30 lbs in 2 1/2 months

I started my weight loss journey about 2 and a half months ago and as of this morning I’ve hit the 30 pounds lost mile stone. I don’t really see much of a difference, but I feel a difference! I FEEL lighter. I know at my weight I’ll probably need to lose 100 pounds before it’s really noticeable, but that’s ok. I’m in this for the long haul. 🙂 This isn’t a diet for me, it’s a total lifestyle change! 😀
But yeah… 30 pounds. That is amazing to me! I know it’s just going to keep getting better and better! 😀

2 Months = Pounds and Inches “Lost”

I’ve been at this new lifestyle now for two months and thought I’d let you guys in on my progress. 🙂 So here goes:

Pounds Removed = 26.2 lbs.

Inches Removed from Wrist = 1/2 inch per Wrist (1 inch total)

Inches Removed from Forearm = 1/2 inch per Forearm (1 inch total)

Inches Removed from Bicep = 1 & 1/2 inches per Bicep (3 inches total)

Inches Removed from Neck = 1 & 1/4 inches

Inches Removed from Breasts = 1/2 inch

Inches Removed from Waist = 2 inches

Inches Removed from Hips = 2 & 1/2 inches

Inches Removed from Thighs = 1/2 inch per Thigh (1 inch total)

Inches Removed from Calves = 3/4 inch per Calve (1 & 1/2 inches total)

Inches Removed from Ankles = 1/2 inch per Ankle ( 1 inch total)

Notice I use the term “removed” instead of lost? That’s because when something is lost you’re likely to find it again. lol Permanent fat removal is what I’m after! 🙂

Two Month Totals = 26.2 Pounds removed and 14 & 3/4 Inches removed from my body

I’m loving this! And I’m just getting started! 😀 I’m not feeling any deprivation or discomfort with my new lifestyle. I’m loving the fresh fruits and veggies and honestly do not miss the unhealthy food! I think the key is to let yourself have small amounts of whatever it is you’re craving – if you’re REALLY craving it. Better to deal with 100 extra calories from a bite or two of brownie than to deal with 600 or more calories from a binge after losing control (from feeling deprived). I never let myself feel really deprived, if I want something bad enough I let myself have a little bit of it. It keeps me on track and soon I stop craving the calorie loaded junk.

Oki, well that’s my update. I hope you all are doing well in your own journeys, my lovelies! I’m sorry I haven’t had much time to read many posts lately, hopefully soon I’ll have time to get caught up on the blogs/journals.
Stay healthy, active, and strong!

TTFN

4 pounds in 4 days

I’ve woke up every morning for the last four days to an entire pound gone over-night. Not sure what is going on, I’m not doing anything different that I can tell – I’m very good at keeping track of everything I put in my mouth and every activity I do. Every calorie is logged and every activity is written down. Can’t figure out this sudden surge in weight loss. Losing weight too quickly isn’t good for you (so say all the health sites I’ve read), so I’m going to try and tone it down. Going to skip the workout tonight, see what happens, probably a good idea since I’m still sore from the mega workout I did the night before last. Legs ache when I walk, my muscles are mad at me, apparently they didn’t like all the step-aerobics. lol

Side note – The Wii rocks my socks. Wii Fit Plus is amazing. I’ve lost 24 pounds in the past 7 weeks and it’s definitely helped.

Side note two – If you aren’t using FitTracker I highly recommend it. It’s helping me keep track of everything from my daily weigh-in to my inches lost. It even has a place to keep track of your food intake and your fitness activities.   www. fittracker.shapefit.com

Side note three – Going to have to buy new underwear. Every pair I own is now falling off my ass. lol

The 85 pound anorexic bitch from hell

My boyfriend and I took the LONG drive to San Fransisco today to go see his mother. While there we stopped to walk along the beach. We where having a good time, playing outrun the tide when the waves came in, giggling like little kids… and for the first time in days, even weeks, I wasn’t thinking about my body or my weight. But then the joy killer comes along – all 85 pounds of her. She comes running along the beach, a very obvious anorexic woman (I know “naturally skinny” and I know that there is nothing natural about this woman’s thinness unless she escaped from a concentration camp). I was happy and carefree until I looked up to smile at her as she ran by (as I often do when someone passes me because I’m often a joyful person). As she got an eyeful of me her face turned to pure disgust and full on no-holds-barred hatred. I was taken aback and stopped dead in my tracks, the half formed smile suddenly frozen on my face. I couldn’t believe the fierceness of the open hostility this woman who didn’t even know me had for me. She looked at me like I was a Giant Steaming Pile of Dog Poop that she just stepped in wearing 300 dollar shoes. This was the look of horror, disgust, and hatred she had on her face looking dead at me.

It took me a minute to understand this look, I’ve never (to my knowledge) had someone look at me like that. I couldn’t understand what I could have done to this person, whom I don’t even know, to cause her to look at me in that way. But suddenly as I took in her whole physical self, and not just her face, I understood. Seeing her taut skin, the protruding bones,  I suddenly realized I am this woman’s worst nightmare – alive and breathing right in front of her. I am what keeps her awake at night and gives her cold sweats when she even thinks about eating anything even remotely fattening. I am everything she hates and fears all wrapped up in my triple extra large peasant blouse and long flowing size 20-something skirt.

Knowing Anorexia and Bulimia the way I do, and knowing what it does to the mind – the complete and total fat obsession that comes along with it – I knew why she looked at me like that, but knowing why still couldn’t erase the hurt at being looked at like I was Hitler or satin himself. Or the pain I felt knowing this woman hated me totally down to her guts even though she didn’t even know me. I understood her mind’s sickness, but even now, hours later, I can’t stop seeing her face nor chase that putrid look she gave me out of my mind. I hate that we live in a society that can breed such contempt for someone based strictly on their looks. I believe I’m a good person, that I’m someone who would never intentionally hurt someone else. I always try to help people and I try to love everyone even those who hate me. But because of the way I look, that woman and those like her, immediately and completely hate me in an instant. Without even knowing who I am. And that hurts me more than I can say. More than I can ever explain.
My heart aches.

I hate what our current society and the media has done to people. I hate that it even bothers me to be looked at like a steaming pile of shit. I shouldn’t care. But there you have it. I guess I do care. I want to hate that woman for making me feel like this but I know it’s her sickness that has leached the blackness into her mind and heart. I pray she learns to be more loving and accepting of people of different shapes and sizes so that she can learn to love herself too. And maybe then she will get rid of that darkness inside of her that causes her to starve her own body, and treat strangers who are big like rotting, maggot infected meat.

Gah! That LOOK! Father in heaven please cleans my heart and mind and give me peace from the memory of that look.

20 lbs in a month in a half! :D

Ok this update is a little late but I wanted to share the good news. I had hit the 20 lb weight loss mark a month and a half (almost to the day) into my new lifestyle! I was one day past the month and a half mark when I hit the 20 lbs down! Yay! I’ve since dropped another pound and I’m so jazzed. As I type this I’m wearing a pair of jeans that I grew out of 6 months ago. I couldn’t even zip them up and now they fit – they are snug but they fit! My next mini-goal on the way to my goal weight will be the 50 lb mark – 29 more pounds to go until I reach that milestone. I have 245 lbs to lose total before hitting my goal weight but I don’t want to think about how long that’s going to take. lol I’m just taking this one day at a time, one meal at a time, one workout session at a time. This is a life long commitment and I know it will never be “over”. Even when I reach goal weight there will be lifelong maintenance, so I’m settling in for the ride and I’m loving my new healthier lifestyle!

The Scale’s Ups and Downs

A month has gone by since the start of my journey. I’m 16 lbs lighter. I wanted more weight loss, faster weight loss – 16 lbs lost when I need to lose 245 lbs total is a drop in a bucket, a sad little “plop” without so much as a satisfying “Splash”. And it’s going even slower now. I’m only losing two lbs a week now (sometimes less). Two pounds a week in a journey of 245 lbs is a long long way away. But it’s one step at a time, one pound at a time… no scratch that …it’s halves and quarters of a pound at a time.

It makes it so much harder when you wake up one day and somehow you’ve gained 2 lbs (or more) over night. This has happened to me three times in the past month. I look back on my food journal and realize these gains come on the days that my boyfriend spends with me all day. These are the days he takes me out to eat; We often eat at his favorite spots on his days off, and unfortunately they aren’t the healthiest places to eat (how do you eat healthy at a Chinese greasy spoon? Or a greasy burger joint?). These little 2 and 3 pound set backs make things so much more difficult for me emotionally and physically. It’s hard when you’ve worked your butt off all week to lose 3 lbs just to wake up to find two of those lbs have come back overnight. I need to figure this out; How do I keep this from happening again and again? I can’t stop going out with him to his favorite places, he would be devastated. But I can’t keep fighting those 2 and 3 lb overnight weight gains either. HELP! Any advice?

Portion Control

For me the key to weight loss and portion control- SLOW DOWN. Take every bite slowly and force yourself to really TASTE every single bite. From first to last, no mater what you’re eating. No distractions, turn off the tv, put down the book, and eat it (the food not the book) by yourself so no one is trying to talk to you and distract you. It used to be when I’m eating I’d be watching TV, or reading a book, or talking to my boyfriend. These things are great on their own, but they distract me from what I am doing and before I know it the meal, desert, or snack is over and I didn’t really enjoy it because I wasn’t fully taking it in. Every taste, smell, and texture needs to be experience and enjoyed. But most people don’t. They eat too fast or are too distracted to really savor their meal. I think this is why a lot of people overeat (I’m sure that’s why I often did), because they don’t get satisfaction with the smaller amounts because they are too distracted to really enjoy it. When you really are in the moment, really tasting every bite, you will feel satisfied and content with smaller portions.

Your goals, minus your doubts, equal your reality.

Ralph Marston

“Before” Pictures – Weight Loss Journey

I thought I’d post the “Before” pictures of my weight loss. Since these where only taken three weeks ago or so I still pretty much look like this (because a few pounds weight difference is really hard to see on someone my size – I’ll have to lose at least 50 lbs before the difference is noticeable). I’ve lost 15 lbs since starting this journey. It’s coming off slowly – it’s slowed down to about 2 lbs a week (but since most of the weight loss information, books, and sites recommend losing 1-2 lbs a week I’m not going to worry right now that it’s so slow). I do hope to start losing more quickly soon though, but I’m still noodling out what works for me and what works for my body to accomplish a faster weight loss. Two pounds a week is fine but I want to lose faster than that.

Ok so here are the pictures. These where taken about a week and a half into my diet after I’d already lost about 9 lbs. I was at 376 lbs. in these pictures.

I have a long way too go – 230 more pounds to lose before I reach my goal. It seems a daunting task, a task of great magnitude. But I look at it one day at a time, one pound at a time. I know I will get there. I am on my way.

“It is not enough to take steps which may some day lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Inches Lost – 20 days

So I’ve been keeping track of my inches as well as my weight. I started taking my measurement in inches 20 days ago and thought I’d post the changes today. I figure 20 days is long enough to see a difference (even if it’s a small difference):

Wrist= down 1/4 an inch

Forearm= down 1/4  inch

Bicep= down 1/4 inch

Neck= no change

Breasts= no change (thank you GOD!)

Waist= down 2 inches (the way some of my clothes are fitting now I thought this number would be bigger)

Hips= down 1 inch

Thigh= down 1/2 inch

Calve= down 1/2 inch

Ankle= down 1/4 inch

I was hoping the inches lost would be much bigger, after all it’s been about 3 weeks. Oh well, I guess slow change is best – the better for my skin to hopefully keep up with my weight loss; I don’t want to end up with a hell of a lot of excess flabby skin like I see often with people who have had rapid weight loss. God knows I can’t afford to have it “removed” when all is said and done. lol

The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.
Arthur C. Clarke

One of Those “Calorie Counting People”…

I thought I could get through this without becoming one of those obsessed women who counts all the calories in all the foods she eats. I didn’t want to be a food weigher and measurer. I thought if I just used sound judgment and chose “healthy foods” I wouldn’t need to have to count the calories. Here was my wake-up call: When I was making a sandwich two days ago I automatically reached for the mayo, but then thought – ‘no I better go with mustard, it’s less fattening’. Why on earth I assumed that mustard is less fattening is beyond me. To me it just seemed to be obvious. However I glanced at the calories of that mustard out of curiosity and it stopped me dead in my tracks. It has 113 calories per TEASPOON, my jaw nearly hit the floor. I thought, ‘oh hell, if mustard has this many calories I hate to know how much is in mayo’. But I had to know; I grabbed the jar to take a look. Only 90 calories per TABLESPOON. What a difference! Still quite a few calories, but compared to the mustard it’s no contest. This floored me and I wondered what other foods I had assumed where less fattening but might really be a dieter’s nightmare.

I then got online and started looking up some of my favorite foods and even some of my “healthiest” foods. I was shocked to find that a banana has 200 calories! Holy moley, I might as well be eating a candy bar with that many calories (though, bananas have a lot more nutritional value). If I had five bananas in one day it would be a THOUSAND – 1,000 – calories (I’ve gotten close, I’ve eaten four in one day before)! And some salads can contain upwards of 600+ calories based on what salad dressing is on it. This was my wake-up call to start counting calories. I had no idea that some foods I formerly thought where very healthy and non-fattening are indeed loaded with calories. As if that wasn’t bad enough I just about started crying when I saw the carb content of some of my favorite fruits and veggies! Carb-a-licious! Heaven help me! But this explained why I had GAINED 2 and a half pounds over the past couple days, despite nearly killing myself in my workouts.

This is so depressing. Now I’m going to have to be one of those calorie counter people, having to find the calorie and carb content of every thing I put in my mouth. And add them all up throughout the day to make sure they don’t get too high. Next thing you know I’m going to have to buy a friggin’ food scale and start measuring all my portions in little measuring cups. I just want to crawl back to bed and cry. Why the hell does this have to be so hard!? Who has time for this crap?