Keep on keeping on...

I kinda fell off the face of the planet for a bit. My in-laws came to spend a week with us, so I tried not to spend too much time off on my own - which meant not blogging for a while. I didn't want them to think me rude or too much of a hermit, so I tried to spend a lot of time with them while they were here. They went home yesterday, so everything is essentially back to normal now. However, it was a lovely visit!

I wasn't exactly on par for my eating and exercise this last week. I ate far more than I should have and exercised way less that I should, but that's alright. My father-in-law is a wonderful cook, but most of the things he makes aren't all that healthy (read smothered in margarine or sauces). When he cooks it's hard to exercise self-control because everything is so good! My husband also did a lot of barbecuing (which he is fantastic at), so the whole week was a recipe for disaster for my eating.

I'm back on track as of today. I ate within my daily budget and Ashlee and I went for a walk this evening. I'm really trying my best to see that I make it to my goal. I feel very strongly that this time it will happen! Even though last week sucked for eating and exercise, I'm still down to 246.3 pounds - which is very encouraging! One more pound to go and I'll be back to where I was the first time around and then I'll be back in business!

This past Saturday I went to work (which is in a popular women's clothing store) and I wore my favourite pair of dress pants. I don't have a mirror at home in which I can see the bottom half of my body very well. Well, when I saw how I looked in those pants in the mirrors at work, it is needless to say that I won't be wearing those pants any more (which fills me with mixed emotions of joy and sadness). The pants were just hanging on me; the butt was so saggy! When I got home I tried on some of my older, smaller dress pants to see if they would fit and lo and behold! they did! So I now have three "new" pairs of pants that I can wear. Very exciting!

On a side note, I finished my little crocheted birds. I haven't been able to give them for my nieces and nephew yet, hopefully later on this week. But here they are!

Aren't they adorable!? If you're interested in learning how to make these delightful creatures, head over to Craftsy. The class will teach you everything, so if you have absolutely no knowledge of how to crochet, that's okay! I'm excited to make more of these birds to use as gifts in the future.

Keeping busy...

I've had yet another successful week! It would seem that round two is going substantially smoother than the first time around. I've completed 4.5 weeks with only the odd day here and there where I was over my daily allotted calorie budget. I don't even feel bad about the couple times I was over my budget because I feel that I've been doing great this time! I definitely have more confidence and motivation.

I weighed in this past Monday and I had lost another 1.9 pounds. I felt the need to weigh myself again this morning and I've lost another pound since Monday. My total loss is now at 18.9 pounds. I'm getting so close to where I was before and close to my next reward milestone of 25 pounds (I really need to finish my reward chart...), which means I'll get a mani-pedi! I'm so excited! If I keep on track and continue to lose around two pounds a week, I'll reach my goal weight of 160 pounds by June 2014. I can't wait!

I've recently been thinking I should try for less than 160 pounds. I weighed 160 pounds in high school, but I didn't really have the best eating habits then, so I'm wondering if it'd be attainable to be somewhere between 140-150 pounds. For now, I think I'm going to leave my goal at 160 pounds and have a huge celebration when I make it to my goal and then go from there.

I have been keeping myself really busy as of late. Of course, my two kids keep me pretty occupied, but in addition to my kids, I have picked up a couple of hobbies. I have had a passion for beadwork and making jewelry since I was seven or eight-years-old, but I have since revived that passion and I hope to turn it into some additional income in the near future. I have been broadening my knowledge and learning new techniques in jewelry design and I love it! There are so many things that I never even thought of before, like mixing two seemingly unrelated hobbies together like beading and crocheting. The results are so neat! I've got a necklace on the go currently using the crocheting technique. Maybe I'll post a picture when it's complete. My primary knowledge sources for learning new techniques are Craftsy and Sheffield School. The Sheffield School is based out of New York City and offers an array of courses through correspondence. Once I've completed the six unit course, I'll receive a certificate in jewelry design, which I think is pretty neat. Craftsy is a website that offers many, many different crafting courses in various different fields. While the jewelry design course offered through Sheffield teaches many different techniques, the Craftsy classes each focus on a specific topic. Both are nice. Sheffield gives me the basics, which Craftsy allows me to go more in-depth into a particular technique.

Another hobby I've picked up recently is crocheting. When I was younger, I figured knitting and crocheting were old lady hobbies, but they're not! There's so many neat things you can make with crocheting! I taught myself how to crochet using YouTube! I started out by making square dishcloths. Since learning, I've made a blanket for my baby cousin and have started working on some Amigarumi stuffed birds. Here's what one of my birds looks like, though it's currently incomplete.

I have four birds that are only partially complete because I've been waiting for their eyes to come in the mail. Funny how neither WalMart nor Michaels carry the little, black plastic eyes... I ended up ordering them online, but they had to come from Hong Kong, so it took a while. I finally got them in the mail today, so I can finally complete my birds! They're going to be birthday gifts for my nieces and nephew next week.

You're probably wondering why I brought my hobbies up and how that is in anyway relevant to losing weight... Well, it is! You see, by picking up some hobbies, it keeps both my hands and my mind occupied! If I'm not just sitting around doing nothing, I don't feel the need to be doing something which usually translates into eating. If I was just watching TV or playing WoW (World of Warcraft for you non-geek folk), I would feel the need to keep my hands occupied and that usually meant I was munching on something and likely that something was unhealthy. Now that I'm working on making jewelry or crocheting, I don't watch much TV and I haven't been playing WoW at all, which means that I'm eating less and not thinking about food - unless I'm actually hungry. It's great! I plan on making most of my Christmas gifts this year - which I've already started on.

If you're trying to lose weight, have you thought about picking up or have you already picked up a hobby? What hobby has worked for you?

Finally going in the right direction...

 This last week and a half, I feel, has been largely successful! I ate well and within my calorie budget and I exercised regularly. I typically try to weigh in on Mondays because the LoseIt! website bases its weeks from Monday through Sunday. From July 22 to this past Monday, I lost 3.4 pounds. I think that this is fantastic! I have LoseIt! set up for me to lose two pounds a week, so additional loss, to me, is wonderful! That puts my total back up to 16 pounds - five pounds short of my original 21 pound loss from earlier in the year. I expect that I will be back at that point within two weeks. I can't wait until this coming Monday so that I can weigh in again! Isn't that silly? I can't really say I know a lot of people who are excited to weigh themselves. But I am! There are days when I just want to go weigh myself to see how I'm doing, but I stop myself because weighing daily or even every couple days can spell disaster. Only four more days...

Today, being the start of a new month (can you believe that it's already August?!), I took my measurements. I forgot to take measurements in July, so I don't know if I've improved or not since I started for a second time. The last measurements I have are from March. Unfortunately, the numbers haven't improved from March, but that's alright. Nothing can dampen my spirits right now! I never did post my March measurements, so I'll list them now (for comparison):

Upper Arm: 14 inches (left) and 15 inches (right)
Forearm: 11.5 inches (left) and 11.5 inches (right)
Upper Thigh: 28 inches (left) and 29 inches (right)
Calf: 17.5 inches (left) and 17.5 inches (right)
Hips: 50.5 inches
Waist: 43.5 inches
Chest: 41 inches

 Here are my measurements as of tonight:

Upper Arm: 15 inches (left) and 15 inches (right)
Forearm: 11.5 inches (left) and 11.5 inches (right)
Upper Thigh: 29 inches (left) and 30 inches (right)
Calf: 18 inches (left) and 18 inches (right)
Hips: 51 inches
Waist: 44 inches
Chest: 40 inches

On the positive side, at least the differences are within an inch of each other and not like five...

 Exercising has been going great! I'm still walking regularly and I've been trying to add additional workouts to my routine - primarily weights and floor exercises. I've been going slow with the additional workouts because I just don't have the stamina and flexibility just yet - it's a work in progress and it'll only get better and easier as I go along. Right now I'm using an iPhone app (it is available for other SmartPhones as well) called Daily Workout (there are both free and paid versions - check it out here). I upgraded to the paid version which includes more features and exercises. I'm really enjoying it. I find it easier to commit to over a workout DVD because I can customize how long I do certain routines for. I will likely use my DVDs later, when I feel I am more in shape and can handle longer workout routines.

Walking, however, is fantastic! I still walk with my friend Ashlee. She is definitely a great motivator by getting my butt out the door as well as encouraging me to give it my all every time we go. We went for a 3.79 kilometer walk tonight around one of the nearby lakes. She kept cheering me on and as such, I made my best average time (according to RunKeeper) of 11:02 per kilometer. It beat my previous best average time by four seconds. It's a great feeling when you can see that you are improving. When we first started walking, I was closer to the 13 minute mark, so there's been huge improvement! We still plan to walk the West Side Hill at the end of August, so I'm going to need all the prep and improvement I can get before then!

Oh the disappointment...

It's been a long few months. In my last post, I talked about the difficulty I was having with keeping on track to reach my goal. Needless to say, I fell off the wagon and did so pretty hard. I could make a million excuses for myself, but there's no excuse valid enough to warrant giving up entirely. I would have a bad day, which I would just shrug off. Then in turned into two days. Then a week, a month... It just got to the point that I stopped trying, which is really sad because I had been doing so well. I had lost 21 pounds before I gave up - which I gained all but four back.

I thought about deleting my blog because I felt like an utter failure. Who would want to read a blog about weight loss when the writer couldn't commit to the goal? I changed my mind in the end (as you can obviously see). I decided that this is a learning curve, a hurdle that I must overcome and if someone does actually read this, maybe, just maybe, it'll help them too. I'm going to make errors - that is human nature. As long as I learn from them, I'm still going in the right direction.

I'm coming to the end of my third week of a better diet and exercise. I've been working hard to re-lose the weight I gained back. So far, I'm down 14.9 pounds from my original starting weight (10 pounds since starting again). Once I lose the rest of the weight I've gained these last few months, I'll feel so much better about myself. It really sucks knowing that I worked so hard to lose the weight in the first place only to have to start all over again.

I'm doing a couple things differently this time around. For instance, I'm not "eating" my exercise calories - meaning, when I burn calories through exercise, I don't eat more food because the exercise I completed put me under my calorie budget for the day. I just pretend that the exercise didn't make a change in my budget at all. I feel that it makes me less tempted to eat unhealthy things. Another change I made is that I'm staying away from my weaknesses. Last time I would allow myself to eat bad things because I had been doing "really good" for the day/week or because I'd exercised a lot which lowered my calorie intake number for the day. With me, I can't just have a bite or piece of something, I have to consume the whole thing or get the largest possible size - which clearly doesn't help my waistline. I feel that by staying away from those things that tempt me, I'm less likely to cave in and have more than I should have. On that note, I do know that I can't forbid myself to eat the things I love because that only causes a person to break down and binge eat. When I do decide to let myself have a treat, I'll just have to exercise self-control to ensure that I'm being reasonable about what I'm eating.

So far I've done really well. I've only had two days in the last three weeks where I went over my daily calorie budget. The days, however, were back-to-back last week and they were more than just a little over. I definitely noticed an impact from those two days on my weight loss and I made sure to do better this week. In addition to eating better, I've also been going to a walk four or five times a week. This week I added some light weight and floor exercises.

All in all, I'm feeling much better about myself and more confident in my abilities. I feel that I can do it this time around. Enough is enough. Wish me luck!

Old habits die hard...

It's been a while since my last post. Primarily, I had nothing really to say. I've been so disappointed in myself. It felt so easy in the beginning to stay healthy and exercise, but as the weeks go by it gets harder and harder. There are days when I just want to chow down on every single unhealthy thing possible. It's been a real struggle, mostly in the evenings. I can do fantastic all day and then blow my whole day out of the water in an hour or two at night. I've been going out a fair bit recently, usually to a restaurant with a girl friend of mine. It's really sad that when I do go out, it's after the kids are in bed, so I've already eaten my three meals for the day, but I'll still order food (and often a meal, not just an appetizer). I know how many calories are remaining in my budget for the day, but I eat anyway. And not anything healthy either!

This past week I've made more of an effort to watch what I eat and be conscious of not going over my daily calorie limit. I did fairly well; I only went over one day. My exercise, however, did take a hit this last week, which is the primary reason for being more vigilant over what I ate. I'm not sure what I've done, but I've got some pretty nasty pains in my lower back. I chalked it up to my poor shoes and the amount of walking I've been doing daily (2.5 to 6 kilometres daily). I did finally pick up a great pair of running shoes. I purchased a pair of Nike Lunarglides, which are simply the best shoes I've ever worn! It's as if I'm walking on clouds when I wear them! I wore them on my walk yesterday for the first time, and my friend and I walked 6 kilometres. I probably should have waited until my back had fully healed before walking so far because I'm paying for it today. I'm starting to wonder if there is an entirely different problem causing the lower back pain.

On top of the back pain, almost everyone in my household has come down with some sort of stomach bug. I'm feeling mostly better now, but last night and this morning was certainly a different story. I felt so bad for my daughter, who is two, because she seemed to have it worse than everyone else. I was up most of the night with her. I'm just thankful that my son didn't get sick. I've never had to deal with a sick child before, aside from the sniffles, and I can only imagine how challenging it would be to look after a baby with tummy troubles.

On the plus side, I weighed in this morning and I have lost 3 pounds since last Monday when I weighed myself. That is a total loss of 19.6 pounds and also put me under 250 pounds! I'm so excited about that! I can't even remember the last time I was under 250 pounds! I'm getting so close to reaching my next goal of 25 pounds and getting my next reward: a manicure and pedicure. Having seen a loss this week (and a nice one at that!), it has certainly renewed my drive to keep on this path and to try harder once again. It'll only be a matter of time before I reach my end goal and I can't wait! I guess I should finish my rewards so that I have something to work towards (aside from good health).

My walking buddy, Ashlee, and I have set a goal to walk the "West Side Hill" at the end of August. It's about a 4.5-5 kilometre walk from my home, up the hill to the Tim Horton's on the other side. The distance won't be the challenge, but the steep hill certainly will be! It's a long bridge that connects the two halves of the city together over a river, but the road goes pretty steeply into the valley before leveling out and returning to a steep hill on the other side. I thought August would be a good time to try, as it will give me a chance to become a more seasoned walker and also lose a bit more weight before taking the challenge on.

Ashlee would also like to start jogging; she's been interested in the "Couch to 5K" regimen. I can't quite commit to jogging just yet, but maybe one day when I have less aches and pains and feel more confident in my body to do something like that. Still, it's something to think about and possibly another goal to work towards.

Something else to look forward to is a nice little weekend trip up to Edmonton, Alberta to the West Edmonton Mall, sometime in August. I'm hoping to be down another 40 or so pounds before the trip takes place, which will make shopping more enjoyable. Plus, the mall has a fantastic water park that we would like to go to and it would certainly be nice to look a little better in a swimsuit than I do currently. So I'd better get cracking to make that weight loss goal a reality before then!

Redemption, however slight...

After a disappointing week and a 0.2 pound gain when I weighed myself yesterday, I decided to weigh myself again today. I'm not big on the whole weigh-yourself-everyday ordeal - I feel that it can set yourself up for disappointment and failure - but I wanted to see if I did actually gain 0.2 pounds or if it was just water retention from all the salty popcorn I ate the night before. I am currently down to 255.1 pounds, with a total loss of 12 pounds. It's not a significant loss, but I'll take a slight loss over a gain any day! I just have to be more diligent in my exercise and eating efforts to ensure that I don't have any more gains, regardless of how slight they may be.

I took my body measurements today. I'm not sure why I didn't take my measurements right from the start. It would have been nice to have a log of my body measurements before I started to see if my body has changed at all since I began four weeks ago.  My husband says that he can see a difference, but I think he may be a little crazy... It's only been 12 pounds! I could understand if I had lost 50 pounds, but not 12. Maybe he's just saying that he notices a difference because he wants to make me feel better, or maybe he actually can tell a difference, who knows. I know I can't see anything yet. Here are my body measurements currently:

Upper Arm: 14.5 inches (left) and 15 inches (right)
Forearm: 12.5 inches (left) and 11.5 inches (right)
Upper Thigh: 28.5 inches (left) and 29 inches (right)
Calf: 17.25 inches (left) and 17.75 inches (right)
Hips: 53 inches
Waist: 45 inches
Chest: 43 inches

It's interesting that the right side of my body is slightly larger than my left. I suppose it would make sense being that I am right handed, thus the right side of my body would be my "dominant" side. It'll be even more interesting to compare my measurements down to road to see if my right side always remains larger than my left side. I think I'd like to take my measurements once a month to see how I'm doing. I know that sometimes weight loss may not manifest itself in the numbers on the scale going down, but by the number of inches lost. I'll post my measurements again at the beginning of March.

I've been shopping around for a heart monitor. I thought it would be a good idea to purchase one because there are some activities I do, such as my workout DVDs, that I have no idea how to gauge how many calories I am burning. When I do my DVD (Beachbody's Slim in 6 - Start it Up), I've just been entering the data into Lose It! as "aerobics" because I don't know what else to classify it as. I tried looking online to see if there was any information about the number of calories burned for that particular DVD, but I didn't really find anything. At least with a heart monitor, it would give me an estimate of calories burned based on my heart rate during whatever activity I happen to be doing.

So far I haven't found a monitor that I both like and that is within my price range. There have been a couple that I thought about purchasing, but after reading the consumer reviews, I have decided that that particular brand/model wouldn't be worth it. I had a couple of people from my group on Lose It! recommend the brand Polar, but I'm still looking through the different models and reading the reviews before I finally make a decision. I want to make sure that I'm getting a good quality product. I should hopefully have one picked out and purchased by the end of the week.

Since starting my blog, I have started reading two other blogs that are primarily about weight loss. I have found them both very interesting and inspirational! If you're interested at all, you can check them out: http://lizzysweightlossquest.blogspot.com and http://abyerly.blogspot.com.

Slacking...

These last two weeks haven't been overly fantastic for me, especially this past week. I went over my calorie budget a couple days each week, most days it wasn't by too much, with the exception of yesterday and today. The days that I didn't go over my budget, I didn't make the best food choices. I'm disappointed in myself for not having more control over what I was eating.

When I weighed myself at the start of last week, I was down another 2.7 pounds, which brought me to a total loss of 11.4 pounds since I started. That's a pretty good loss considering I was only trying to lose 1.5 pounds a week. I did weigh myself today, though I didn't record it on Lose It! because I had gained 0.2 pounds, making me 255.9 pounds. Gaining, however slightly, was frustrating, but I should have expected it considering how the past two weeks have gone.

Last week I didn't exercise as much as I should have. I didn't complete my goal of doing my exercise DVD three days last week. I didn't even do it once. I only rode my stationary bike twice, which again didn't meet my goal of three times a week. I did, however, go for a walk three days last week, which has to count for something. This week wasn't much better. I did manage to do the workout DVD twice (it's a lot harder than I remember it being), but it takes a toll on my knees which is upsetting. Again, I only rode my bike twice, but I did go for three walks.

The food I've been eating, mostly this last week, has been awful, but sooooo delicious and hard to resist! I went out a few times this week and made some poor food choices. On Thursday I went to dinner with my sister at Denny's. My favourite foods there are the Moon's Over My Hammy and Smothered Cheese Fries. Between the two, they are 1,650 calories! They have ridiculously high calories on their own, but I ordered both of them together! What was I thinking?! Last night I went to a movie (I saw "Warm Bodies," which was fantastic by-the-way) and while at the theatre I ate a small, buttered popcorn, a large chocolate bar and a large frozen yogurt... Why on Earth did I find it necessary to eat all three?! I don't know why I couldn't have been satisfied with just one of those items.

Today was difficult for eating as well and I went hugely over my calorie budget for the day. As I'm sure you know, today was the Super Bowl and we all know that the Super Bowl is great time to get together with friends and family and munch out. This year was no exception. We spent the evening at my Auntie's house and I had resolved to eat healthy while there. Now, my Aunt and her hubby usually have a huge spread of various different foods, but today, much to my dismay, she did not. There was nary a healthy item in sight! Usually she would have veggies and dip, cheese and crackers... Not today. Today there was chili (which isn't totally unhealthy, if I actually liked to eat chili...), cheese biscuits, French fries and chocolate brownies. What is a girl to do when trying to eat right? Especially when everything looks and smells absolutely delicious (and my Aunt's hubby kept putting more food on my plate...). So, I ate far more than I intended and I'm regretting it now.

I suppose there isn't anything I can do about the mistakes I've made in the past, but I can move forward and try to make better choices in the future. I resolve to do better this week. To actually work out the way I've planned and to make better food choices and stay under my allotted daily calories. You can do anything you set your mind to and being healthy is no different. I knew that this was going to be a hard journey, and most days it feels like it's entirely an uphill battle, but I know I can do it. I just need to pick myself up and dust myself off and keep on going! In the past I would have come to a day like today and because I didn't eat perfectly, it would have been game over. I would have given up and gone right back to my bad habits. Not this time. I am determined to lose this weight, come hell or high water!

On a positive note, I have been getting outside for some walks. It's really nice to get outside and get some fresh air. I've never been much of an outdoorsy person, but being a stay-at-home mom doesn't give me the opportunity to get out often, mostly during the day because we only have one vehicle. The last two weeks haven't been overly cold, with the exception of a couple of days, so I figured I'd kill a couple birds with one stone - exercise, fresh air and getting out of the house for a bit. There is a small lake close by my home, so I've been bundling myself and my two kids up and going for a walk around it.

After a couple of walks, I got curious about how far I had been walking. I found an smart phone app and website called RunKeeper (runkeeper.com) which uses GPS tracking to keep tabs on how far you've gone. It also shows you how long you've been doing your activity (you can use it for walking, running, biking...) and the average time per kilometre/mile. I really enjoy it! I now know that it's about 2.65 kilometres (1.65 miles) from my house, around the lake and back. If you log onto the website, you have actually view a map with your path marked on it! I thought that was pretty neat! The RunKeeper app also syncs up with Lose It! if you have upgraded your Lose It! account, which I thought was pretty cool too (though I haven't upgraded my account). For now I'll just manually enter my exercise data into Lose It!.

I did also go for my massage yesterday, being that I have made it past the 10 pound mark. I had a 30 minute massage and it was delightful and relaxing! I wish that I could have a full body massage every day! Maybe I could somehow con my husband into doing that for me... Not likely! My next reward is at 25 pounds... Maybe I can reach that by the end of February, if I'm really diligent. Here goes!