Better today. :)

I feel like I have gotten back on track today. I have been at home all by myself while Jett is spending a rare occasion with his father and stepmom. I have done all 2 hours of working out already and am only up to 420 calories so far. Plenty left for dinner and a snack.

I went outside today and soaked up the sun a bit. It was very windy so it was still chilly but I refused to take off my tank and shorts. I decided that I would just have to jog and walk fast enough to keep myself warm, and I did. lol. I got bored of just jogging around the last like 5 mins of the 30 I was aiming for and decided to just dance it out. I had my headphones on and was really feelin some Destiny's Child. :)

Poor choices

Made some poor choices today. I went out of town to see a friend I hardly ever get to see. While I was out and about I had Chili's for dinner with her. I should have not had any chips and salsa with her, but I definitely should not have ordered a burger. lol. Oh well, you live, you learn. I looked at some of the things on their healthier menu but didn't see anything that really looked appetizing. I figured it couldnt hurt to have something I wont really get the chance to have often anyways. I go to Chili's like maybe once a year if that, so oh well. Tomorrow is a new day and I can eat better then. :)

Pumped up and ready for the weekend!

I don't have any real plans for the rest of the weekend or anything, I'm just excited its another weekend, which means its almost another week... and right now every day is exciting to me. Each new day is another chance to improve. To get one step closer to living the life I want to live. To being proud of myself and succeeding for once at something that means so much.

I did go out with a friend last night though. We saw a movie and afterwards they asked if I wanted to grab a bite to eat. I declined, and although that seems like an easy enough thing to do. It's not. I'f you've ever been addicted to food like me, then you know that just that simple word 'No' is a huge amount of progress. Not only have I been addicted to food though, I have a very suggestive personality. If my friends say hey do you wanna go bowling or skating - I'm never the one to make the decision. I love them both. But if they say hey you wanna go bowling. I say sure. Then they say hey you wanna go skating instead, I say sure. I am one of the most agreeable people you'll ever meet. I do have some common sense of course and don't just agree to jump off bridges or completely do something idiotic. But there is a very fine line between what is and isn't safe to agree to anymore. I knew it was a bad idea when I started smoking, but my friends just being friendly kept offering me smokes whenever they'd lite up forgetting that I was one of the only non smoker friends around, and I eventually said sure and became addicted for a small period of my life. I am lucky to have been able to quit both times that I did. I hope it never becomes something I have to quit 3 times. But with eating, I never realized all the harm I was doing to my body by agreeing to stop and eat some junk food late at night at some fast food place. This is something I used to do all the time anytime I'd go out with friends. Especially because I live in a very small town and that is one of the only things to do here. Go eat.

So simply saying No to that question last night was not simple at all. I fought back the words of 'I changed my mind' several times. He hadnt eaten most of the day so I offered to go ahead and drive him to pick something up and he said he wanted to go to Taco Bell. OMG, I love Taco Bell! I haven't eaten there in a good 6 months or so. I fought harder to not want to get something. He offered to pay for my food if I wanted something a few more times after we got there and all the pictures on the menu were tearing me up on the inside. But I took a few deep breaths and cleared my mind. I knew this is not something I wanted to do to myself. I knew there was nothing on their menu that I could eat and not feel guilty about later. I knew I owed it to myself, to my son, and to my friends who are all supporting me to stay on track and make the right decision. Thank you all for helping me with this. I know you weren't there last night to tell me it was a bad idea, but your were there in my thoughts and keeping me strong. I said No and No again, with each time, it got easier. I did feel a little bad about not taking him up on his offer, but no where near as bad as I would feel today if I had given up on myself at that moment. Today I am proud and that was just one small hurdle. I know there will be many more to come. But bring them on because I am ready. :)


And last but not least... I am happy to seemingly be inspiring to others. Today I got this message from a new friend on facebook

Kim: Geez I need you as inspiration to help me drop weight.

o
Jen: aww. well here i am! what can i do to help? :)

o
Kim: Well Idk I gotta think about that. Maybe I can start txting u so I can get motivated on Monday?

o
Jen: not a problem - ***-***-****

Dancing..

So I went on netflix this morning and found a ton of Crunch and 10 Minute Solution workout videos and added them all to my instant queue so I can switch things up a bit and keep myself interested. I picked a large variety of different ones to be able to choose from but mostly I got a whole ton of ones focused on dancing. I figure I might as well be learning some cool dance moves while I get in a nice workout to keep it all fun for me. :) After I reach my final goal someday then I am gonna wanna go out with some friends and tear up a dance floor. Might as well start practicing early. :D

Met my 2nd goal today!!

Oh my gosh!!! After yesterday's weigh in and how i was up and down all last week I was not expecting to meet my goal of losing 20 lbs today. But to my surprise I did! Then after I worked out I had to go the restroom like twice during my workout so I thought I'd check and see where my weight was at after all that since I watched some youtube video about how 2 cups of water equals 1 pound so not to worry too much if you are up or down a pound or whatever since it all depends on things like what you're wearing or what you've eaten already or if you've gone to the bathroom. Well when I checked the scale the second time today I was down past my 2nd goal weight that I set for myself back when I first started. Omg I'm so happy! Even if I go back up some tomorrow or whatever I still feel great and know I'm that much closer to where I want my life to be headed. :)




I had to wake up at like 4am to take my dad to the airport this morning so I ate breakfast super early and then on the way home my mom called us when she got off work and asked if we wanted to meet up so I pretty much had lunch while she was having dinner. We went to IHOP and I actually ordered something off of their Simple and Fit Menu. It was so freaking delicious, too! I think it will be my new go to menu item of choice the next time my family decides to go there. :) I'm so used to getting their chicken fried steaks but I practically have to eat barely anything all day to be able to afford enough calories to have that all in one meal. lol. Needless to say I am very proud of myself for having more will power this time and choosing something much better for me.



This is the SIMPLE & FIT Simply Chicken Sandwich w/Fresh Fruit. It said on the menu it came with lettuce, which I can't stand, so I asked her to hold that. But it didn't say anything about onions. I ended up picking those off since I don't like them either. lol. It also surprisingly came with a pickle spear. That was tasty though. :) The parmesan bread was sooo delicious and whatever seasoning they used on the chicken... O. M. G. soooo good! Only 470 calories for that entire meal. Which, considering my current meal sizes, is still a lot of calories, but its far less calories than most other things on the menu. And I am still full now at 2:30pm when I ate that around 8 or 9 this morning. I am just having my protein shake now and that should hold me until I have to have dinner ready at 5 so my mom can eat before leaving for work. :D

Down another pound...

Okay so I'm back down to being 254. Thankfully I was able to get back to where I was last week after going up a couple pounds over the weekend. So hooray for that. I hope by next week's weigh-in I can be down at least 1 more pound if not 2 or 3. :)

I have to be up at 4am to drive my dad to the airport so I dont have much time to say anything else really. I'm feeling great today though. Tried a new workout dvd that worked solely on my abs. OMG i felt the burn. I actually now know where a 6 pack on my body should be at if I ever get one. hahah. I totally felt it!

So...

I FEEL AMAZING!!!! bwahahaha... seriously... one of the more popular girls from school just sent me a private message asking me for workout advice. hahah. She's still super thin in my opinion but i guess she's trying to maintain and all now that she's a mommy. But wow... that just made me feel really good. haha.



In other news... I've been going back and forth between different measurements when weighing myself depending upon what I'm wearing. Since I use the wii fit and it asks if my clothes are light or heavy for each day. I've decided today that I'm going to from now on just use the "Other" option and choose for it to not add or subtract any weight. I think this will probably be the most accurate way for me to tell how much I weigh. I was down to 20 lbs lost when i first stepped on today and chose the heavy clothes option. but when I redid my test with the other option set to +/- 0 lbs I was right at 255. So I've still got 2 more lbs to go until I officially announce that I'm down 20 lbs. :) I'm okay with that. I feel good about this decision.

I went for a jog today...

Today was the first chance I've had where Jett was gone over to his other grandparents house for me to be able to go out and actually try to do some jogging. I did more walking than jogging, but I did more jogging than I ever do normally at all. I went about 1.26 miles according to the map on the Cardio Trainer app for facebook. That's a really handy little tool. I did it in 24 minutes. I hope to improve on that time the next time I get a free chance to do some more. :)

I'm kinda stuck in this little plateau of being at 254 and going up to 256. I have been up and down right around there all week long. I'm not too bothered by it really. But I just feel like time passes by so slowly. I find myself getting excited for every Wednesday to just hurry up and get here so I can do my next weigh in and so I can see the next episode of I Used to Be Fat. This week will be the last episode of this season though pretty much. There is one more next Wednesday but its a reunion show. I can't wait to see how far everyone has come of course. But I really just want to see more inspiring stories. I have already found and met a few people who have done the show too but their episode won't be airing until the 2nd season I guess. I don't know when that will be. But man I already can't wait! This one girl Maddy that I found was very sweet and talked to me through private messaging and wished me good luck on my journey. :)

They filmed the reunion show just 2 days ago. I saw so many of the kids posting about it on facebook about how they went to New York to film it and got to go to Times Square and be on TRL and all that jazz. I'm so jealous! I have to go there someday. It's always been a huge dream of mine to go see Times Square. I will eventually... Anyways though, there were pictures posted of them all having fun and hanging out. They all look sooo fantastic and seeing how great they look and knowing most of them used to look exactly like I do now... gives me so much hope that I can someday look just as great if I keep up all the hard work. :)

Keeping busy...

I know I havent posted in the last 2 days, but I've been so busy this weekend out and about doing all sorts of things that I've barely had the time to even think about it. Which is a good thing, but I would prefer to keep this daily.

I have been doing well on my food the last couple days and keeping up with my exercising. I'm only 1 more pound away from being able to say that I've dropped 20 lbs. That's rather exciting to me. A couple of my friends have reached their 50 lbs of weight loss mark and I am so happy for them. I can't wait until I am there. I feel like I will definitely make that target before the end of the year. With any luck I'll have it made by summertime! :)

I really love that I finally feel like my weight and my health is something that I can actually control in my life. Too many things have been out of my control for too long, and I never knew that I could be in control of this so its just really amazing to learn all about and really makes me appreciate a lot more things.

It's been a long day

Had to get up early to make sure I had time to get my exercises done before I had to take Jett to a Dr's checkup today. Luckily I got everything done and still had time for a bath and all. After his checkup we went to the park and ran around playing for a good 2 hours before I decided it was time to head home. Then we realized the car wouldnt start. An hour or two later after a lot of calling family and figuring things out we finally got a new battery and headed home. I just made a delicious pork chop dinner and had so few calories at breakfast and lunch today that I've still got over 300 calories before I meet my limit for the day.

dammit... i FAIL at food today

this morning and lunch was great but now...
i hate myself.... i just ate 2 fried chicken legs and a chicken breast. lmfao... i havent had fried chicken since like... before christmas at least, maybe ven before thanksgiving? its been a long time. my dad ran out to get some at the last minute from pop's chicken just before my mom had to get up for work and while he was gone i was trying to think of what else i could find to eat... but as soon as he got here and the smell hit me my body went into shock and my brain completely shut off. i know its a terrible god awful excuse for no damn will power. but dammit... it was delicious while i was eating it. not the thought of it is making me nauseaous. god it was sooo fatty and greasy. i brushed my teeth right away and so now im all minty and thinking about anymore chicken is just out of the picture thankfully. gosh i feel so terrible about it though i even ate it really fast and in another room so my parents couldnt see me eat it and say hey i thought you were eating healthier now? which is totally one of those things on that list of questions about are you a food addict... do you hide to eat food or hide food, etc... urgghhhh. well im done eating for the day now. just gonna drink lots and lots of water and work my butt off in my last workout. tomorrow is a new day.

One month closer!!!

So today it has officially been one month since I've started this latest journey and I feel amazing. Every single day I have had something to feel good about and I feel myself having less and less slip ups. I am so proud of how far I have come even thought it may not be all that much. Its still more than I've done in an extremely long time.

Starting weight - 273 lbs
Today's weight - 256 lbs

I am down 17 lbs!!!

Starting measurement > New one > Amount lost

Bust - 51 in > 49 in > 2 in
Waist - 53 in > 49 in > 4 in
Hips - 58 in > 56 in > 2 in
Arms - 17 in > 16 in > 1 in
Thighs - 31 in > 29 and 1/2 in > 1 and 1/2 in
Calves - 19 and 1/2 in > 19 in > 1/2 in
Neck - 16 and 1/2 in > 15 and 1/2 > 1 in

so overall 12 inches gone.... I am most shocked at 4 inches in the waist though!

Here are the pictures. I do not see a big difference in them, but I can't wait to see how much more it will be in the next few months. :)


Oh and I forgot to share them here but around day 10 I went ahead and took some pictures of my back and arms, too.

No more excuses

Barbara and Curt invited me and Jett out to a special valentines day lunch today. They got me a pink rose and some weight watchers chocolate pecan clusters. Jett got a really cute card, a tiny puppy that says ruff ruff I love you, and some spiderman shaped chocolates. They took us to Denny's and I was running late from sleeping in about an hour and then a last minute trip to the hardware store this morning so I never ate breakfast. First time i've actually skipped it in a long ass time. I figured I should be able to order whatever I want since it was a holiday, I hardly ever go to denny's (like 3 times in my life) and without breakfast i figured the calories would be fine to be considered as my breakfast and lunch. I ordered a grand slam and while they did have the options of whole wheat pancakes or turkey bacon or egg whites... i instead got the real things and also some hashbrowns. After I got home and looked it all up I saw that it was about 915 calories. *_* About 85% of my whole day's worth. Yikes... that made me very full instantly seeing those numbers. I drank water the rest of the day and then had campbells vegetable beef soup for dinner. Here it is 11pm and im ready for bed and still not hungry. That video was right about soup being sooo filling. I'm so glad I didnt snack tonight or eat anything extra after todays lunch.

Man next time I'm going to be more careful with what I eat when going out no matter what. NO MORE EXCUSES! Just because its a holiday doesn't mean my body stops gaining fat.

No wonder..

I just realized why I've been feeling kinda sluggish this weekend other than the bad news. Aunt flo showed up today. Which is rather astonishing considering I only got her the one time all of last year. lol. I must be doing great, my body is finally getting back on track. Actually its only been 25 days since my lmp so I'm about 3 days early for a normal cycle. The only other time in my life I've been this regular was when I was taking birth control pills. So woohoo! Great news.

I went ahead and did my normally night time routine this morning when i got up since i didnt do it last night from staying up too late. Then i came over here and did my wii and my bootcamp so I've already got my full 2 hours for the day. Feeling better now and looking forward to the next couple days... :)

Down but not discouraged

Okay so today I started out feeling pretty great and ate a decent breakfast then we left the house and stayed gone all day so I made a couple of really poor food choices. We had Mcdonalds for lunch and then Chinese Buffet for dinner. I went overboard at dinner and went back for a 2nd plate of everything. And then after I sat down with my plate I instantly felt full already but decided since i already got the food i better eat it anyways since it looked so good.

Ugh... that was terrible to admit. But im not claiming to be perfect here, I'm sharing my struggles along with all my accomplishments.

When I finally got home I immediately hopped on my Wii Fit and did all my exercises. When I got to the 10 minute Free Step I turned on my mp3 player and really pushed myself hard to get as many steps in as i possible could. By the time I finished though the music was still going loud and my body felt great with my heartrate up and moving around so I felt like jogging around the room and said well wait a minute I'll just go ahead and turn on my 10 minute free run and do it too. So I did. That was the first time I've done them both and I did them back to back. I felt really great and pushed myself very hard in it too. After that I did my bootcamp dvd and the entire time I was doing the weights I could feel my arms literally burning. I had to keep looking down to see if they were red or not. To my surprise they werent too red, but they were very sweaty. lol.

I'm off to go do my last 30 minute dvd then to bed.

Tomorrow is a whole new day!

Today was my first really down day

I have felt pretty crappy all day today and not wanted to work out or eat right. But even more than I wanted to be lazy, I wanted to keep on track more than that so I did. I am glad to still be focused on my goals. I am just a little sidetracked in my thoughts today because of other things in my life that have nothing to do with my weight. I'm really stressed out about not having a job and not being able to pay my debts off. I'm in trouble with the law for tickets I can't pay now and it's just put me in a really terrible mood.

I am really enjoying all this time I have to workout right now, but I really really need to put a little more focus on finding a job asap.

This journey to a healthier me isn't just physically, its got to be mentally too.

Good advice

I found probably one of the best quotes ever in respect to trying to lose weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

"If we defend our habits, we have no intentions of quitting them."

This is too true! We have got to stop making excuses for ourselves and just do our best. I'm serious about taking this on a day to day basis. If I slip up one day and have too much or don't work out as much as I'd like, Well... there's no sense in me saying oh it was because I'm tired or because I need the extra sugar for energy or something dumb like that. Excuses are bullshit and don't do anyone any good. If you can't be honest with yourself then you won't ever change. In learning this I've found its best to just not skip a workout or not have that sugar, because I know whatever reason I come up with for it does not help my willpower stay stronger. I've found that the longer I go without caving in to silly cravings or laziness, the easier it is to just keep up the good work.

Be cheerful and upbeat

Even if I don't lose another pound, I'll still feel like this journey was still successful. I think the key to getting to be a more healthy version of yourself is really to just stay positive. Its working so far anyways... :)

Listen to jen112685s Playlist

Success!

I feel successful. I haven't reached my next goal yet. But today I got under 260. When I saw this image on the screen....



I almost began to cry. Its been years since I've seen a number that small. When I started this journey I was at 273 and my BMI was around 45. Its been just over 3 weeks now, but I feel like I've come such a long, long way.

I'm so pumped up now! And so far today I've ate extremely well. My breakfast was a spinach salad with chicken, cheese, grape tomatoes, and a small bit of buttermilk ranch. It was so dang delicious! For lunch I had one of my healthy choice meals with my protein shake.

After doing my Wii workout today I got on the bluray player and got on netflix and did some workout called Crunch: Boot Camp Training. It was about 30 minutes and did a lot of different exercises and even some weight training. I loved it! Its a new challenge and is going to take some time to get used to and get up to speed with it, so yay for having something new to dig in to now. I will probably still do my nightly workouts too so now I'll be up to 2 hours everyday. Awesome!

Life is good. :)

Workout music

I've been feeling so much more energized lately. Its amazing! Whenever I do my Wii workouts I always end it with either free step or free run and I listen to my mp3 player while I do the 10 minutes. Well today after I finished my steps a good song was playing and I was so thrilled with the step amount I did that I just jumped off the board and started dancing around vigorously in my living room to the rest of the song and kept my heartrate up just that much longer before I finally stopped to go have my protein shake. Yay! lol. I used to always get so tired when some music would come on tv and Jett would beg me to get up and dance mommy! I would be out of breath halfway through the song and have to slow things down. But not tonight. I feel sooo soo good. I also thought while I was doing my free step that the songs that came up were all pretty great workout songs with good beats to go by, etc and thought I should compile a list of my favorite songs to workout to and keep it in my blog. But then I got a better idea and thought hey this could be a new challenge to keep all my girls in the Healthy Living facebook group motivated and share some of the things we like to listen to that keep us really pumped up while working out. So I proposed that tomorrow we all come up with a list of about 10 songs, give or take, that we just absolutely love to workout to. Can give a reason or a certain exercise it goes best with or you can just list the songs. I just think it's another thing to keep us all sharing with each other. ♥

So far I know I want to add these

Relient K - Pressing On
Nsync - Dirty Pop
Counting Crows - Accidentally in Love
Christina Milian - Am to PM
Nelly - Hot in here
Destiny's Child - Jumpin Jumpin
Backstreet Boys - Everybody
Bloodhound Gang - The Bad Touch
Weezer - Hash Pipe
Nickelback - Something in your mouth
Chingy - Right Thurr
The Offspring - Keep em Separated
Christina Aguilara - Fighter
White Stripes - Fell in love with a girl
3oh3 ft Katy Perry - Starstrukk

Trying something new

For dinner tonight I tried something new. I used some vegetable spray in a frying pan to cook a chicken breast and then i cut it into strips and threw it on top of a bed of spinach. I sprinkled it with a small amount of cheese and then topped it with some Italian dressing. It was delicious! I have only ever had canned spinach before and I freaking hate that stuff. My mother traumatized me with it as a child and so I just steer clear of it. Whenever I smell it, I gag. I was trying to keep an open mind at the grocery store yesterday though and decided to buy some fresh spinach and see if I liked it any better. Also its been years since I've had any canned spinach so I figured now was as good a time as any to see how I felt about it. I was surprised to actually like it. It doesnt gross me out like lettuce does and I even enjoyed the taste of it. I did try putting one in the frying pan while cooking the chicken but when i tasted it I instantly got flooded with all those terrible memories of how awful the canned stuff tasted. So I guess I just can't stand cooked spinach but fresh is A-okay!

I feel accomplished. :)

Jogging already...

Last week I was jogging outside and felt worn out right away. Today I had to go out to the car to warm it up before we go to the store to do our grocery shopping and I got the urge to jog so I went for it. I jogged all the way around back to the car and then jogged around a bit in the yard before jogging back up to the house! I felt great and am so excited for these small changes in my everyday life!

I've been seeing a lot of people, my friends, and new friends I am meeting on fatsecret, who have been dropping lots of weight by counting carbs or being on the atkins diet. I think I should take a deeper look into this and figure out how to know how many carbs are in things and how many I should be eating each day. I will have to look this stuff up online after I get back from the store... :)

Feeling the burn..

So 2 and a half weeks later and my energy level seems to be slowed down a bit. I do not think this is from being overly tired more so than it is from a little bit of boredom. I am feeling the need to change up my daily routine and try something else. I think I may do just that. So far I haven't let myself skip any workouts but I feel if I keep doing the same ones all the time then I might be more prone to want to do that in the near future. I am really looking forward to when the weather warms back up and I can get outside to do some things and also when me and my friends can all get together and go hit up the Cain Center to use their gym for $5 one day. I can't wait to see how my body will react to using equipment.

Luckily, for the time being, I am still finding lots of things to stay excited about and enough to keep pushing myself though. But this is not easy. Not that I thought it would be though either...

Motivate yourself.

I think this was a good tip someone left on fatsecret in a motivational group im in there. I totally agree with it and how so many others around us make it easy for you to slip back into your old habits. You have to be the one to keep yourself on track. You've got to really want it and not make any excuses for yourself because in the long run its you that its gonna hurt if you do.

--------------

Another good tip is make your lifestyle change, to a healthier life, is to make it "NON Negotiable" and stick to it no matter what others say.

Think about it, we live in a selfish world and most of us are enablers of others weaknesses on a circumstantial basis. Notice too that most of this is unintentional and almost subconscious most of the time.

So really, you know what is best for you. DONT NEGOTIATE YOUR HEALTH AND SUCCESS because someone (or could even be your own thoughts) is seducing you with something your body doesn't need right now (could be stress, food, too many drinks, drugs, etc...)