This is a test.

See..

How I'm not drinking soda?  Even out to eat?  New me!

Wahoo!

So, I've done really well the last three days.  I've made my lunch and I've eaten it!  I've also started doing some Yoga in the morning and before I go to bed.  To be honest, I have had a terrible cold and the yoga before bed was out of desperation.  I wanted to do something before bed that would enable me to breathe...Success!

I've already lost 2.5 lbs and I can't wait to keep the momentum going.  I can't stop telling everyone I know!  I know it's only 2.5 lbs, but I feel so energized to have seen almost immediate results...I just hope that I keep feeling this energetic and upbeat about this process because I have lost weight before, but it has always come back.  I lost 25 lbs in three weeks before while just minding what I ate but interval walking for just 20 minutes every day.

What really motivated me yesterday was showing one of the people who works for me the picture of me from 6 years ago.  That picture was in a group of 5 people.  Despite being the only one with red hair, he couldn't pick me out of the group.  His only response was "Wow."  It hurt a little on the inside to hear that.  But, I chose to turn it into fuel for the fire.  If I can keep this up for a month, then I have every hope that I can make it through to the end, to the body that I used to have (or something like it) and to a person who can enjoy life without worrying about what people think when they look at her.

On the other side of this, I am trying to keep the variety up in what I am eating and so I went over to The Dashing Dish and found this Pumpkin Cheesecake Mousse and could not resist.  I LOVE it!  The only thing I changed was the amount of allspice in the recipe.  I halved it.  Also, if you ever make it, make sure you add in something sweet because if you don't the bitter undertones of the spice will almost ruin the dessert.  ALSO, make sure it is CHILLY.  The colder this dessert is, the better.

Until next time, dearies.





(Yes, that is a Once Upon a Time Reference)

Still Going...

Two days later and still going....  I have only had two sodas in the last six days.  That's a big deal for me.  And I'm drinking water more.  I have also been making my lunches for work--total change for me.  I had a moment where one of the people at work that I see daily actually took a drink out of my hands thinking it was soda.  Awesome.  That was my last soda--three days ago.  I didn't even have any soda on New Years Eve...

Hopefully my next few posts will be a little bit more edifying than not drinking soda.

On the other hand, my husband and I just got preapproved for a house!

So...About that new start...

Yeah, it got derailed before it even got started.  Here's my second/third/fourth/...go-round at making this work.  At making this weight loss thing stick until I am back down to what I was before I went to England for a month in the summer of 2006. Why that seemingly arbitrary date?  Because I remember weighing myself and what I weighed in fear of gaining weight while I was there, and I actually remember what I weighed.  The picture on the left is me at that party and needless to say, I do not look like that now.  The picture on the right was just three weeks ago.  After seeing those pictures within weeks, I felt like I finally hit that point where I need to make a change.  Not just so I can look better, but so I can be healthier for my son who is 2.5 now and LOVING it.  I want to be able to play soccer and baseball and basketball and run around with him without worrying about how I look.  I'm not thirty yet, so my goal is still attainable.  It's now or never and you bet your ass I'm not going to look like this last picture for the rest of my life.

We all must start somewhere...

and here is where I begin.  I am a 27 year old mother of one awesome toddler and while I love my husband and son, I know I can be happier.  My weight has been a text book case of yo-yo disease only made worse by fad dieting and fasts.  When I met my husband, I was 19 and weighed 147.  Then I moved on from community college to a four-year and into a dorm.  The first year wasn't bad, I left for England in the following summer at 155 and didn't go up much from there until I moved out of the dorms and into an apartment, into Grad School and crazy schedules, little to no sleep, and my boyfriend (now husband) was deployed in Iraq.  Needless to say, I left grad school at 198 (probably more, as I weighed myself at that weight on a scale on berber carpet...a silly ploy to not feel so bad)  I promptly went on the South Beach Diet with the interval walking program and lost 25 pounds in 2 weeks.  Then my cousin died.  End diet and workout program as things were a whole lot crazy.  By the time I got married I was back up to 178.  And then the predictable happened...I got pregnant with the aforementioned toddler and my weight has never been the same.  Up to 221 by the end of the pregnancy and add a new job where I travel 90 minutes to work, and 90 minutes back.  Fun.  I reached 238 and am now currently at 230 after My Fitness Pal and Noom.  I have decided to begin this as a way to talk about my process as a way of keeping myself honest and maybe finding/giving support to others in my situation. 

So.  Here I am at 230 and I am continuing with My Fitness Pal and entering in every piece of food that enters my mouth as well as every exercise activity that I do.  To enable better choices, I have been making my lunch for work and packing it with a bunch of smaller snacks so that whenever I get hungry, there's always something healthy to eat near by.  I am also attempting to quit soda.  I am allowing myself to have plain perrier spiked with lemon, but other than that, no more.  It's HARD.  Probably harder than eating better.

Hopefully I can provide some entertaining anecdotes along the way and encourage and be encouraged by others along the way.