KittyKarin

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BLOG TIME! I like to check in now every so often and write about my past few months in my weight loss journey.  I definitely haven’t lost any weight in the last month but I haven’t completely “fallen off the wagon”.  I have been eating much more off plan these past few weeks but I am still exercising and weighing myself every single day.  I am up a few pounds but maintaining at my current weight (193 pounds) and I’m not allowing myself to hide from the scale. 

This week, I meal planned and I am getting back to eating the healthier things that make up my normal diet.  It’s amazing how easy it is to lose the habits that you have worked months and months on learning.  After just a few days of loosening the reins, it becomes so much easier to make that “bad” choice for lunch or from the vending machine even though for the last 6 months, I have been making all the “good” choices.  However, I refuse to hide from myself and just give in to the easy way of eating.  I am really enjoying how I feel, how I look, how strong I am and how much I can do at this weight.  I am not going to let those easy, bad habits overtake me.

Like I mentioned, I am still exercising and a few weekends ago, I did my second 8k race ever (Use extreme caution when viewing no-makeup, sweaty post-race selfie below  ). That’s about 5 miles and I did it in 57 minutes.  For me, that’s really good.  I am such a slow runner and I couldn’t run the whole thing but I completed it in under an hour and I ran a really huge chunk of it.  The first two miles I ran completely without stopping at about a 10 minute mile (6.0 mph) pace.  I want to do another in a few months and shave a few minutes off that time.  I would love to be able to do a 15k or even a half-marathon one day but baby steps!

Another thing I wanted to write about was that my friend shared a photo with me and a group of girls from 4 years ago and I was amazed.  Four years ago, I was about 3 months out from surgery and about 60 pounds down from my highest weight.  (See picuture below .) In this picture, I was still around 300 pounds and I looked HUGE. I couldn’t believe it.  I don’t want to be back there ever again.  When I look at myself from that time, all I can see is how uncomfortable I was and I know I didn’t want to be posing for any pictures. It makes me immediately want to stop and reevaluate myself and what I am doing.  I am allowing a lot of old habits to creep back in and eating stuff that I know is not the best for me.  That isn’t going to help me get to or keep me at where I want to be.  This is a constant thing I am going to have to do for the rest of my life. A constant readjusting and straightening of my course.  Some days will be easier than others but I will never be DONE.  I will never be able to take my eyes off the road.  It’s going to require focus and hard work most days but looking at that picture and seeing how much I’ve changed and thinking about how amazing I feel now…. it’s totally worth it.  It’s much easier in the moment to just use food to entertain myself or to numb a feeling but in the long run, it just causes me way more pain. Going to a wedding last month in a cute, form-fitting dress and feeling beautiful was 100% worth it!  I was able to dance with my friends and family all night and didn’t get winded at all.  I didn’t have to worry about fitting into the chairs at the wedding or the reception and didn’t feel like people were judging the food on my plate or how many pieces of cake I ate ( I had ½ a piece, in case you want to know!).  My quality of life, even having to track my food and schedule time for activity, is SO much better than it ever was at my heaviest.  I have a whole new lease on life.

I’m still figuring out where I want to try to maintain and I think I have settled on 180 pounds.  I think that will be a good maintenance weight for me so my goal is to get to that weight and then work on maintaining that within a 5 pound radius.  That is all subject to change and I feel really good at this weight but would like to lose just a bit more before settling in.  No time limit as to when I want to get there but as long as the scale doesn’t go up, I am happy!  One day at a time!! 

I can’t believe where I am right now… This morning, I stepped on the scale and was 190 pounds exactly.  WHAT?!?!  That was my original goal way back when I was 362 pounds.  I have now, over 4 years out from surgery, lost 172 pounds to reach my goal of 190.  I reached 199 pounds about 2 years after surgery but started enjoying myself way too much and started gaining weight soon after that.  I got back up to 244 lbs in the next 18 months or so and this past August, I decided to hop off this stupid regain train and quit the up and down.  I’ve changed my mind and dealt with my emotional eating head-on. This has changed my “life”… at least my diet life.  I feel in control of my food choices at least 80% of the time and my binges are almost non-existent.  They rear their ugly heads every now and then but I am able to head them off before it turns into a complete binge normally.

Today I put on a pair of size 10 jeans and a medium button down shirt to head to work.  It really is blowing my mind right now.  I had a pair of “goal” jeans in my closet that were a size 12 and now I am wearing 10s.  I also have a pair of size 28 jeans that were once too tight. It’s hard right now to even remember being that size.  I don’t think I’m done though… I think I would like to lose another 10 pounds…. Maybe?  I’m really happy with this weight and my body right now but I do want to focus more on fitness and replacing body fat with muscle.  I’m going to start really lifting at the gym along with my running which may make it hard to lose those last 10 if I’m building muscle. 

I know this really doesn’t matter but if I get down to 181 lbs, that is literally half of my body weight gone from my highest… those numbers don’t matter; I know that.  Confetti will not fall from the sky if I step on the scale and have lost half my body weight.  I’m not winning any prizes and it’s not “GONE FOREVER” like people like to post when they reach a certain weight or pounds lost.  I could step on the scale the next day and be up 3 pounds… and then 3 more the day after that.  It’s a day by day thing and hitting 181 isn’t going to magically change anything.  So if I reach that weight or not, I really don’t care.  I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing.  However, I have other goals I want to reach. 

Future goals:

1. Compete in a few races in 2017 - I run about 3 times a week and can do about 3 miles without stopping.  I have done 5ks and an 8k race before but I would like to really be able to run a 10k or a 15k race this year.  My big time, long term goal is to complete a half-marathon before I’m 40.  I’ve got a little less than 5 years for this.  Slow and steady, right?? J

1. Reach a body fat percentage of 30 to 32% - I would like to get a true body fat test from the doctor but from those tests you can do at the grocery store stations through the palm of your heads, I am at about 39% body fat.  L  That makes me sad because that seems really high still after losing freaking 170 pounds!  I know it will take a lot of time to lose another 7 to 9% but I would like to start weight lifting and feel this along with my continued cardio will let me reach a better body fat percentage in the next couple of years.

1. Continue to control my food issues while being mindful and keeping my healthy goals first place in my life - My previous yo-yo dieting can really be attributed to me just burying my head in the sand and not wanting to be accountable to myself and the scale every single day.  When I am out of control, I want to just ignore my goals and eat with abandon.  During my periods of dieting, I restricted myself so much that I inevitably snapped back and started binging and couldn’t stop.  I felt like I had to eat all the “bad” food so that I could start my diet again and I wouldn’t feel deprived because I had packed in all the food I wanted before.  This mindset has caused so many failures and much weight gain for me.  I am no longer “ON” and “OFF” a diet.  No matter what I have eaten that day, I am not “cheating”.  There is no test to pass and no morality to the food I eat.  There are just things that are healthy for me and things that aren’t as healthy.  I do weigh every day no matter what I have eaten the day before.  It keeps me from hiding from the outcome of my choices.  I can eat anything I want at any time but I acknowledge that certain amounts of certain food make me gain weight.  I have my normal food I eat that make me feel great and if I want to have other things, I work them into my “diet”.

I don’t know where I will be in a month, in a year, in 5 years… who knows?  All I know is that I am happy with my weight and my body today.  I want to be happy long-term and the only way I can hope to accomplish that is to change my mindset.  I’m working on it….

Today is my 4 year surgery anniversary!  4 years ago today, on January 9th, 2013, I was going into surgery to irreversibly cut out 80% of my stomach and try to change my life. 

Has it been easy? No!

Have I been able to maintain my weight loss and keep it off without struggling?  HELLS NO!

Is it worth it to put in the effort and have this tool that I received 4 years ago to assist me in my journey?  Definitely!

I just went back and read the blog I wrote a week before my surgery.  I was so ready to feel better and lose weight.  It’s hard to remember being so big and barely fitting into those (size 24/26) clothes.  I was really excited to get the weight off but I had no idea how wonderful I would feel but also how much energy and effort this would take.   

So… what am I up to today?  I am feeling great but it’s a day to day process.  I am 1 pound above my lowest weight ever after surgery.  2 years ago, I got down to 199 pounds but then I started gaining back weight.  Today, I am 200 pounds.  I never reached my goal weight of 180 lbs and right now I don’t know what my goal weight is and I don’t think I want a “goal weight”.  I am really happy at my current weight and would like to lose another 10 pounds but if I go too low, my body isn’t going to look right.  Losing almost half your body weight takes a toll on your skin and I’d rather be a little overweight than have a ton of hanging skin.  

In total, I gained back about 35 pounds and this summer, I decided that I had ENOUGH.  In August, I started to really dig into my emotional issues and why I continue to eat my feelings and go so overboard that I gain a large amount of weight in a very short time.  I can eat around my tool with potato chips and cookies and grazing on all kinds of snacks.  I feel so healthy when I am at a lower weight and I love the feeling so much so I wanted to understand why I keep stopping the healthy habits and go sedentary and eat really bad food for me.  What is the draw and why do I allow myself to sabotage my progress???

Researching and reading so much information on body acceptance, mindful eating and why diets don’t work really opened my eyes.  I am trying very hard to get out of the “diet” mentality.  I know I have said this before but I am trying hard to seriously change how I eat and how I police my food choices.  Only a very rare few of us in this Weight Loss Surgery community can actually sustain an extreme low carb and low calorie diet for the rest of our lives.  Most of us that became super morbidly obese didn’t get that way just because we didn’t realize that eating a ton of calories, carbs and fast food was making us fat.  We know what causes weight gain and we know how to lose weight but something inside of us compels us to continue to eat more than our bodies need.  Yo-yo dieting has also damaged our bodies and so any time we inevitably fall off the wagon, our metabolisms are so messed up that we gain weight so rapidly and our bodies are begging us to eat to put that weight back on plus more. 

I am actually eating more calories than I have before and losing weight.  I am still cutting out processed carbs for the most part and making substitutes for the foods that make me feel good and healthy.  However, sometimes I feel like eating something that it not technically “healthy” or is not a part of my normal diet… and it’s not the end of the world.  I don’t dread going out with friends when I’m really “on a diet” anymore.  I don’t freak out if I can’t get to the gym 5 times a week.  I survived the holidays and allowed myself to eat things that I wanted but I was able to continue my normal, healthy eating soon after without telling myself I was going to be “off my diet” from Thanksgiving to New Years.  I didn’t start a new drastic diet on January 1^st and I didn’t punish myself for the food I ate that wasn’t low carb.  I enjoyed the food choices I made and continued right on.  Sure, I may have gone up a couple of pounds after those indulgences but so what??? I kept right on moving.  No juice fasts, no crash dieting, no punishing myself with a starvation level amount of calories for the choices I made.  Just moving on.

So that’s been my life for the past few months and I have really been enjoying.  I am running still but I’m training for anything or pushing myself to do a certain amount each time.  I listen to my body and some days, I can run 3 or 4 miles with no problems.  Other days, I run 1 mile and then I walk some.  I don’t stress about it.  I really enjoy the exercise and it’s no longer a punishment.  If I get to the gym and feel like my body can’t do a big cardio session, no worries! I do some yoga or some stretches, maybe a few weights.  It feels good to be in sync with my body and not bound by external rules or strict calorie counting. It’s working for me and it’s the nicest I’ve ever been to myself.  And also, 4 years later, most of the clothes in my closet don’t fit right now again… but that’s because they are all too big! It’s a really good problem to have!!  

Fall is coming!! I am so excited for the fall season!! I've already bought two big bottles of Torani Sugar Free Pumpkin syrup and have been making myself sugar free pumpkin spice coffee! I can't wait for the chill in the air and to be able to wear sweaters and jackets again. (It's still quite warm and in the mid 80s down here in FL.) This summer was packed and flew by but it was really fun.  We had so much going on and so much traveling.  I told all my friends that they are banned from getting married or having babies next year because 2015 was the year of the weddings and baby showers.  However, they don't seem to be complying with this because I've already been asked to help host a baby shower in January! It's starting all over again!

The good thing is, however, that I feel good about myself and my body.  It's so much easier to travel and see friends and family when I don't hate myself and how I look... not to mention that I can actually fit into nice clothes and dress up! I am not at my goal weight but I am on the right track. It seems like I keep taking two steps forward and two steps back... which means I'm not really gaining much weight but I'm not losing it either. According to MyFitnessPal, I'm almost the exact weight I was this time last year.  I was on a gaining pattern for a lot of the beginning of 2015.  However, I'm trying hard to get that under control and it seems the times that I "fall off the wagon" and eat one bad thing after another is much less frequent.  I am learning that one bad day or bad weekend doesn't have to equate to a month or two of unhealthy eating and no exercise. I'll struggle with that my whole life and I'll never have a normal relationship with food but I feel like I'm getting a real handle on it all.

I'm not sure what I want my goal weight to be but I would at least like to lose another 20 pounds and see how that feels. I'd like to be able to maintain at that lower weight and exercise hard. But for right now, I am just focusing on running again and eating healthy, not my weight.  I chickened out of the 10k that I had planned last weekend and just did the 5k.  My lower back was giving me some problems in June and so I slacked on running for June and July.  I just started back in the middle of August but my body is NOT athletic so I had to restart almost from square one.  To really be able to run continuously takes me a long time and I have to be consistent and running at least 3 times a week.  My body is SOOO not designed to run so when I stop, it wants to completely forget the trauma it endured by me making it run.  I did enjoy the race last weekend and it inspired me to keep going despite my starts and stops.  I have a 10k I think my friend and I are going to do together in the beginning of January and then I really would like to do the Jacksonville Gate River Run in March 2016.  That's a 15k (9.3 miles) and it's running across some huge bridges and has some crazy hills.  To be able to do that, I will really have to focus starting now to get to the point where I can run a 5k easy and then work on the 10k goal.  If I can do a 10k (6.2 miles) running almost the entire time by January, I think I can do the 15k two months later. 

Other than my exercise and weight goals, I was promoted to a Senior position at work and I'm also interviewing for a new team lead position.  I like my current job but the management is starting to get really out of control with all the scheduling and time management.  They are micromanaging everything and I feel ready to move on to a less structured position where I can have the freedom to work with clients as needed rather than having to ask permission every time I need to setup a meeting or connect with a client. So I am pursuing other jobs within the company and hope to maybe find something else that I will like. 

The kids started back to school and now both are in high school.  The oldest is a senior and it is extremely expensive to be a parent of teenagers right now.  We are trying to find him a job but it's not going so well.  He has an overconfidence problem, you might say, so he thought he would be walking into a store and they would be stammering all over themselves to hire him.  He is getting very upset that no one has begged him to come to work for them yet.  He doesn't understand what it takes to get a job, especially at 17 with no experience. He just wants to fill out an application online and then expects them to pick his out of the hundreds they get and call him in to start next week... doesn't happen! So I'm trying to help him and share my experience with him in the HR field and keep him from getting too discouraged.  It's been an adventure.  Their dad has been traveling so much for work lately so I've been doing a lot of this myself.  He finally got his learner's permit so I've been letting him drive me around and then last weekend I took him to get his senior pictures done.  Before I know it, he's gonna be graduating.  It's insane! 

Thanks for reading my blog! I hope everyone is having a great year and ready for the cooler weather! XOXO

I can't believe it's been over a year since I blogged! It's been a crazy year but I've had a great time.  Last year in the spring and early summer, I was running and did a number of 5k races. Then the summer really hit and I got really lax with my eating and stopped exercising all together.  I reached 199 lbs and I got cocky and started enjoying myself and my new look way too much.  I was going out with friends and eating/drinking way too many calories.  Then I was eating too much junk foods and snack foods and started gaining weight.  I caught myself in August and started back exercising and eating better but old habits die hard.  I was punishing myself and restricting myself so much trying to get back to my lowest weight really quickly that after about 2 months, I went nuts.  I started eating all the wrong things and grazing all during the day.  From the end of September until the end of February, I was eating horribly and not exercising.  And of course, I gained back weight! I was starting to outgrow my clothes again and was unhappy with my appearance. 

I realized that something had to change and just doing a "diet" again wasn't going to cut it.  I had to change my whole outlook on losing/maintaining my weight long term.  Dieting and severely restricting myself just won't work for me for the rest of my life.  That's what I have been doing since I was 11 years old and it got me to 362 pounds.  I still have good restriction in my sleeve but it's too easy to eat around it at 2 1/2 years out. The feeling of being "on" and "off" a diet sabotages me.  So on March 1st, I put a new plan in place and I have been working it almost 3 months now.  It really seems to be working for me quite well. 

I am eating healthy, unprocessed food and focusing on my exercise which is mainly running.  I really enjoy running and it brings me such a sense of accomplishment to be able to run miles at a time without stopping.  Most of the time, I continue to eat the way that most sleevers do which is lower carb but I allow myself a little more wiggle room with the carbs.  I eat a moderate amount of fruits and don't restrict my veggies even if they have a few carbs in them.  I have been trying hard to NOT have the On or Off the diet mentality.  No food is off limits to me.  If I break and eat a handful of Cheezits or potato chips, I don't throw in the towel.  I log it in my food journal and start back eating my normal meal plan with the very next meal.  This is a big deal for me because I've always had the "I Blew It" mentality.  I would completely binge after a small food indulgence because I felt the day (or week) was already blown. I felt like I needed to eat all the bad things that I wanted now before I started back on my diet.  I haven't been doing this and it's made a huge difference in my mind and how I feel about my eating.  I don't feel like I'm on a diet or that anything is completely off limits.  

Another change I have made is not weighing every day or even every week.  This month, I have only weighed twice.  The scale really does determine my moods and with all my exercise and strength training, my weight definitely fluctuates.  I am not putting the focus on weight or the scale right now.  My goals are to eat healthy and exercise 4 to 5 times a week.  I am working my way to completing a 10k in September (I just did a 5k last week) and I look forward to my runs. The exercise and strength training have really made me much more lean in the last 3 months and even though I am still a little heavier than I was this time last year, I feel amazing.  I am starting to see muscles in my arms and legs and my middle is slimming really well.  My hips and thighs are still pretty big but I'm severely pear shaped so whatcha gonna do?? :-) 

Who knows where I will be this time next year but I just want to be happy and healthy.  I have no weight loss goals right now; I don't care what the scale says as long as I know what I am eating and I am getting in my runs and achieving my goals.  

In other news, my stepsons are almost out of school for the summer (one more week) and my husband is doing well.  Work is hectic but doing ok. No major changes there. Summer is already packed with plans for us.  This weekend we are all going to a family wedding.  June has a small surgery on my husband's shoulder and a trip to Charleston with girlfriends for a long weekend.  July we are doing a full week vacation at a beach house with a huge group of friends and I'm so excited about that.  It should be a great time. August will be here before we know it! 

Hope everyone is doing well and I wish everyone great success and weight loss.  Have a wonderful summer!! :-)   

I was on vacation from work all last week. It was nice to have time off work but it wasn’t what I wanted. I also felt like I was wasting my vacation days. I wanted to be on a real vacation, like out of town at a beach house, but our plans got changed. My stepson had a school conference to go to in Orlando the weekend before his spring break and then didn’t want to go see his mom during the break like the boys normally do. My husband didn’t challenge it so just the youngest kid went which meant we were stuck in town since his oldest son was still at home. We thought about taking him with us out of town for a few days but we decided to just save our money and go out of town this summer just the two of us. His kids don’t like taking vacations because they never want to get off the computer games and complain the whole time we are out of town so we decided to postpone our plans.

Anyway, I think because I was so disappointed that I didn’t get time out of town and a “real” vacation, I let myself take a food vacation. I did well until Wednesday of last week and then I just started eating whatever I wanted. It’s been a week of bad food choices and almost no exercise. I think I was having a little pity party for myself. All my friends were either busy or out of town and I consoled myself with a scone from Starbucks with my coffee or a fast food lunch because I was out shopping alone when I wished I was on a beach somewhere with my friends and hubby.

So anyway, I’m back to work now and back to reality. It always takes me a few days to wrap my head around eating correctly again when I’ve been totally off plan but I believe today I’m firmly back on track. I have my first timed 5k this Saturday and I am hoping to run most of it if not all of it. I’ve gotten back to my running also and I think I’m prepared for my 5k. I hope to complete it in around 35 minutes.

I have gained a little weight but I’m not going to let the gain freak me out. I hope it will be gone in a week or so and I can get back to losing again. I don’t really regret my little food vacation; it was yummy while it lasted! :-) I ate some really amazing stuff (New York style pizza, chocolate cheesecake, amazing steak taco… ) that I was really craving and now I’m over it. Off plan food isn’t nearly enticing today as it has been. I am ready to eat my healthy foods again and forget about the carbs!

I am not the kind of person that is determined to get to my goal weight by a certain time. I am about 20 pounds away from where I want to be and I’m ok with that taking some time to reach. I am happy with my body right now even though I do want to lose those extra 20 pounds eventually.   I’m determined to get there but I’m not freaking out to get there by tomorrow or put any time limit on myself. I will get there when I get there. As long as I’m not out of control and I catch myself before I start really gaining, I am happy. Hopefully, I can stay on track for the next few months and reach my goal without too many more detours. Summer is fast approaching and I can’t wait to be out in the sun by the pool or the ocean and enjoying the outdoors. I want to start playing tennis again and continuing to increase my distance on my runs. Soon it will be too hot to exercise on my lunch like I have been doing but that’s ok because I can go after work when it’s a bit cooler and I won’t have to worry about getting done by a certain time. I can increase my distance to over 3 or 4 miles at a time.

I’m so much happier than I was 2 years ago at this time. Two years ago, I was dreading the summer because none of my summer clothes fit me. Even the size 26 capris from Lane Bryant were too tight on me and I felt horrible about myself. Now the size 16 capris are huge on me and I just bought a size 12 capri at Kohl’s last week that fit great. I couldn’t be happier about where I am right now and how I feel. It’s amazing what two years, a surgery and a little determination can do! And not even some pizza and a piece of amazing cheesecake can ruin that. :-)

199.8!! Almost the highest weight possible while still being in the 100s but I will take it!  Makes me happy to finally see that on the scale.  It's been about 13 or 14 years since I was this weight. YAY!

Oh and please ignore the scratches on my foot... my cat got scared when the doorbell rang the other day and decided to use my foot as a launching pad to the next room.  OUCH!

Rainy Monday morning here in Florida.  The weekend went by too fast but I had a really good time.  Friday night, as soon as I got off work, I ran to meet my friends downtown for a drink. However, I was firm that I was not going to have any alcohol... and I stuck with that! I got there around 6 and it was happy hour and they have free pizza! Could they tempt me anymore?!?! But I ordered a diet coke with lime and stayed far away from the pizza.  My husband and a few of his friends came down to meet us also and he had a few drinks.  It was good that I wasn't drinking because he had a few too many and I was the DD. :-)  After staying at the bar for a few hours, we went to a Mexican place nearby and while everyone else had burritos and tacos, I had a grilled shrimp salad and no chips.  I consider that a successful night and I still had a lot of fun. I don't need alcohol or food to have fun; I need to remember that!

I had a massage appointment Saturday and then went to the movies with my stepson's girlfriend and her mom.  Then I came home and cleaned the house and met my husband and his friend for dinner.  Sunday was a lazy day and we had some people over for dinner.  I don't entertain much because we don't have a lot of space for it but we still had a good time.

It was 80 degrees yesterday so it's starting to warm up a bit down here.  I tried on a bathing suit I bought last year and it fits... doesn't look great on me though.  I guess no bathing suit really will but it's fine.  My hips and thighs just look horrible in pretty much any bikini bottom. I like myself from my hipbones up but I've never had good legs. They are my biggest part and the thighs are always gonna be outrageous.  Even if I got down to 150 lbs, they would never look good.  Oh well, emphasize the positive and cover up the negative! 

On the running front, I've been doing pretty good.  I ran yesterday but I didn't have near enough to eat before I ran and so I got tired very quickly. It was around 2 pm and I had a small breakfast and coffee and that was it. I did as good as I could but it was rough. Plus it was super windy and warm out so I was struggling.  I don't think it's ever going to be easy for me.  I am definitely not an athlete and I don't think I ever will be.  The first minute after I start running, it's a struggle.  I then start to hit my stride and I'm ok for a bit. But then, after a few more minutes, I am struggling again.  I have to concentrate hard on my music and think about something else rather than my footsteps hitting the pavement.  I can push myself to make it through a mile or two but its not gotten to the point where I am completely comfortable. I'm not a runner but I'm gonna pretend to be as long as I can! I really want to run a full 5k but I feel it's gonna take me longer than normal to get there.  I did 2 1/2 miles once but that's as far as I've gotten. I'll just keep trying!

Today I weighed in at 202 on the dot!! That means I am officially down 160 pounds from my highest weight of 362.... and only 2 pounds away from the 100s! (For some reason, I have an aversion to calling it "Onederland". I don't know why, I just don't like the way it sounds. Like it's this magical place that will totally change me when I lose two more pounds.  I don't care if other people say it but for some reason, i don't care for it.) Anyway, I'm excited.  It's been over 12 years since I was this size and honestly, I never hoped to be here again.  My biggest concern is being able to maintain this, like I've talked about before in my blogs. I have 21 more pounds until I reach my goal of losing half my starting body weight.  But will I really be done then?  Or will that be too low to maintain?  I know I want to maintain in the 100s because I don't want to be "obese" by the BMI standards.  I'm cool with being overweight. LOL I'll wear that moniker proud!

Other than that, things are ok. My stepkids are stressing me out and my husband is traveling a lot but such is life.  I am transferring to a new manager and new team next month at work and that has me a little stressed. I want to visit my team in Augusta one last time before I leave the team so I think I'll be going the beginning of next month.  It will be nice to see all of my teammates again.  The last time they all saw me in person was September of last year, I think. Big changes since then!! It's always a nice ego boost to see everyone and have them comment on how much I've changed.  Just gotta keep on it! :-)

The scale is moving again! Thank goodness.  I was starting to think that my body was fed up with losing weight and decided that it only wanted to gain no matter what I did.  In the last week, I have been back up to 212 and now I am at my lowest of 206.4! About 25 pounds away from my new goal. I was set on only losing 175 pounds and that would put me weighing in at 187.  However, if I lose 181 pounds altogether, that will put me at 181 as my weight and then I will be exactly half of my weight that I started at. So I guess around 180 is my ultimate goal. Truthfully, I am scared that I won't be able to maintain that.  I know that sounds crazy to others because at 180, I will still have a BMI of about 26 which is still considered overweight.  However, I have a very large frame and I am one of those women that aren't meant to be skinny.  That's not sabotage or negative self-talk; I truly believe that my body was meant to have some curves. The lowest I ever weighed was 155. That was for about a minute.  I maintained at about 165 for a year or so when I was 16 at that weight. But I was exercising like a FIEND and I didn't have a period for 6 months.  I know it's hard to believe but I truly was very thin at 165. 

I actually never thought I would be this weight again.  I had hoped to get down under 250 but actually being so close to 200 is insane. I love food and I love to cook and feed others so it's hard to imagine a life without bingeing and comfort food and junk food.  But I am working on retraining myself.  Since my slipup last Saturday, I am very aware of the effects of bad eating on my body.  This entire week has really sucked and I blame it on my eating this past weekend.  I have been reading a lot about a wheat free diet, which essentially, I am on.  I don't think I have a wheat allergy, per se, but I do think I might be sensitive to it.  I know that I feel my best and my body responds best when I mainly have healthy fats and protein in my diet. Picturing living without real pizza or cheesecake seemed impossible at first but the more I think about my eating habits and my body's reaction to that crap food, the more I realize that it's not that hard to imagine. I have alternatives that I can eat to satisfy those cravings.  What I eat is totally in my power.  I don't HAVE to eat those things because they are there and they are in the universe. I don't drink margaritas anymore because the tequila makes me ill and the lime juice gives me horrible reflux.  I don't miss those at all. I need to view junk food and certain processed carbs like I do margaritas.  There are tons of other alternatives out there and I don't have to starve just because I'm not eating pizza.

Once I hit my goal weight, I still want to continue running and I want to add back some healthy carbs like beans and sweet potatoes.  I do miss those two things but want to wait to see how my body reacts to them once I am in maintenance. It's all a work in progress but I'm so excited to see the scale moving down again and being so close to my goal.  The task to lose 175 or 180 pounds seemed IMPOSSIBLE at first... It's very strange that I am this close to achieving something I never thought was possible.