Great News!

I have totally been neglecting this blog, and I feel terrible. BUT -- I am down 13lbs!!

Yesterday I hit the mall, to get Clinique, since it is bonus days... finally... but I remembered that my husband has a cocktail party next weekend. I wanted to try to fit into a dress that I wore a few years ago, but I am not quite there yet. Plus it is also in the Junior sizes, so I don't even KNOW what size that is in Woman's. So I thought for fun I would try on some new dresses.

I tried on my normal size, and guess what?!?

IT WAS TOO BIG!!!

Best feeling ever! So, I am down one dress size, and I feel like I can tackle anything now. I have had a stressful last few weeks. There has been so much going on... I haven't been able to work out as much as I should have, but I have taken advantage of the beautiful weather and have taken some walks, and had a few dance parties with myself in my livingroom while cleaning... and that burns calories too!!

I have been watching what I eat, and have not been snacking. I feel great and I hope to lose 15-20lbs more before I head to Europe for a couple weeks with my Mom this summer.

For now, spanx will be my friend, but luckily I wasn't wearing spanx when I tried on the dress! Imagine what I would look like with the Spanx, I keep telling myself. :)

I don't mind being the "largest" of all of our friends out here. I am not giant. I mean I fit into a size 12, which made me feel great. It is hard though when all your friends are a size 6 or smaller. I am just not built like them. I had one friend complain that they didn't make something small enough. Yes, they are lucky to be small, but they are the ones that wish they had the larger chest. (And that I have plenty of that to share).

I am going to keep going, and working hard at this. This is for me.

I know I only have a few followers on here, and that is totally fine. I love the support. I love knowing I am not the only one. I know we can all get through this together. It would be so hard to go through it alone. So, thank you. Let's keep each other in check.

Peace.Love.Dove.

5 miles

Today I went 3 miles on the treadmill, and then later in the afternoon I took a walk at Washington Park with Lucie (my dog), Sue, and her son Jimmy. That walk is about 2.25 miles. So I went over 5 miles today!

I ate scrambled eggs for breakfast, a mozzarella sandwich for lunch, and homemade general tsao's chicken for dinner. I let myself have ONE, just one dove chocolate. Oh it was so good. I needed it.

My feet are tired, and I have this weird feeling in my throat, I sure hope I am not getting sick! Have a great night.

peace. love. dove.

Super Bowl Food

Ah, Super Bowl Sunday was yesterday... I tried my best to not pig out on all the delicious food. My downfall was the beer. It was good beer. Four cups of good beer. I think I had my alcohol limit for the week, so this week I am going to try to go alcohol free.

Problem is I love to have a glass of wine at the end of the day. But I have to remember, I am going for a healthier lifestyle. If the lifestyle can include alcohol, that will be great, but if it can't I would much rather be fit and look great, than to drink beer. So, once I finish the beer in the garage, I am not going to buy anymore, for me that is. My husband loves his beer, I don't feel it would be fair for me to just take that away from him. If I lose a bunch of weight because of it, he might want to get on the bandwagon too. But its a wait and see for all of us.

Today I worked out for an hour on the incline trainer. I fluctuated between 5% and 10% incline. But I went 3.1 miles and burned 613 calories. My largest calorie burner exercise in one workout session. Like I said, I am starting off slow. Maybe one day I can run a marathon or something to that sort, but I know it doesn't happen overnight.

I am happy to report that after a workout I am feeling refreshed and more willing to do stuff around the house. I put a bunch of stuff away, cleaned the bathroom, and even started on the laundry. My husband will be so happy. I think he will even start to enjoy my new found energy!

For breakfast I ate a bowl of oatmeal. My favorite oatmeal is Strawberries in Cream. Quaker used to sell it in a box by itself, but I couldn't find it at any of the local stores, so I switched to a new brand that sold just Strawberries & Cream. Its is called Better Oats. Now I found they make a DARK CHOCOLATE oatmeal, and it sounds delicious!! I am going to go to the store tomorrow and see if I can find it!

For lunch I made myself a salad. It was good and filled me up, but I am starting to get hungry again. I will have a snack of fruit here after I fold a load of laundry. I think that is enough for today. I am know I am only rambling to myself, but it will be nice to be able to look back and reflect on what I did and didn't when trying to get fit!

peace. love. dove.

Its been a while, but Ive been doing good.

I started this blog thinking, perfect, I can record my data. Look back and see accomplishment. Well, thanks to many online tracking systems, I have found myself using those and not blogging about it. This is going to be a recovery year. I am not sure that I can lose ALL of the weight I have put on since college, but I know that I can try my best to do what I CAN do. So far, I have worked out for 13 days in a row. At least a half an hour, at most about an hour.

I have been tracking my progress on ifit, which is linked to my incline trainer, so it documents it for me! (very helpful.) I have also been back on SparkPeople. I love most that you can track it all. get support by joining team/groups. Take on challenges, earn badges. Earn points by logging in, Find recipes that are healthy. I am finding myself on there reading about healthy living, which makes me feel better, and make smarter choices.

I have also been on Women's Health reading stuff too! So I have been doing good I would say. My husband and I save one night a week to go out and have a nice dinner. It is a weird feeling to not eat everything when I go out. Normally I would scarf it all down, but I have been doing good!

I will post my daily mileage, calories burned, and time. I think I am going to try to train for a marathon or 5K type thing. So I am going to put that into ifit soon. I will let you know!

Making progess, slowly but surely.

peace. love. dove.

Thursday

Today was unsuccessful, but I was super busy. I started to make a yarn ball wreath, and then my neighbors returned from a long vacation, so I was out running around almost all day. Tomorrow, I am running the Vegas Strip in the afternoon (Lucie has a vet appointment late morning). Wish me luck. I will weigh in on Mondays.

Peace. Love. Dove.

Kicking my butt

Oh man. My husband and I own a NordicTrack x7i Incline Trainer. It came with ifit.

I love my incline trainer. I am currently on Level 4 of the weight loss program.  I completed workout number 7 today. The first few days on the machine I could not finish the first workout without giving up after fifteen minutes. I fully admit that I have to take a minute or two breather during the workouts. My heart rate gets up to 190 sometimes and I don't think that burns fat. I am going to do some more research into that one.

Here is a look at what my work out was like today.

The highest point was at an incline of 32%, the max speed I think was 3.8 today.

I am not excited about tomorrows workout, but we will see how I get through it!

I'm going to do it

It is that time in my life that I have decided that enough is enough. Over the past 5 years I have put on almost 50 pounds. That is 10 pounds a year. I am sick of it, and I am not going to take it anymore.

I am ready to move on. My husband and I have purchased a treadmill, I quit my job, and I have time to get back to what I used to be, and start to be myself again.

So who am I? What am I like? Why should anyone care about me and my progress? Well the truth is, it doesn't matter who I am, what I am like, and I don't care what you think about me. This is a way for me to help reach my goals and record what I do, so I can try to do better and change my ways. Its about me helping myself, and from what I tried, this might actually be the thing that helps me. I will record what I have done as often as I can.

What am I like right now? Well I just weighed myself. I am 195.8 pounds. I have a 38-40 DD chest and wear a size 14 pant. For those of you that really know me, I like to say 20 pounds of my weight is my chest. I know its a lie. But I like to think that.

My goal is to weigh 140 pounds. I will get there. I am determined. I want my life back. I lost myself in work. Stress in my life adds weight. I know I will stress about paying bills, but I am lucky to have a supporting husband. We are thankful for what we have been given in our lives, and I know that we can make it.

I will keep you updated with workouts (thanks to ifit and Jillian Michaels, possibly my wii fit (plus), and whatever else I do that might burn calories). Join me on my ups and downs, and my LOVE of food.

Its an adventure, that I am going to start now, in the middle of the holidays! I know I am crayz, but I need to do it!! I am doing it for me. FOR ME!

peace. love. dove.