Day 30 - Progress

I can finally show some progress :) Yes, that means there are actually photos in this post! haha

So, last February I bought this dress (below) to wear to my nephew's wedding. At the time I had lost 14 lbs, and spent 2 months dieting and excerising. I was so excited I went out and paid way more money than I normally would have on this outfit.

I wore it twice before I couldn't wear it anymore :( Well tonight I realized that I weigh 1 lb more today than I did a year ago! So I tried it on and it FITS! I'm so glad, because today I went shopping with the sisters and bought these beauties:
at a KILLER sale at Dillard's. And guess what? They match the dress! It totally wasn't planned. I really went to buy a pair of black shoes and a brown belt, two things I need, but ended up with cute brown shoes instead. :)

So, tomorrow I am going to wear my dress to church. I'm so excited! :)

Day 29 - It's the Little Things

It's the little things that have been happening that make me really happy.

I have lost 23.4 lbs in 29 days! WOO HOO!! Last year when I dieted for 3 months I lost 14 lbs....dieting and working out and buying EXPENSIVE diet food. This diet isn't that pricey (chicken and steak and veggies....not too expensive at Wal-Mart, FYI) and I'm losing so much more weight than when I worked out for an hour every day.

Most of my shirts are now too big. I can't wait to go shopping at VS and some other really great stores I haven't been able to shop at, like Aeropostale, Hollister, and maybe even AE.

My belt is 3 holes tighter now. My pants still fit well enough that I'm not rushing out to buy new ones. Also, my Yanuk size 31 jeans that I bought last year, that I've never been able to pull up past my knees, almost go up over my bum now! YIPEE! A few more pounds and I'll be able to wear them! I'm so excited.

I'm hoping to hit 25 lbs lost in the next few days. I'll let you know! :)

Day 23

UGH! I didn't lose any weight...again. I am sick of this no weight loss thing.

In good news, my DH is totally loving my hot new bod. He said this morning that he couldn't believe how skinny I got in just 1 week (he's been out of town). That of course made me feel really good.

I just need 0.6 lbs to get to the 20 lb lost mark, and I want that last 0.6 lbs SO BADLY!

I'm hoping tomorrow is a better day for weight loss. We'll see.

Day 22

Today is day 22 and I am just 0.6 lbs shy of having lost 20 lbs!!!!! OMG I am so excited to hit the 20 lb mark!!

I'm doing a lot better with craving foods. As long as I stay busy, I'm okay. This means that I've been sewing.... a lot. I even cleaned out my "sewing corner," the corner in the living room that I took over with all of my bags of fabric and supplies. I found a whole bunch of projects to finish, and have been working on them. I made 3 quilt tops, a bag, and put together a cute little Peter Rabbit soft book for my son. I've kept so busy, in fact, that the last 2 nights I haven't even gotten my laptop out at home! I KNOW! CRAZY!

The one downside to losing all this weight is that I am FREEZING all the time! Seriously, I didn't know how cold 70 degrees was. haha.

I haven't taken my measurements for a few days, so I'm excited to see how I'm doing tomorrow when I finally take them! Also, I got out my Yanuk jeans that I bought in March of last year, and couldn't fit into, and tried them on. I can almost pull them up over my butt. I am so excited! I've never been able to get them past my knees! I'm hoping to lose around another 10 lbs or so, and then be able to finally fit into them. :)

Day 15

So far so good! Yes, I only lost like 0.2 lbs today, but a loss is a loss.

I've noticed, being as busy as it has at the floral this week (Valentine's weekend), that when I am busy working constantly I don't really think about food.

Example: I'm supposed to eat "breakfast" at 10 AM. I didn't actually get time to eat my apple until 11:30, and it took half an hour to eat my apple slices.

Then, lunch at 1 PM took a while to eat because I had to help at the counter, answer phones, and do dance flowers in between bites of food.

I did get to take a break for dinner. It was probably the only 30 minutes that I actually sat down in the whole 10 hours I worked today.

Tomorrow is the day before Valentine's, so I'm definitely looking forward to another busy, work-filled day where I can focus on work and let eating and food take a back burner in my mind.

Good news: I'm in 2 weeks! 5 weeks left on the protocol, 3 weeks of maintenance and then I'm FREE!! Hoping to lose lots more weight this week. At least 5 lbs. :) 4.8 more to go! haha

Day 13 - WEIGH IN

Weighed in this morning. Total lbs lost: 14.2


WAHOO!

I am on my way! I only lost 5.2 lbs, and my goal waas 6, but I figure that's pretty good considering I had 2 days of no weight loss.

Goal for next week? 6 more lbs. That would put me down 20, 1/3 of the way to my goal. :) That would just be awesome.

Today has been easier than past days. I've figured out a pretty good eating schedule to avoid starving to death. Breakfast 10 AM, Lunch 12:30 - 1 PM, Dinner 6:30 PM, last fruit serving 8 PM.

Day 12

I have figured out a secret. It's the secret to being able to lose weight every day. Wanna know what it is??

DRINK YOUR WATER!!!

I have discovered that on days that I do not drink all 96 oz of my water, I lose little or no weight. On days when I do drink my water, I lose more weight. :)

How easy is that?? Drink water! Okay, so it's pretty hard to force yourself to drink 96 oz of water in a day, and nothing else. Yuck! I hate water. I despise water. I LOVE Coke. I miss my Coke. BUT, it is worth missing it to lose the weight, yeah? Yeah :D

So, there you have it. My new-found knowledge, and the key to my weight loss.

P.S. - weighed myself this morning and have lost 13.2 lbs total. YIPEE!!! Official weigh-in results tomorrow after I weigh in.

Day 10

Today is a tough day because it's the SUPER BOWL.

Now, I don't like sports, except for the UFC, so I do not watch the Super Bowl for the game. I don't care who wins or loses. There are 2 reasons for my watching the Super Bowl:
1) The FOOD
2) The Commercials.

Notice that FOOD is the first reason? I LOVE party food. Chips, dip, brownies, cookies, soda, cake, fudge, sandwiches, soup, tacos, burritos, whatever....it's all GOOD.

I am not attending any parties this year. My SIL is throwing a party, and they are having meatball subs. OMG I LOVE meatball subs! She's on the same diet as me, only this is her 2nd time around. I don't know how she can stand to be in the same building as those yummy smelling sandwiches.

This morning was hard, too, because I woke up a little late. Too late that I didn't have time to eat my breakfast before I went to church. By the time we got home I was STARVING. I hurried and whipped up a stuffed tomato (get the recipe here, it's in the sidebar). Maybe I made it wrong, or not, but either way it wasn't as good as I was expecting it to be. :( Luckily it was lunch, so I can have a more filling, yummier dinner. I also had 6 strawberries with some Xylitol sprinkled on top.

Xylitol is great. It tastes just like sugar, no aftertaste, and if you have reactions to sucralose or aspartame then this is great for you! Truvia is okay (I bought a box the other day) but it's ground smaller. I think I like the texture of the Xylitol better. BUT, Truvia is only $4 for a box, so it's a lot cheaper and you can get it at Wal-mart.

Also, I lost 1.4 lbs again. YAY! I told my DH that it seems like when I have days of no loss, I have a pretty good loss the next day. So, we are up to 3 lbs this week so far. I weigh in on Wednesday and am hoping for another 3 lbs. That would be great. My average loss/week goal is 6 lbs. That would be AWESOME! So, hopefully I've mixed the diet up enough that I can lose some weight tomorrow and help get those 3 more lbs.

Day 9

I'm a little discouraged today. This is my second day this week not losing any weight.

Yes, I lost almost 10 lbs last week, but I was so hoping to keep that going.

The program says that sometimes you stall at a weight you once were, because your body was comfortable there. Well, that would kind of explain it. Last January, when we started dieting, I was the weight that I currently am. It took me 3 months to lose 14 lbs last year. I got down to almost my pre-pregnancy weight.

Did I mention that I found my 3 y.o. pre-natal book? Yeah, I was 152 lbs 12 weeks pregnant. I so don't weigh anything close to that right now! I'm so depressed! I weigh more than I did when I was 37 weeks pregnant!!! (Odd number of weeks, yes, but I went to the doctor the day before I had him, so that's how I know!) It's depressing. My only consolation is that I am gradually getting back down to my 37-weeks-pregnant-weight, which is a good step.

I'm mixing up my food a little, too, so I'm sure that my body's just thrown off a little. That's probably why the stall in weight loss today. We'll see how tomorrow goes. I'm determined to drink all 90 oz of water today, too, which I didn't do yesterday. Oops!

I thought I'd mix it up a little, too, buy trying some herbal fruit teas. I had raspberry with my breakfast. It was pretty good. I think I might make a pitcher of blueberry and put it in the fridge. Anything to break up the monotony of plain old boring water. I can't have Crystal Light, so I need something to make my water less boring. Aspartame, sucralose, any chemically made fake sugar makes me really, really sick -- like almost migraine headaches and an upset stomach....so NOT fun!

So, here's to a hopefully better day of weight loss. I guess I shouldn't complain too much, 10.5 lbs in a week and a half is not bad at all, huh? :)

Day 8

So far so good! I've lost a total of 10.4 lbs. :) Yipee!

Yesterday wasn't as bad as previous days. I've figured out my meal timing so that it's perfect and I don't go to bed STARVING anymore, which is nice.

Yesterday I didn't have to inject myself, and it was a nice break for my leg. Today was surprisingly easy, and not too painful after having a day off.

I've been mixing up my foods a little. For the first week my veggies were exclusively broccoli and mushrooms. Now I'm branching out into cauliflower (delicious steamed!) and zucchini (which I haven't tried yet, but it looks yummy). I'm going to buy some halibut today, too, and maybe even some shrimp or lobster (both are on sale at the local groceries).

The grissini was a little tricky to find, but it's a good alternative to the melba toast, which I have come to look forward to each day. The rosemary grissini is better than the garlic, in my opinion. But, I'm not a big garlicky-breadstick-flavor-loving-person.

My biggest challenge right now is that the rest of my family isn't doing the diet with me. My son is only 3, so he usually eats something different from the rest of us, anyway, so it's not that big of a deal. He loves corn dogs and fish sticks, both things that I detest, so making his dinners isn't tempting. My DH on the other hand talks about his cravings for things like coconut shrimp and In-n-out burger CONSTANTLY. It's very tempting to cheat. But, I know if I cheat, I will have given up on the easiest diet I've ever gone on, and what does that say about me? If I can't stick to something this simple for 49 days, then how am I ever going to maintain once I'm off of it?

I am DETERMINED to not cheat. NO CHEATING. That's my motto.

I came close yesterday when my 3 y.o was sitting on my lap eating saltines. Oh they smelled so good! And he kept dropping crumbs on my leg. I had to throw them away immediately so that I wasn't tempted to put them in my mouth, and then I sent him upstairs to eat his crackers in his room! haha Avoid temptation at all costs. :)

My great nephew is turning 3 next week and they're having cake and ice cream to celebrate on Saturday. I am not attending. I don't trust myself to be in a room that smells that good and not cheat. It's just not possible. So, I'm avoiding it.

I've set my mind to it, and I'm not giving up. There, now I CAN'T! I've written it down and I'm posting this out there for the whole world to see. Now if I cheat, I won't be disapppointing only myself, but anyone else who happens to read this.

Day 6 - WEIGH IN

Today was my first official weigh in. I have lost 9 pounds. I AM SO EXCITED!!!

I've also been taking my measurements every day. I've lost 5 inches off my waist, 2 off my chest, and 2 off my hips. HOLY CRAP!

I'm so happy to see results like this already. It is making the whole thing totally worth the pain and hunger, and the money!

Day 5 - morning

Yesterday was easier than Day 3. I'm still craving lots of different things.

I had a dream last night that I ate a Reese's peanut butter cup....and it was so YUMMY!

Did I mention that this morning my DH made French toast for him and our 3 y.o.? Oh it smells so good! And they're using the homemade bread I made last week. I want it so bad!

Dinner last night wasn't this bad. I had steak and grilled mushrooms. They had Scooby-Doo mac n' cheese. I was not craving at all. Until about 8 PM while I watched Heroes on NBC. I so wanted to grab the popcorn that I know is in the cupboard and pop me a bag and chow down! Force of habit. I'd already drunk my 94 oz of water, but I kept drinking more to curb those cravings.

I only have a few more minutes before I can eat this morning. The rule is that you can't eat for a whole hour after you wake up...liquids only. I can't wait! I'm going to have a half a grapefruit with some salt. Mmmmm....yummy.

As far as the inejctions are going, they are going pretty well. It hurt today, first time so far, but I think that's because I was too close to the midline of my leg. Hopefully tomorrow doesn't hurt as bad!

I have my first weigh-in tomorrow. I haven't weighed yet today, but I've already lost like 6 lbs as of yesterday. I'm definitely hoping to keep that pace up. 49 days = 7 weeks, so I figure 6 lbs a week is a good start to my goal. Of course, they tell you to only expet 25-30 lbs the first time around. I'm just hoping for a little extra :)