360 sticks

I weighed in at 190.0 this morning!! Wow! Faster than I thought, this week I just dropped a lot of weight for some reason. So that's 90 pounds officially lost, 360 sticks of butter!! WOO HOO!!! It's so surreal, so exciting!! And yet...I am so excited to get the next 10 pounds off to hit my 100 pounds lost mark. That will be such a party, I'm so going to have a party. A big one. Maybe give everyone a stick of butter. :) Actually no, cuz 100 pounds of butter would cost like $300. I don't have that kind of cash :D

YAAAYYY!!!! 190 pounds. 90 pounds in less than 8 months. Less than 8 months ago my life was TOTALLY different. I thought totally different, felt totally different, and holy crap, looked totally different. It's changed everything. AAAHHHHHHHHHHH it's so awesome :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

A little progress

Well, last time I blogged I had stalled out despite my best efforts. Since then I have had a little progress. Weighed in yesterday at 192.8. Not much progress but then I have not been perfectly vigilant either. It seems that I have to be perfectly vigilant to get results now. So it's definitely more of a challenge now. And I don't wanna be perfectly vigilant all the time. Some days I do great, others, like today, I just kind of let it fly. So it is what it is, try to string together more good days than bad days and keep at it.

I am only 7 weeks away from my 5k. I can now run 10 minutes at a time! Never thought I'd be able to do that. I ran 2 sets of 10 minutes each in my last training run, and that was tough but I felt amazingly proud of myself afterwards. I am not in love with running so I doubt this will be my new passion or anything but it's great to be ABLE to do it.

I'm onto Jillian Michael's Ripped in 30, but it will take me more than 30 to do it cuz I am alternating it with the training runs and I get a day off every week. So I've only got one more day on Level 1 then on to Level 2. It will probably take 2 months but that's okay. It keeps me working on my muscles and stamina and I love that.

Haven't measured in a while to see how many inches I'm down. probably do that on my 8 month anniversary on the 18th. I really hope to be down to 190 by then so I can celebrate 90 pounds lost in 8 months. A tall order but I'm going to really try to keep my hand from going to my mouth with food and work harder on my workouts. Even if I got to 89...that'd be swell :) Ultimately, every day gets me closer to my big milestone of 100 pounds lost. I had to modify my goals because of how slow things have been going. My goals are as follows:

Weight 190 (90 Pounds lost) 3/18/12 (8 month anniversary)
Weight 185 (95 pounds lost) 4/28/12 (The day I run my 5K)
Weight 180 (100 pounds lost) 5/18/12 (10 month anniversary)
Weight 175 (105 pounds lost) 6/18/12 (34th birthday and 11 month anniversary)
Weight 170, (110 pounds lost) 7/18/12 (1 year anniversary)
Weight 160, final goal weight (120 pounds lost) 9/18/12 (14 month anniversary)

I would hope it would go a little faster than that, but I have to be realistic. I had wanted to be at goal by my 1 year mark but now I need to adjust based on how it's been going. This last pile of fat is STUBBORN!!

I have found that the attention I get for my size from people I haven't seen in a long time has gone from really fun and cool to absolutely mortifying. I don't know what to say and I feel awkward about it. Last night I saw a bunch of people I hadn't seen since last summer and I kept my coat on for a while to try to kind of hide. I just feel weird, idk why, I should be more proud maybe? But it just feels weird to have that kind of attention on my body - i always wanted to draw attention away from it and now it just is kind of a big change to people who have not seen me in 7 months or more. So it's just something I have to get used to. I'm anxious for this to be normal now and the attention going away. Now that's not to say that I don't look at myself a ton more nowadays :) I am totally enthralled wtih how I can see some of my bones and just how different I look. I am constantly feeling my muscles and just totally in awe of it. So I am enjoying it myself, but I guess it is weird and feels really self-serving to accept praise or compliments from others for it. Like I'm bragging just by walking around or something. Idk hard to explain. But anyway. It's all part of the process and I wouldn't change anything at all so whatever. :)

Onward!!

Holding Steady

My weight is not budging, just hanging right there at 196.6. Kind of maddening considering all the hard work I've been putting in to my workouts. I do my Jillian Michael's dvd every day and do my 5k training runs 3 times a week. I stick to my calorie limit and get my water and vitamins in. Yet the scale bounces around the same 2 pounds and won't drop under 196. Bah! I'm seeing major changes in my shape, muscles and the way my clothes fit, so that is super awesome, but I would really like to see the scale dropping again. I have 5 days left of my 30 Day Shred dvd, then I'll be on vacation for a few days and come home and do my new Ripped in 30 dvd, which hopefully will change everything up and get my muscles ready for more changes. I have no clue why anyone would ever waste time in a gym or money on a personal trainer when you can buy a $12 dvd and workout 20 minutes a day and get amazing results at home. Maybe it gets boring at some point, I don't know, we will see. But for now, I'm quite enamored with the process.

I'm halfway done with my Couch to 5K training program, although I am sure it will take longer than 8 weeks total to get me up to running 5k without stopping. Right now it has me running 5 minutes at a time with walking in between. 5 minutes is TOUGH but it will get easier. 3 minutes used to be tough and now that's a cake walk so I can see how this will work. I have 11 weeks until my 5k on April 28th, and only 4 weeks left of the training so I am super in good position to be ready to really kill it :) I guess I will use the remaining time to run outside on courses that have some hills so I can be ready for anything. I'm so excited for this, I can't believe I am going to be actually running a race. It's something I never thought I'd ever want to do or could do. Wow how 6 months changes things :)

Shopping is super fun now. I went shopping with Anna last weekend ALL weekend and I got to try on clothes at real stores, not just Lane Bryant. I got to buy a bunch of clothes from Old Navy on clearance and I bought MEDIUMS! OMG that was so super crazy. And one of the mediums is too big, which is hilarious :) I bought new jeans and some 14's were too big! I ended up getting a pair of 13/14 Michael Kors jeans at Plato's Closet that fit amazing. So insane, it's surreal. And I'm not even done yet! I am hoping to settle in to a size 10 some day, seeing as how my hip bones are starting to stick out, I doubt I could ever be smaller than a size 10 cuz I think my skeleton is a size 10! I'm okay with that. :) I don't have visions of being a size 2 or super skinny, but boy do I want this last chunk of fat GONE. It's going to be hard cuz I've been carrying it for over 20 years, but it has to go! Onward! :)

6 months!

I can't believe it's been 6 months since my surgery, wow the time has flown! I am still losing pretty slowly but I have started working out every day again and have really enjoyed feeling the strength building. I am working on Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred, and it will probably take me more like 40 days cuz I allow myself to mix it up a bit if necessary, but still, should shave off some inches. Tonight I didn't work out but instead re-arranged all my furniture and hard-core cleaned in the process so that counts as a workout. My back and abs are already sore from pushing and pulling and lifting heavy furniture around, oh ya, and I brought a treadmill up my steep stairs. So ya, I got a workout :)

I took pics tonight to mark 6 months. I was in my workout clothes cuz I had INTENDED to still work out tonight after all that cleaning/re-arranging but I didn't. Anyway. So here is me. I can't really believe it.


I wish I had taken full before pictures but I didn't. But a little comparison, here is me a year ago on the left:


Down 82.8 pounds and counting. I don't care if it takes me another year, I'm getting another 37.2 pounds off!

324 sticks of butter gone, 155 to go!

I hit my goal this morning, just 4 days later than my goal date. Getting the flu helped I guess, I weighed in at 198.9 this morning, that's 81.1 pounds gone! That's 324 sticks of butter. Off of my body!
I went to buy dog food the other day and I get a 40 pound bag. I had a hard time wrestling one big bag, it was weird to think I used to carry 2 of them on my body all the time, everywhere, always.

I bought new pants yesterday and a button down shirt and it's so awesome to be able to tuck my shirt in :)

So far I have successfully avoided sweets/junk food/snacking and I have been pushing the protein like I'm supposed to. One day at a time, I love the new year - new start!

Missed it by that much

Wellz, if I had not had a goal, who knows where I would have gotten? So I'm looking at it positively and am I basically super excited to have come within 1 pound of my year-end goal. I was at 201 on New Year's Day, 1.1 pound more than my goal weight of 199.9. Based on how the middle of the month was going, I consider it a huge victory. I am down 79 pounds and 35 inches from where I was at the beginning of 2011. I never thought I would ever be able to say that, I really didn't imagine that I'd really do it, it was too good to be true. But here I sit, in my size 14 Gap pants and Large sweater, remembering this time last year when a 24 fit comfortably and I could never wear a shirt smaller than a 2x. What an incredible year :) And I'm not done.

My goal for the first half of this year, leading up to my 1-year anniversary of surgery on July 18th, is to lose another 35-45 pounds, and get toned and in better shape. I have seriously slacked on the exercise routine and while that is bad, it is actually good cuz I have lost some muscle. Sounds bad, but, my calves have always been huge and ALL muscle. I finally lost 1.5 inches on each calf so I'm glad about that.

So, onward, me and Jillian Michaels gotta be friends again and I have to get my treadmill in and running and hit the ground running, literally, in 2012.

75!

Wellz, I seem to only post on here at milestones. I am down 75 pounds now, just in time for the 5 month anniversary of my surgery, and it is super exciting! But, I am kind of frustrated because my goal was to be down 80.1 pounds by New Year's and I am behind schedule to do that now. So I'm sad about that but trying to just give myself a break and not beat myself up too badly for it. My metabolism has changed and having 75 pounds off means I carry less weight around and burn less calories so it's just slowed down quite a bit. I have to work out a lot harder to get good results and with the holiday season and all that goes with it, time has been used for other things more often than not. So, I am trying to remember to get my protein in, drink my water, take my vitamins and not worry so much about what the scale says every morning. It WILL move some more, just maybe not according to my original goal. Sometimes I feel like I will never lose another ounce and this is it and then I get very destructive thoughts and I hate that. So i am trying to just be positive and enjoy my new size and not obssess. And ultimately, I'm just not going to turn down a Christmas cookie here or there this Holiday season. My eating habits are so different from a year ago and my body is totally different and my clothes totally smaller and I'm just going to be happy about all that and say "CHEERS" with a Russian Tea Cake :)

So - 300 sticks of butter - BU-BYE!!!! I'd love to get off another 20 sticks in 2011 but I'll be happy with a few pats of butter here or there too. I have another 25-40 pounds to lose so I can't quit now!

I didn't post my 4 month pictures, so here they are:

I didn't get official 5-month pictures taken but here is a picture I took pretty close to the 5-month mark. I took it to show that I tucked my shirt in for the first time in like, ever.... :) I had worn a sweater over this shirt so don't think I wear sleeveless stuff in the winter. But anyway, that's the best I can do. There wasn't much change between month 4 and 5 anyway. So ONWARD :) Thanks for caring enough about my journey to read my blog! :)