An Experiment!

So I'm sure the people who read this blog are probably getting a little tired of hearing about me talk about weight loss.  It seems like the topic has pretty much taken over the blog (and my life) and to me that's okay. :)  This blog has always been about the things I'm walking through and doing in my life so, just like I used to talk about cupcakes all the time when I went through my crazy baking/cupcake decorating phase, this new phase (and one I am working to make a lifestyle change, and not just a phase) is my journey toward a better weight and a healthier life and one I will continue to document.

I started my week thinking about how last week I shared here that I'd started school and my weight loss would probably be tapering off some in the coming weeks. The more I thought about what I said, the more I realized I'm just not okay with that. I want to continue on this journey, headed in a better direction towards my goal weight.  I've set my goal for 150 pounds and now that I'm nearly 30 pounds down, losing another 20 doesn't seem so daunting.

I got to thinking about how I'm going to make the necessary changes to continue on with my journey and I started considering my friend Julie's suggestion of using the Lose It app on my iPhone to start tracking my daily caloric intake.  She's been using the app (without incorporating any exercise yet) and has lost 20 pounds! (Great job, Julie!) I'm stubborn and sometimes lazy when it comes to logging in everything and was initially resistant to recording every single thing that goes in my mouth!  I ended up deciding that it would be worth it to give it a try this week!

I'm calling it my little experiment to do these two things this week and see what happens:

1)  Faithfully log all my exercise and food intake on the Lose It app.

2) Go back to doing my five miles a day cardio/walking DVD.  I've been mixing things up with the two DVD's I have and I like it!  I've had a couple people ask me recently which ones they are, so I thought I'd put the links for those in this post so it's easy to refer to in one place!

The first is this one:  Leslie Sansone:  Five Really Big Miles

The second one is:  Leslie Sansone: Walk at Home: Walk Your Belly Flat

Only three days into my little experiment and I'm already feeling changes.  I  know that sounds crazy but I'm starting to understand just how helpful logging in what you eat helps you to make better choices and think twice about eating the bad stuff if you really wanna stay on target.

I think I should also add in here that I had a turkey wrap today and decided to splurge with a little mayo and mustard.  Reading the log above makes a person think I put mayo and mustard on my salad, ha!

I'm getting so close to the 30 pound loss marker and that totally excites me.  I honestly don't think I realized just how big I was when I was bigger.  It's the pictures that I look back at in shock.  I took this one today since I hadn't really taken a full body pic.  It was just me and the little girls at home so I had to dig the big mirror out from the garage and I propped it up on a chair to get the pic. Try not to mind my messy garage! What a big difference from just two months ago, huh?

Today I decided to finally retire my size 14 jeans. It was a great feeling!  I'm now wearing the jeans I've been saving from before I had Alyssa (SEVEN YEARS AGO!) and even those are fitting me loose!  I bought some size 12's the other day that are still a bit loose, so I think I'm gonna go for it and go buy me a pair of 10's really soon.  I can't believe that I'm finally getting to say that I fit in 10's because it's been almost ten years since I was there.  It's a shock to the mind to look at myself in the mirror and see the new me but I am so happy I'm doing this.

I'm not sure how many times I can keep saying I'm so happy and I'm so excited about my weight loss before people start telling me to shut up but I honestly can't help it!  I'll come back next week and share what my little experiment this week yielded! Thank you Lord, for giving me the strength to keep going on this journey and thanks to the friends and family who've been rooting me on along the way!