Friday: Weigh In

It's Friday and that means it is weigh in day! I was actually looking forward to this weigh in this week. I have been busy and haven't posted much this week, but I have been very much on top of my nutrition and have managed to lose this week! I'm going to work on getting back into the workouts next week and see what that does on the scale for next weigh in.

I had a few moments where I really was craving just about everything that was awful for me. Part of what kept me going was my end goal. Not to be ? pounds, but to be healthy and feel confident in my clothes. The other part of what helped me was my husband. I think I went through a bit of withdrawals this week, since I didn't eat any added sugars, and he was very supportive and helped me to keep my mind distracted from food and on other things.

We are in the process of looking for a house to buy together. We just got married in October of 2012 so I sometimes feel like we are in a whirlwind of emotions. Wedding planning was stressful and house hunting is stressful, but I think if I can get a grip on my nutrition and fitness then I will feel better overall. And there will always be something that is stressful to challenge you. The key is finding what motivates you and holding onto it to reach your goals.

I hope you all had a great week and lost this week too, but if not then just pick yourself back up and get back on track. You never truly fail until the day that you give up completely. As long as you can get up and try again, then that's success.

Have a good weekend and don't forget to turn your clocks forward!

And if anyone is interested in joining in a weigh loss challenge, click HERE. The password is GetReal. Thintopia is a free site that allows you to track your weight loss on a graph with others. It doesn't show your weight, only your weight loss percentage. Give it a try!

Instant Gratification and Cravings

This post is personal for me because I very much suffer from the need of instant gratification. When I have a craving for something, it is very hard to tell myself to wait and eat something else instead or even just to wait and have it the next day. I feel as though I am denying myself something so important and I will never get it back. A bit dramatic considering we are only talking about a chocolate bar or a donut or a glass of chocolate milk ... whatever it may be, I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who has experienced this feeling. It's a "Gotta have it right now!" kind of thing that somehow seems to take over your whole body and all of your thoughts until you give in.

Unfortunately, I also tend to live by the "all or nothing" approach and once I do give in to that temptation, it's so much harder for me to bounce back. I end up smashing the whole tea set just because I chipped one cup. It doesn't make sense does it? But in that moment, I feel like I have failed and there is no going back. Until tomorrow. There is something magical about "tomorrow", isn't there? Tomorrow is where all of our hopes for success lie ... but tomorrow doesn't always come. I seem to get stuck in "today" and can't quite get to the land of "tomorrow" where I can finally say "NO!" to that donut and get back on track to getting healthy.

I'm not saying to give up though. Instead, I'm going to give you some of my tips and tricks. I know I just said I still struggle with this, and I imagine that I always will to some extent, but at the same time, I know I haven't been giving a full effort to help myself out either. So before throwing in the towel, try some of these tips and see if they work for you!

As in the picture above, there are options to:

1. Work out/ Go for a walk - Exercise is known to be an appetite suppressant, so getting up and going for a short walk may do more for you than you realize, and I bet you are not going to want to dig into that donut after you sweat your booty off with a workout either. 

2. Drink a glass of water - A lot of times a person thinks that they are craving something but really they are just dehydrated. So next time you are feeling the cravings, try drinking some water and wait and see if it helps. If you still feel hungry, then you probably are, but try to make a healthy choice, which leads me to #3.

3. Eat a salad - This does not include chemical dressings and the entire fridge poured on top. It doesn't have to be a salad either. But many times, people have cravings because they are lacking a key nutrient. Make sure your salad, snack, or meal contains the important 3's: protein, healthy carbohydrate, and healthy fat. If you do this, you will feel satisfied and I bet your cravings will disappear too!

4. Paint your nails/Write a letter/ Play guitar/ Braid your hair - I'm not much for painting my nails (I can never seem to stay in the lines!), but the idea here is to do something with your hands so you are distracted and can't sit and mindlessly eat. This can be anything you want it to be. The key is to find something you enjoy so you don't just sit there and think about the cookies in the other room!

5. Imagine yourself at your goal weight - This is simple. Think about all of the reasons why you want it. And all of the things you'd like to change. Imagine being there for your daughter's wedding, being able to fit into those skinny jeans, or not having to make excuses when you're out of breath taking a flight of stairs at work. The goals you have are what motivate you. Keep reminders of them wherever you can, so you know what you are working towards.

6. Put on a pair of tight pants - This is pretty straight forward too. You can't binge if you can't breathe! Ever try sitting down to munch on a whole bag of chips and dip when your jeans are digging into your middle, pushing out that lovely, jiggly jello, also known as the "muffin top"? It's not fun and it's not easy. You just literally can't do it. It will also help you stay motivated if you know that those chips are the reason why you can't fit into those jeans anymore.

7. Crave Control Plus - This is actually something you can buy. It is from one of my favorite resources: Nutritional Weight and Wellness. They promote food first, but also recommend supplements to help you along the way, if needed. The thought behind this is that it contains the important nutrients that calm your body so you don't experience the craving attacks so intensely, thus making it easier to control them. It is also designed to help for a while until you get your food balanced out and eventually you won't need it anymore. I have tried it and I did notice a difference in myself while taking it.

8. Psyllium Husk - This is another supplement, but this one is more to help you feel full. If you are having an empty day, where you just can't seem to feel full, this supplement helps you feel satisfied and forget your hunger. It works this way because it is fiber and fiber in your food is what makes you feel full. This you can order online or find in most pharmacies. I believe that it comes in capsules or as a powder, but I have only tried the capsule version. Just follow the directions on the back.

9. Break out the gum or toothbrush - I am normally not an advocate of gum, but sometimes just having something in your mouth helps. And especially if it is minty because not a lot of foods go well with mint. It will most likely take away your cravings because it tricks you into thinking about pizza (or whatever you are craving) with tooth paste/mint ... and I don't know about you, but that just doesn't sound great! 

10. Call a friend - If you are talking to a friend then they can help talk you out of the cravings, it will get your mind off of it, and you will be less likely to shove things into your mouth if you are busy talking with it. So call a friend, call a few friends, until the cravings subside.

There you have it! So pick one, pick two, or use all ten tips and avoid those cravings. It has been proven that having visual aids around will noticeably affect your overall success too. So the more reminders you have, the more likely you are to stay on track. So tape up notes by your desk and on your refrigerator. Put a post-it on your TV to tell you to get on the treadmill instead. And keep your water by you to remind you to drink up!

Some sources say to just have a taste of whatever you are craving, but that doesn't work for me, so I didn't want to share it. If I have a bite, I end up eating the whole thing. So that is not on my list of recommendations. It may work for you, but I only share the things that have worked for me personally. 

If you have more tips you'd like to share, I would love to know what works for you, so please share! And don't forget to pat yourself on the back when you do manage to say "No!" to your cravings and get rid of that nasty instant gratification habit. It's a major accomplishment and should be rewarded ... just not with pizza!

Bonus: Preventative Tips

To avoid getting hit with the cravings in the first place, there are a couple of things you can do:

• Get enough sleep. This is so important. Sufficient sleep is key in your weight loss. Your body simply does not make what it needs to when it doesn't get a chance to rest enough and deep enough. 
• Avoid stress. Stress has also been known to cause cravings because it creates too much cortisol in the body. 
• Avoid fasting. If you go long spurts between eating, your blood sugar dips and when your blood sugar is low, candy bars look tempting and it's almost impossible to say no. Your body sees the candy bar, almost pure sugar, and knows it will raise the blood sugar. You feel great afterwards, but what goes up must go down. A great spike in blood sugar, caused by the candy bar, will only lead to a drop in blood sugar once that sugar is burned off. So stick to eating balanced meals at regular intervals to avoid this unhealthy cycle.

Fighting childhood obesity!

In 2010, more than one third of children and adolescents were overweight or obese. (CDC) It has even gotten to the point that it is affecting infants. It's no wonder because "more than two-thirds (68.8 percent) of adults are considered to be overweight or obese." (WIN).






Overweight and obese children are more likely to have:

• Higher risk for cardiovascular disease
• Prediabetes
• Bone and joint problems
• Sleep apnea
• Social and psychological problems

 It is also shown that children who are overweight or obese will grow up to be overweight or obese as adults. This puts them at risk for:

• Heart disease
• Type 2 diabetes
• Stroke
• Severe types of cancer ( including cancer of the breast, colon, endometrium, esophagus, kidney, pancreas, gall bladder, thyroid, ovary, cervix, and prostate, as well as multiple myeloma and Hodgkin’s lymphoma)
• Osteoartheritis

 So what can we do to help the kids? 

There are several ways to help our kids get healthy. The most important thing that you can ever do, as a parent, friend, or family member, for a child is to lead by example! I can't stress this enough. Kids mimic the habits and behaviors that they learn at home. If you are overweight yourself, there is a great chance that your children will be too. As much as you think you can do what you want and tell them to do something else, "Do as I say, not as I do" rarely works. You also don't want to sit down and talk to your child about how they are overweight and you're concerned and they are going to be put on a diet and fitness regime. You never want to single out your child and make them feel bad or guilty about their weight; this only increases the chances of decreased self-esteem and may even push them into eating more and being less active.

Here are a few ways to help your child, without making them feel bad about it:

• Get active WITH THEM. Play outside with them, take them to a park, go for bike rides together. If they are into technology, get them into playing Wii Sports with you or have them show you how to shake your groove thang with one of the many different Wii dance games. It's active, it's fun, and you're not singling them out. It's great for the adults too because they will increase their fitness level by doing this as well. And it's a great way to interact and bond with your child.
• Pack them lunch for school. I cannot emphasize enough how much I do not agree with what has become acceptable to serve to kids at school. I believe they have even tried to pass off french fries as vegetables because they are made from potatoes. So pack your kids a lunch. Make it fun and make it delicious, but leave out all the processed junk that their little, growing bodies do not need. 
• Prepare healthy meals for EVERYONE at home. Creating a meal of pasta for the family, but giving one child a salad and chicken is NOT going to help their self esteem at all, and will only create resentment. If you want your child to be healthy, make sure you focus on the whole family getting healthy together, rather than trying to make little Julie lose weight. 
• Help them find an activity at school that they can be active in whether that is track, softball, football, or even the marching band. Don't force them into it and don't make it seem that they need to join to lose weight. Just get them involved in something physical where they can make friends and have fun. 
• Make sure they are getting enough good quality sleep each night. It's a bad idea for them to have TV's or computers in their room because they often stay up until very late and too much stimulation before bed time makes it hard to fall asleep.
• Try to reduce stress. Stress has been proven over and over to cause weight gain and difficulty losing weight. So talk to your kids, find out what is going on and try to reduce any stress that they may be dealing with. 
• Drink water, lots of water. Juices and pops are loaded with sugar. Instead of setting your kids up for a crash, a blood sugar crash, have them drink lots of water throughout the day. It will give them energy and is exactly what their bodies need. 

If you have talked to your child about how they have a weight problem and they responded poorly, as is expected if it is addressed as their problem,  Jillian Michaels recommends talking to them and being honest. Explain to them that it isn't their fault and you aren't unhappy with them and that you will love them no matter what, but that you are feeling like you have let them down by not showing them healthy behaviors and that the whole family is going to focus on getting healthy together from now on.

I hope my tips have been helpful. Have a happy Wednesday!

Zumba Review

"Zumba Fitness^® is the only Latin-inspired dance-fitness program that blends red-hot international music, created by Grammy Award-winning producers, and contagious steps to form a "fitness-party" that is downright addictive. Since its inception in 2001, the Zumba program has grown to become the world's largest – and most successful – dance-fitness program with more than 14 million people of all shapes, sizes and ages taking weekly Zumba classes in over 140,000 locations across more than 150 countries." (Zumba.com/about)


Zumba was created by Alberto "Beto" Perez through what he considers a "happy accident". On his way to teach a fitness class, he forgot to bring his music and ended up using the music tapes that he had in his backpack (salsa and merengue). His students responded to it very positively and he turned it into what is now one of the most popular forms of dance fitness worldwide.

There are two ways to do Zumba. You can either take a class, Zumba Class (click to watch the video), held either in a gym or in their own locations, or you can buy the DVD and do it in your own home. I haven't tried any of the Zumba classes, although I have heard many positive reviews of them, but I received the Zumba DVDs a couple of years ago.

I quickly learned that I have 2 left feet, but even so, this workout is FUN! Fun AND challenging. You can choose between an introductory DVD which shows you how to do the dance moves one step at a time, then there are several different options between a long type of workout or a short type workout. They even have a DVD to dance along to a Zumba concert. Yes, they even hold concerts, where people gather to work out together, with Beto and his dancers on the stage. Pretty exciting huh?

The DVDs, no matter which length you choose, are so much fun that they go by very quickly. It is a great DVD if you love to dance, or even if you just enjoy it slightly. They go through a wide variety of different types of Latin dances, and even a few outside of that genre. They are constantly switching it up, so that you don't do a single version for too long and get bored. It moves along quickly, but if you do the introductory DVD you should have minimal trouble keeping up.

Another interesting note to the Zumba DVDs is that you have the option to work out in English or Spanish.

If you aren't into dancing, then this workout is probably not for you. Also, if you're looking to tone specific areas, then you probably should move towards a HIIT workout or a strength training workout. Zumba will slim you down, and is a great cardio workout, but it won't add much as far as tone to your upper body... or not as much as targeting those areas specifically.

Pros:

• Fun
• Workout goes by quickly
• Cardio workout to improve stamina
• Lots of variety in the workouts
• English or Spanish option
• Can do the workout in a class or on a DVD
• Price of the DVDs falls between the expensive Beach Body products and the more affordable Jillian Michael's or Body Rock workouts

Cons:

• Not going to get you as toned, specifically upper body
• Not great for the uncoordinated person
• Need a bit more space to do the workout than other DVDs

Overall, I say Zumba is a great addition to your other workout DVDs as a fun cardio workout when you want a good burn and/or you don't have a lot of time to get your heart rate up!
Buy Zumba.

Variety

I talked about variety in my last post as a means to keep from getting bored. Variety is important for a few other reasons though too.

Flexibility:

Doing a variety of workouts is great for keeping your body limber and in the best shape that it can be. If you are constantly doing the same type of workout, you are limiting yourself. You'll still be more flexible and stronger than people not doing anything, but I really feel to get the maximum benefits, you need to incorporate different types of workouts.

Strength:

When you think strength, you might think of weight training, but variety comes in handy here too. Sure, you will get strong pumping iron, but you also gain strength overall including running, swimming, and even yoga into your fitness schedule. If you think yoga is just for girls or isn't a "real" workout, then you have been misinformed. Check out this video: In The Yoga Studio and tell me that you yoga is to be overlooked.

Shaping Your Body:

One of the best ways to get the body that you have always dreamed of is to include variety in your workouts. In this way, you build strength, flexibility, endurance, burn more fat, and really get the tone look that you are looking for. You cannot spot train and melt fat or tone just one area of your body at a time, so by adding variety to your workout routines, you can achieve the thinner tummy or toned arms, while also strengthening your heart, increasing your stamina, and toning your booty at the same time.

So what kind of workouts can you do to get the maximum benefits?

 

Ideally you would like to have a good blend of these types of exercises: 

 

Strength training: lifting weights, weight machines, pilates, body weight exercises (pushups, squats, etc.)

Stretching: Yoga (there are several different kinds) and stretching

Cardio: running, biking, interval training

HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training): Intervals of strength and cardio moves with very short rests between.

I can't say that one is more important than the other. They all work together to give you the overall effect that you're hoping to achieve. Plus, it's just more fun to have variety and something new to do each day. And always, always remember to warm up, stretch, and cool down before and after your workouts and always drink plenty of water too.

Getting Started

I find myself in this stage fairly often. I've been giving excuses as to why I can't do my workout today or why I deserve the piece of chocolate. One day turns into two and soon I find that I am heavier than when I started and I feel horrible. Anyone else go through this cycle?

I'm starting this blog to help keep myself motivated, to help others in their journey (however I can), and to just have fun writing. I plan to research different fitness and nutrition articles, compare workout programs, and share all my findings with you! The more I learn, the more equipped I feel to take on this task of getting myself healthy... more tools in the tool belt to get the job done, as they say.

I've written out the reasons why I want to get healthy, lose weight, and trim up. I plan to post motivating quotes and pictures every day and also hope to have an article on something related to nutrition, fitness, or other general weight loss. I'm open to comments and suggestions as I go.


To start out, I plan on keeping variety in my schedule. I get bored if I have to follow anything for all that long, so I plan to do a variation between jogging (trying to get back up to my half-marathon level), Ripped in 30 by Jillian Michaels, and new to the DVD world of things is Zuzka Light with her ZCut Super Cardio Series. All these things are definitely very different and should provide plenty of options for me to keep me from getting bored. When I get bored, I give up!

I'll try to write a review of the different products I've tried tomorrow too. Good night and keep your chin up! There is a light at the end of this tunnel!

My Journey

I always thought of myself as being overweight. Even back in high school, when I was chubby at best. I would wear baggy, or frumpy (as my mom liked to call it), clothing every day to school. Looking back at my pictures from high school, I don't know what the heck I was thinking. I looked fine! Here is a picture from my junior year of high school. You can see how uncomfortable and insecure I am with my arms crossed over my tummy. Nowadays I would kill to have a figure like that again, not to mention the nice skin.

I wasn't particularly active in high school, but I was in the Flag Corps and that had me getting in a bit of exercise. I'd never been serious in any other sports or jogging or roller blading or anything though. I would eat whatever the school prepared for lunch (french fries, pizza, chicken & noodles, etc.) and then would go home and eat whatever my parents had made for dinner. I would snack off and on, with little consequences. I still had that fat-girl mentality though so I went back and forth with different diets and different exercise regimes that usually failed within the first week. This is pretty much how I lived all throughout high school.

Then I went to college.

I started eating at the dining halls, keeping snacks in my room, and the only exercise I had was from walking to and from my classes, which were a 10 minute walk each way. This is also when I met my first boyfriend. We would spend a lot of time together, and I would eat what and when he did. This period of my life started me in a very unhealthy pattern. We would eat Taco Bell or Wendy's every day, sometimes twice a day! We would eat a box of macaroni for dinner. An entire box! For each of us!! We drank pop like it was going out of style. Normally, I would be fine, not hungry, content, etc., but then he would say he was hungry and he would get something to eat. I saw what he got and wanted some too because it smelled/sounded/looked good. So I was eating way more often and in greater quantities than I should have been. I started gaining weight.

I was gaining much more than the freshman 15. I don't remember what my weight in high school was, but I remember being somewhere around 190 in a 5'6" frame when I started college. Towards the end of the first year in college, I remember weighing myself, and I had reached over 200 pounds. I started crying immediately. I was horrified that I had let myself get over 200 pounds. I decided I would go on a diet. So I started eating grilled chicken every day. Every meal... To this day, I don't really care for grilled chicken because of how often I used to eat it.

I was trying to eat healthier, but wasn't getting in any activity and didn't really understand the Nutritional Information that was on the food labels. So I cut out pop, but started drinking a huge amount of chocolate milk. As is expected when you deny yourself something, I got tired of it and gave in. I did as I did in high school with trying different diets, but none of them stuck. I continued to gain more and more weight. Things got worse as my time in college continued. I was basically living off campus and eating fast food ALL THE TIME instead of in the dining halls! We would just go grab something to eat from whatever greasy place sounded the best at the time. I continued to stock the apartment with horribly fattening foods and pop and chocolate milk and chocolate and candy.

My dad, as well as the rest of my family, was beginning to notice the change in me. He would tell me about it, in a very blunt way, which did nothing but offend me. My doctor was telling me that I needed to change something, and soon, or I would be living a short, unhealthy life. I am a stubborn person, so instead of taking their advice, I did the opposite. I ate more. I was beginning to see how big I really was, but felt out of control. I didn't know what to do to stop it. This pattern continued until I went to Spain.

I studied in Spain for 4 months. During that time I ate, mostly, only what my host mom made. She would make wonderful meals for lunch, full of vegetables and chicken and seafood. We had water for every meal, except orange juice for breakfast, and we would have fruit for dessert every night. The problem was that she would make us a huge portion so that our tummies hurt when we finished eating. My roommate and I were too afraid of offending her to tell her that we didn't want to eat it all. We had tried telling her that we wanted to lose weight, but she refused to give us smaller portions. Then for dinner, we would have all fried foods: fried eggs, fried ham/chicken/fish, hot dogs, french fries, etc. So, even though we had a different variety of food, the portions were too large and the choices were not always healthy. I was walking a ton more than I ever did in the States, but even with all the walking, I still continued to gain weight.

I remember trying to go jogging with my roommate and another friend. I ended up injuring my knees so bad that I could barely walk for 2 weeks. I would wake up in the mornings and cry because my knees and my ankles were swollen and so sore I couldn't put pressure on them before I took my Tylenol. I didn't realize how much weight I had gained because I didn't have a scale to weigh myself on, but when I got back to the States, I did weigh myself. I had crept up to 260 pounds! I am the one on the left, obviously. I had to take these pictures off of Facebook because I was so embarrassed by them. I keep them, though, to remind me of how easy it is to slide to that weight.

After Spain, I went on a family vacation to Hocking Hills, Ohio. This is a place where you camp out in a tent or in a cabin. We opted for a cabin. They have caves and caverns and cliffs that you can go hike in, on, and around. That trip was one of the hardest I've ever taken. I'd sweat so much walking up the smallest hill. I would literally walk faster than everyone else, so that when I reached a checkpoint, I could stop and catch my breath while I waited for them to catch up. I was embarrassed by how out of shape I was. This picture is from the middle of June. It is hot, but I am so disgusted by my body that I refused to wear shorts. I was reluctant to take off the hoodie that I always wore, but the heat got to me. So here I am in jeans and a big, black t-shirt (my normal outfit). That summer of 2008 was the biggest I have ever been. I weighed in at a whopping 278 pounds! My health was failing me, and I realized I needed to do something about it.

Around this time, my mom had started doing Weight Watchers. I was skeptical of it, but was seeing amazing results in her. I talked to her about it and decided that this might be my last chance. I would put everything I had into this program, and if it didn't work, nothing would, and I would just have to accept being morbidly obese for the rest of my life. I weighed in for the first time with Weight Watchers on June 25th, 2008 at 275 pounds. I checked the recommended weight for my height, and accordingly, set my goal to be 160 pounds. I don't think I ever believed I would be that weight, but I figured that any loss was better than nothing. So I set my mind and committed fully to Weight Watchers. The first week was incredibly difficult. I had to weigh and measure everything. I quickly learned exactly how horrible the food I had been eating was. The normal meal that I got at Taco Bell once or twice a day equaled up to 31 points, without a drink, and without a dessert or extra taco that I sometimes got. That was almost as many points as I was allowed for a day. I started out with a BMI of 44 and a points allowance of 33.

So, after realizing how bad the food was, I stopped eating it and started making healthier choices. That first week, I lost a total of 8 pounds. The second week, I lost 4 pounds. The next two weeks, 3 pounds were gone. After that I started to lose 1-2 pounds consistently every week. The results were amazing! They are what kept me going when my cravings kicked in. From July of 2008 to December 2008, I lost 46 pounds. I was receiving compliments from friends and family and was even inspiring others to join WW. That winter, I got off track and stopped weighing myself and stopped tracking food, but tried to follow what I had been doing and managed to maintain my weight. In that February of 2009, I broke up with the guy I had been dating, after 3.5 years. This was very hard for me, but instead of going back to old habits, it renewed my strength and motivation, and I got back into WW with a vengeance. This was a very scary time for me because I was thinking about dating again, but I was still very large, and didn't think anyone would want me. I ended up joining a few dating sites and found that it was easier than I thought to find men who were interested in me. This was a huge confidence booster for me, and again, strengthened my decision to stick with WW. In addition to doing WW, I decided to start working out. I had lost a good deal of weight and decided to start out slow. I chose to do a C25k program. With doing WW and exercising, from December 2008 to August 2009, I managed to lose another 42 pounds. That summer, was introduced to P90x. I started doing that in September. I managed to lose another 12 pounds and hit a 100 pound loss by November!

I had gone from a size 22 to a size 8/10 pants. I had gone from a BMI of 44 to a BMI of 28. I had lost 14 inches in my hips, 12 in my waist, and felt amazing! After another relationship went back I let myself slide again. I stopped doing my workouts. I stopped tracking my food. Then the holidays hit. From November 2009 to March 2010, I gained 25 pounds back. I felt out of control, but this time, I knew what needed to be done. I set my mind once again and started tracking my points and doing the P90x and  Insanity religiously and have even completed running a half marathon.

After the half marathon, I took another hiatus. I let myself go into a slump that I am just now, in January 2013, pulling myself out of. I managed to maintain for quite a while, gaining and losing the same 20 pounds.

Then I got engaged. I was determined to lose weight for the wedding. I had a year, but still didn't lose the weight. I think I let the stress of it all get to me. I weighed about 190 on my wedding day. Then the holidays came and I decided that I was going to start doing well at the beginning of the new year (2013).

Well, now it is the beginning of the new year. I am one week into my resolution. I started at 197.4 and in the first week have lost almost 7 pounds. First week weigh in was 190.8. I also had the flu/recovery the first week of the new year, so I haven't been exercising yet, but focused on eating right until my body was well again. Today is Monday, January 7th, and I did my first workout of the year, Jillian Michaels Ripped in 30. It was hard, but not impossible. I felt great for the first two rounds and then lost some energy on the third, but I'm going to try again tomorrow and see how it goes. 

I have the support of friends and family and now my wonderful husband, Chris. I am in control again and this year I AM GOING TO HIT GOAL!!!! This is a promise I have made to myself.