Score!

Woke up this morning to a 2 lb drop! I am now down to 273! This puts me at my very first journey's starting weight in 2011.

Here is the picture from Sunday that I never posted. My weight stayed the same yesteday, too.

and here is today's.

I was not too upset about going up from 275.0 to 276.6 because I knew exactly what choices I made that led me there and was determined not to let that derail me. Of course I wasn't exactly pleased with that number either. However, this morning seeing the huge difference I made in progress throughout Monday, I was ecstatic to see such a large shift! It motivates me so much more to see the scale going in the right direction. Today I played more volleyball with my students and did jumping jacks in between them running after the ball and my turn to hit it. This evening after I got home from work, I found out that my daughter's soccer practice was cancelled due to the coach's illness so I dressed her up in her shin guards and cleats anyways and brought her out in the front yard to practice with her one on one. We did warm up stretching, practiced passing drills and learning to stop the ball with her foot. I let her try to shoot some goals past me while I played defender on the little tikes goal we have. We also ran a couple laps around the trampoline.

I am so close to my 3rd goal (in the sidebar!) I am hoping to reach it by the end of this month, but we shall see... I got a great idea from Katie at Runs for Cookies the other day. She says that she decides how much weight she wants to lose by a certain date and calculates exactly how many pounds she needs to lose each week in order to be at her ultimate goal by that date. My sidebar goals are kind of random but I think this way of setting up a weekly short term goal to meet seems a lot more reasonable.

Let's see, My best friend Ashley is getting married in October and I will be her maid of honor and wearing a floor length black dress. Her date was originally supposed to be the 14th but her venue double booked and so she rescheduled it for the 21st. I think that is a good deadline to reach at least a good portion of my goals. I don't want to be all the way at goal weight of 150 by then because that is a lot of weight to lose in such a short amount. It could be done, but I'm not sure I have the time to dedicate that much to losing at the moment. Ideally I would love to get as close to goal as possible, however I remember getting down to 171 and feeling absolutely amazing between that and 180. So lets aim for the higher, and make it 185 even. 34 weeks from now. 273-285=88lbs to lose by her wedding. If I divide 88 by 34 that makes it roughly 2.5 lbs to lose each week. Not easy by any means, but not extremely out of hand to try and attain either. I like knowing that I have a very simple short term goal of reaching 2.5 lbs by the next week. Plus: If I can make that 2.5 lbs by next Tuesday, I will also reach my sidebar goal before the month ends!

Woot Woot!!!

Little black dress, here I come!

6 weeks in

So I know it's been 10 days since my last post and I didn't post my weigh in last Sunday, but it was 276 I think... Today was also 276. I hovered at 275 most of the week though and am betting tomorrow I will be back there. Today was up because I surprised the kids with a trip to Legoland yesterday and we stopped at Golden Corral on the way home. My kids love it there and I do too. The hubs and I both over ate. But damn it was good. At only 1 lb up, I think I'm alright. I knew it was gonna be an indulgence, and I was prepared for the change on the scale. However, today I ate much better and have been moving my body all day long, too. I look forward to seeing how this next week plays out.

at 275 I am 25 lbs lighter than my highest weight and down 18 lbs since the beginning of the year. 18lbs in 6 weeks is not too shabby.

I took a picture of the scale this morning but I think I'd rather share some cute photos of the kids enjoying themselves yesterday. They were being rewarded for having an amazing week each at school after having a rough week the one before. Jett is wearing his Cub Scout uniform because he was selling Camp Cards that morning and forgot to bring the extra shirt I packed for him when he stayed the night with his grandpa the night before and we picked him up from the sale to go straight to Legoland.

Gettin after it...

So my work schedule has been a bit crazy the last couple days since a girl decided to quit on us and we are all having to pick up the slack while training a new hire. My lunch breaks have been cut shorter by 30 minutes and I've had to stay an hour later than usual, too. This is exhausting to say the least, but I'm still getting after it as much as I possibly can while at work. I have been doing lots of jumping jacks and trying to see if I can outdo my highest number at one time going up by a few counts each day. Today I did a few times of 25 but the last time I did it was 40 all at once. I am also racing my kids around the play yard and they are enjoying chasing me or beating me back to the start. I try to encourage them to workout with me if they are just following me around whining about when it's time to go back inside and eat lunch instead of playing. lol. Sometimes it works...

I know today isn't a new weigh in day yet, but I was just so excited this morning to see that I dropped 2 more pounds, skipped right over 277 and jumped on down to 276 even. Whoooo! So I snapped a pic to share here. :D

After my last post I ended up going to the store like I said, but when I got home I spent some time with my own kids. I rode my bike, my son rode his scooter, and Bethany walked beside us a block down the road to the church. We rode all over the parking lot and then we went in to the playground area and I let the kids have at it. Shortly after, I decided they looked like they were having too much fun and I should join them and so I did. I crawled up to the top of the rock climbing area several times and slid down both slides as well as crawled through a tunnel. It felt great to be able to play with my children and not be totally out of breath. I snapped a few pics and had my son take some, too.

Forgive the quality as most of these pics were taken by my 8 year old son, Jett who has limited experience with taking pictures or using my phone. lol. He even took a video by mistake and you can hear me saying "I don't hear it clicking!" waiting for the sound of the camera capturing our picture. lol. Bethany wanted us to pose with peace signs in the air...

5 weeks

Great news today folks... I stepped on the scale to see this beauty...

I know it's only 1 lb since the first of the month, but it is 4 lbs down from last Sunday. Super stoked to see that number after bouncing around the last couple days. I was 280 just yesterday morning. I am further down in to the 270s now and feeling confident moving forward.

As my weight has increased over the last several years my period cycles have gotten way more out of whack. I can remember back in 2010 I only had 2 for the entire year. I started working out in January of 2011 for the first time ever and not long after that my period came back and started coming every month again. I cannot remember the last time I had one but I think it was probably around my birthday in late November. I feel like I could have one start back up any day now so this also probably has a lot to do with the fluctuation in the last week. I used to keep up with periods on the My Days app but am not as diligent about it anymore since my husband had a vasectomy after our last child.

I am heading to the store soon to pick up some essentials for the week but am also going to pick up some items to make salads with. I have always despised salads until I found out that I actually like the taste of spinach when it is not cooked. I loathe lettuce so that's why salads were a no go for me. I saw Katie from Runs for Cookies posting about her February challenge to try new salads for lunch each day and that sounded yummy. I probably wont have them everyday, but any at all is more than I've had in months. It will help keep my calorie count down while also getting in some good veggies and be something quick and easy to fix.

Month One, done!

I survived my first month back in action and I feel as if I'm still kicking ass so woohoo!

Today I stepped on the scale and as I had hoped saw the 270s again!!!

So from 293.0 to 279.4, I am down exactly 13.6 lbs in my first month. This really excites me. I know I averaged about 12 lbs per month my first go of things so I'm off to a great start. That's almost a pound every other day... I mean, WHOA! I've got it goin on. lol

Time for some new selfies and lucky me I got a great deal on my very first DSLR camera a couple nights ago so I am able to take some decent pictures instead of mirror selfies you can barely make out. lol.

I LOVE my new camera.

Excuse the laundry all over the place... we'll get to it eventually. hah.

 And here are some selfies, too. :D

and now for the measurements:

These are my starting body measurements:
Neck - 16.5"Bust - 50"Waist - 47"Hips - 60"Arms - 19"Thighs - 32"Calves - 20"

My current measurements (and lost last month):
Neck - 16" (down 0.5")Bust - 50"
Waist - 46.5" (down 0.5")Hips - 60"
Arms - 17.5" (down 1.5")Thighs - 32"
Calves - 19" (down 1")

That's a total of 3.5 inches lost this month. Not too shabby.