal. I don't usually drink a lot of soda but I tend to drink a decent amount of juice. The other part of the challenge is to make it to the gym 15 times this month.

I think that's doable so let's see what impact it will have on my weightloss. Still need more ideas for challenges so if you have any, be sure to let me know!

Challenges

To make this blog a little more interesting and to borrow an idea from Steve pavlina, I'm going to do little challenges throughout the year to keep things dynamic.

I think I'll try both short and long (max 1 month) trials. Ideas currently floating in my head include:

• 30 straight days of bikram yoga
• 30 day shred
• 30 days of being vegetarian
• 30 days on the atkins diet? (not sure about this one, my heart!)
• weeklong raw food (don't think i could/want to do this more than that)
• 1 week on just fruit? (would too much citrus present a problem?)

If you have any other suggestions on things I could try, let me know.

Where are the black girl weight loss blogs?

I read a lot of weight loss blogs and one day it hit me. Pretty much everyone I read continously is white. It's not a problem per se but it's interesting. As a black girl, I'm built a little different from the average white girl. It would be nice to see a before and after of someone like me. Don't get me wrong, I'm inspired by all the other blogs I read (Tyler has one of my favorite blogs and he's a guy!), it's just something that struck me.

I can't say I know why (and if there's a blog I'm missing, let me know) but hopefully I'll change that. As a community, I think we tend to be more judgmental and being open is not the norm.

Who knows, I might start a trend.

Before Pictures

I find that I always prefer to read weightloss blogs that have a lot of pictures. It's makes it more relatable.

Then why does it terrify me to post mine up? Fear of being judged? Embarassment? I think it's a combination of both but moreso being disgusted that I let myself get to this point.

I'm putting the pictures up because I hope it will inspire me to change. It's also exciting to see how your body progresses as you drop the pounds so I want a record of it. I'm probably going to post an updated picture every 15lbs or so.

Before I forget, I'm starting out a size 16 and I'm 5'5. I'd like to be around a size 4/5.

Without any further comment. Here are my soon to be "before" pics.

100lbs in 1 year.

Hi!


This is one of the scariest things I've ever done. Putting myself out there like this.  However, I think enough is enough. I've reached my highest weight ever and I don't like where I am.


I should have posted this earlier this month but I got caught up in other stuff. I was inspired by Andrew over at 100lbs in a year. I like the time frame and the challenge. It's weight loss at a pace that's challenging but safe.


I weigh 225.8 lbs


By May 20 2011. I want to be 125lbs. I think I can do this.


Let's see how it goes.