Halloween Party

Hello Everyone! Sorry for the delay in posting this week. Monday was my annual Halloween Party and I was running around like the proverbial chicken for the last week. For those of you who live too far away to come to my spectacular party I will say this, it is waaaay too much work! I spend about 4 solid days coming up with all Halloween themed food and decorations. Here's a couple samples of my work.



From the top: Celery Mummies, Mummy Toes, Monster Toes, Mini Mummies, Witch's Hats, Bloody ears and Skeleton Bones.

So obviously, since I have no self-control and I was baking all week I gained another 2 lbs this week. :-) This is the one week where it doesn't really bother me because I know I deserved this gain.

Anyway, I started running again last week and I was surprised how easy it was to pick it up again. The date for my 5k is officially set for Nov 15th and I'm training hard. My goal has always been to run the whole thing without any walking. Yesterday I ran my best time yet, I managed to run for about 22 minutes before stopping. I'm at a 12 minute mile right now so I'll need to either run longer or faster. :-) Maybe both.

Hopefully this week will be a bit better than the last 2 and we can start seeing some 100's on the scale again!

Emotional Eating

My week was long. That's about the best I can say about it. I'm at 201 this morning so I gained 2 lbs this week. David started his second job so he's gone in the evening now. I've always had a problem with emotional eating and it really flared up this week. I found myself eating late at night, something I haven't done in months and months. I'm also having a hard time finding time to exercise with the new schedule our family is on. I'd really appreciate it if everyone would say a prayer for me this week, help me to get back on track.

ONE-DERLAND!

That's right! This morning......

199!

We have crossed the threshold into the 100's. I can't even describe the emotion when you first see that 1 on the scale after...well....a really long time. We still have a long way to go, but let's all take a second to relax, celebrate, and enjoy a bit of treadmill dancing.

Old Navy

All right I didn't make 199 this week like I wanted to. In fact when I weighed myself this morning I was still 201 just like last week. However I am super happy this week anyway! Want to know why?

My mom and Christy and I went shopping this weekend. We were out celebrating Christy's 20th birthday and we went to Old Navy in Casa Grande. Now I haven't tried on any clothes since I started to lose the weight. I told David that I wouldn't buy anymore clothes until I didn't have to buy plus-sized clothes anymore. I was terrified I still wouldn't fit into normal sized pants. But Christy wanted me to try some jeans on with her so I went to the back of the rack and grabbed the biggest size they had, an 18. And then I thoughy, well I've lost a lot of inches around my hips, so I grabbed a 16 too. Just in case.

We went to the dressing room and I decided to try on the 18's first. I pulled them on and buttoned them and they were HUGE on me! :) I was so excited to think that I not only was in normal sized clothes but that I wasn't even the biggest size. So, I pulled on the 16's and guess what? They were too big for me too!

That's right...I am in size 14 jeans! I was doing a little happy dance right there in the dressing room, much to the amusement of the teenage boy who was working there. Here's a pic.

I had to mess with the color so you could even see the jeans. We took the picture last night and it was a little too dark. But still...here I am in Old Navy clothes. I haven't worn jeans in over 2 years. I am super excited.

This week I want to thank Grandma and Grandpa Mace for sending in their pledge and my sister for making me try on clothes, and my mom for buying me 2 shirts to go with my new jeans. That's it for this week. Love ya all!

So Close!

Oh I am so close that I can practically taste it. This morning I weighed in at 201! Just 2 lbs away from that 199. On one hand I can't believe I'm so close to no longer being 200 lbs and on the other hand I can't believe how long it's taken me to get here! Oh well, no use crying over spilled milk.

I've been at 203 for so long (over a month now) that I was almost in shock as I stood on the scale this morning. Let's all cross our fingers that it wasn't some kind of bizarre aberration! I'm attributing the loss to the garage sale we had this weekend. Although I basically ate junk all weekend I also was carrying couches and huge boxes around too. I guess the exercise outweighed the food this week.

So now I'm up to 24 lbs lost, I'm desperately hoping to be under 200 when I post next week. I also measured myself for the first time in a month or so and I was down 4 inches from the last time I measured and down 29 inches from the beginning! That's over 2 feet...wow.

I want to thank Bill & Cheryl for sending in their pledge this week, and David R. I will be calling to cash in on those free babysitting nights! :-)

If I get under 200 this week I will definitely post a photo next week. Hope everyone has a wonderful week.

Hello Again!

Sorry about the long break there. I had a couple of really strange weeks there, weight-wise. I'm 203 this morning, which is what I was 2 weeks ago the last time I blogged. But in between now and then my weight has been up to 210 and back. I don't know how it's even possible to gain 7 pounds in 1 week; you'd have to eat an extra 25,000 calories! Which I can guarantee you I didn't! :-)

But I'm back down to 203 now and I'm determined to be under 200 lbs in the next week or two. My training has also been off, mainly because of my own stupidity. I read an article that said doing 30 minutes of jumping jacks burns more calories than 30 minutes of running. Well one night when I didn't want to train I decided to try it. What they don't tell you is that it's impossible to do jumping jacks for 30 minutes! I got to about 15 minutes and just couldn't do anymore (mind you this was about 500 jumping jacks). The next day I woke up and my calves were cramped so badly I couldn't walk! I hobbled around the house for 4 days in extreme pain and it took about 7 before I could walk normally again. So I lost a whole week of training. But hopefully we are getting back on track this week.

I want to thank Natalie, Celeste, & Kelleen for sending pledges in. I wish I could say I spent them on something fun but David's paycheck last week was calculated wrong and we didn't get as much as we usually did so I used the money to buy groceries that week. So thank you for feeding us! :-)

I hope everyone has a great week and see you next Monday!

20 lbs

Well, actually 22 lbs to be exact. That's right this week I reached my first milestone, I'm a quarter of the way to my goal. This morning the scale was at 203.



Obviously I'm thrilled this week with my progress. Thank you everyone for your support during the last couple of months. I know now that with your help and love I can do anything.

I think this is a good time to call in pledges, mainly because I don't have any clothes that fit anymore! :-) When I go running I have to be very careful, otherwise my exercise pants end up around my ankles!

The poll this week wasn't that hard apparently as most of you got it right, walking only burns about 100 calories!

Love you all and have a great week. Maybe next week we can celebrate me hitting that mystical 199!