Thur April 1 - 154.5 - (39lbs)- GOAL

OMG I did it. I'm officially not considered overweight by the BMI scale. I've lost 39 pounds. I know I keep saying where do I go from here but this time I mean it. I guess I shoot for 150 next. After that it will be 148. And no, this isn't an April fools joke. I'm so happy I can't believe it.

Now I have to get through a tough weekend, Easter. I have two breakfasts, one lunch, a party, and one dinner I have to get through. If I get through it 150 should be a cake walk. However, I have to take each party step by step and hope I make it. Hurray for being "normal" again.

Tues March 23 - 158.5 - (35lbs)

I'm in the 150's. It feels terrific. I finally hit it last Thursday. I've been maintaining/plateau'd since then. But honestly, I haven't really super plateau'd yet and I figured I might be due. I wouldn't exactly call it a plateau either. I did cheat and hard this weekend. Considering I didn't really gain anything I can't complain. Probably by tomorrow I might squeak down to 158. I'm really only 4 pounds away from the top target for my BMI. I do carry a lot more muscle than most people but I'm trying to not pay attention to that.

I'm actually really proud of myself for not super stressing during the pre-Cherry Blossom time. The fact that I'm losing during this is a huge acievement. I honestly didn't think I was ever going to see the 150's again. I'm at the point now where size 10 pants not only fit.. they too are starting to losen themselves.

The other issue I have is none of my club clothes fit. The only things that do are my corsets and mid-drift stuff. All of my skirts fall off. I guess it's a good problem to have.

Tues March 16 - 160.5 - (33lbs)

I'm a half pound away from my next goal. I'm super excited that all this work I'm doing for the festival isn't interfering with losing weight. In fact, I'm surprised I've been able to continue to lose. I guess I'm not letting this get me nervous and I don't really have any time to stress eat. I've stuck to my healthier food plan and I'm making sure that I exercise every night.

I was thinking maybe I could skip my video tomorrow and go to the club. It's an option. Especially since I normally dance for up to two hours while I'm there. I might wait though. I'm not sure. The last time I went I was up at my max weight. I think I might surprise a lot of people. If I wait then I can go at my optimal top weight 154.5. (amazingly 6 pounds away) My guess is its going to take about 2 weeks to 3 weeks to get there. Although, I did do really well this weekend and I might have enough momentum to lose even more this week.

Wed March 10 - 163.5 - (30lbs) - I did it!!!

Well I finally did it. I lost 30 pounds. Incredible! It's taken me since Jan 4 but I stuck with it. I'm still at a pace of around 3 pounds per week. It's so weird my goals keep getting smaller and smaller. My next goal is 160. After that it will be 154.5. I'm actually at the weight I was my senior prom in high school. I know I can get lower though.

My new issue isn't really a food issue, it's a stress issue. I was invited back to sell my art at the Cherry Blossom Festival in DC. Last year I gained 5 pounds in a week because I stress ate. What's nice is they gave me more than a month to get ready where as last year I had only a week and a half. I also got help from my friends this year which should take some of the pressure off me. My friend Audra is helping me at night.

Thur March 4 165.2 (28.3lbs) - New Scale

So the new scale is awesome. My old scale was definately broken. I weighed myself with both scales last night to see how it responded to an hour of exercise and after I slept last night. My old scale actually was not only all over the place but it wouldn't move up or down past 167-168. Its like its stuck. However, the new scale weighted me in at 167 before exercise and 166 after a whole hour of exercise. Then after doing my other 25 minutes and sleeping last night I woke up to 165.2. My other scale was still stuck at 167-168. So logically there was no way I was stuck at exactly the same weight all last night. There had to be some variation. The old scale got thrown out. Sad because I used it for like 5 years. But I guess it finally had it. I only got it for like 20-30 bux.

So now I'm 0.2 away from my goal. I hope I can hit that tomorrow. It would be awesome. Here's my chart for ALL of my weight loss. I've never said this before but I'm actually so proud of myself. I was all smiles this morning. (as a side note the elliptical guy came today. The resistance band in my elliptical snapped. Its going to take a month to replace)

Scale on the Frits?

So I think my scale finally went on the frits. I had to weight myself 5 times this morning until I finally came to the possible conclusion that I might have hit 166.5. I went out and bought a new upgraded scale today. My old one was just a plain old portable weight watchers scale. But I did buy it like 5 to 6 years ago. This one is a weight watchers scale but it has a body analyzer in it too.

I hope this scale works correctly and accurately. It had good reviews online. I also think is does a more precise measure of weight. Instead of weighing at every half pound I think it does it by .2 pounds. I just don't want to get on the scale and have it tell me I'm like 170 or something. I'm going to compare my old and new scale side by side to see how different they are. Hopefully they are close enough that my charts aren't off and I can get rid of the old scale.

Sat and Sun Feb 27 and 28 - 167 - (26.5lbs)

I had my party last night. It felt like the hardest thing in the world to avoid all that good food last night. I made sure I ate super light all day. We ordered pizza and I had one slice of white pizza. Hunter and I split one tiny piece of cake. I managed to not eat anything else that night for the most part. I picked a little. Just enough to taste things people had brought. Somehow, I managed to not gain any weight. I hit 167 yesterday and was the same this morning. I have one more hurdle today. I go out with dad for dinner and then cake at his house.

I've been eating light again today to prep. We're going to Applebee's and they have a french onion soup that's only 150 calories. I'm probably going to order that and a water so I can split a slice of strawberry shortcake with Hunter. I started my morning with a fruit and ice smootie. I woke up after breakfast cause we were up so late. I never skip breakfast but I don't wanna try to cram all my calories in three hours and make myself sick. God knows how many calories are in the icing alone in that cake anyway. Hopefully I'll be the same weight or lower tomorrow and not gain anything.

Thur Feb 25 - 168.5 - (25lbs) - Happy Birthday to me

So I kicked butt and took names. I lost 25 pounds so far. I'm 168.5. It's a nice present for myself. I was happy to see it. It's snowing again so at some point I'll be shoveling again. My exercise is really helping me continue to lose. I'm definately doing everything correctly. I just gotta keep going. Happy Bday to me!

Sun and Mon Feb 21 and 22 - 170 - (23.5lbs)

I surpassed my goal yesterday. I hit 170. I'm not really sure where to go from here since this was my original goal to finally get to. I guess I'm doing so well I should keep shooting lower. I think my "perfect" weight is a top weight of 150. At the rate I'm going it's not really that far away.

I guess my next goal is 165. Five pounds at a time is a good target. This was the first weekend that I not only lost weight but I weighed the same on Monday. Usually I cheat a little and treat myself on Sunday for doing so well during the week. But I worked so hard to get to 170 and the 160s sound so good that I didn't allow myself to cheat. I also thought about last week that I only lost 1.5 pounds and I know I will have additional weeks like that. Especially as I get smaller.

I'm actually surprised I managed to keep everything off this weekend especially since I have my review in work today. I know I eat when I get nervous about stuff. Maybe I've finally learned to control it. Maybe the energy I'm putting into my workouts is keeping me out of the kitchen and keeping my stress low.

At any rate I guess my next goal is 165! A little ambitous but I have to shoot for something. (and I thought 170 was ambitious)

Oh yeah. Here is my chart for weight loss so far. The first one is the summary since I started and the last one is just for the month of Feb.

Friday Feb 19 - 171.5 - (22lbs)

OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. I lost 22 pounds! I have one pound til my lowest weight all last year. I feel awesome. Now I have crazy incentive to do excellent this weekend. I have a feeling I'm going to hit my goal by the end of next week. I know I can do it now. The nice thing is I'm not hungry, I'm not rollercoastering, I'm hitting all my goals, pants fit, I'm not getting muscle craps like I did every other diet I've had, and I'm losing consistantly. If I'm this low already I wonder how long it will take me to get to the low 160s. I haven't seen 163 since Sept of 2008. I gotta keep going. I think my optimal weight is 150. I know how much better I look now. I can't even imagine if I managed to lose another 10 to 20. My birthday is next week. I can't believe it took me 29 years to learn how to diet and exercise correctly. I guess it's better than never figuring it out.

Wed Feb 17 - 173 - (20.5lbs)

I got a little nervous. I was stuck at 174 for a couple of days. I've been trying to replace the exercise I got with my elliptical but its been hard. (and frustrating) I didn't give up though. I busted my butt the last two days and I didn't even see my goal of 173.5. I jumped down to 173. I was kind of expecting 173.5 this morning but I was surprised instead. I was 173.5 for the majority of last summer. I only hit 170.5 on two days. My next goal is two and a half pounds away. I wasn't even sure if I'd see 173 during the winter and now I'm super excited that I'm so far ahead. I have to keep pushing forward. Maybe I'll see the 160's this year. Thats really less than 4 pounds from now. Size 10 jeans fit very comfortably now. My club boots zip up really easy. All of my corsets except one fit again. I even got my skinny capris on! I haven't tried on my dress size ten pants. I know they run a little smaller. I guess I just have to keep going. I have that last corset I want to get on.

Broken Elliptical- Lost 19 pounds 174.5

Well, apparently I've worked my elliptical machine to death. I was working out today and something inside of it just popped really loud and now it won't work. I tried to open it up to figure out what happened but I don't have the right tools. Hopefully my extended service plan will get me a fixed elliptical machine.

In other news I lost more weight. I'm officially 174.5. I5've lost 19 pounds. I know I've been kicking butt on the elliptical and I'm going to have to find something else to make up for the lost exercise. Now I know I have to do my videos everyday. Maybe I can do the trampoline for 30 minutes. I don't even know what's comparable until it gets fixed. I can't give up now.. I'm just too close. Next goal is 173.5 then 170.5.

Sun Feb 7 - 175 - (18.5lbs)

Whatever I'm doing is really working. This is the first weekend that I was able to really lose weight. I wasn't expecting to hit my 175 goal especially on a weekend. My next goal, even though it's not far way is 173.5. That's what I weighed most of last summer. Only on July 4th was I 170.5. So my next goal is a pound and a half away. The goal after that is four and a half. I can't believe I'm actually going to get there. I always have a terrible time with weight during the winter and I'm KILLING it. I think one thing that is helping is how much water I'm drinking to keep my system going, keeping my calories at a proper level, exercise, making sure I eat fruit and veggies, and my trick for this week has been to have a prune a day to make sure I am staying regular. I know, ew prunes. But it seems to be working. Especially this week. Plus, it's only one. Not enough to hurt anything and getting one down a day doesn't effect my calorie count too much.

Tonight is a huge test for me. I'll be at my dad's for the superbowl. He is notorius for offering food. Which is great as a guest...terrible if you are trying to lose weight. He always has some of the best food too. If I can manage to get through tonight I might hit my next goal by the end of this week. He promised to have fruit and veggies for me so I hope I can load up on that instead of junk food. This is going to be a huge test.

Thur Feb 4- 177 (16.5lbs)

Amazingly I'm still losing weight at a constant rate. I can't believe I'm almost to 175. 16.5 pounds is amazing to me in such a short amount of time. It looks as though I'm still losing about 3 pounds a week.

I've been switching up my Jillian Michael videos and doing 30 minutes on the eliptical everyday. Last night was the first night I did the metabolism video and I didn't feel like I was going to die during set 6. I did really well until the standing ab crunches at set 7. My waist is shrinking...in fact everything is shrinking.

Interesting weekend coming up. We're in for a snowstorm Friday into Saturday. Then the superbowl is Sunday. Dad is making meatballs. I asked him to get some healthy snacks like fruit and veggies so I can try to not cheat. If I can make it through this superbowl weekend I can make it through anything.I guess I'll have to make sure I do my elliptical this weekend both Saturday and Sunday.

Hello February, Hello 179

Well today is Feb 1. I had a decent weekend. My goal was to try not to gain any weight this weekend. The last two weekends I seemed to have an issue with that. I only nudged up a half pound yesterday but I could tell I was having some belly issues. I ate properly and only did 30 minutes of exercise the whole weekend. I didn't drink enough water though. That was obvious. I need to be more careful of that. Especially with it being so dry out, my skin is even dry.

I was happy to see that my weight was 179 this morning. Its a good start and it means I lost 3 pounds since last Monday. If I can keep the pace I might lose another pound or two by Friday. That would be really awesome. Valentine's day is coming up and I want to try to look the best I can.

I decided I would cook a meal in instead of out so I can control portion sizes. I have a few ideas for low fat/low cal french toast, lobster for dinner, and strawberries for dessert. I use truvia and cinnamon for my french toast with wheat bread and lower cal syrup. Lobster is actually good for you, the problem is how much butter you put on it. I'm probably also going to use dark chocolate for my strawberries. I'll probably only have two. Dark chocolate has benefits of its own, but everything in moderation.

I even bought my husband sugarfree chocolates. He has diabetes so it still gives him the opportunity to have some without completely missing out. Yeah sure, he can only have two but its better than nothing.

End of the week/month January 179.5

Well I did it. In one month I managed to drop from 193.5 to 179.5. I actually hit 179.5 yesterday. I was right between 179 and 179.5 this morning but I always round up when that happens. Usually that means I'll hit the lower amount the next day anyway.

After a month of working out and eating correctly, I'm sitting here writting to you in not size 12 jeans but size 10. I just get into them, but for me, that's good enough. It's incentive to bust out more weight so they are loose. 14 pounds in one month isn't too shabby.

The first two weeks was when I lost the majority of the weight which I've been told is water weight. I'm losing around 2-3 pounds a week now which is the recommended amount to keep the weight off. I'm actually ok with that. I keep up this pace and I'll see the bottom of the 170s in no time. I feel so good today. My tshirts fit without that bulge in the front and my butt actually looks toned. I have nothing planned this weekend that would entail me eating unnecessary food so I might have my first weekend that I lose weight.

Here are my charts.

Changing it up seems to have worked -180

I went home last night after work and had my turkey burger and some veggies. I felt really full after dinner and was concerned that maybe I had eatten too much or had screwed up my calories somehow. I recounted and recounted and I kept coming up with somewhere between 1200-1300 calories which is perfect. I got on the scale (which i shouldn't have done after I just ate) and it said 184. I was like OMG WTF how did I gain weight. So I did my other work out video by Jillian Michaels (the toning one) since I've been doing the metabolism one since the start. I was hoping changing it up might help.
I finished the work out and I wasn't sweating my brains out so I got a little concerned. I felt so guilty that I got on the eliptical and walked for 20 minutes. After doing all that I realized I drank an extra pound of water today and maybe that was why my weight seemed a little off. Before I went to bed I was 182. What a relief. I woke up to 180!!! I don't know if it was the veggies, the extra water, or the small change in my routine but something worked. I'm starting to notice my skin is a lot smoother. Maybe its from all the water I'm drinking. Maybe the exercise is tightening everything up. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll be in the 170's soon. I think I'm going to do my metabolism video tonight and then the eliptical to see if I can bust out even more weight. I just want to see 170's so bad. Maybe I'll even do two days of exercise this weekend. Last weekend I only worked out one day and I did a little better than the weekend before. It's incouraging to see it all start to melt off. Yay for 13.5 pounds.

Slowing down still 181.5

Well I managed to keep my weight at 181.5. If you look at where I was exactly a week ago I'm 3 pounds lighter. However, I can feel the weight not come off as fast. I was thinking it might be a good idea to change up my routine a little or just add to it. Maybe I'm just being impatient. If I don't lose any weight by tomorrow then I might have to start adding exercise. I'm already working out an hour everyday. One thing I can say is my waistline is way smaller. I washed my jeans the other day dreading getting back into them and they totally fit. I just have to remember its only been since Jan 4 that I went down from 193.5 to 181.5. That's still 12 pounds in 22 days. I'm actually looking forward to dinner tonight. We're doing burgers which means I get my awesome turkey burgers. They put some really awesome spices in them and I think they taste better than regular burgers. I'll try to make sure I do a veggie tonight too. I didn't have any yesterday and I really should have.

Still losing

I made it through my mom's birthday last week. I made her cake for her so I used "fake" eggs and reduced sugar icing. I couldn't believe no one could taste the difference. I also had cashew chicken that night fairly late. I did put on about 2 lbs but I got rid of it almost immediately. Then I started losing weight again. I'm 181.5. I lost 2 pound since last Friday. That means I'm the lowest I've been since I started my blog. From my max Dec weight I've lost 12 pounds. My jeans are starting to feel lose. Its awesome. My jeans were at the point of really uncomfortable when I was up as high as I was. My next goal is to get into the 170s and then 175. After that my goal will be to get to my smallest weight last year which was 171.5-170. That's about 10 pounds away. I should be rockin by summer. I didn't start losing weight until May last year. I'm way ahead of schedule. I saw my first bathing suits in target yesterday. Instead of crying about how I could never fit into them... I was like... you know what, maybe this year I'll buy a new one.

Here is my weight loss graph so far.

First 10 in 10 days

Well as of this morning I lost my first 10 pounds of my do over diet. Only 1.5 lbs til the lowest point of my last diet when I stopped blogging. We went to the japanese retaurant today to celebrate. I got some sushi I wouldn't normally eat on my diet but I wanted to reward myself for losing the weight so fast. I made sure I did all my exercises tonight so hopefully I stay the same weight. Right now I'm 183.5. I have my mom's birthday on Sunday so cake is coming. Hopefully I can keep myself in check.

Pleasantly Surprised

Well I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I realized I have lost 9.5 pounds already. I actually have 2 more pounds til I hit the end of my Nov diet.. but I feel so much better about this. The momentum is awesome. I lost a pound and a half since yesterday. The weight is still falling off. This time I am weighing myself everyday to make sure I stay on track. I'm eatting way more fruit and veggies and I exercise everyday for an hour which I think is what is pushing the weight off the fastest. I'm making sure my calories are just over 1200. I'm actually doing so well there are times that I'm not hungry and I'll grab a couple of crackers to just up the calories. My pants fit again. I'm comfortable in them. Right now I'm size 12. I know I need to get into the low 170s to 160s to get into my 10s. But my first goal is 183.5 and I'm almost there. Probably by tomorrow would be my guess. My next goal would be 178.5. I know the 170s have been a tough weight/plateau area for me so I'm going to lower my goals a bit until I get out of them so I don't get disappointed.

I have my mom's birthday on Sunday. But I was asked to make the cake. So I'm making it with what I refer to as "fake eggs" and I found Reduced sugar icing. The icing is still bad for you but reducing some of the calorie intake will help a little since I know I'm going to have to eat a slice.

Apple a Day?

I found an interesting article on the benefits of apples. You know the saying an apple a day... right? Well it turns out it's pretty true. I've always incorporated apples into my diets. It seems to work pretty well. If you want to look at the article it's

http://www.healthdiaries.com/eatthis/10-health-benefits-of-apples.html

But in summary apples are good for:
Bone Protection
Asthma Help
Alzheimer's Prevention
Lower Cholesterol
Lung Cancer Prevention
Breast Cancer Prevention
Colon Cancer Prevention
Liver Cancer Prevention
Diabetes Management
Weight Loss

Check out the article for more info

Exercise exercise exercise FTW

I started exercising again last night. Honestly, I thought I was going to die. But I finished the video and I'm happy I did. I saw the 180s again today. 189! I did the video again tonight and it was a lot easier. I also felt a lot less tired today. Tomorrow I'll be working from home so I'm hoping I can keep up the good work. We should be getting a bit of a snow day tomorrow and I'll probably be shoveling so I'll get a little extra workout which will be good. Hopefully I'll hit 188 tomorrow. We'll see.

Epic Holiday Fail

So I did the god aweful thing of gaining a ton of weight over the holidays. And when I say a ton I mean I weighed in at 193.5 on Monday. The good news is I caught it and I'm starting all over again. I'm already down to 190.5 and it's only Wednesday. I start exercising tonight so hopefully I'll have another pound by tomorrow. Holidays are always so tough. I just let it all go. Soooo ROUND TWO ... FIGHT!!!!