Month 3 Update

Here it is, my three month update. I wrote last time I wouldn't forget and I didn't....thanks to the reminder on my phone!

So.....I am down 19.6 pounds! It would probably be an even 20, but I ate like crap this weekend. Hooters Friday night, Chili's Saturday night, Easter on Sunday, KFC Sunday night. Yeah....I told you, it was bad. But through some miracle I didn't gain any weight through all that junk I ate. The downside is that I do feel like crap after all that junk I ate. My workout this morning was torture(but in all fairness, I have a pretty bad head cold right now). I'm hoping tomorrow will be better. But I went and that is what counts. 

I am also down 2 jean sizes. I can't believe it. Those jeans that I was talking about a couple of weeks ago, yeah I'm wearing those quite comfortably now. It's freaking awesome. That's the only way I know how to explain it. My pile of clothes that are too big is getting huge and I love it. I love the feeling of putting on jeans that used to be too tight and now they are too big. I love that I have a pile of jeans that I haven't worn in 6 years and now I'm wearing them. 

I love how I feel most importantly. I feel like I can do anything. I'm right at my halfway point and I am more motivated than ever. I love having energy, I love not being achy, I love not getting winded. I love the feeling of knowing I put my mind to something and that I'm accomplishing it. Everyday I work hard. I sweat, I push myself, I hurt, and I do it. I drink a ton of water. I eat healthy (for the most part, I do have my days, I'm only human!) I sacrifice and   I'm seeing the results. I can't begin to tell you how worth it it is. 

So there is my update as promised. I am doing this. It is hard, but it is so worth it. 

19.6 down, 20 to go!

Little bit of this and that.

It's official. I am a terrible blogger. I only update maybe twice a month. I think about blogging often, but then my mind quickly goes somewhere else and it's forgotten. I really hope to get better at it.

This month feels like it has gone by quickly. I can't believe that it's already Spring. I'm ready for some not so cold weather, but I am NOT ready for the boiling hot Ga summer. I HATE the heat, when it's so hot that you open your door and it takes your breath away. I don't do well in the heat and neither does my kid. I want it to be 70 degrees all year round. Is that really too much to ask?

Anyway, Miss E just got over the flu...again.  She had strain A in Dec and she had strain B last week. Luckily we had Tamiflu in her within 24 hours so she was better pretty quickly, within a few days. I've never been a flu vaccine advocate, but I'm thinking that she just may get it next year. This crap was miserable. Especially having it back to back. 

She went to the dentist for the first time a few weeks ago and LOVED it. We have an amazing dentist. Seriously. They were all so surprised that it was her first time because of how well she did. They all loved her because of course she had to put on a show for them. 

She thought it was pretty much the coolest thing ever. The dentist said her teeth were perfect (take that all you people who said the paci would ruin her teeth!) and she had no cavities. She is already ready to go back and is counting down til Sept.

We went shopping over the weekend because I pulled out my capris from last year and they are all way too big(victory!). This is good and bad. Good because I'm losing weight, bad for the bank account and the fact that I hate shopping. Like I loathe it. I can't ever find anything that I like. Everything I saw was floral, I guess that's the "in" thing right now. I don't do flowery crap. I just don't. Brandon has better fashion sense than I do when it comes to my clothes and he will be coming with me next time. My shopping trip for me turned into Miss E getting 3 new pairs of shoes and 2 new tops. To justify it, she really did need new shoes bc her feet went from an 8 to a 9.5 like overnight what the crap???. I also have to build up her spring/summer wardrobe because none of her 3T stuff fits from last year. She is all the way in 4's and we can even shop some from the girls department at Target now. 

It was also St. Patrick's Day and since we are pretty Irish, we had to wear our green!

She spotted the Easter bunny on the way out of the mall and had to go visit...

This is her first visit with the bunny and her recent one. Sigh...when did my girl get so big??

And finally, yesterday at dance the girls got their recital costumes. The girls loved trying them on and running around in them. 

They are doing a tap number to The Little Mermaid's Under The Sea. These costumes are way better quality than the cheapo ones at our old studio. That made me pretty happy. She may wear that sucker for Halloween for what it cost. No kidding. 

My last update is...you guessed it...my weight. I know I usually only do the once a month update, but the rate I'm going keeping up my blog, I may forget to actually update it. But the good news is that I am down 17.8 lbs!! My weight loss is slowing down some scale wise, but I'm gaining muscle and I'm seeing the change in my body shape. If you're trying to lose weight and change your body shape, LIFT WEIGHTS. No joke. You'll lose weight doing only cardio, but you'll see the real change when you add weights into your routine. I've switched up my routine and I'm seeing the pay off and I love it! I'll go more in depth with all that when I do my monthly check in. I marked a reminder in my phone, so it will get done! 

Month 2 update.

I'm a day early on this, but I don't plan on being on the computer this weekend, so here it is, my monthly update!

As of this morning I am down 15 lbs!!!

People around me are starting to comment about how they can really tell that I'm working by butt off. It makes me feel great and fuels my fire even more. Eight weeks into this and I'm more motivated now than when I started. I CAN do this and I AM doing this. My face has really slimmed down and my jeans that used to me too tight are now falling off of me. I still haven't bought new ones because I have fat girl syndrome and loathe trying on clothes. I put on a pair of jeans that were 2 sizes smaller than the ones I normally wear and they fit (although they were a little snug)! I couldn't believe it. But because of my fat girl syndrome I took them off and put the bigger ones back on(and had to spend the day constantly pulling them up). But my self confidence is getting better daily and maybe with a couple more lbs gone I will totally rock those other jeans:)

One more thing that I am so excited about that I can't see straight...I looked at my starting weight on MyFitness Pal from 2011 and as of today I am 30 lbs lighter than when I started. I wish I would have stayed motivated back then, but all I can do is keep going now. I haven't seen the number I saw this morning on the scale in a good 7 years. 

Me in 2011....I am NOT ever going back to that horrible weight.

Truth is that I was almost 200 lbs and completely miserable. I was going through depression over the loss of someone that I loved dearly and then losing a pregnancy. I simply didn't care. I ate like crap and I stayed on the couch. A lot. But in July is when I decided I needed to change and I started eating better and moving more. By November I was down about 25 lbs.

But then I got bored and comfortable and gained a good 10 of those back. I knew I couldn't go back to what I was so in Jan is when I got serious. I look at my fat pictures a good bit as a reminder to not fall back into the trap. When I started in Jan, I started a new life, not just a diet. I don't call it a diet, I call it eating better and overall trying to better myself. I want to be able to run around with my daughter and play without getting winded. In the past 8 weeks, I went from barely being able to do 15 minutes on the treadmill to doing an hour on there on a 10 incline. I love going to body pump and upping my weights and just the feeling of accomplishment. It's my way of life now. 

This is the most recent picture I have of myself. This was about 5 lbs ago. Note how the double chin is gone:) 

So there is my 2 month update. 15 down, 25 to go!

Answers finally!

So I really have been a horrible blogger lately. I'm aware of this. I could make an empty promise to try to get better, but I won't. I will of course do my monthly weight loss updates (because, well those make me very happy!!), but when it comes to day to day stuff, well I just plain forget to most of the time. So anyway, here are my updates:)

Brandon is FINALLY home from Canada. He left Feb 4th and got home yesterday, that is way too long to be gone. It sucked. Not gonna lie. Thankfully it is a once a year thing, I couldn't handle more than that. 

We finally have gotten to the bottom of Miss E's cough that she has had for months (hence the title of this post). She has pretty bad asthma. It was always disguised by other things, she had brochiolitis, she had the flu, she had a viral bug, etc. These were all pretty spaced out, but her cough never went away. And it kept getting worse and worse. Then it got to where she couldn't run around and play without having these bad coughing fits. Nights were horrible, she would just hack her head off and neither of us would sleep. She was getting to where she was constantly wheezing.Brandon was in Canada when her symptoms really started to peak, so he missed all that good stuff. I chalked it up to allergies and started her back on her Zyrtec. Well last weekend was horrible. Her dance studio was throwing it's annual Sweetheart Dance and Miss E and her Pops went. She wanted to get her hair done so I took her to Famous 6 minutes away from our house. Someone was getting a perm and between that and all the hairspray, she didn't stop hacking. They were nice and kept giving her suckers to suck on and I had her water to sip on and that helped some, but not too much. I was thinking her allergies are definitely worse than they were last year and Zyrtec may not cut it this year. I made a mental note to call the Dr first thing Monday morning. We got home and I gave her some honey and she calmed down. Then Pops said that she was fine until the end of the dance and she started wheezing and having the coughing fits again. They lasted all night. Sunday was no better. We were at the Dr first thing Monday morning because something had to give. Long story short, asthma it is. She had to be on a 3 day steroid (which helped tremendously) to jump start her because it was so bad. Now she is on 2 inhalers a day, a maintenance and a rescue one. Hopefully we will get it under control soon and she will just be on the maintenance one and use the rescue one as needed. Yesterday she had a full blown attack at the gym and it scared the crap out of me. Watching your child turn purple is no freaking joke. I got her stabilized and then she had another attack shortly after. After 3 calls to the Dr,( I LOVE our pediatrician) we finally got on the same page about the inhalers and frequency of use and she hasn't had another attack since. So pray, send good thoughts, or whatever it is you may do that we can get this under control fairly quickly and Miss E can go back to her normal activities soon.

Now that I got that out, here is my princess about to go to her very first dance:)

I think she is pretty much the cutest little girl ever!

I am still going to the gym and working out 5 to 6 days a week. I love it. I feel so great when I leave there. Miss E loves the KidsPlex so it's a win win. You'll have to wait for my monthly update next week for all the details, but I'm still doing good:) I'm more motivated than ever!

4 week update.

Disclaimer: I'm blogging from my phone, so excuse any grammatical errors or lacks of paragraphs.

Yesterday marked four weeks since my serious weight loss journey began. I am proud to say that I am down 10 lbs and a few inches as well. I wish I had taken measurements at the very beginning, but I didn't, but I'm starting to notice that my clothes are starting to get a little loose. I am starting to notice a small change in the way my body looks and I'm overall happy with the results this far.

Another change I've noticed is how I feel. I have had so much more energy, I'm not craving the bad stuff as much, I wake up so much easier in the mornings and I'm sleeping great at night. I'm also not as achey as I used to be, I just feel better over all. My mood is also been better, I'm finding myself feeling a lot happier and a lot less stressed out.

So there is my update. I'm very excited to see where I'll be in another 4 weeks! 10 down, 30 to go!

Miss E is 3!

It's been a little over a week since I've updated, but in my defense, I've been really busy. Between the gym, Miss E starting dance back, and her turning 3 and having her party, it's been a little hectic. 

So the most important thing first, my baby is THREE now. Her birthday was Saturday and her party was Saturday afternoon at a local jump place.I ran around like a crazy person Saturday morning, picking up the food, cleaning out my car, loading everything into my car....by the time the party came around, I was tired. But that's the good thing about having her party there, once we were there, I didn't have to do anything, it was quite nice:) Her party was a success and we had a great turn out. She had a blast playing with everyone. Saturday night we had her family birthday dinner. She picked the place(Texas Roadhouse) and she thought it was the coolest thing ever when they sang "Happy Birthday" to her and gave her ice cream.

Here is my 3 year old on the way to her party:

Sunday we took her to Build A Bear and she loved it. She took awhile to pick out the animal she wanted, she wanted a chocolate lab at first, then something else and something else before she finally decided she wanted the Disney Bear. Then she picked out a purple bubble dress and purple shoes with jewels on them(of course) to match. To top it off, she HAD to have a princess wand as well. That was an expensive trip, but so worth it. She named her bear Princess and has been inseparable from her since.

Here is Miss E and Princess:

So this is my second week at the gym and I must say that I love it. I lost my gym buddy due to her husbands schedule changing so now I'm going solo. I thought going into it that it was something that I was going to have to make myself do, but that hasn't been the case. I look forward to going and sweating and burning those calories. I really like the body pump class. I did yoga too and I didn't enjoy it as much, but I still liked it. I've been doing the treadmill and the elliptical and on the days that I don't do pump, I'm doing weights as well. This is only week 2 so I haven't seen any results yet(didn't plan too, I know it takes awhile) but I'm looking forward to when I do. I can see how people become addicted to it, I feel so great when I leave that I always look forward to going back. 

I can really see this becoming a every day routine, I was at 3 days a week, this week I'll go 4 days...I got to stick with it if I want to see change!

Holy soreness!

Friday morning was my first ever gym class(well outside of high school anyway). It was at 8:30 am but luckily the gym is only 10 minutes away, but I got up at 7 to give myself plenty of time. We got there and Miss E was more than excited to go to the kid area(as she calls it). The only thing I wanted to accomplish was to actually finish the class. I'm not going to lie, that crap was hard. Much more than I expected. But I did it. All of it. I was so proud of myself that the rest of the day was just nothing but great. I even did the elliptical there after, and did a mile on my elliptical at home that evening. I felt fantastic. Saturday on the other hand, I didn't feel so fantastic. I hurt. The tops of my legs and my chest, even my butt hurt. I was holding my pee because it hurt so bad to sit on the toilet. But the pain made me make better eating choices over the weekend. All that pain was NOT going to be for nothing! Today was a little better, the squats are what got me because the tops of my legs are the only thing that are still pretty sore. And I'm doing it again in the morning. I'm really loving the body pump class(that's the only one I've taken so far) and I'm going to do it twice a week. 

No spectacular update. I'm just proud of myself for finishing the class. I'm proud of myself for the better choices that I am making. This year is all about being positive for me. I've separated myself from the people who bring me down. I'm making big changes in my life and I'm excited to see how this all turns out.