I'm Not Just Talking Anymore!

Goals

2011-09-05T13:08:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a leaf out of kari's book and writing down some goals for this week. I've been working this side business (Tastefully Simple: www.tastefullysimple.com/web/mmiller13 ) and KICKIN BUTT with it. Makin money, building a team and having a blast!!! I earned an all expense paid trip to Cancun Mexico in April of next year. Hit me the other day that I don't want to be a fatty-fatty come April so I'd better start working on things now.

Anyway, I realize that with my TS business i'm setting goals all the time and i'm meeting or exceeding them when i do. The reason: When I have something to focus on I'm successful. Love this quote:

Obsticles are what you see when you take your eye off your goal!

I haven't been suceeding in losing weight or getting healthy because i have had no goal to look at. SO>>>> Here goes:

This weeks Goals:

#1: I will eat 5 meals per day
#2: I will drink at least 100 oz. of water everyday.
#3: I will exercise 5 times this week (30 mins minimum)
#4: I will watch 1 hour (or less) of TV each day.
#5: No Starbucks
#6: No fast food or fried food
#7: No Soda

Why:
#1: CANCUN BABY!!!
#2: I feel fat every time I look in the mirror
#3: I will have more clothes to wear
#4: I will spend the time with my daughter
#5: Because I can and I'm sick of making excuses.

One day you'll stop making excuses and when that day comes, that's when your life starts to change.

I've been Lost

2011-08-28T18:40:00.001-07:00

I know I've been MIA for a while.

I am completely not eligible to win this month so no worries... and honestly i haven't been doing well.

But I found this text in my phone that I had sent myself a while ago and I wanted to share.

"One day you run out of excuses and when that day comes, that's when your life starts to change..."

Six Days In

2011-08-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are Six days in and LOL so far I've done just about NOTHING toward this weight loss goal.

HOWEVER, things are going SOOOOOOO great in my world. I'm busy like crazy and in many ways stressed to the max. But, my new job is amazing!!!!!! I have realized more and more lately what an amazing position I've been put in. God must have some big plans for me or something because I'm brushing elbows with some very important people. I LOVE IT!

Also, my little side business is BOOMING! I recently made Team Leader with Tastefully Simple and now I'm rolling in the dough. LOL OK, so that $50 bonus check does not yet equal "rolling in the dough" but it's sure exciting to me. I've got some big goals set this month for progressing even further in my business. Any chance any of you are looking for a FUN and EXCITING way to make some extra cash for your family. Christmas is coming soon!!! Do you have a plan that doesn't include racking up your credit card bills? Just something to think about.

Anyway, I'm heading to Minnesota on Tuesday for National Conference with Tastefully Simple and I'm SOOOOOO EXCITED. Can't wait to hang out with my Taste Buds again, some of them I only get to see twice a year when we gather for a TS event.

On a weight loss note; I ended up losing like 6 pounds last month. I didn't spend any time at all doing exercise just changing some of my eating habits that I'd went back to over the last few months. I'm thrilled to death that I ended the month with a loss and I'm quite certain I'll do it again. I'm not competing any more... I mean, I'm going to participate but I'm not going to push for the prize. I'm just planning to work steadily and constantly to see a loss. There were some months when my loss was simply 1 pound and I was so proud. I'm going back to that attitude. A loss is a loss and slow and steady beats the hell out of a roller coaster ride!

Later Gaters!!!

www.tastefullysimple.com/web/mmiller13

It's a loss baby!!!

2011-08-01T19:02:00.001-07:00

Well, I didn't blog enough last month to win anything, oh and I sent in my weight LATE... I've been working such strange hours it's hard to keep on top of my game.

Had a loss this month though. First time in a while so i'm WAY WAY WAY excited about that. Hoping to post a loss this month too.

Congrats to all the winners! Great work!

wow have i been slackin!!

2011-07-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

not so much on the diet and exercise area but in the blogging... and participating in this competition area. Sorry to all of you!!! usaually i'm WAY better than this at supporting and reading blogs etc. I know we all have busy lives so i won't waste time telling you how mine is so much more busy than any of yours.

I have been doign better this month. Hoping to post a loss. I'm still not competing up to the level that I know i can.

Hopefully next month will go much better than this one.

Two years old

2011-07-12T19:01:00.000-07:00

My daughter turned 2 last weekend and we celebrated her birthday this Sunday. It was a great party with all of my family present. There have been some family feuds happening over the last year or so that have prevented some of my extended family from being in the room together but for my daughters birthday they all came showed up. All but one at least... my prayer is that she'll follow shortly.

It was SO much fun to watch my daughter turn two. To reflect on all that we've been through over the past few years and to marvel at how much my family has grown and what we've all accomplished together. With that came a reflection of where I have been, what I've been through and how much I've grown personally.

To be honest with you the over all picture is beautiful and wonderful and I've very happy about it all. In the last two years I've been promoted TWICE, started a new side business (Tastefully Simple) in which I am thriving, my husband went back to work after being unemployed and we were able to buy a new home. Our new house has been the most unbelievable gift from God... Truly a dream come true. I walk/ran two half marathons and lost TONS of weight. Those are just the BIG things, there are tons of small accomplishments that I could go on and on about but... WOW just those things are AMAZING!

Not to diminish any of my accomplishments I took some time to reflect on the things I wanted to accomplish and there were a few things that went unfinished. One of which is to lose 100 pounds. I set out a goal after my daughter was born to lose 100 pounds in a year. I didn't do it in a year. As a matter of fact I have yet to get there. I got DANG close but never did get there.

In September it will be two years from my original declaration of intent to accomplish that goal. It will be a BIG stretch to make it there by September but not an impossible feat. So, I'm bringing that goal back. Obviously I missed my one year mark but I'm gonna aim for the 2 year.

My goal is be be down 100 pounds from my post delivery weight by September.

That means I want to weigh in on September 1st at 276 pounds or less. :D

I can totally do this!...

I had better get started. LOL

2011-07-05T20:29:00.000-07:00

"I'm doing slowly what people do quickly every day... committing suicide."

I heard that on Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss.

It really struck a cord with me. I haven't gained like 20 pounds in the last six months because I was happy and thriving. I gained so much because I was punishing myself ... I've been killing myself slowly, one mouthful at a time.

Seems senseless when I think about it like that.
What would my daughter think?
What will she think if I'm not here for her later in life?
I'm being selfish!

"It's a Holiday" - the ultimate excuse

2011-06-29T21:11:00.000-07:00

Someone said to me the other day that we picked a bad time to “diet” because of the holidays.

“Seriously”, she said, “This month we have the 4th and then there is the 24th and then Labor day! That’s a lot of BBQ’s and beer to give up!”

Let’s just get it all out there people.

Here are a list of the US Holidays:

Jan – New Years Day & Martin Luther King Day
Feb – Jen’s Birthday, Valentine’s Day & Presidents Day
March - Saint Patrick's Day (oh the green beer!!!)
April – Easter
May – Mothers Day & Memorial Day
June – Fathers Day & My sisters Birthday, Karilynn’s Birthday
July – Independence Day, My mom’s Birthday, Jades Birthday and Pioneer Days (24th)
Sept – Labor Day & My Dad Birthday
Oct – Columbus Day & Halloween
Nov – My birthday, Jack’s Birthday, Veterans Day & Thanksgiving
December – Christmas Eve, My Grandma’s Birthday, Christmas Day & New Years Eve

I stuck some birthday’s in there just to illustrate a point… Everyone knows you can’t “diet” when someone is celebrating a birthday right?!?!? Let me ask you this… how many of you don’t know AT LEAST ONE PERSON who is celebrating this month? I bet if you thought about it, between work, friends and family, you could find at least 1 person each month to celebrate with.

Thus, providing us all with at least 1 day to skip the “diet” and eat cake.

Based on this calendar and the IDEA that holidays prevent us from “dieting”, it looks like the only month that I can “diet” is August because the rest of them are chuck full of good holiday, BBQ & Birthday fun!

COME ON PEOPLE!!! LET’S GET REAL!!!

First of all why are you “dieting” in the first place???
It's like Karilynn said, “Stop dieting and start living”!

As long as you are looking for an excuse to eat like crap and make poor choices you’ll find one! I hate to break it to you all but those holidays and even those birthdays are JUST ONE DAY. So even if you do choose to partake of some good old B B Q fun on the holiday LEAVE IT AT THAT!!! If you worked hard and ate GREAT (not just ok or pretty good, GREAT) six days of the week and ate like total CRAP-OLA one day a week you’d still see results!
It’s SOOOOO easy to get caught up in all of the excuses we give ourselves to make bad choices. It’s so easy to think that you’ll put it off till just after this holiday or that, till tomorrow or Monday. But after every holiday there is someone’s birthday; Tomorrow never comes and Monday you’ll just find another excuse.
(Trust me people I'm preaching to myself here)

Making change starts RIGHT NOW! The next choice you make can be a better one than the last. Don’t beat yourself up for choosing to eat at your family BBQ. Stop telling yourself that because you ate the potato salad you jacked up your “diet” and now you may as well kick back a six pack of beer.
Have potato salad just don’t eat enough for 3 people…
Have a beer but you don’t need a 6 pack.
YOU CAN DO THIS!!!

I CAN DO THIS!!!

We just have to choose to!

For those of you that remember this I wrote one year ago... I’ve had a crappy month. No excuses… it is what it is. I have not weighed in for weeks and I’m not looking forward to it either. I was trying to blog and since it wouldn’t let me log in or ANYTHING I started reading my old posts. I used to inspire people… now I find myself complaining instead of working. Falling apart instead of digging in. I feel like I’ve been fighting for so long. Not just at this but at so many parts of my life. I don’t want to fight anymore. Still, if I’m not fighting then what’s the point right? Or have I gotten it messed up in my head somehow?

Consistently Inconsistent

2011-06-19T16:31:00.000-07:00

So far in this competition I'm SUCKING IT UP BIG TIME!!! Just can't seem to stay on track. I've been up and down and all around when it comes to exercise, diet and water intake. I have been sick for a while and then out of town for a week and lots of stress coming at me from every angle. Mostly these are just excuses but they're enough right now to keep me on a roller coaster.

I'm just consistently inconsistent right now and I'm driving myself CRAZY!

12 days left in this month... let's see if i can pull out a loss shall we?

Life or Death

2011-06-14T05:47:00.001-07:00

I'm in PA right now visiting my in-laws. We came out here pretty unexpectedly when we found out my father-in-law is having open heart surgery. We decided that before all that took place it was a good idea if they met our daughter.

Monday they met with the surgeons and got less than good news. Right now his health is so poor that he's a bad candidate for surgery. All of his numbers are up and before the doctor will operate he's going to have to lose about 50 pounds. I wasn't present for the conversation but was told later that the statement was made, "lose the weight or you will die". You see without the surgery he'll die and he can't have the surgery till he loses weight. YIKES!

Since I've known him weight has been a struggle. A few years ago he lost his job and has been struggling with unemployment and his self esteem since then. As all of us know that's a bad recipe for disaster with someone that is already fighting to keep their weight down or off. I'm not sure exactly how much he's gained but it looks like it was 52 pounds TO MUCH!

We were talking last night about his diet. My husband was giving him some advice about what he should and should not be eating. I was filling him in on the tips I've learned from doing this competition thinking it would help him at least a little. But, he looked up at me and said, "I love those ideas Mindy... But I don't have any choices now. I don't GET to do this or WANT to do this. I HAVE to do this or I will die."

It got me thinking, Will a life or death diagnosis make a difference? Would it for me?

Let's face it... A lot of us are in that exact position but just haven't allowed ourselves to think of it like that. We've got; high blood pressure or high cholesterol. Diabetes or digestion issues. Stretched skin, week muscles and joints. We look in the mirror and see ourselves getting older and bigger but we struggle to make the distinction between living and dying.

So? It's got me thinking. If someone said, "You must lose the weight and get healthy or you WILL die." Would we somehow snap out of it? Would we somehow overcome the obstacles that hold us back every day? Or would we continue on, oblivious to the truth staring us in the face, pretending we'll live forever?

Setting Goals

2011-06-05T19:07:00.000-07:00

As some of you know (and some of you don't) I am an independent consultant for Tastefully Simple (For more information check out my website. ;0) www.tastefullysimple.com/web/mmiller13 ) I've been working that business for 9 months and I LOVE IT! Already I've won a 4 day trip to Cancun Mexico (all inclusive) with my sales. I had to have $18,000 in sales ($2000 per month) Jan 1st - Sept 30st. I hit the 18,000 mark last month. The number one reason that I was successful in doing so was because I set goals. Every month that I've set goals for myself in my business I have succeeded. I haven't always hit the goal exactly but I've hit more than I've missed and I've gotten darn close. One month I didn't set any goals and I didn't even clear the $2000 mark. Something that is pretty easy if I'm completely honest. My focus was nowhere AND that's exactly where I ended up.

It didn't take long to figure out what had gone wrong in my business that month. It was quite simple to see. At that point I made myself a promise to always set goals for my business: Yearly, Monthly and even weekly. So far I've had great success.

Thinking about that has made me realize that I MUST set some goals for myself in this competition. One of my favorite sayings (you'll probably hear it about a BILLION time) is "It's better to aim for the moon and miss than to aim for a cow pie and HIT IT!" SO TRUE RIGHT. One of my Tastefully Simple team mates said to me... "You know Mindy! If you aim for the moon and miss you'll still hit a star!"

I came across this document at work the other day and I loved what it said so I thought I'd share. Check it out and then if you haven't already GO SET SOME GOALS!!!

When it comes to dealing with life’s setbacks, you must step up to the plate and be proactive. Look your problem in the eye and take action.Having a plan can help you stay on track. The following tips can serve as a guide to reaching your goals:

• Be specific. When setting goals, be exact and you are more likely to succeed. For example, instead of saying you want to save money, set a specific goal to save $20 per week.

• Put it in writing. Write down what you want to achieve and post it in a visible place to remind you what you’re working toward. Use positive terms. For example, instead of writing, “I will stop eating junk food,” re-word your goal: “I will make healthy food choices.” (I love that... how often do we focus on the negative instead of the positive? I know I do ALL THE TIME)

• Set realistic goals. When you think about setting goals, make sure that they are within reach. Be mindful of your finances, schedule and other personal affairs. It’s unreasonable to expect to make big changes overnight. (I think this is so true. I also believe that you must stretch yourself when you set goals. If you only set your goals for what you know you can do easily then there is no challenge in that.)

• Develop an action plan. Create a timeline with specific steps and timing. Cross them off as you go. Sometimes watching your list get smaller can give you a sense of accomplishment and help you stay motivated. (This comp helps with this. We have an established timeline with several checkpoints. What is your monthly goal? What is your overall goal?)

•Believe in yourself. Stay positive about your progress. As the saying goes, “If you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.” (Another favorite. I've heard it, "Think you can or think you can't. Either way you're right!)

• Be flexible. Setbacks happen. Don’t give up. Try again! Your hard work will pay off! (YUP! That one's for me)

• Ask for help. If you need encouragement, don’t be afraid to ask. You’d be surprised at how supportive people can be. (Another great thing this comp does. BLOG! Not just "Hi. I'm here. Checking in." Talk to us!!! Tell us how you're doing. The good, the bad and the ugly. That's one of the reasons we're in this. To support each other along the way~)

• Reward yourself. Acknowledge your achievements, even the small ones. Reaching a goal takes hard work. Be proud of your efforts.Celebrating can mean something as simple as taking time for yourself. (Reward yourself DOES NOT mean EAT ICE CREAM! I'm just saying!)

Having a clear plan can help you weather the biggest and smallest of storms. Setting goals puts you back in charge.

A little bit about me

2011-06-02T17:09:00.000-07:00

HI! I think that most of you know me by now but I figure there is a chance that some of you may not so I thought I'd start out this competition by telling you a little about me.

My name is Mindy ;0) I'm 31 years old, married to the love of my life and have 1 little girl. My baby girl Jade is AMAZING! By far the greatest thing I've ever done.

Exactly 1 year and 11 month ago (TODAY) I had my little girl and weighed in at an astounding 376 pounds. This was me just before I gave birth:
And this was me just a short time after:
Over the course of the last two years I've competed a lot and won a little. I have had months that I lost 1 pound and months that I lost 18 pounds and did that steadily until about 9 months ago. This was me then:

In October of last year I had some personal struggles that really set me off track. Since then I have steadily gained back roughly 30 pounds. I could do the exact math but it's not that important. The point is I have gained. The good news... I'm still at a BIG loss. I'm down over 50 pounds still and looks like I'll be going down from here. The bad news... This is me NOW:

Yep! I pretty much feel EXACTLY like I look. WOW, I had NO plans to EVER post this picture before I'd stated working and actually accomplished something but here I am adding it to this post.

The thing is; this is the truth. The reality of me right now. There was a time that I would have been ashamed of this. That I would have never EVER said out loud that I was weighing in at 376 pounds or that I'm weighing in at over 320 now. The fear of the response that people may have was overwhelming. Right now, surprisingly all i feel is encouraged. LOL Who would have thought huh?

As you have seen from my last post I was unsure about this competition. Not sure if I would "win" even if I wasn't taking first place. But right now I realize that I already have. Until this moment I didn't realize how competing has already changed me for the positive. I may not be at my goal weight and I'm not even close to skinny but, look at me! I'm amazing and not ashamed of me, even in my failure and I'm way excited to realize it!

I'm not excited that I've gained. I'm mortified that I have been avoiding the scale in an effort to avoid knowing exactly how much. Even more than that, now that I know, now that I've let myself see the number I can also see it when I look in the mirror. That sucks! I wish I had seen it all along... still, I was not willing to do anything about it so it probably wouldn't have mattered.

I see now... and after this so do all of you. I promise you that when you see this picture next month it will be side by side with one that shows amazing loss. Perhaps not in scale weight but in inches FOR SURE (I'm way better at losing inches than I am losing pounds). I can't wait for this month to pass to see how they look.

I'm EXCITED! Hope you are too!

~Good luck~

Freaking Motivation.... Where are you?

2011-05-27T11:13:00.000-07:00

Warning: this blog is going to be a bunch of random thoughts all thrown down and probably somewhat negative... just gotta work through some stuff and what better way than here?!?!?!

So as most of you know Karilynn has thrown out a new competition challenge. It's really messing with my head. On one hand I TOTALLY want to compete because I'm feeling and overwhelming lack of motivation these last months and I really need something to kick my butt into gear.... on the other hand. I've got NO motivation to compete or to work or to succeed and I'm not sure the competition is enough to push me into it.

What this means: I don't want to throw away money doing something if I'm not going to do it all the way. BUT if i don't do it at all then that's even worse right? Is it worth it for some motivation to be working even if I'm not killing it and taking first place? Or will doing an OK job and not winning anything just be enough to kill whatever minor motivation signing up may bring? More importantly... if I KILL myself and work really really REALLY hard and I don't win then will that destroy my motivation to succeed for the rest of the time.

In the past competition has done all of those things for me. Fired me up and crushed me, either because I worked super hard and got no where OR I sucked it up and got no where then beat myself up because it was my own damn fault. UGH!

Anyone out there feeling my pain? Why the hell can't this whole thing be easy? Why can't losing weight be like gaining weight? Just indulge yourself in lots of fantastically flavorful fatty food that is SUPER DUPER easy and brings you an immediate false sense of happiness that only last for a minute then requires you to eat more to feel it again. LOL

WOW just typing that had me rolling my eyes and contradicting myself in my head.

BLAH! So, I guess I'm going to do this thing. I don't know what the heck will happen but I suppose working towards something and succeeding a little is better than not working toward anything and doing a really great job at it. I say it all the time to my Taste Bud's... It's better to aim for the moon and miss than to aim for a cow pie and hit it! ~Favorite saying EVER~!

Later dudes... guess I'll see you all in the comp?

Lee DeWyze - Beautiful Like You

2011-03-20T19:04:00.001-07:00

I don't know how many American Idols are out there but I was watching when last years winner Lee DeWyze performed his new single 'Beautiful Like You'. I totally fell in love with it. (Click on the title if you want to hear it for yourself)

I absolutely believe that this is a prophetic song and when I first heard it, it seemed as if it were God singing to me. That may sounds strange to some of you but... that's how I felt. Now I've listened to it several times and I intentionally listen AS IF God IS singing it to me.

I believe it's something he'd say to me, in my life, right now... maybe it's something he'd say to you as well.
I took a little liberty with the lyrics to help illustrate my point. [ie.] But here they are.
Thought I'd share:

Everybody wants to look into the mirror
and feel a little better now
And everybody wants to know there’s someone out there
Waiting for you to come around

And I wish that you could feel it [my love]
But you don’t choose to believe it
Cause I know that you can’t see it [my] way,
That way

If you could only just stop, stop, stop running
If you could only take a second to breath it [my love] in
Everything that you know would be beautiful
Like you

You know they’re never gonna stop, stop, stop [my] love
Let’s pretend that the world is waking up
Everything that we see is beautiful
Like you

Everybody wants to, tell someone their secrets
Why don’t you tell me now?
[if you would]
Well, maybe I can fix this
cause I don’t want, you to miss this [life]
and the sun is rainin down, yeah

If you could only just stop, stop, stop running
If you could only take a second to breathe it [my love] in
Everything that you know would be beautiful
Like you

You know they’re never gonna stop, stop, stop [my] love
Let’s pretend that the world is waking up
Everything that we see is beautiful
Like you

Sometimes it’s hard to be… yourself in this crazy world.
Sometimes it’s hard to breathe… yeah

Everybody wants to know there’s someone out there
Waiting for you to come around

[I am... so] Come around!

If you could only just stop, stop, stop running
If you could only take a second to breathe it [my love] in
Everything that you know would be beautiful
Like you

You know they’re never gonna stop, stop, stop [my] love
Let’s pretend that the world is waking up
Everything that we see can be beautiful
Like you

Can be beautiful
Like you
Can be beautiful
Like you….
Beautiful!

Half Way Over

2011-03-16T15:20:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it's already the middle of the month? For me this month is FLYING by! Who am I kidding? The last couple of years have flown by for me. People always told me that time passes even quicker once you have kids. I thought they were crazy or just exaggerating but I'm here to tell you, IT'S TRUE!

So, some of you may know that I jumped on the Lent band wagon and decided to see if I have the discipline enough to let something go for 40 days. Well, it turns out (so far at least) I do! :0) I was originally considering giving up sugar or bread or something like that but after reading a few post on FB about the meaning of lent I didn't think that would be enough or more accurately: the right thing for me to give up.

I am not Catholic and don't really know much about Lent if I'm honest with myself. I know only that you are to give up something for 40 days and something about not eating meat at certain times. LOL For those of you reading this that are Catholic I'm sure you're rolling your eyes at me right now. ;0) To the point: I decided to give something up and after reading some stuff about Lent and looking to Jesus while doing it I figure it's something like a 40 day fast with maybe a few extra rules. With that in mind I dug into my heart to try to find something I could give up that would truly be difficult for me to do. When I did that I realized it was more like Starbucks that was a sacrifice but going even deeper... DRIVE-THRUS!

I know what you're thinking, "drive-thrus?!?!?!?!?!" I've had several people question me about that but here's the thing. By nature, well at least lately it seems, I'm a relatively "lazy" person. Why walk inside when I can just drive up to the window. I wasn't really like that before but with the addition of my little one and my crazy busy schedule I find myself at the drive-thru a lot. Do you know how much effort and energy goes into unloading the baby and walking into Starbucks? Keeping a hold of her while I order, pay, wait for my drink and then pick it up? Then to get her wiggling body and my coffee loaded back into the car without dropping one or the other? It may seem silly but IT AINT EASY! LOL At least not when you can just zip up to the window, order, pay and receive your drink all while the baby is happily playing in her car seat.

Additionally, by making it Drive-thrus rather than just Starbucks it means I'm not hitting up any restaurants for that fast food quick fix. No gas stations for that quick soda or sweat treat. No run to the local establishment for an ice cream sundae. By eliminating drive-thrus I eliminate the ease and convince of lazy behavior.

Some have argued that it's quite stupid because if I really want then all I have to do is get out of my car and walk inside. SO TRUE! But guess what!... I haven't had any of those things. No Starbucks (or any other coffee shop), No fast food, No soda, No ice cream sundaes!

It hasn't been easy. Almost daily I'd say I'm thinking about one of those things and weighing my options. But by simply taking the convenience out of the choice it requires me to ACTUALLY think about what I'm doing. It gives me that extra minute to determine if this is something I really want to take the time, effort and energy to do AND more importantly; it gives me the time to figure out if it's something I really want to consume.

I'm not a fan of denying yourself every one of life's pleasures in an effort to lose weight. But I am a big proponent of at least affording yourself the courtesy of making an informed decision. (ie. looking at the Girl Scout Cookie box, counting the calories and then deciding if you'll eat the whole thing.) Buying on impulse, in the spur of the emotional moment so to speak, hardly ever works out in your favor.

We'll see how this 40 days goes but I'm seriously considering the possibility of giving up Drive-thrus for good. The way I see it so far, only good can come from it.

Would it help you? How often do you find yourself driving-thru for a quick fix? How much money would you save? How often would you talk yourself out of that guilty pleasure?

Just something to think about!
Be blessed!

One Week In

2011-03-06T01:08:00.001-08:00

Well here we are nearly 1 week into this months competition and i'm having mixed results. I planned to get right on track and kick some serious trash but then what happened...?....? GIRL SCOUT COOKIES!!!!

DARN THOSE LITTLE GIRL SCOUTS!
It's totally a trick. Like a month ago I ordered those darn things not thinking much about it. TEN boxes to be exact and what do you know... they arrive right when i'm ready to kick this thing into high gear. What happened after that? I had a crappy day and ate the WHOLE BOX! Yep that's right all 940 calories of freaking amazing Girl Scout Cookie Wonder.
You're probably wondering if i looked after the fact in some rash moment of feeling guilty. NOPE I looked before i popped that first cookie in my mouth. I did the math figured out the total damage shrugged my shoulders and said WHAT THE HECK! LOL And i loved ever crumb! Well needless to say after a bit of a stomach ache i pondered what'd i'd just done.

It was one of those moments where i could do one of two things... hate myself for it OR get over it. So i shrugged, put on my walking shoes and went for a walk. :0) I figured, it was not the best move i could have made but rather than dwell on it or think, "well i already ate one why not go for two?" I did what i could to counter balance the event.

I have to say I'm not feeling guilty at all.

When i give my daughter a cookie she gets SO excited. She says yum, yum, yum the whole time she's eating it. It's such a pleasure to watch her because it's obvious she's enjoying it SO much. She oo's and ah's the whole time and when she's finished she says, "Ma ma. Cookie Yummy!" and then "mo mo's?" which is what ti sounds like when she says "more?" Sometimes i'll give her another just so i can watch her eat it. Every time i do it think to myself. I can't remember what that's like. Feeling that shear pleasure that comes from eating something wonderful. That uncensored joy at the flavor. The excitement of the special treat. She doesn't know what it is to count calories or feel guilty about eating food. She just does it. But you know what else she does? When she's full, when she's satisfied, she stops eating. Doesn't matter if there are 7 cookies sitting there un-eaten. When she's at her limit she stops.

Wouldn't it be amazing if we could hold on to that? Not get food all mixed up with emotions and restrictions. Not be constantly analysing what we're eating and how it's going to effect us. more importantly. Wouldn't it be nice if when we had reached our limit we could stop?

I've decided i want to try to get back to that. I realize that i've got 31 years of mixed up emotions attached to food so it's not going to be easy but, i'm going to give it my best shot. I wan to eat food that i enjoy and not worry about the guilt. with that i'm going to stop eating when i feel satisfied. I want to re-learn how i "feel" about food.

I believe it's possible.

On a positive note. I had a belly dance performance today and at the beginning of this week i was COMPLETELY unprepared! Because of that i spent every night this week for HOURS dancing my little butt off! My calorie burn is back up! My metabolism is back up! I'm geared back up about exercise and that makes me VERY happy. I can't wait to see what next week brings.

Hope you're all doing well!!!

To Compete... or NOT Compete... This is the question!

2011-02-27T13:13:00.000-08:00

Here is the skinny girls as of right now there are only TWO of us that are eligible to win the prize for this competition. Only TWO of us. Well some of you are now wishing for a bend in the rules so that you can stay in or get back in. Quite frankly I’m kinda at a loss!!!

I know this month has had some ups and downs for us all. In fact this competition has been like that from he beginning. I was asked today if I'm going to do it again and honestly I'm not sure. It seems that no matter how simple or how complicated or how technical this rules are for this competition someone is always look for a loop hole.

I DID!

Last month when I weighed in with some freaking amazing weight loss I was pissed at myself that I hadn't met the blog requirements. I was just lucky because most of you weren't having good months and were looking forward to get some more time to work harder. I've been less successful this month yet I've met the blog requirements so I’m thrilled to death to find that I’m one of only two that are still eligible for the money. But, some of you are fighting for an opportunity to win because although you haven’t met the blog requirements you’ve managed to show some big losses.

I’ve been asked to make exceptions or extend the competition again. But it makes me wonder….

When do we stop? Do we postpone the pay off one more time and give everyone one more clean slate? OR do we weigh in now and not give credit where credit is due to those that had big losses?

When do we stop?
Next month?
Next year?
WHEN?
When do we finally pay out?
When all of us have met all the requirements and actually posted large gains so we feel worthy of winning?

Will that ever happen??????

After much discussion with Karilynn I feel as if I’m left with only one option so here it is:

Weigh in is March 1st @ 6PM

You MUST

(NO EXCEPTIONS)

Have your scale pics and full body shots to me at

mindylburton@yahoo.com

by Tuesday March 1st at 6PM!!!

If you want a shot at the fat cash! :0)

Please make sure you're wearing the same clothes that you had on in your original pics.

Although these pics will be

NEW STARTING POINT

pictures.

That’s right.

EVERYONE

in this competition has

ONE MORE CHANCE

(and I do mean ONE!!!!)

If you would like a clean slate and a chance to win this money you must

weigh in with me by March 1st at 6PM.

If at that time only Marinda and myself weigh in we will end the competition

and the money will be split 70/30.

If however, any of you want a chance to take the money you must also weigh in.

We are starting over.

Starting from scratch.

Staring again!

This means. Any weight you’ve lost or gained the last two months does not count for you or against you. We will all be starting over from March 1st and weighing in the final weigh in on April 1st at 6PM.

Competition rules are the same.
NO PILLS!

(if we find out about ANYTHING you’re OUT!)
NO FAD DIETS!

(if I hear about ANY fad diets… you’re OUT!!!)
YOU MUST BLOG 4 TIMES IN MARCH

(if you don’t… YOU’RE OUT!)
YOU MUST HAVE NO MORE THAN

10 DAYS BETWEEN BLOGS!

(you know what I’m gonna say. LOL)

~Blog post will be determined by the date stamp of each blog~

NO EXCEPTIONS!!!!!

NO STARTING AGAIN!!!!!

NO EXTENSIONS!!!!!!

THIS IS THE LAST CHANCE

If you want this money, you want the glory, you want the opportunity this is it.

If you have any questions or problems getting your pics to me please call or text me by 5PM so that we can figure out an alternative.

The object for the weigh in this month is a roll of toilet paper! LOL

Just pulled that out of my ear.

FYI: ALL OF YOU have told me what your current weight is. You must weigh in on March 1st within 3 poiunds of that weight to be elligable. No putting on ankle weights to tip the scales in your favor. LOL

GOOD LUCK!

People Make Excuses, Not Decisions

2011-02-23T21:17:00.000-08:00

Wow! So... the last few weeks have TOTALLY sucked! I'm getting my butt handed to me at work, my daughter has been SICK SICK SICK. I'm tired and run down and frustrated. I haven't seen the inside of a gym or felt a track or treadmill under my feet for DAYS (who'm I kidding... it has been weeks) To top all this wonderful off I got hit with a rocking migraine today and I'm praying to God that I did not get whatever it is my daughter has been fighting off. I have so much on my plate tomorrow at it's almost scary and I should have been in bed an hour ago. BUT, I find myself sitting in front of the computer typing this blog instead.

I have been trying to come up with a great blog about something I heard but until tonight I just didn't seem to have it in me. Truth is I'm EXHAUSTED right now so I may still just sound like a mumbling idiot but I guess that's what you all get for reading what is basically just my journal. LOL... I digress.

So here it is. I jumped on the scale today and it would be fair to say I’m less than satisfied with what I saw. I'm frustrated that I had such a rockin month last month and this one has been pretty much a FLOP. (Especially since I would have almost certainly have taking the cash on last months competition and this one is turning out to actually be a challenge for me... probably not the point but, there it is anyway.) As I stepped off my scale shaking my head trying to figure out what the heck I was going to do now I heard myself say, "I don't know what to do!" (yes it came out in that whiny poor picked on me voice that we often use when we're feeling all bummed and stuff.)

Almost as soon as the thought crossed my mind I heard this little statement in my head,

"People make excuses, not decisions."

I know! Totally worth chewing on right? I was having this amazing conversation with a good friend the other day and he said that to me. It's so true. We spend our lives making excuses don't we? "I couldn't go to the gym because..." or "I didn't stick to my diet because..." or "I didn't finish that assignment/job/task because..." How often do we say, "I chose not to go to the gym today." or "I chose to eat off menu today." or "I'm sorry sir, I chose not to do that."

We don't say stuff like that because??? Why? I don't know... maybe because society has taught us that we MUST have an excuse for EVERYTHING. How many of you can't say NO? If someone were to come up to you and say, "Hey! Can you come over and help me move on Saturday?" How many of you could say, "No" and leave it at that? When they ask, "Why?" How many of you could say because I choose not to".. ? Can any of you? NO WAY!!! We'd say, I can't cause I've got this happening or that happening or blah blah blah." Why? Why can we not just make a decision, and live with the choice that we make? Because that person would what? Not like us anymore? If that's true then they probably didn't like you much to begin with. So why is it so hard to make a decision?

I choose not to go to the gym.
I choose to eat this chocolate chip cookie.
I choose to not eat chicken again for-like-ever!

Sure, those choices have consequences. But at least I'll be facing those consequences head on and saying. Yep, I gained 10 pounds because I made those choices. Not just making a thousand excuses about the thousand excuses I made to not do the things I said I’d do.

I don't want to make excuses anymore.

I'm haven't lost weight this month because I have made a thousand excuses not to work on that part of my life instead of making one decision each day, each meal, each hour if that's what it takes. Because really there is only one ultimate choice to make. I choose to make me a priority. No longer will I make an excuse to explain away the fact I am not a priority in my own life.

I choose me.

So, here’s the reality of that statement… at least for me, in my own life. I can not do everything. I’m fighting tooth and nail to lose scale weight and losing sight of what is really important to me. My health. I'm tired of being disappointed by a number which leads me to a bunch of excuses and even more frustration. It's a vicious cycle and I choose not to do it anymore.

Last year although competing (more for the support than for the money) I was working toward a goal that was not connected to my weight loss. I’m revisiting those goals that I have made this year, walk/running 1000 miles and running at least 7 miles of my half marathon. My first is June 11th. That’s coming soon so I’d better get working on it. Those are the things I’m going to be focusing on.

I am not going to focus on losing weight anymore. I choose to focus on strength, distance and speed. I think the weight will follow. I choose to throw that damn scale out the window. I will not longer be a slave to a number.

Starbucks and Chocolate Chip Cookies

2011-02-15T20:45:00.000-08:00

Why is it when I'm trying to do my best all I want is Starbucks and Chocolate Chip cookies? There must be some chemical imbalance to explain it... some synapse misfiring or SOMETHING that means more than I'm weak.

Have you ever heard some say, "she's looking at you like a fat girl looks at chocolate cake"? You know... she's looking at you like you're finger licking good! Or she's looking at you like you're something sweat to eat. For me it would be she's looking at you like she looks at a triple grande White Chocolate Mocha from Starbucks.

I love Starbucks. Way to much. My mom got me one of those single serve coffee dispensers and although it has helped reduce the number of times I'm indulging in my Starbucks treats it has not stopped it all together... If only Starbucks got together with Keurig and made K-Cups. Hm? Maybe they have!?!?!?!?!? I'd better get online and check.

Did you know that McDonalds has some of the best chocolate chip cookies around? Hm? Do you? Well it's true. When I was pregnant I went through a chocolate chip cookie phase. It was short lived because Chocolate gave me all kinds of heart burn but, I had one none the less. It was then that I realized these warm chewy-gooey treats were available. Day or night, rain or sun... The golden arches have at the end of them some chocolaty goodness. I love that goofy clown.

Do you know what's better than either of them?!?!?!?! It's the combination. A triple Grande white chocolate mocha with warm chewy chocolate chip cookies is simply delightful!!!

No reason for this blog other than trying to convince myself I don't need either right now.

IT'S NOT WORKING!

Guess I'll go to bed instead.

Good night

A Hiccup

2011-02-06T17:34:00.000-08:00

This last week at work has been MORE than stressful. I've been tasked with a whole bunch of new work to do and I found myself spending most of the week frustrated and exhausted. In addition to that the extra work kept me from my much needed stress relief/gym time. One of the amazing things about working up on base is that they allow us 3 hours per week to exercise. I've been taking advantage of this time for the last little bit and I'm pretty sure it's one of the major reasons, not only have I been able to lose what I have but it's also helped me keep a level head. With that precious time gone all of that level headedness is going out the window.

For those of you that have been following my blog... or my life you know what that looks like...

YIKES!!!!!

Well, This week I'm determined to get back to the gym. If it means I've got to go into work early and use my own time I've got to get there. I just can't wait till the weather warms up and I can start running outside with Jade. Today was SOOOOO beautiful she and I spent about an hour just playing outside in the sunshine. It was still cold though and her little nose turned bright red before we got inside.

ANYWAY, Overall I'm not doing bad. Not busting bum like I was last month. Maybe the idea that I'm ahead has made me complacent? I think that's a bad thing... So I guess I'll step it up this week.

Later dudes! LOL

Competition Extension

2011-02-01T18:33:00.001-08:00

You all know by now that we're extending the competition end date. The reason for this is there was a lot of talk about not doing very well and wishing there were more time to be had. LOL Although I didn't make my goal of 20 pounds I am VERY proud cause I got VERY close! I'm 15.6 pounds down to be exact! WHOOP!

I have to say that there was a week in there that I lost almost nothing and was getting VERY frustrated cause I thought I was going to be stuck FOREVER. But I kicked my diet into high gear and got moving again. :) I'm really proud of myself for not giving up or giving in.

Since we've decided to extend the competition I'm giving everyone a clean slate. Other than the weigh in amount that last month is over. Starting today we're starting fresh. What does that mean exactly? Well, if you haven't blogged because you didn't think you'd win so you gave up... START TYPING! If you stopped working hard for the same reason... START WORKING!

You've all got 4 more weeks to kick it into high gear and make your goals. I'm pretty sure I've got the upper hand at this point. I DARE YOU TO BEAT ME!!! :P You can all do math and I'm pretty sure you can figure out what percent I'm down and work to get there. I have to lose 2 times what you all have to lose to get to the same place so you can catch up if you try.

I know this month is going to be great! We got this ladies... Get up and move your butts! LOL

Blog counts start now! So, just to make sure everyone is on the same page. You must blog at least 4 times this month with no more than 10 days in between entries. My goal is to do what I used to do and blog every Sunday. For me picking a day and doing it that day every week works best. Put it on your calendar or whatever it takes. I wanna pay out some dough for some serious percentage of weight loss... So get 'er done!

(PS. One of our contestants didn't pay in so the cash at the end is $100 distribution will be in the same percentages)

Had to blog...

2011-01-23T18:06:00.001-08:00

I started this blog on this day and just never hit the send button. Not sure why exactly. I've been having a really hard time getting to a computer to get this done. The computer at my house is ridiculously slow and it ends up just making me mad. Bought a new one for my husband for Christmas but we haven't taken the time to hook up the router etc. so that it will work with the Internet. Sounds like a lame excuse huh?!?!?! Well, there you go.

Anyway, my blog entry went something like this:

I'm kicking butt and taking names! I had a little hiccup where i wasn't losing at all and I was getting frustrated...

That's not all I got down but I'm going to incorporate the rest into my next blog... SO, see you there!

At least I did… At least I didn’t…

2011-01-20T09:06:00.000-08:00

I was on Facebook the other day (you gotta love facebook… lol) and in my news feed I saw a conversation between some old friends of mine. I knew these guys from my high school days when I was crazy enough to think I could be a skater. YIKES! Ah… the good ol days! LOL Anyway, the comments said this, Keegan: “Brit Gunderson or Danny Coleman, what was so bad about saying at least?” After some digital laughter (hahahahaha) Danny said this, “I think it’s cuz you didn’t give it your all and giving yourself an out by saying ‘at least I…” Brinton followed up with this, “It’s an automatic excuse!!! At least I didn’t fall… at least I didn’t bleed… but the bottom line is YOU DIDN’T DO WHATEVER YOU WERE TRYING TO DO!”

I’m not really sure I need to make too many comments about this. If reading this hit home for you like it did for me than you can probably stop reading right here and just reflect on your own “at least’s”. But, if it didn’t, or you’re just curious here’s my ten cents opinion about the subject.

I’ve made it no secret that I spent the last few months making stupid choices. I realize now that I’ve been saying “at least” a lot! “At least I didn’t do drugs; at least it was 20 and not 40” And so on and so forth.

I also find myself saying it even now; now that I’m back on track. I didn’t do the 6 miles I planned today but “at least” I did 4. I wanted to get to the gym 5 times this week but at least I got there 3 times. I wanted to be perfectly on menu but “at least” I did 6 out of 7 days.

This has got me thinking!

I am normally one to encourage people to focus on the good things they do. Yeah you wanted to go 5 days but look, you went 3! That’s great! Focus on that and make a goal to do better next week. I still think there is value in that because I think it is better to focus on the good that you’re doing rather than the bad especially if looking at the bad is going to bum you out and cause you to make even worse choices. I know for me, starting out, I had to do that a lot. I had to praise myself for every accomplishment, even in its smallest measure, because if I didn’t I would get discouraged and spiral farther and farther away from my goal.

But I find myself asking if I need that now?

Do I need to focus on the small accomplishments and dismiss the fact that I didn’t do what I planned to do?

No, I don’t!

I’ve been at this game long enough to look honestly at what I’ve been doing and what I’m doing wrong. I know what my capabilities are and I know what my limits are. I know how to set appropriate and obtainable goals; goals that will stretch me just a little for that week. So, as far as I’m concerned I’m done with “at least”. When I don’t accomplish the goal I set for myself I’m not going to make excuses. At this point I’m not helping myself at all by doing this.

Every time I excuse myself from doing “great” by accepting my “Ok” I sell myself short. Every time I excuse myself from doing my “best” by accepting or kidding myself that I’m doing “better” I cheat myself out of an opportunity to learn and grow. Every time I kid myself, lie to myself, lie to someone else, exaggerate or under exaggerate what I have done or haven’t done I am holding back my true potential.

I’m done denying myself my true potential.

I will not hide behind my “at least I did”… or “at least I didn’t”…

From now on if I set a goal and do not accomplish that goal I will not list all of the reasons it was ok. I will not whip out the “at least” and rationalize it away. From now on I am going to acknowledge my shortcomings and my successes without lying to myself, without any excuses.

Bottom Line: If you find yourself saying “at least I…” You did not do what it was you were planning to do! You did not accomplish your goal. You did not follow through. You did not live up to your full potential. Don’t beat yourself up about it but don’t lie to yourself about it either. If you find yourself saying “at least I…” you are selling yourself short and you deserve better.

You deserve the best.

The FAT me

2011-01-09T18:01:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to think of something to blog about and I have just felt as if I have nothing to say. "I'm like speechless. I have no words. That never happens to me... words are my life!" (Can you name that movie?) Anyway... The other day I was texting a friend of mine about my month so far I had the big EUREKA moment. Here it is:

I have said that I've gained weight since the last competition but I've been a little tight lipped to most about just HOW MUCH it is because I was feeling all weird about it. It's 20 pounds. But I've come to realize that although admitting this out loud is disturbing it is also somewhat liberating too.

The admission of this truth brings with it the truth that I am back over 300 pounds. Something I swore I would NEVER do again. Yet here I am, 10.8 pounds over the BIG 300 to be exact. That's a lot. My goal for this month is to lose 20 pounds. The idea that doing this will just undo the damage I've done by being completely stupid for the last 3 months kinda makes me sick. BUT it also kinda makes me happy too. I know weird, right? Well here's the thing. Before now that would seem like something impossible. Something unachievable. Something overwhelming. Something that I COULD NOT DO... Before I would have been so utterly depressed by the fact that I had gained that weight and I would have beat myself up about it for days, weeks... even months. All the while gaining more and more and more.

But that was BEFORE.

I don't know exactly when this mind set changed, all I can say is sometime in the last 1.5 years it did. And now, I'm happy because I know that I CAN do it. It may take a month to undo the last 3 months of bad choices but it's not going to take a year. Even if it took me 3 months to undo I know now that I can do it.

I still have within me that feeling of shame, of guilt. That feeling in me that somehow if I say it out loud to the world (or at least to those of you that are reading this now) if I admit that I messed up and just how bad, that you'll be disappointed in me. I still have that nagging feeling that I'm disappointed in myself. Those feelings have been such an integral part of my life for so long I don't know if they'll ever go away completely. I think that even if I made it to my ULTIMATE goal weight I'd still fight those feelings every time I gained even 5 pounds.
Being fat, gaining weight, fighting the "endless battle" of losing weight, that's who I've been for as long as I can remember.

But guess what! All tied up in that same string of emotions I also now have hope, strength, determination and knowledge. I have a knowledge that if I just set my mind to it, do the things I now know I CAN do... 20 pounds is a piece of cake! I'm serious. A piece of cake. I know now that I can lose weight. I know now that I can lose 97 pounds because I have done it before. I know that I can do even better than that. I know that I posses the skill, knowledge and strength that it takes. Sometimes, in the midst of life, I forget. Or I start to doubt myself and wonder if I can. But that's just the old me, the insecure me, the FAT me talking. But now, that person doesn't exist anymore.

I'm not saying I'm skinny, that'd just be stupid. I'm saying that I no longer question my ability to fight this fight. More importantly, I no longer question my ability to win. I can do this!

When I did my first half marathon I honestly did not know if I could do it. That was one of the most challenging things I have ever put myself through. Once I crossed that finish line something in me was changed forever. When I did my second half marathon, although I had not been training and was not prepared, I was able to finish because I had done it once before.
I KNEW I could do it. That knowledge was all I needed to get me through.

We hear it all the time, "mind over matter".

One of the truest statements ever uttered.

Our minds are so powerful.

If I can quiet that Fat me in my head. If I listen to what I know,

to what I believe to be true,

not what I fear,

then I can do anything.

If you can just get past that part of your mind that doubts it,

you can do anything too.

I can do this. I KNOW I can.

(whatever it is)

So can you!

2011-01-07T10:16:00.001-08:00

I’ve been trying to post this blog for a couple of days but I’ve been having some technical difficulties with my computer at home. Hopefully they will be fixed shortly. For the competition we officially have six participants. They are Jen, Ketti, Mindy (me), Karilynn, Marinda and Lisa. Links to their blogs are in my blog list to the left of this post. I hope that you will all add them to your blog list and be as supportive as possible. (I’m still waiting on a couple of checks so I’m hoping that those of you that said “It’s in the mail!” were not mistaken, or lying or whatever. ;0)

GET ME YOUR MONEY!!! YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!

It looks like we’re all working to take of some holiday weight and I’m EXCITED to see the results at the end of the month. Good luck to all of you! Although I look forward to kicking all of your trash I’m hoping you’re all doing great so far.

I am not Wonder Woman... Who knew?

2010-12-30T16:01:00.000-08:00

I realized a few things about me this last little while and I thought I would share:

1) I AM NOT Wonder Woman, or Super Woman, or Super Girl or a super hero of ANY KIND! (Seriously!!! Who knew?!?!?!?!?!?!) It turns out I’m only human. I know now that it is because of God and God alone that I am still standing after the last few months. For most it will come as no surprise but I’ve been having a rough time for a while now. But finally, really, for real, I feel like I’m breaking free from all of it. Thank God for His grace!

2) I have gained WAY to much weight over the last few months and GET THIS: I’m ok with it. I’m not proud of it. I’m not excited about it. But I am OK with it. So this is HUGE in my book. Before I would have definitely beaten myself up over it. But what would be the point? It would do nothing other than bum me out and make me want to give up on myself… that leads me to number 3.

3) I will not give up on myself! So I had a few bad months, don’t we all? The point is that it wasn't a few bad years, or decades. It was a few bad months and I’m moving forward again. The difference now is that I know I can do this! I can succeed at losing weight and getting fit. I can live a positive healthy lifestyle. I’ve come so far since my daughter was born and I’ve learned so much. What a fantastic ride2010 was. But I gotta admit, I’m thrilled for it to be over.

Hello 2011! I just know, together, you and I are going to be amazing!!!!

4) Setting goals is a great idea, but writing them down is even better. According to a Harvard Business School study, written goals can translate into earnings of 10 times more than those who fail to establish goals or put them in writing. I love this quote by Mark Victor Hansen. He said, “By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you MOST want to be.” Have you written your goals down lately? What do you want to do with 2011? I’m not talking about New Year’s Resolution (you know those things we talk about, then give up on after about a week!) I’m talking about REAL goals. What do you want to be? Where do you want to be? How are you going to get there? They say the journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step. That’s so true! But, consider how valuable it will be to have a good road map to follow!

Here are a few of my goals for 2011: Some of these may seem like vague statements but I’ve got smaller goals set to accomplish each one.

Personal:
1) I will renew and strengthen my commitment to God.
2) I will renew and strengthen my commitment to my husband.
3) I will renew and strengthen my commitment to myself!
4) I am going to complete at least 2 half marathons.
a. 1 of them I will run at least 7 miles of.

5) I am going to walk/run 1000 miles in 2011
5) I will lose 50 pounds.
6) I will work harder to become completely debt free.
a. I will not purchase ANYTHING on credit, for ANY reason.

My Tastefully Simple Business:
1) I will push as hard as I can for the first 90 days of 2011.
2) I will book a minimum of 10 parties for the months of January, February and March.
a. I will have a minimum of $300 dollar average per party.
b. I will have a minimum of $4200 in retail sales for January, February and March.
c. I will work to book 2 parties from every party that I have.
3) I will sign at least 6 new consultants to my team and become A Team Manager.
4) I will help my new consultants sign at least 2 new consultants each.

Career:
1) I will promote to my GS-9 as quickly as possible. (January 2011)
a. I will earn my promotion
2) I will end 2011 with 100 hours of annual leave.
3) I will earn 2 monetary awards by contributing above and beyond my job requirements.
4) I will prepare myself to advance to a GS-11 in 2012

And those are just a beginning!

Weigh In

2010-12-26T17:00:00.001-08:00

For those of you that would like to join my mini comp the weigh in/photo object is a

Christmas Ornament!

If you're new to the online competition world see my previous blog and check out the rules. Basically when you weigh in you have to have the date (either on your digital scale or on a piece of paper next to it) and a Christmas Ornament in the picture. This just helps with the honesty factor. If you have questions text me or comment here. :0) So far we've got 5 people in the competition including Karilynn~ YAY! Karilynn of course is the one that inspired me to do this thing in the first place. She's amazing, check out her blog, there is a link for it to the left of this post.

Hope everyone had a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS! can't wait to start getting your weigh in pics etc. Happy New Year too~

Mini Weight Loss Comp... interested?

2010-12-22T20:19:00.000-08:00

I don't know about all of you but I've been slacking... BIG TIME!!! I've recently put on more pounds than I'd like to admit and it's time to

STOP THE INSANITY!!!!!!!!!!

(thank you Susan Powders)

So here's what I propose... A mini competition to send the holiday season (and pounds) packing!

Rules :

I thought about writing everything out but let's face it! There is no sense in messing with PERFECTION so instead I'm advising you all to see the Rules of the previous competition HERE (thanks Karilynn!!!) The rules for this competition are the same with 2 LITTLE differences. No Boys (SORRY BOYS) and 100 word blog minimum. (Or dang near that anyway. I HATE reading like 2 sentences because you're to lazy to actually blog) LAME. We're going at this for 1 month. You can spend a little time typing. :0)

Ok, So it's a 1 month, 1 week, 1 shot deal.
Buy in is 20 bucks.. I accept Cash, Check, Bank Transfer or Credit Card (I will be using my Pro Pay Account so you'll have to call me with the CC information, message me on facebook or best of all TEXT ME!!! If you don't have my cell number, find someone that does.)

Prizes will depend on how many people buy in:
65% goes to 1st place.
25% goes to 2nd place.
10% goes to 3rd place.

Competition starts December 27th. I thought about January 1 but... WHY WAIT??? If you want to join the competition you can weigh in any time between Dec. 27th and Jan 1st since weighing in later is actually a disadvantage I figured it wouldn't matter to those that want to get started right away. All money and pictures will have to be emailed to me at mindylburton@yahoo.com on or before January 1st at 6PM.
The competition ends February 1st at 6PM. All pictures will have to be in my inbox by then. Winners will be announced VIA facebook, blog and text message on that day. (Continuing in February will be decided toward the end of January and will only happen if there is an interest in continuing. The buy in and all applicable information will remain the same.)

I think that about covers it. But I do reserve the right to add anything I've forgotten to mention. *wink wink*

SO? YOU IN???

If so text me and let's get this party started!

Inspired by the people i've inspired...

2010-11-11T10:47:00.000-08:00

I ran into an old friend at work last week. As we were walking into our training class she told me she had lost 72 pounds. It was so obvious she had, because she is looking great. I asked her what she was doing and she said, "Three things: I don't eat bread, I don't eat potatoes and I don't drink calories." She said it had taken her about a year but she'd been consistently losing. I told her that was fantastic! I think that is the perfect way to do it.

She looked at me and said, "Well, you totally inspired me!" I thought my jaw would hit the floor... ME? Then she proceeded to tell me. She had lost about 20-30 pounds and then she got an email from me. (I had NO IDEA what email she was talking about... I don't remember ever sending her one.) She said that when she got my email "the one with the pictures of me" she thought to herself. If Mindy can do it, I CAN DO IT!

I realized finally what email she was talking about. Sometime about 5-6 months ago I had sent out an email to some of the girls I was on a Party Committee with. We had been talking about my weight loss progress so I sent them all my progressive pics (the ones seen at the top of my blog). I really didn't even realize that Francine had been on the recipient list of that email and shortly after that we had our event and I haven't seen her since.

I was amazed! I've had people tell me that they love reading my blog. That I've got a way with words and know just what to say to inspire them. I've had some, let's call them "followers" tell me they've lost ten pounds here or there... which is FANTASTIC... because of my support. But Francine, she has lost over 40 pounds and attributes it to me inspiring her to keep on losing. WOW!!!

I'm completely inspired by the people I've inspired. That conversation sparked a fire in me and I'm now filled again with the desire to make progress. Not in 1's and 2's but REAL progress. So, I'm back at it! No competitions, no prize money at the end of the month. Just the satisfaction of knowing that what I am doing is not only going to change my life but has the potential to change the lives of others. Being successful is awesome in it's own right but if I can inspire just one person, that's amazing!

So, Thank You Francine. :0) Thanks for the inspiration to keep pressing in and moving forward. I hope that you'll continue to as well.

Also, Thank You to all of you that have been here with me on this whole journey.
Amy, Brenda, Caron, Rob, Tim... You're all really great supporters! I couldn't do it without you.

Weigh in... or not

2010-11-01T19:00:00.000-07:00

SOOOOOO glad karilynn spaced the weigh in cause I DID TOO!!! Texted her about 6:05PM saying OH CRAP! Guess i'll weigh in tomorrow then.
later!
mindy

Gettin Skinny

2010-10-25T20:58:00.000-07:00

We were at church the other day and our pastor was talking about vision. He used an example made my another pastor and it really hit home for me... it went something like this:

It's vision that drives us. Vision that gets moves us into the future. For example, when a fat person decides they want to lose weight if they're to be successful they will envision themselves fit. The day after that first work out when they are so sore they can barely walk it will be that vision that gets them out of bed and back to the gym. That vision that will help them to make good food choices and to push through. That vision will drive them through every obstacle if they can just get it and hold onto it. If they focus on that vision of themselves as a fit person they will inevitably become a fit person.

It is IMPOSSIBLE for a fat person to get skinny simply by hating being fat.

Focusing on a negative will NEVER yield positive results.

(for the record: I've totally forgotten the image i had envisioned for myself. But I'm working on building an even better one... )

2010-10-17T14:41:00.000-07:00

Bet you thought i forgot to blog huh? I didn't, just didn't post it.
I'll add the original content to my new blog today.

Layton Half Marathon

2010-10-10T19:26:00.000-07:00

I did it!!!
Saturday was the Layton half Marathon and I actually did it!!!

Here are some of my thoughts and experiences along the way:

Mile 1: "Sweet lovin... Only one mile done!?!?!?!?! UGH! Why the heck did I even show up for this?"

Mile 2: I pulled over to fix my socks... a couple of girls, Melissa and Alicia, thought something was wrong and stopped to check on me. I walked with them for a mile.

Mile 3: "Ladies, I need to kick this in gear. Catch up with me." :0) and I started to run in intervals.

Mile 4: "Holy shit! Mile 4? Really? I've still got 9 miles to go. My feet are hurting, I'm bored and 13.1 miles is to much time to be in my own head!" ......
Then I started doing the math. This 1/2 was an out and back course. We went out 6.55 miles, turned around and came back in. I was 4 miles out and there was nothing to do but turn around. I realized I was almost half way there. "May as well just keep going."

Mile 5: Alicia decided to ditch Melissa and she caught up with me. She was fantastic. Very upbeat and fun to chat with. The farthest distance she had ever walked up to this day was 4 miles. I thought she must be crazy but I knew she's make it through. The time with her passed quickly and it was fun to have someone to push to the half way point with.

Mile 7: Melissa hooked back up with Alicia and her pace was not quite as quick as ours so Alicia slowed to walk with her. I again said good bye and started running my intervals.

Mile 8: (or somewhere around there) I heard someone shout my name from behind me, "MINDY MILLER!!!" I looked over my shoulder to see Devin, my trainer, running up behind me. She was running the full marathon. It was awesome to see her. It inspired me to run a little farther. :0)

Mile 9: "I CAN NOT do this! What the hell was I thinking? I'll never make it"... My feet at this point were aching. I have this GIANT blister developing on the ball of my foot right under my toe. HOW THE HELL DOES THAT HAPPEN??? It was getting cold and the worst part of all, I was stuck in my head again. UGH!

Mile 9.5: Some lady on the side of the road carrying a baby started walking with me. She said she could tell I was struggling and asked if she could walk with me a while. She was an older gal and there to support her two daughters that were walk/running the race as well. I figured out who they were and told her they were behind me. She said she was going to walk to her car and drive to try and find them. She walked with me for over half a mile. Chatting and smiling and super encouraging. She had lost 45 pounds training to run a half marathon. We talked a bit about our weight loss journeys. She was walking pretty quickly and pushed me through that portion of the race. It was really amazing! I wish she could have walked with me to the end... I wish I knew her name cause I'd send her a thank you note or something.

Mile 10: A 16 year old kid who was running his first full marathon stopped running. He was totally fatigued, cramping and completely uncertain if he would make it. We started chatting for a bit. At first he kept pace with me but soon began to fall back and I wasn't walking that fast. I looked over my shoulder and said, "Hey, I know you've gone like 3 times farther than me at this point. But if my fat butt can keep up this pace you sure as heck can too! :D And I gave him a big cheesy smile. He picked up his pace and in about a quarter of a mile he started running again. His dad, a 6 time marathon runner, winked at me and said thank you. He yelled, "We'll see you at the finish line." I waved, "You'll be waiting for a while! Don't forget, YOU CAN DO THIS!!!"

Mile 11.5: Final aid station. "THIS FREAKING SUCKS!!!!" At this point it was a "gradual" incline to the finish line. "GRADUAL INCLINE MY ASS!!!" Obviously the person that mapped this route has never actually done a marathon. "I freaking hate that person"

Mile 12: At this point EVERYTHING hurts. I am completely out of all reasons to go on. I know there is nothing to do but keep walking. There was no one at the finish line to meet me. No one to come and pick me up. No options but to keep walking. So, I started praying. I said something like, "Jesus, you've got to help me through this. Cause I don't think I can do this alone." Then I started to cry. Not just small tears slowly dripping down my face or anything like that. The loud sobbing, gasping cry that comes when you're really, really broken. In that moment that I asked God for help I thought to myself, "Why would he help me? I've done NOTHING for him lately." But, you know what, that is not what made me cry. It was was the realization, in that moment, that it didn't matter that I had done nothing for Him. I didn't have to earn his love. He'd help me simply because he loves me. Had I forgotten that these last few months? I need to get out of my head.

I pulled myself together and kept walking.

Mile 12.75: I can see the finish line. It's SOOOOO close but SOOOO far away still. Every step is agony. I really just want to sit down. There was no adrenaline rush this time. No big finish. Only the desire to sit down. I kept walking.

The Finish Line: I didn't even attempt to run over the finish line this time. I looked around at the crowd expecting NO ONE to be there to cheer me on. They announced my name and I gave two big thumbs up. Then to my left I heard someone shout my name and looked up. There was the 16 year old and his dad. They had ACTUALLY waited at the finish line to cheer me on. Then, from the other side, again I heard my name. There was the mother that had walked with me. They were all clapping and cheering and shouting my name.

HOLY crap...I totally didn't expect that!
Here come the tears again!

Finally, I crossed the finish line and they put the metal over my head. I must have looked like hell, or maybe it was the tears, cause someone from the medic tent rushed up to me to see if I was OK. I just laughed. "I'm doing great now!" From be hind me I heard Alicia's name. I turned around to watch her cross the finish line and cheered her through. She said she had tried to catch up with me but couldn't pull it off. We stood there together high fiving each other and cheering on the other runners. About 5 minutes later Melissa crossed the finish line too.

I hobbled to my car and drove home. I know, anti-climatic huh? Still, I'm pretty freaking proud of myself for pulling it off. My official time was 3 hours 52 minutes. That's 21 minutes longer than my last race (and not as good as i thought when I finished) but under my 4 hour mark. Last time I had Jessica right there with me to push me through. Karilynn was there for the last mile of the race. My mom, sister, husband and daughter were there to cheer me over the finish line. This time, it was just me.

I'm WAY proud of myself for for showing up and even more proud for finishing. I had a thousand reasons to not even show up that day. But, as a smart woman once said, make a list of all the "reasons" you can't do something; then throw them away cause they're all just excuses anyway!!

If you wanna do it. You just have to do it!

I stopped trying...

2010-10-03T18:39:00.000-07:00

SO I was talking to Karilynn the other day about my month. Thank heaven I only gained .2 lbs. this month. The truth is though that I actually gained like somewhere between 7 and 10 and then lost it again! YIKES! Still, at least I pulled my head out enough to get it back down before weigh in.

So this is where I am. I am about 2 lbs up from my lowest weight in this competition. That means I've got to lose those 2 lbs. plus more to even start getting credit for the work I do. I want to say THIS IS MY MONTH... but who the hell am I kidding? I've totally stopped trying.

I have a list of reasons that I didn't do well this month... stress, work, moving, blah blah blah... the truth is. I'm sure I could weave a tail of struggles and distress and many of you would say... at least you are maintaining... it could have been worse. That may be true but want to know what's even more true than that?!?!?!?!?!

I STOPPED TRYING!!!

For every lame ass excuse I've got for not doing well I've got an equally or greater reason for doing better. For every poor choice I made when I ate, I gave up a good one. For every hour I sat on the couch instead of running on the treadmill, for every drink I had, cigarette I smoked, stupid piece of crappy food I put in my mouth; I have an hour that I could have been cooking good food, walking with my daughter, losing some stinking weight and inches!

SERIOUSLY!?!?!?!?!

I told Karilynn the other day that I'm looking for that "THING". You know that elusive "THING" that give your motivation to do the "HEALTHY" deal. I realized yesterday; that "thing" is like falling in love. It’s the adrenaline rush you get when you first start something. It’s that heart pounding, mind numbing feeling that comes with the new, the chemical reaction in your brain... That shiver that shoots up your spine when you kiss someone for the first time. It’s the rush of building muscle and running when you haven't done it for years.

But just like the rush of lust when you're falling in love that stupid fat-losing adrenaline rush fades.

After the twittery-goo fades in a relationship you're left standing next to a person. Someone who is not you and often not who you thought they were when your vision was blinded by the haze of lovey-dovey smoke. You stop and realize that this person is not perfect and that's when the work begins because you have a decision to make. You choose to stay there, in love, or move on to the next "high".

The same is true with this, when you're adrenaline rush fades from the beginning of the "fat loss competition" and you're left standing there with a weight in your hand, it’s like waking up. Sometimes, it's a little like a nightmare and you wonder how the HELL you'd gotten there. It’s a little painful and surprising too I think; At least it was for me.
Here's my point, ultimately we choose. We choose to make a life with that person, we chose to stay in love and pray that that rush comes back to us one day. We chose to pick up another weight the next day and do it all over again. And sometimes we choose not to! That was me these last few months. I looked at the weight and thought, why should I even bother?
There's nothing in this for me.
There's no rush, no high...
No "THING".

So today, I'm making a choice. I'm going to STOP looking for the high. I'm going to pick up that weight and get my ass on a treadmill. The falling in love is over in this competition... For me, NOW, it's time to get some work done!

So? What's your choice?

new beginnings

2010-09-26T17:44:00.000-07:00

Friday I'm closing on my new (old) house. i can hardly wait. although it's stressful to move and with everything else that's been going on i feel like it's almost more than i can take, i also feel like this new home is going to be a whole new beginning. for me, for my family, for my finances!

YAY!

I think October is going to be the best month of the year!

HOLY COW

2010-09-18T16:40:00.000-07:00

I'm suppose to run a 1/2 marathon in 21 days and I AM NOT READY!!!!!!!!!!!

Once i finally pulled my head out and started to recover from my poor decisions of last month i got sick. Not just a little but A LOT! I've been hacking and coughing and struggling to breath for the past 2.5 weeks. Needless to say my half marathon training has gone right out the window. The other day i was supposed to go 8 miles and after 2 i gave up. UGH!

My goal was to beat my last time by 33 mins and finish the race in under 3 hours.
My new goal: Finish the Race!

There is a part of me that wants to bail out on the whole thing. But i just can't. You see, i spent 45 dollars on that race and that would be ONE EXPENSIVE T-SHIRT if i did bail out now. I don't even spend that much for jeans!

So, are any of you walk/running the Layton half marathon? Anyone want a slow but steady partner to do the race with? Let me know.

Until then, I've got to get my @SS training again.

An introduction

2010-09-12T15:17:00.000-07:00

I know I'm a little behind the times but... hey, better late than never right? So, Karilynn posted a challenge last week of introducing ourselves. So here i a little about me.

I'm 30 years old and mother to the most beautiful baby on the planet. This is my baby girl Jade. It is rare that i post pictures of her on an open blog or allow others to do so as well. i don't face book or my space so unless you're on a direct email list you probably won't see pictures like this very often. My husband Jack and i were married Aug. 19th 2007.

This is me 14 months and over 100 lbs. ago. Obviously pregnant but also WAY overweight as well. I am down 40+ pounds pre-pregnancy weight.

I was born and raised in Hooper Utah. That's north of Salt Lake City about 45 mins. and as far west as you can go without ending up in the Great Salt Lake (although i live just over the boarder so not to close to the lake). I grew up riding horses and traveling the rodeo seen with my family. They're all pretty country and i was always a little bit rock n' roll. But we all got along great!

Something a lot of people don't know about me: I am a belly dancer. I've been belly dancing for about six years now. i did take almost two years off just before i got pregnant and then during the pregnancy. i went back to dancing shortly after jade was born. I LOVE IT!!! (I'll try to add a pic but don't have one on this computer)

I work in supply as a Retail Item Manager. I love my job although it's crazy busy all the time and stresses me out a bit. There is never a day that i go to work that i don't feel like i accomplished something. That is a great way to end each day.

I've been overweight for most of my life. Although hind sight being 20/20 if i knew now what i knew then I'd have worried WAY less about my weight when i was a teenager. i would have loved my body and wore clothes to accentuate it rather than hide it!

My goal is to get to 18-20% body fat. i don't care how much i weigh at that point cause I'll be SMOKIN HOT!!!

The good, the bad and the ‘oh so ugly’ truth…

2010-09-06T12:28:00.000-07:00

Last you heard I was gearing up for a major push in August. I lined myself up to challenge a friend who was crazy enough to do the HCG diet. Well, needless to say, I fell WAY SHORT of the goal!

Without going into too much detail I’ve had some serious speed bumps in my life as of late. Things at home have been rocky to say the least and I felt as if I’ve been spinning out of control. Part of the reason for shooting for the big challenge was an attempt to get focused and stay that way. It didn’t work.

Rather than spending the month kicking my health and fitness into high gear I spent the month drinking, smoking, not drinking water, drinking coffee like it was water and eating like crap or even worse… not eating at all. For me not eating is the worst thing I can do to my body when it comes to weight loss. My metabolism, which usually runs like a Mack truck, flips into starvation mode with such ease that I pack on the fat like a polar bear preparing for the winter. I know this about myself… it isn’t news. Yet when the going got tough I gave up on me.

I started out ok. Digging in trying to stay on top... But then I stopped. For a few weeks I just ignored the fact that I was letting the month slip away with no regard to my health or well being. I found every opportunity and excuse to party and make bad choices all in a failed attempt to control something. I smoked because no one could stop me from doing it; I ate like shit because I was kidding myself that ‘I chose’ what I put in my mouth. I acted like a stupid, rebellious teenager. It was as I sat barfing my guts out in the bushes outside a house party this realization hit me like a freight train: I’m 30 years old! I have a daughter and a husband. I don’t want to go backwards!

Once I allowed myself consciously to realize what I was doing I spent a few days trying to make sense of it. I made lists of demands for myself, my husband and others around me. I lined up my life like a well prepared outline and then tried to force it into some kind of order. When that didn’t work I planned exit strategies that would get me to the end as quickly as possible, all of which were negative and geared entirely out of self destruction. Preparing myself mentally and physically to end my marriage, my position in my church, my place in my family… my everything!

Then suddenly………………….. It hit me………… WTF am I doing?

Why is it that when the shit hits the fan the ease and comfort of slipping into old patterns/habits jumps back into focus and feels like the best possible solution? I turned to some friends and family but I only gave them half truths and part of the story. Without all of the details outlined in my head they had no idea how to help. My husband, scared and completely confused, stood by me and tried to be supportive and understanding but again without all of the information he was at a loss.

I had a doctor’s appointment to get tested for exercise induced asthma (which it turns out I do have) and in a moment of weakness or brilliance or maybe both, I caved and spilled my guts to him. He made arrangements for me to see a counselor the following day and THANK GOD because I finally feel like I’m pulling myself back together again.

In my first few appointments with him my counselor just let me rattle on and on. Rather than focusing on my husband, family or whatever I decided the session would be entirely about me. I laid it all out there; the good, the bad and the ‘oh so ugly’ truth! I told him again and again, “I’m going flipping crazy! I need help!” He kept asking me why I was crazy. I’d tell him this scenario or that and with each end he’d say, “So, why do you think that’s crazy?” I wanted to yell or scream WHY DON’T YOU TELL ME? WHY THE HELL ELSE DO YOU THINK I’M HERE? I even entertained the idea of punching him in the face a time or two. But over and over he’d ask, what I was thinking and why I thought I was crazy or why I thought what I was thinking was crazy. Anyway, I was almost certain that by the end of the sessions I’d be crazy for sure.

Then the other day, he sat forward in his chair and said, “Now, do you want to know what I think?” I was like YES!!! THANK YOU!!! And he told me, “Everything you just said is complete and total bull shit!” I almost fell out of my chair. First, how could a cute little old man use such language (lol) and second… how dare he? I was floored. So much so in fact, that I shut up, sat back and at a complete loss of words opened myself up to hear what he had to say. He cut me to the quick in an instant and it was exactly what I needed him to do. He then used my silence as an opportunity to give me some insight into everything I had just said.

He told me I was a powerful, motivated, hard working, independent woman. I was fully capable of taking charge of my life and my situation. My executive mind decided that something in my life needed to change and in an effort to force the situation I made a list of “tangible things” that I could influence. The biggest mistake I made was focusing on all of the really negative and self-destructive tangible things for me. Here’s the problem with that and the reason I was going crazy; the reason I was completely bonkers in my head.

There was nothing wrong with my life, my circumstances or my tangible existence. What really had me messed up was that my heart was broken! With all that was happening I was an emotional wreck but rather than face that reality, rather than opening up my heart and being transparent about the whole thing I shut it down. Paralyzed by fear and the thought of hurting even more, I closed myself off to everyone and everything that was good in my life and ran to all of the things that were bad. I participated in a bunch of unhealthy activity while avoiding the healthy all together. I avoided those people I knew could reach into me and force the doors of my heart open. Even worse I ripped to shreds the ones who had the misfortune of being in my presence and making the attempt. (Sorry to ALL of you!)

I’ve been hiding from my future because I was hurt and afraid. I was focusing on the negative tangible aspects of my life because I was punishing myself for being too cowardly to face the truth. I’m sure it is only by the grace of God that I didn’t do something completely insane.
So there you go. Without to many details or dragging anyone under the bus, this is me being transparent. That’s where I’ve been and where I am now. I’m a wreck. But, I’m back. I come with no great promises for success or dedications or motivation. No crazy challenges in tow or deep commitment to anyone other than myself.

I’m back. That’s a start!

Going Great

2010-08-13T08:23:00.000-07:00

Things have been going great with my month. The scale is not reflecting my devotion as much as I'd like to see but I'm sticking with it and knowing that the results will follow. Work has been insane and my daughter has been sick so that has thrown a wrench in my spokes. Still, I'm digging in and working hard. Hope you're all doing the same.

The HCG Challenge

2010-08-07T21:01:00.000-07:00

I know what some of you are thinking… how could I EVER say those three letters together on this blog, in this competition. DON’T PANIC!!! I’m not going to do that crap (and I do mean crap) I’m just going to prove a point.
I have recently come across a large number of women that have “lost tons of weight” on the HCG diet. I was talking to a friend that works at Lane Bryant (I call her friend because although we only know each other from the store I’m such a regular shopper there that she knows quite a bit about me and I about her. I love that store!!!). She has mentioned several times over the last year how great I look and she finally asked how much I had lost. I told her nearly a hundred pounds and when she asked me what I was doing she didn’t seem to like my answer at all. I said, “I’m exercising and making better choices about what food I eat. I’m not really dieting at all, I’m just changing the way I live my life and that has changed the way my body looks and feels.” She cocked her head to the side and just stared at me for like 30 seconds. Then she shook her head from side to side like she was trying to get a bad thought out or something. So funny… Anyway, I mentioned she too was looking great and I asked what she had been doing. She said, “I totally lost 30 lbs. on the HCG diet a couple months ago!!! It kinda sucked BUT it’s been almost 2 months and I’ve only gained about half of it back so I think that’s fantastic! I’m thinking I’ll do it again for 30 days in August so that I can finish the summer off strong and be in a good place when the holidays come.” My response, “Wow, good luck with that!” What else could I possibly say? I wanted to say something like, “ARE YOU FREAKING STUPID???” and then rant on and on for 20 minutes about my complete and utter dislike of the whole HCG diet. That and my complete disdain for concept of dieting at all. But I didn’t, I just smiled and walked away.
Well, this little exchange started a conversation between Jen and I (You all know Jen from Jen-uinely Healthy) we talked about how people do lose crazy weight doing this HCG thing and how it’s SO bad for them in SO many ways. Have any of you looked into it at all? You eat like 500 calories a day (can you imagine what that’s doing to your metabolism… not to mention your mental state) as well as the fact you can’t use certain shampoo, conditioner, lotion, Chap Stick or makeup cause you’re body will absorb the fat that is in them. That’s just the tip of the iceberg! WTF?!?!?!?! Who in their right mind would do any of that to themselves? Let’s top it all off with the fact that NO ONE can sustain that kind of crazy diet and since there is no motivation to make true life changing choices once you go back to your old habits (and they ALWAYS DO) then the weight comes right back… this time with a vengeance cause they jacked up their metabolism. ANYWAY, I digress.
Jen and I were talking about how we believe it is TOTALLY possible to lose 15-20 lbs. of fat in a month (because we have more than that of pure fat on our bodies that we can lose still) by eating on menu and exercising. As we got talking I was struck with a huge realization: since I started this whole adventure there has been very few weeks or even days that I have been perfectly on menu. I’ve been slowly changing my habits and slowly making change which is FANTASTIC and I’m doing great but I think it’s time to rev it up a little. So this HCG challenge is PERFECT! My dear sweet friend just started up again on her HCG adventure and so I’m proposing this: I am going on menu this month and I’m going to lose more than her!
The plan: Jack my amazing hubby revamped my menu last night. I’m going on a 3289 Calorie menu that will increase 300 calories on days I work out hard. I will be eating a 15% fat, 55% carb, 30% protein. This means I’ll be eating quite a lot of nutrient dense food every day (perhaps I’ll blog a time or two about what exactly I’m eating). I’ll be getting my carbs primarily from fruits, veggies and brown rice. I will perhaps have pasta occasionally but for the most part I really prefer rice, even if I’m having it with marinara! YUMMY! One thing for sure is I will not, FOR EVEN A SECOND, feel hungry. However, I’m quite certain my friend will be starving for most of the 30 days. I will continue to train for my half marathon (October 9th) running 4-5 days as well as continuing a minimum of 3 days of weight training each week. I’ll be feeling great and exercising while I’m quite certain she will be feeling like crap and doing little to nothing physical because she won’t have the energy to do so.
At the end of the 30 days we’ll compare. My eating lots of food with good healthy exercise and her crash diet with almost no food and no energy to do anything…
This should be quite a challenge but also fun…. what do you think?

Note: I wrote this blog on August 1 but my home computer crashed so I’ve been unable to post. Since then I’ve had (with the exception of skipping 1 meal, which I think is pretty good considering I didn’t eat a tub of Ben & Jerry’s or something) 6 perfect days! GO ME!

Yikes!!!

2010-07-31T21:25:00.000-07:00

Weigh in tomorrow... are you ready???

I'M NOT!

Damn Beer!

"It's a Holiday" = The Ultimate Excuse

2010-07-23T19:25:00.001-07:00

Let’s just get it all out there people.

Here are a list of the US Holidays:

Jan – New Years Day & Martin Luther King Day
Feb – Jen’s Birthday, Valentine’s Day & Presidents Day

March - Saint Patrick's Day (oh the green beer!!!)
April – Easter
May – Mothers Day & Memorial Day
June – Fathers Day & My sisters Birthday, Karilynn’s Birthday
July – Independence Day, My mom’s Birthday, Jades Birthday and Pioneer Days (24th)
Sept – Labor Day & My Dad Birthday
Oct – Columbus Day & Halloween
Nov – My birthday, Jack’s Birthday, Veterans Day & Thanksgiving
December – Christmas Eve, My Grandma’s Birthday, Christmas Day & New Years Eve

I stuck some birthday’s in there just to illustrate a point… Everyone knows you can’t “diet” when someone is celebrating a birthday right?!?!? Let me ask you this… how many of you don’t know AT LEAST ONE PERSON who is celebrating this month? I bet if you thought about it, between work, friends and family, you could find at least 1 person each month to celebrate with.

Thus, providing us all with at least 1 day to skip the “diet” and eat cake.

Based on this calendar and the IDEA that holidays prevent us from “dieting”, it looks like the only month that I can “diet” is August because the rest of them are chuck full of good holiday, BBQ & Birthday fun!

COME ON PEOPLE!!! LET’S GET REAL!!!

First of all why are you “dieting” in the first place???

It's like Karilynn said, “Stop dieting and start living”!

As long as you are looking for an excuse to eat like crap and make poor choices you’ll find one! I hate to break it to you all but those holidays and even those birthdays are JUST ONE DAY. So even if you do choose to partake of some good old B B Q fun on the holiday LEAVE IT AT THAT!!! If you worked hard and ate GREAT (not just ok or pretty good, GREAT) six days of the week and ate like total CRAP-OLA one day a week you’d still see results!

It’s SOOOOO easy to get caught up in all of the excuses we give ourselves to make bad choices. It’s so easy to think that you’ll put it off till just after this holiday or that, till tomorrow or Monday. But after every holiday there is someone’s birthday; Tomorrow never comes and Monday you’ll just find another excuse.

(Trust me people I'm preaching to myself here)

Making change starts RIGHT NOW! The next choice you make can be a better one than the last. Don’t beat yourself up for choosing to eat at your family BBQ. Stop telling yourself that because you ate the potato salad you jacked up your “diet” and now you may as well kick back a six pack of beer.

Have potato salad just don’t eat enough for 3 people…

Have a beer but you don’t need a 6 pack.

YOU CAN DO THIS!!!

I CAN DO THIS!!!

We just have to choose to!

It should be a crime...

2010-07-18T18:59:00.000-07:00

... TO LOOK THIS GOOD!!!

JUST THOUGHT I'D LET YA ALL KNOW! LOL

When "want" and "need" meet in a dark alley...

2010-07-14T12:15:00.000-07:00

...What happens? The dark alley I’m referring to is those dark places in our mind. (It’s true I just love talking about them.) I was at work today and my boss hands me a cheesecake. She is walking out the door to an all day meeting or something and tells me to spread the word and make sure that it gets eaten. I’m looking at this thing and thinking, “Woman, you may as well handed a six pack of beer to an alcoholic!” UGH! This beautiful cheesecake is lined with whip topping (YUMMY! anyone that knows me knows I’m a SUCKER for whip cream) and has a BIG bowl of cherry topping sitting there looking SOOOOOO pretty. Cherry filling in pies, on cheesecake, in turnovers or over ice cream is just about the greatest thing ever invented by man!

So I throw it in the fridge and plan to spread the word at lunch that it is there. About 11 o’clock I pull it out and tell everyone to have at it. Here’s the thing, now I can see that damn thing out of the corner of my eye. It’s sitting on the table and it’s calling my name. I SWEAR I can actually hear it saying, “Mindy! Mindy, you know you want me!!!” That damn cheesecake; someone ought to tell it to shut the hell up!

Anyway, my point: This cheesecake has started an internal debate in me. It is true that I do not “need” a piece of cheesecake but, damn it, I sure do “want” one. So here they are: want and need… going at it in my head…. Who will win?

Well, yesterday is was WANT but today I’m thinking NEED is taking the lead on this one. You see for every realization or hurdle that is over come there is one more standing in front of me. Having an “ah-ha” moment, about rationalization of poor choices getting me here, does not mean that I won’t have to face those same choices every day. Let’s face it. Temptation is out there and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

Right now I still feel week when it comes to tempting yummy food. I have to really fight to make the “good choice” and some days I just don’t have a fight in me. In an effort to make it easier on me I’ve decided I’m going to make a “want list” to use when these little situations come up. This list will consist of all of the things that I REALLY want in/from life. For instance: I want to reach my 150 lb. weight loss goal. I want to take first in this competition and win some money. I want to complete my ½ marathon in 3 hours or less. I want to be a good example of health and fitness for my daughter. I WANT TO LOOK SMOKIN HOT IN A BATHING SUIT. (I’ve got a great hour glass figure so ditch some of this fat and I’m there!) Sure I can probably get there by sneaking in little pieces of cheesecake here and there but I’LL GET THERE SOONER IF I DON’T!

Every time I choose what I really want for me and my future and ignore that voice in my head, tempting me with the simple pleasures of the moment, I believe it will get easier. This is a lifestyle change I’m making. I’m not slinging HCG or having things stapled. I’m not fad dieting in an effort to rush into being skinny. I’m changing the way I think, act and live. I’m changing the way those temptations affect me and when I reach my goal I’ll be able to stay there because I’ll have actually produced change in my life that will stick with me and my family, FOREVER.

Now THAT is tempting!

As a special treat I thought I'd add this to my blog. I got this in an email today and I thought I would wet my pants I laughed SO HARD!!! This was SOOOOOO me!

Standing in the Corner

2010-07-08T15:10:00.000-07:00

My husband and I were having a conversation the other day about life and I started talking about making excuses. As I was talking I realized what I was saying was somewhat a revelation to me and I’m almost certain some of you at least can relate. It is also a small glimpse at me personally which is good for those that are new to the competition so I thought I’d share. It’s kinda hard to pick a starting point since the words just rolled out of my mouth in the moment all tied up in our conversation. Also, my husband knows my background so I didn’t have to explain all of this to him. I’ll need to give you a little of it so please be patient as I attempt to make this all make sense.

We all make excuses in life. Daily we make small excuses for putting off small things and sometimes we make big excuses for putting off or ignoring the big things. Because we’re human and life is what it is, I truly believe that we each have a life story that is worthy of being a novel. Some more adventurous than others, some scary, some mild and some filled with overflowing happiness… But to each of us our story is unique. Our story is the exception, our story sets us apart in some way and it ultimately helps molds us into who we are.
Here is a bit of mine:
I grew up all of my life in Utah. Looking back I’d say that my family was pretty typical completely full of ups and downs. I’m going to focus on some of the downs here because they relate directly to my point. When I was pre-school aged I was sexually abused. The person that did it told me often that I was a “pretty little girl” and in processing that as a child I was somehow smart enough to realize that I couldn’t help that I was pretty, my beauty was natural and out of my control but, I COULD change the fact I was little. I got it in my head that being “big” would protect me somehow and I started to put on fat as a layer of protection against bad things.
In addition to this trauma I lived in a broken home. My parents married young and when I was about 4 years old ended up divorcing. They did remarry when I was around 9 years old but the years between and even somewhat after were stressful for everyone involved. My sister Angie is absolutely beautiful but always more fit than I. She was a rodeo queen, well dressed with a keen fashion sense and seemingly always full of confidence. As her younger sister, as younger sisters often do, I felt I spent many of my adolescent years living in the shadow of her life’s experience. She was so devoted to what she did and my mom and dad poured into her as much as she poured into it. I always felt as if I couldn’t live up to the level of expectation that she established in our family. I thought that I had to fight for my parent’s attention and approval, but I always seemed to fall short.
In trying to cope with all of that as a child/teenager I established really bad eating habits. I turned to food for comfort or to help or heal every emotion. I would eat when I was hungry but I’d also eat when I was not. I’d eat when was stressed, happy, sad, lonely, scared, frustrated, exhilarated, angry and on and on. There was never a reason not to eat and always a reason to. I spent my life crash dieting, binging and purging, extreme exercising and not exercising at all. It’s a roller coaster of experiences and has ultimately gotten me to where I am today.

Those are just a few of the skeletons in my closet. I'm sure you all have them; those things in your past that are tucked away in the dark recesses of your mind, those experiences you want to pretend don’t exist. But, when life comes at you and you're vulnerable, the doors open, the skeletons take on life and come out to haunt you.

When I get stressed out at work, at home, with my family or money I fling open the closet doors and cling to the past and use those past experiences, combined with the present ones, as excuses for making poor choices all over again.

I eat my donuts and fast food and look backwards. I tell myself that NO ONE can understand what it is like to be me. Look at what I’ve been through… look at all I’ve had to overcome. If people knew what it was like to live my life they’d understand why I am the way I am. This donut, this burger, it makes me feel comfort when I’m hurting. NO ONE can understand what that’s like. I eat one thing after another each time building on the guilt and the pain of the present and past; each bite adding guilt and requiring more justification. I tell myself I corner the market on personal pain and trauma. I rationalize and justify because NO ONE else could ever understand.
I find myself standing in the corner and tell myself over and over again that I’m justified in doing so. You see, as long as I can convince myself that NO ONE understands, then I can keep myself in the corner. I can feel sorry for myself and justify making poor choices over and over again. When people approach me about my weight I can tell my sad childhood experience and explain how I got this way. As long as I can convince myself that I corner the market on my pain and NO ONE understands, then I don’t have to take responsibility for the poor choices I’m making today.
But, here is the reality. What happened to me when I was young was out of my control.
What happens to me now is not.

I CHOOSE to eat that donut, that burger, those fries. There ARE people in the world who can not only understand, but can also relate. There ARE people out there that not only have experienced the same things I did, but had it SO MUCH WORSE. If I admit to myself that those people are out there and that I am not standing alone, then there is no justification; no rationalization. Once I am willing to admit that I am the only one putting myself in that corner and that the pity party I’m throwing myself is exactly that, then the dynamic of my life changes dramatically. I become responsible. I accept the fact that the only way I am going to break the cycle and really change is to admit to myself exactly what I am doing.

I DO NOT corner the market on pain!
I DO control this part of my life!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Loving me does not equal complacent acceptance of bad choices!
Loving me means giving up the excuses of my past and pressing in to the choices of my present!

Weigh In Pics for the New Competition

2010-07-02T12:27:00.001-07:00

Here they are dun-dun-dunnnnnnnnnn!!!

I was exactly correct in thinking I'd post a 10 lb. gain this month. Not upset or disappointed though cause I'm putting muscle on like a tank.

I took those 2 piece pics at the end of July last year when i first started this whole weight loss adventure. i was hoping there would come a day when I'd be glad i had them.

Well, that day is here! Look at how far I've come.

Can't wait for the end of this summer to see how far I'll go.

Hope you're all ready to burn fat and get healthy!

Over 200 lbs. Lost and 13.1 Miles Later

2010-06-27T16:49:00.001-07:00

(Jessica, Justin, Me & Karilynn)

Here we are at the finish line of the Utah Valley 1/2 Marathon. We're all smiling because we made it to the end but i must say that it was a challenge and a half!!! Jessica and i walk/ran the entire race together and with out her i would NEVER have made it through. Quite a few weeks ago we had decided to try for a 15 minute mile but ultimately we wanted to finish in 4 hours. I crossed the finish line at 3 hours 31 minutes and 33 seconds. WHOOP!!!

It was an amazing experience. Jessica and i were talking about how it was the most difficult and painful thing we've ever chose to do next to natural child birth. HA HA At one point she said that she did not believe she'd ever do it again. I smiled and said, "I bet it is like child birth. Challenging and painful but after it's all said and done you forget about that part and just remember the awesome feeling at the end so you keep doing it over and over again." Well it turns out i was right!

I'm now training for the Layton 1/2 Marathon, October 9th. My goal for this race is to do it in under 3 hours. I think that would be a marked improvement and I'm almost certain i will do it. Regardless i will be thrilled to finish once again. It is the inaugural year of the Layton 1/2 and i think it will be really great to be a part of that.

This last month I've been spending TONS of time at the gym with my trainer. I've devoted all of my training to lifting weight and building muscle. This means that I've gained weight this month. I would be having a hard time with that fact if it were not for the fact that I'm losing inches, and a lot of them at that! I will likely start our next comp on July 1st with a 10 lb. gain but as you will see from my pics I'm looking HOT HOT HOT!!! Once the competition starts i will be weight training still but hitting the "leaning out" process really hard.

I CAN'T WAIT! I hope that any of you that haven't reached your ultimate goal will join in the fun all over again. I didn't win much in the last competition but i love have the support and getting to know a lot of you.

For those that know you're joining up... I'll be in touch!

My daughter Jade and I at the finish.

My freaking legs are noodles!!!

2010-06-01T19:40:00.000-07:00

I had an appointment with Devin today (my trainer) and i was TOTALLY late. I had this crazy crappy morning and showed up to my appointment like 20 minutes late. i hauled butt into the locker room, threw on some clothes and busted into the weight room. With a day like today i was NOT going to miss my session even if i only had 30 minutes to work out.

REMIND ME NEVER EVER EVER TO BE LATE AGAIN!!!

Devin kicked my butt!!! Legs or Abs was the question she asked and i said, "whatever you can do in a half an hour." She said, "Legs!" So we set to work super-setting exercises. Going from abductors to wall sits and back again. One muscle to the next with little rests in between. I worked so hard i didn't know if i was going to be able to walk my wobbly butt down the stairs after we were done. IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!

DANG do i feel like a million bucks! I love lifting weights SOOOOOOO much! I don't know why i ever for even one second forgot about that. It's freaking amazing. I feel so strong and empowered. I feel like i can kick butt and take name and it really takes my focus off the weight loss and the fat all together. Lifting weights gets me focused on how strong i am. How accomplished i can be and how hard i really can work for something.

I'd encourage ALL of you to get a trainer if you can. Even if it is for 1 week... work hard and dig in and you will be so impressed by yourself that all the self doubt and self loathing just melts away.

Ups and Downs

2010-05-26T20:27:00.001-07:00

This month I've spent most of my time soaring on adrenaline. I've felt better than i have in a long time. Pretty much every part of my life has been going GREAT!

and then SPLAT!!! I wake up one morning feeling like i got hit by a Mack Truck and I'm lying flat on my face on the floor. WHERE'S MY ADRENALINE?????

I spent the day moping around feeling sorry for me. Hating work, arguing with my husband, impatient with my daughter. I fought ALL DAY to resist the urge to gorge myself with food and ICE CREAM. When it was time to go to bed i sighed in relief because i had made it through that day. What on earth was going on? I was so worried that I'd lost that edge.

THANK GOD!!! I woke up the next day refreshed and energized. Back in action and feeling great about everything. What happened the day before? i still don't know. But this i do know: I spent the day fighting temptation and perhaps that's exactly what it was all about. I've said it before that the Devil is a sneaky little bastard so maybe he just chose to see if he could get me? But, he didn't!!! I made it through that day of feeling sorry for myself and came out kicking on the other side. I came out a better person for having resisted drowning my sorrow in fat and calories. No set-backs or speed bumps to overcome because of it.

I'm not sure what may have happened if i had given in to the temptation. All i can say is THANK GOD I DIDN'T!!! This month is FLYING by. Hope everyone is doing well!

8 Miles

2010-05-23T19:07:00.001-07:00

So I've told you all that I'm training for the Utah Valley Half Marathon (June 12th) so it will come to no surprise I'm sure that i walked 8 miles yesterday. What may surprise you and sure as heck surprised me was that i walked 4 miles straight up a GIANT hill!!!

I'm not really sure what possessed me but many weeks ago when i was planning for this i realized that Jen (you all know her Jennifer B in this comp) lived almost exactly 4 miles from me. At the time i was convinced that it must be much farther away than that but after driving various distances i realize that all distances seem wildly different when you're on foot. (DUH!!!)

ANYWAY... I called Jen up and said, "Hey, if i walk the 4 miles to your house will you meet me at the corner and walk back home with me?" She agreed so i did it. I have to totally thank Jen because I'm not sure i would have made it had i not known that she was waiting for me at the top of that hill. When i finally got about .2 miles from the end and it leveled out i was so exhilarated that i ran the rest of the way!

Jen met me and we headed down the hill. It was AMAZING! That was the farthest that both of us have ever walked in one shot and when we reached my house and realized we had done it, we both felt like a MILLION BUCKS!

I swear i have not felt as energetic, motivated and accomplished as i do right now in my life. I hope that this momentum and attitude carries into the coming weeks.

I hope you're all doing well with the competition. Can't wait to see who takes home the overall. There are so many of you that have done a fantastic job!! KEEP IT UP!

Love the Pain

2010-05-20T21:13:00.000-07:00

Well, it's official! I've been training again for a week now and

GOOD GOLLY I LOVE THE PAIN!

In all seriousness i haven't felt this amazing in months! Oh I've been going through the motions and making progress little by little but not right now... right now I'm full steam ahead and picking up speed. :0)

I'm happy to announce that I have officially lost the weight that i gained and I'm on to losing again. it will be hard to post a large enough loss this month to win but I'm sure gonna try.

2010-05-12T18:02:00.001-07:00

Good by donuts… hello celery?

Isn’t that about how it seems? It’s so funny how when I decided to buckle down it’s like my body revolts. I start thinking things like “good bye donuts… hello celery” and then all I want to do is eat a freaking donut (or 2). It takes days to break that mental cycle and realize that that’s just crappy thinking!!!
Eating healthy doesn’t require eating food you don’t like OR food that has no flavor. (Sorry to any of you celery lovers out there that are thinking I’m a jerk for saying it has no flavor.)
There are TONS of foods that taste great and are good for you. Bananas for example: Bananas are freaking amazing. I love them. I could eat like 2 every day. How about granola, chicken, black beans, yogurt? How quickly we forget about those awesome flavors. Salmon and asparagus, rice and… YUMMY ORANGES!!!
Food is amazing without all the excess fat and sugar it just takes our bodies and our minds a minute or two to remember that.
I had a bad couple of weeks last month and I feel like I’m still recovering from some bad food choices. I find myself longing for some greasy crappy food and I am reminded of the article that was posted on Moi’s blog a while ago. I am having these internal conversations with myself about how I don't need the excess garbage or junk food but I find myself pulling into the damn drive-thru anyway.... it's like I can feel the shocks pulsing through my body and yet I can't seem to rip myself away. WHAT THE HELL?????

Thanks to God~ I have managed to somehow break that cycle!!! Thank you Jesus! Now i'm back on track and digging in for change.

I hope everyone is having a killer month! See you all at the finish line!

Opportunity

2010-05-09T12:38:00.000-07:00

First let me just take a second to wish all you HOT MOMS a very Happy Mother's Day!!!

Now with that out of the way i have an announcement: I'm so excited about this month!
My dad, bless his heart, has afforded me the opportunity of a lifetime. I was talking to him about feeling frustrated... feeling like i was going NO WHERE and that i was struggling with motivation. we had a really great conversation and in the end he agreed to help pay for me to work out with a trainer!

So Saturday i met with her for the first time and i have to say I'm THRILLED!!!! Her name is Devin and she's completely amazing. Not only does she have a rocking body and OBVIOUSLY is in great shape it turns out she's got a 4 month old baby girl at home. DAMN!!! That's what I'm going to look like 4 months after my next kid! What an inspiration!

Anyway, We're going to meet three times a week for a while and then maybe cut back to two. I have to admit I'm a little bit nervous. I've worked out with trainers before and I LOVE IT but I've been hesitant to have my butt kicked to hard because I'm a little scared i won't be able to pick Jade up. LOL! I know it will be worth it though. I told her i really wanted to focus on lots of weight and low reps in an effort to "bulk up". :0) This desire comes from a past experience when i worked with my husband. I had this HUGE HUGH HUGE mental block when it came to "losing weight". Whenever i got it in my heed that weight loss was the goal i inevitably got frustrated and just gave up. My brilliant husband suggested we change up the wording. He said, "Let's make your goal to "GAIN muscle". And what do you know... IT WORKED!!! We focused hard on putting on muscle and taking off fat and I'll be darned if the inches didn't fall off me!

I literally didn't lose to much weight though... all the fat was replaced with muscle so I'm not sure this approach will win me the competition but you can bet your sweet bottom I'll kick some serious but in inch loss!!!!

Wish me luck!

Weigh In May Day

2010-05-05T15:23:00.001-07:00

OK everyone...

here is the damage...

(I'LL POST FULL PICS TOMORROW OR SOMETHING)

Not severe but not great either.

I DO have GREAT news...

in case you all forgot

(cause I know i forgot for a second)

I am a freaking ROCK STAR!!!!

YEP That's right! A rock star!

So it's a new month and my spirit is renewed!

I'm totally STOKED for May.

Spring is here and i'm so ready for it!

In all my UGH i'm such a BLAH this month i've been slacking on blogging so i'm

SOOOO SORRY for that~

I'll be better this month i promise!

Thanks to all of your support and comments.

I may have been rolling my eyes

and thinking blah blah blah

but it was getting in my thoughts and into my heart and my mind

and it was all that love and support

that helped keep me from drowning this month.

So again

THANK YOU!!!

I wanted to add these pics now that i got them uploaded... I'm happy tos ee that i didn't do much damage this month! WHEW!!!! No change or not much is better than making a big old mess of everything. Can't wait for June's pics.

Congrats to all the winners!!! GO KIM!!!

Reflection

2010-05-04T18:55:00.000-07:00

Well, this month has been incredibly disappointing, exciting, challenging, boring, frustrating, enlightening, exhausting and a whole bunch of other emotions and experiences.
I will end this month with a gain and although for a while I thought of all the ways I could try to kill myself to undo what I had done but in the end I realized that, that is not why I’m here. I’M HERE TO CHANGE MY LIFE!!! I’m not here just to crash diet or win a competition. I am not proud of myself for this month but instead of beating myself up about it I’m going to use it as a learning experience. I know the reasons I’ve gained this month. I could list them one by one and analyst and criticize myself but I don’t think it would do me any good at this point.
This is the first month since July of last year that I have not posted a loss.
So what have I learned by it… I WILL NOT GAIN WEIGHT AGAIN!!!!
Until I’m at my goal weight and have some healthy weight fluctuation I will steadily continue to lose weight.
I did just want to mention one thing. While reflecting about this month and all that has happened one big thing stuck out in my mind; 3 Sundays in a row I didn’t make it to church. My husband, child and myself took turns being sick and subsequently I was at home a lot. Out of everything that I did wrong, everything that made this month a challenge I really believe that was the part that had the greatest effect on me. Going to church is not a requirement or a chore. It’s a blessing… soaking in Gods present and being fed by his word is the VERY best thing I can do for my health. Out of it all… that realization makes this month WELL WORTH IT!
Be blessed!

Confession

2010-04-27T17:46:00.000-07:00

Not only have I not lost any weight this month…

I'VE GAINED!

So what went wrong?

Well I can’t be sure but I think it had something to do with the donuts (don’t barf Karilynn)… and coffee. There may have been some fast food in there as well! UGH!

Bottom line: my nutrition has been less than good. Hell, truth be told it has been down right atrocious! The worst part is that when I wasn’t eating crap I wasn’t eating at all so that just added to the UGH.

No wonder I’m sick.

The only “GOOD” thing I’ve got going is the fact I’ve been training for my half marathon I’m sure if it weren’t for that I’d have been TOTALLY SCREWED!!!

So, what’s the plan?

I have NO IDEA!

I’m feeling really, really, really, unmotivated right now. I don’t know what happened it’s like something just shut off and I’ve got nothing pushing me forward. I was getting myself all psyched up for something new but I haven’t been able to find that thing… you know… the “adrenaline rush”! You know the one you get when you start something new. That drive, that thrill that pushes you through like & when nothing else can or will.

I lost it.

I think I need help.

News Flash

2010-04-19T15:40:00.000-07:00

"All You Can Eat Salad Bar"

is not a

"healthy choice"

If you ACTUALLY eat

ALL YOU CAN!!!

Just thought I'd let ya know!

Focus

2010-04-14T17:05:00.000-07:00

Well, now that i've pissed away almost a week, with poor food choices and little to no exercise, i thought i should kick it into high gear! in addition to not paying attention to my food choices (one day i ate nothing but banana muffins and drank coffee!!! like 20 muffins and 3 pots of coffee!!! EEK!!! What was i thinking???) i've been letting a messed up ankle get in my way. Everyday i had the best of intention of this or that but SPLAT i sure fell short of the goal.

So here i am to revamp! I realize how much getting things written down helps me to prioritize. Thanks again Jaqui for the AWESOME tip of writing down six things i must get done the next day. if it weren't for that i'd have seriously accomplished NOTHING this entire week!

So here is my focus: STRENGTHS!!!

I've decided to narrow it down to a few things i'm really great at.

What are they?

Eating A LOT!

Drinking water!

Walking!

Building muscle!

So here is the plan. I have currently decided to join Karilynn, Jessica and Brandon in completing the Utah Valley Half Marathon, on June 12th! Up until a few weeks ago i had no idea that there were people out there that actually WALKED half and full marathons! did you know that? well all this time i've been pushing myself to RUN and feeling like big fat failure because i SUCK AT IT! never knowing all the while that running isn't the goal....

FINISHING IT IS!!! So, I had a chance to buy into the sold out 1/2 marathon and i jumped on it.

all that to say this:

i'm training to walk/run a 1/2 marathon!

I found this great schedule online that i'm following and it's going GREAT so far. my ultimate goal is a 15 minute mile. anyone that finishes in under 4 hours gets the cool medal and all... so i'm building myself in some wiggle room. it just happens that that is also Jessica's goal so we're going to do it together.

So i've always fought to lose weight and focusing on that in the past has been a real source of frustration. i've found that when my focus is on gaining muscle my results are significant inch loss and fat loss. this sometimes means that my scale weight doesn't move much because i'm putting on muscle but the visual effects are FANTASTIC!!! Since i'm needing a little change up in my game this is what i've decided to do. This means strength training at least 3 days per week. I got a schedule of a bunch of classes available at work and i'm staring to attend them to find one that i

LOVE LOVE LOVE!

So although my choices in food have been poor it is even worse that i have not been eating nearly enough food. for me this is VERY BAD. my body is an amazing fat storing machine and the second i stop eating enough it kicks into high gear "STARVATION MODE". Suddenly i'm storing some part of EVERYTHING i'm eating... both good and bad. which by the way anyone that is above like 40% body fat (can't remember exact number) does. So my goal is to EAT A LOT but make sure that it's all good food. i stocked the fridge with apples and bananas, apple sauce and oats and all kinds of other healthy snacky food.

And with the water... well that's easy. i'm just filling my giant 55+ oz mug at least twice per day and then hooking it up at home by filling my 32 oz mug also twice (maybe 3 times).

I hope you're all doing really well. i had the opportunity at work the other day (in a training class) to read all of your blogs... in fact some of them i read 3-4 blogs back. unfortunately i didn't have comment capability. :0( but it was nice to catch up on all that's going on!

My best to you all!!!

I Finally Got Exact Numbers...

2010-04-09T17:07:00.000-07:00

So, since i had my baby i've been "guess-timating" on my actual weight at different points. I was pretty sure i knew what i was before i got pregnant... pretty sure i knew how big i got during the pregnancy and pretty sure i knew how far i'd come since then.

My Midwife changed offices and i've had a HECK of a time getting my records so i could get some exact numbers but FINALLY today i did it!!!

So here you go ladies... this is EXACTLY how far i've come:

Since my finally weigh in before i had my baby i am down

wait for it....

87.2 lbs!!!

From my postpartum appointment

which was 1 month and 2 days after having my baby

i'm down 51.2 lbs!!

And from my pre-pregnancy weight

i'm down: 47.2 lbs!!

Do you know what this means???

HOLY CRAP... I'M A ROCK STAR!

With a little simple math you can all figure out that i tipped the scales June 30th at 376 lbs. and although it's hard for me to say that number out loud it is made SUBSTANTIALLY easier since i can now say i'm at 288.8 AND DROPPING!

SO let me put this into perspective.

In just 12.8 lbs. i will have lost 100 lbs!

if that isn't a reason enough for setting my goal at 13 or more lbs. of loss this moneth i sure don't know what would be. ;0)

i still have a goal to lose 100 lbs. from my starting competition weight of 324.4 in September and i'm well on my way! So, watch for my 100 down and counting blog... COMING SOON!!!

Holy Big Numbers Batman!!!

2010-04-06T20:24:00.000-07:00

The numbers posted this month are UNBELIEVABLE!!!

I have to say CONGRATS Debbie!!! What an amazing accomplishment. It just goes to show if you put your heart into it anything is possible.

I'm really excited about my pictures for this month. I wasn't thinking i had made any "visible" progress but when i put my pictures together i could really see the difference.

I hope that you all have a killer April and i hope to heck that spring gets here soon!

Strength & Weakness

2010-03-28T15:16:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity to participate in a seminar on Friday called “Strengths Finder”. It’s a Gallup University Class that tells you to answer a set of questions and it gives you you’re top 5 of 34 strengths. It was not the first time I’ve taken a test like this. I’ve done the color ones and the personality type ones… this was slightly different because it called into play the very logical side of you. How does your brain work? (At least this is what I got out of the class.) All of my strengths were really great and it was interesting to see how my brain worked from this perspective. Overall nothing was super surprising as far as my top five strengths but I had the epiphany while in the class.

One exercise that he had us complete was to list “Something Very Important to You”, “Something at Which You Excel”, “A Challenge”. My lists were as follows:
Importance: Family, Relationship with God, Hard Work or Good Work Ethic, and Achieving my Goals.
What I Excel at: Puzzles/Problem Solving, Numbers/Math, Strength Training, Communication, writing, reading, Crafts and Prophetic Vision.
My Challenges: Losing Weight, Spelling, Patience, Organization, Tardiness, Procrastination, Listening, and Tolerating (my definition of) Stupid People.

So we went over all of our lists and then he did something that caught my attention.

He told us to cross out our Challenge list

AND

highlight our Excel or “strengths” list.

This surprised me the most because I think as a society we always look to our weaknesses and try over and over, often to no avail, to make them better. From the studies conducted with this class and others at the University they have found that if you focus on your strengths your success is exponentially greater than if you focus on your weaknesses. FACINATING!!!
They used the example of children who were learning to read. They took a control group where the average reading level was 90 words per hour and another group that the average level was 350 words per hour. The second group obviously had a built in talent or “strength” for reading the first did not. They then provided educations for increasing reading ability and found that the first group went from 90 words per hour to 300+ (can’t remember the exact number) and the second group went from 350 words per hour to 2900 words per hour!!! The difference was INSANE!!! Then he said, “if you were investing, where would you put your money? Group number one, “building weakness” or group number two, “building strengths”?

DUH!!! Where do you think?

Then he said the thing that struck home:
A focus on fixing weaknesses prevents failure.
A focus on building strengths leads to excellence.

I took the information that I had and applied it to what I’ve been doing with my weight loss. I made a list of my weaknesses; at the top of that list: Food Addiction. Then made a list of my strengths; top of that list: Strength Training. Here’s the thing. I’ve been focusing SOOOOO much on trying to get my food cravings/addictions under control and I haven’t been strength training AT ALL! I’ve been so picky about food and when I mess up I’m frustrated and aggravated because I’m a big loser. (I’m exaggerating a bit I’m not hating myself or anything, I just realized where my focus has been.)

So, I’ll stop rambling now because I’m thinking you all get the point. From here on out I’m focusing on my strengths. I made a list of all the things I’m good at and this is where my goals are going to be focused in April. So far I’ve been working away at this weight by focusing on improving my weakness. Let’s see how things go when I start to improving my STRENGTHS!

Alright, my challenge to you is to answer these questions:
WHAT ARE YOUR WEAKNESSES?
WHAT ARE YOUR STRENGTHS?
WHICH LIST ARE YOU FOCUSING ON?
HOW’S THAT WORKING FOR YOU?

P.S. In reference to my “Balance” entry I LOVE, LOVE, LOVED the idea to make a list each night of the top 6 things I MUST get done the following day. It took me about 5 days to implement the process… had to put making the list on my list! LOL! But now I’m on a roll and feeling MUCH, MUCH, MUCH more relaxed and accomplished. Thanks Jacqui!!!

Balance

2010-03-21T17:57:00.000-07:00

This is not really anything new but it’s me just putting stuff down on paper. Sometimes I find that when I talk stuff out (or write it out) it comes together a bit better in my mind. I’m finding in my life that I’m struggling to find a balance and it’s frustrating.

These are all of the things that are important to me: (in alphabetical order)
My: accomplishing my goals, exercise, family, health, improving, Jack(hubby), Jade (daughter), job, learning, losing weight, marriage, ministry, relationship with God, reading, setting goals, spirituality, walking…

That’s not really the longest list in the world but most of it is pretty general and ALL of it is pretty time consuming. Now I’m not kidding myself that I’m the busiest person on the planet or anything and realize that there are far more people out there that have more going on than I. But this is me and what I’m working with and in my life, it’s a lot. I’m really struggling to find a balance.

I feel like when I’m focused on my family and my job my church life suffers. That makes me sad. I feel like when I’m focused on me and my weight loss goals my home life suffers… and so on and so forth. Plug in any combination you want. The point is, I feel like something has to give or nothing gets done.

I know I can’t do EVERYTHING I want/need to but I wish that I could. I have never been very good at time management so I guess that’s something I need to work on. HA HA… just one more thing to add to my list.

I know this is kinda sporadic and rambling. Maybe you all have some suggestions. How do you juggle your lives? How do you prioritize. I guess I could make a list? Maybe I need to be more specific about what’s important and try to plan my days better? Maybe I need to get a day planner? I’ve tried having planners. I found that I just carried them around without ever putting anything in them. Or I’ll spend time putting a bunch of info in there and then never look at it again. HA HA HA, effective huh? I guess I need some balance and I’m open to suggestions.

I think I’ll need to start small.

I’m thinking that this, like my weight loss, is going to have to be something that I implement over time. It’s going to take making a conscious choice, a conscious effort every day to get to the point that I’m making a real difference in my life.

The great thing about me now is that I’m TOTALLY good with that. Even if it takes a year to work out I know now that slow and steady beats the hell out of giving up on myself. I’m taking such big steps to change my life FOREVER that I’m ready to branch out into every aspect.

On a personal note: Today I’m wearing Capri’s that I bought in 2005. The year that my husband and I met. :0) I wore them when we went back east to meet his parents for the first time. It was one of the moments in my life I was the most fit! I’m still about 30 lbs. heavier than then but my body is shaped so differently. I’ve got some muffin top action happening but I’m thrilled as hell to be wearing them! I was talking to jack and I’m so close to the 280’s that I can taste it! I haven’t been in the 280’s for so long I can’t even remember when.

Right now I’m 37 lbs. less than my PRE-PREGNANCY weight! HOW FANTASTIC IS THAT???

Would you give a beer to an alcoholic?

2010-03-15T15:07:00.000-07:00

I have had a PERFECT week! A perfect week until yesterday that is. Then yesterday there was ice cream. I had done so well all week that when the opportunity for ice cream came I jumped on it. One dessert a week is reasonable. I’m not “dieting” I’m changing my lifestyle. I’m being “realistic”! Those are the things I’ve been telling myself and for the most part that is true.

I’m so proud of what I’ve accomplished these past months. For the first time in my life I have consistently lost weight for 8 months in a row. I have not gained once! Some months have been great, some not so great… but I have lost every singe one!!! I know some of you are like, “tell us something we don’t already know.” So here you go.

I was eating my ice cream and it was SOOOO good and I was kidding myself that it was worth it. But it wasn’t long after is started eating that the old patterns began to crop up. First I had checked the calories and figured I would have just the ½ cup for the 110 calories. That was a nice treat with a reasonable amount of calories. But after that first ½ cup I told myself, “That was SOOOO good. Just one more ½ cup won’t hurt. That’s still a reasonable amount of calories.” So I ate that full cup. But once that was gone I wasn’t “satisfied”. I kept thinking of all the reasons it would be ok to have more. I thought, “I’ll go for a walk and work it off.” After the walk I felt great… so I ate more ice cream. And the same cycle began again. ALL NIGHT! I would walk then eat, walk then eat. I kept thinking to myself that it was ok, because at least I could just walk it off.

Today however, I’m thinking WHAT THE HELL WAS I DOING??? Seriously!?!?!? I was out of control. So all told I probably ate 2 cups of ice cream and although I walked to “make up for it” here is the problem. Once I started I couldn’t stop. I had a perfect week and it was shattered with just one bite of ice cream. Allowing myself to give in just a little I ended up losing control. In reflection I keep going back to a conversation Karilynn and I had the other day.

She had talked about many of us allowing ourselves a treat hear and there because we were doing so well. We talked about rationalizing eating crap because we were going to exercise to make up for it. We had, had that discussion and here I was living it! That’s exactly what’d I’d been doing. I’ve been giving myself breaks, allowing little treats here and there under the pretense of being realistic. But here is what Karilynn said that really stuck with me, “Would you give a beer to an alcoholic? Would you tell them, ‘come on… you have to give yourself a break every once in a while. You have to be realistic!”

DUH! Hell no! I’d never give a beer to an alcoholic and I’d never rationalize that for them. So why do I rationalize it for me? I’m under no delusion that I will spend the rest of my life NEVER eating anything sweet or tasty. I’m not going to cut out cake and cookies etc forever. But, right now… in this moment my goal is to undo what I’ve done over the last _ amount of years. I will lose this weight and I will reach my 100 lb. goal by September! I WILL! To do that I have to be honest and realize that if I’m eating crap and then exercising to make up for it I’m just breaking even!

If I want to lose then I have to exercise and NOT eat the crap. I’ve got to be on menu and exercising without the pretense of “reality”. The reality is: I am an addict. I didn’t get here on accident. I got here by making a bunch of poor choices and the only way I’m going to get out of here is to make GREAT choices. I can’t cut myself slack or tell myself I deserve it. I don’t deserve to be where I am! I deserver far, far, far better than that and damn it, I’m going to give myself what I really deserve. So, Here is to another perfect week! This time for real!

Hope you’re all doing great! This month is going to be fantastic!!! It is already!

You Bet Your Sweet Skinny Ass I’m In!!!

2010-03-07T19:21:00.000-08:00

For those of you that haven’t seen Karilynn’s blog you may be wondering what the heck I’m talking about. Well Karilynn called me out on her blog for a side competition this month and I’m TOTALLY IN!!! I have to admit that there has been this nagging desire to kick Karilynn’s sweet bottom at a competition. I didn’t really think there would ever be a chance since she’s come so far already. I knew, or at least thought I knew, she was at the end of the road when it came to competing. Today when we were talking she said those last few lbs were bugging her and she was thinking about starting up a side competition… I told her I’d kick her butt. I didn’t’ really think she’d call me out on it. But alas, a few minutes ago I read her blog and what do you know… she did! So, as they say in the movies, “It’s on! Like Donkey Kong!!! (At least I think I heard that in a movie LOL)

For those of you that are watching any encouragement would be much appreciated. And… if you could all add in some prayer with that, I’m sure it can only help.

For those of you that will be joining the side competition. GOOD LUCK! Let’s kick some “skinny b” butt!!!

no excuses

2010-03-06T07:54:00.000-08:00

1.6 Lb loss… not great but a loss none the less. I’m not going to make excuses about why it’s not better than that. I exercised more and was conscious about food but looking over my food journal I could have done better. So this month I will!!! I did however lose approximately 3% body fat which is almost 9 lbs. of fat but I seemed to have put on 7 lbs. of muscle. I couldn’t figure out why because I was running and not doing much in the way of “weight training”… Karilynn helped me realize that pushing a stroller while running is resistance training. LOL… didn’t really think about that.

Mentally I want to beat myself up… my years of bad habits is telling me to go over what I did with a fine tooth comb and pick it apart. But the new me, the me that is not dieting or binge exercising, is screaming TO HELL WITH THAT! I did review my food journal and my exercise journal and I found a few things I can improve upon. I highlighted those things and I made a list of clear goals for this month and I’m going to do even better.

So, here’s sunshine and springtime. Here’s to a new month! HELLO MARCH! So glad you’re here! I hope March treats you all well and that you’ll throw all those lousy excuses out the window!

So this picture is not pretty but I feel compelled to share it with you. This is my original picture from this competition and this month’s. I didn’t do a great job picking my outfit because it is so hard to see because of the colors… but if you look closely you will see that these pants are buttoned!!! (I decided to go into Photo shop and lighten them up... i think you can tell a big difference by doing that.) It of course made my “muffin top” look somewhat like a “mushroom top” but they’re buttoned so I almost wet my pants when that happened. LOL… in fact Jen and I laughed so hard I really almost wet my pants. It was fun. I can’t wait for next months pictures. They are going to be EVEN better!!!

Feb sucks!!!

2010-03-02T16:26:00.001-08:00

I'm busting my ass but getting crap for results. UGH!!!!
I'm frustrated... SO GLAD MARCH IS HERE!!!!!

2010-02-24T17:40:00.000-08:00

JUST CHECKIN IN... ROCKIN THE EXERCISE CHALLENGE!!!
HOPE ALL IS WELL WITH EVERYONE.
MORE THIS WEEKEND

Loving Me

2010-02-18T08:41:00.000-08:00

So a few people have made comments about my previous blog… (And I thought I was fat) not those of you in the competition but some others that read my blog but don’t comment often. They say things like, “Mindy, you just need to love yourself no matter what you look like.” Or “Being skinny won’t make you happy, YOU have to make yourself happy.” Or… well you get the point. So I just wanted to comment on those comments.

First of all, I do love me! But I’ve realized that loving me does not mean stuffing my face with greasy, fatty foods and processed flours and refined sugars. It doesn’t mean justifying my obesity with my recent pregnancy or blaming my busy schedule for lack of time to exercise. Loving me does not mean making excuses or laziness and emotional eating. Loving me does not equal complacent acceptance of bad choices.

Loving me means seeing myself when I look in the mirror, really seeing myself and realizing I can do better. Loving me means taking that realization and making plans to improve on what I see. Loving me means feeding my body nutrient dense high quality food often and giving my body everything it needs to run like a machine. Loving me means getting up and getting out… I’m talking about moving! Loving me means improving my heart and lungs while burning fat in the process. Loving me means setting goals and sticking with them, counting my successes not my failures and celebrating my victories along the way!

That’s what I’m doing. Right now for the first time in many years I am TRULY falling in love with me and I’m happy with who I am.

Jen and I were talking last night about the changes we see in our bodies and the changes we see in each other. She and I have been friends for about 8 years and we have “dieted” together or went on a “weight loss program” or challenge SO MANY TIMES!!! We were talking about our continued progression toward health and weight loss and that although sometimes we’d like to see higher numbers we can’t be upset with the constant decrease in weight and inches. Jen asked how many times have we tried to lose weight and given up? I said TO MANY!!! But no more! This time we succeed! One month at a time, one pound at a time, quickly or slowly we will continue our progress till we reach our ultimate goal.

THAT IS WHAT LOVING ME IS ALL ABOUT!

- So far this week I’m right on track for my goal of eating on menu 5-6 days and 3 cardio & 3 weight training days. I’m awesome! :0)

And i thought i was fat

2010-02-12T17:39:00.001-08:00

I've been thinking so much about Karilynn's challenge for this week and I was pretty surprised at what I came up with.... or what I couldn’t come up with rather. Over the last couple of days I realized that I have NO FREAKING CLUE WHY I'M DOING THIS!!!

I had a bunch of ideas in my head and thought I knew exactly what I was doing and why but I was wrong. All of my reasons had something to do with other people. Healthy for my daughter, successful and sexy for my husband, I wanted to "out do" Karilynn overall or beat Jen at this competition. What I’ve realized is that NONE of those reasons have really got me very far.

I’m not discounting the success I’ve had but I have gotten really honest with myself. I only exercised 5 times in the month of January FIVE TIMES!!! 4 of which were in the same week. So yes it’s great that I lost 14 or so pounds but not nearly what I could have accomplished had I been focused or had a clear and concise goal. I did well but I could have done SOOOOOO much better. I’m not beating myself up or putting myself down so please don’t misunderstand. What I’m saying is that short of wanting to lose 100 lbs. in 1 year I haven’t really set many or any goals. I’ve said some stuff like, do better or blah blah but I haven’t gotten specific. I realized that I need to and I’m working on that.

So I was pondering all of this and watching Oprah (one tends to ponder I think when Oprah is on) and she said something that really hit home. She was talking about all of us having our “thing” to overcome or whatever and then she said this, “how great can your life be if you can just find the courage to live your own truth?” I almost fell out of my chair. “Eureka!” I thought… “That’s it!!”

That is why I’m doing this: I have finally found the courage to live my own truth. This body… this fat girl…This isn’t me! I am active and healthy, outgoing and adventurous, fit and energetic. I love clothes and make-up, dancing and singing. I have always been “a whole lot of woman” but I’ve walked tall and I’ve always been proud to be me. When I look in the mirror I see how beautiful I am and I’m confident on the edge of cocky but not quite. I love to talk and to create things. I am prophetic and artistic and a really great friend.

So that’s why I’m doing this. At some point in the last couple of years I let a whole string of bad choices turn me into someone I don’t even recognize. I know how I got here I’m just not sure why I let it happen. What I’ve discovered in the last few days is it’s not as important to figure out why or how this happened but to figure out why and how I’m going to change it. So I’m setting some goals… some VERY, VERY, VERY specific goals.

Let’s see what happens shall we?

I thought I’d throw in some pictures of me from different points in my life. I look back on these pictures and see me doing things I love… I see me. I thought that I was fat in every one of these pictures. How stupid was that? I wish I had known then what I know now.

I was reading someones blog and they put at the bottom: "Goal to report on next week" I love this idea and so here goes. My Goal for this week is to Eat perfectly on Menu 5-6 days. Exercise 3 times resistance 3 times cardio. I'll let you know next week how I did.

BYE BYE 300!!!

2010-02-06T12:33:00.001-08:00

A PICTURE IS WORTH 1000 WORDS SO HERE YOU GO...

I'VE BEEN WAITING TO WRITE THIS BLOG FOR A LONG TIME! I'M SO GLAD IT'S FINALLY HERE. AS KARILYNN SAID I'VE GOT NOT TIME TO CELEBRATE

BECAUSE I AM NEVER GOING TO SEE 300 AGAIN!

This Week I'm Weak

2010-02-01T20:16:00.000-08:00

Or at least it seems that way. Work is exhausting and although I've gone to the gym every day i haven't lost even a pound. I've been craving anything sweet for days and i think it has more to do with stress than anything. Also, I LOVE DONUTS!!! I know some people cringe in disgust at that thought but I can't help it. i think they are a wonderful YUMMY treat! (not that I'm eating them every day or anything but I can't seem to give up my once a week splurge... sorry Kari. LOL) I'm not sure I'm going to make my goal for this month of 13.4 lbs. it's so close i can almost taste it but it also seem so far away. DAMN DONUTS! LOL...

I guess in a couple days we will see. Hope everyone is doing awesome. Can't wait to see our results for this month.

The things I control…

2010-01-24T15:16:00.000-08:00

…or so I thought. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I was saying about addiction. I got some really great advice so I’ve put in place a few things like an accountability partner and a food journal. I’ve also decided to balance my checkbook and be more diligent about where my money is… if I don’t have money I can’t buy shit to eat right? Well I was thinking about so much and wondering where this behavior has come from. It’s not just about eating the food…it’s about buying the food or getting the food. I’ve been hashing over it and this is what I’ve come up with. You’ll have to excuse me if this is long winded and disjointed.

When I was younger my life was a little crazy. I could go on and on about the ups and down but the reality is, is it was a pretty great life. Still I think we all think that our lives are rough or crazy or troublesome at times. Most of that, I think, is just normality of being a human living on this planet. As a child I often felt like things in my life were out of my control. At some point when life felt very out of control I got it in my head that there was one thing I could control and that was FOOD! I honestly remember thinking to myself that this was the ONE THING that no one could make me or prevent me from doing. When I was old enough to buy food I would, fast food, junk food, even healthy food. I decided, I chose, I paid for it and I did what I wanted when I wanted. I could go to a drive through and get anything I’d like at any time of day or night and if I wanted NO ONE would know except for me.

I got a rush or a high from it. I remember once when I got in a wreck. I had a bag of licorice in the glove box and on impact it went flying out onto the floor. Although I was hurt and needed to go to the hospital I remember crawling across the seat of my truck to gather up the licorice and hid my stash back in the glove box. I remember thinking that my dad would probably come pick up my truck and that my little secret could not be laying scattered across the floor. I remember times of having boxes of chocolate under the seat of my car so that I could sneak one every time I went somewhere alone… my little secret treat. This is how I was when I was a smoker as well. I smoked for YEARS and YEARS and for most of them people didn’t know (unless I wanted them to) I was good at sneaking, at hiding and smoking. It was something that no one could make me or prevent me from doing. I decided… do you notice a pattern.
All of that to say this: For years I felt like food was the one thing that I controlled. The one thing that I decided and no one could affect or change. It was all about me, my body, my money, my thing. I CONTROLLED it!

So here is the question: If I’m so in control then why can I not drive past a coffee shop without a mental fight to not stop and buy something EVEN IF IT DOESN’T SOUND GOOD! Why do I have extreme cravings everyday that plague me and WHY OH WHY can I not pass them up? It’s because I don’t control this, I never have! This addiction, these addictions have always controlled me. I have been out of control for years and I didn’t even know it.
Well, maybe I knew it all along but didn’t want to admit it. My little secret… maybe if I don’t say it out loud then no one will know? So here I am 300+ lbs. Do you think anyone knows? Do you think anyone noticed? LOL

So here is what I know today: MY CHOICE, MY DECISION, MY BODY, and MY THING! This addiction will control me no more!!! Thanks to each of you for your support and your good advice. Thanks to my accountability partner for keeping me on track. Thanks to me for getting real and working through all of this. My goal in this competition is not just to beat all of you and win a bunch of money. I’m using this as a tool to weed out the problems that got me here and I’m going to pull them up at the root!

By summer time I will have a whole new life, a whole new garden where the weeds of my past have been thinned out along with me!

I Love Water

2010-01-17T12:21:00.000-08:00

I am in agreement that the water challenge is EXCELLENT!

Go Karilynn. I love the idea of a mini challenge to keep you on your toes. :0) This weeks challenge will be a PIECE of CAKE for me!!! One thing I've done well for years is drink water. If any of you can do the math I need to drink at least 150 oz of PURE water each day and it truly is NO PROBLEM for me.

Once you start to drink water you body will crave it and soon I PROMISE you will want it more than even SODA and the idea of spoiling something so wonderful with a packet of some flavored crappy drink will make you cringe in disgust. So, good luck to all of you this week... Eat, DRINK, and be merry. Oh and by the way, once your body gets used to that amount of water it will start to actually utilize most of it and the urgency to run to the bathroom every 30 minutes will stop. Trust me!

The love of food and money...

2010-01-14T20:27:00.000-08:00

Warning: I’m VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY tired.

During this competition I have become aware of my love of not just food but of spending money on food. I have what I have lovingly coined “extreme cravings” and I’m not sure what to do with them. My extreme cravings are INSANE and they go something like this… I have something yummy to eat, this something can be good or bad, a banana for instance or a 3 chocolate chunk ice cream Sunday. That yummy thing will get not only in my mouth but in my head. Soon I’m thinking about it all the time and no matter where I am or what I’m doing I have to have it. So here is where it gets bad. Often I will physically get sick of eating that thing. Suddenly the chocolate tastes like cardboard or the banana like soggy washcloth, but I am mentally unable to stop myself from eating it. I went through a phase where it was a sausage egg and cheese croissant from Burger King. I think I ate one 5 days a week for like a month. Do you know how many calories that is? Do you know how much money that is as well? Honestly I’ve never added it up because I know I would be sick at the thought but none the less there it is. I would be driving to work and suddenly although the croissant didn’t taste good to me at all I would still pull in EVERY DAY and order one. On my day off I would look for reasons to leave my house so that I could get one. Often I would lie to my husband or make up errands I needed to do just to get my “fix”. Sometimes I just told the truth and he would question why I thought I needed it and although his intentions were genuine and sincere and not mean at all his words would sting like a whip and I thought it was just easier to lie the next time. I’ve honestly over drawn my checking account and paid an $18.00 fee for something I got at McDonalds (probably coffee cause I love their lattes). The reason I go to McDonalds is because the coffee is good and cheep… but DUH!!! When you’re tacking on a fee of that size I could have gone to Starbucks like 3 times.

Anyway, I digress; here is my point or my thoughts or whatever you want to call it. I don’t know why I do this. I don’t know why I need my “fix”. Sometimes I feel like I go from addiction to addiction never really understanding what the underlying factor is. I’ve always had this feeling like food was the one thing I thought I could control. I used to think that when things were bad in life only I could decide what I put in my mouth. I thought, “This is my choice and I can do whatever I want.” NO ONE could make me eat or not eat anything that I wanted. But I realize that that is just crap and I’m obviously out of control! So EEK what do I do now? How do you break an addictive cycle that you’ve carried with you for at least 20 years? I need to get to the root of the issue so I can rip it out and throw down some weed killer but I’m not sure where to start.

Weigh In Pics and stuff...

2010-01-09T09:30:00.000-08:00

I haven’t had much time to get this pic up but I wanted to before to much time passed. I’m mildly embarrassed to post this weight because I gained like 3 lbs. UGH! However in my defense weigh in lands on a not so great time of the month for me and I’m blaming that… SO HA. Still I know it will come right back off and I’m not going to stress about it to much. I did have to have a long conversation with Kari though about whether I should be humiliated or just post it and move on. She basically said I should suck it up and get my butt moving. So here I am. This week has been great. NOT PERFECT but great! I’ve been doing some exercise every day even when it’s been hard. I pulled out an old exercise video one night because I didn’t have many options and my baby did not want me to set her down. So there I was all dressed up in Gym gear doing cardio in my living room with my baby in my arms. One of the biggest challenges was trying not to shake her up like a milk shake while I jogged in place and attempted jumping jacks… LOL! Wish you all could have seen it. It was pretty funny. I think Jade thought it was a really fun game and she had a blast. There were so many times when I thought it was just a pain in the butt and I wanted to just shut it off and sit down with a beer and watch TV but I didn’t! So GO ME! :0) I hope all of you are fired up and working hard. More later…

Weigh Day...

2010-01-05T20:03:00.000-08:00

...is here at last. so much to say but my little one is demanding all my attention. i need to update my blog list so if your not up there be patient you soon will be. i just want to say i'm totally excited. i can't wait for summer. i'll post again soon till then happy days and healthy choices!

I made it through December!!!

2010-01-01T09:53:00.000-08:00

I made it!!! My loss for this month was 1.2 pounds and I’m proud as punch!!! LOL. I have had some amazing and awesome breakthroughs in my attitude this month to coincide with my loss. At previous points in my life I would have been disappointed that the loss was so small. In fact last month I was! I knew I could have done better and in a sense was beating myself up for not doing as well as I “should” have. What I failed to recognize is the fact that previous to this I would be flying through the holidays will little to NO regard to what I was shoveling in my mouth. I made poor choices this month but the difference is that I was conscious of every one of them. I weighed the choice before I made it and there were times I said no. No to sugar, no to sweets and no to seconds!!! And look at this… I have made it through Thanksgiving and Christmas with a 4 pound loss! That’s a freaking awesome accomplishment for me and I’m very proud of myself.
I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas holiday and I hope that God makes 2010 the best year of your lives.

Christmas

2009-12-18T05:48:00.001-08:00

Christmas time is almost here
so many cakes and goods are near
I’m trying to keep a level head
but i think it'd rather eat that bread
just one more week and Santa’s here
it's then I’ll jump and scream and cheer
I hope to make it through this mess
weighing just a little less
if i don't gain I’ll be so happy
I’ll probably write a poem that's sappy
just one more week till Christmas time
here is where I’ll end my rhyme!

merry christmas!

Short & Sweet

2009-12-14T04:07:00.000-08:00

It's 5 AM and I’m just walking out the door to go to work so I don't have much time but I wanted to get a post in. I hope everyone is doing great this month. I’m going to try like heck to get in and read some of your blogs soon. :0) Things are crazy for me right now. Big projects and mandatory training at work; my husband may get picked up with the government for a job!!! YAY!!! He's been trying for well over a year. My daughter is getting SO big and can now roll front to back, back to front and either direction. Big accomplishments there. I'm doing pretty well this month. Not as well as I’d like but still making progress. I’ve been working TONS and TONS and I’m pretty burnt out. However, Jan is coming quickly and I’ll be getting a raise so that will help out tremendously. No more over time for me unless I want to at that point. Right now I have to work it so we can make ends meet. It’s hard sometimes but totally worth it. I am just lucky in times like these that a) I have a job & b) I can work overtime. I know there are a lot more people out there (like my hubby) that don’t have either of those luxuries. Well I’d better get my butt to work. Be blessed!!!

December Goal

2009-12-06T15:51:00.001-08:00

At the end of the day after the weigh in I had this big AH HA moment and realized that I’m a complete idiot! I really could have won the over all for this contest if i had just buckled down last month… SERIOUSLY! I guess each of you may be thinking the same thing. But alas, I totally slacked and now I’d have to do some serious damage or hope for others to gain in order to win the overall prize. The thing is that I feel like I’ve really gotten to know many of you and I don’t want anyone to gain this month, so… I hope that all of you lose big and that I will do the same. I’m going to set a goal of 12 lbs. this month. It is what I did in the second month and it totally possible if I stay focused. Wish me luck!

The big weigh in...

2009-11-30T18:06:00.000-08:00

So tomorrow is the big day and i'm not thrilled about my weight loss this month. With turkey and pie and all the great fixins this end of month has been hard, hard, hard! Still, I'm sure some of you rocked it in spite of all of the yummy temptations! I didn't do as well as i'd like on scale weight loss but i am down one more pant size so that's GREAT!!! I’m actually just praying that when I step on that scale tomorrow I will indeed have a loss to report. I’m not positive that it will tip in my favor though. We’ll see!
I went shopping on BLACK FRIDAY and bought some really great new clothes! I really need some new jeans but I’ve decided to wait just a couple of weeks and see if I can push through into yet one size smaller. I’m going to look a little slobish until then but I think it will be worth it in the end. Wish me luck.
Saturday night my husband and I went out to this fabulous dinner and dance reception. I was trying to find something to wear and figured what the heck I’d try on that little black dress of mine. It was a closer fit than I expected by far and yet I still couldn’t get the darn thing zipped up. I’ve got one month to go and I’m sure I pull it off. :0)
Check out my ticker and you’ll see that Christmas is just around the corner. This means, candy and pie and all the yummy holiday treats all over again. I’ve decided to go back to what I was doing and only allow myself one dessert a week. I’m hoping that this will keep me picky about what one yummy thing I allow myself and keep me conscious of not eating unneccisary and unaccounted calories.
I hope tomorrow goes well for you all but if it’s not such a great month I hope you’ll still weigh in and push through the end of the year to finish off strong.

Turkey Day...

2009-11-26T14:02:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to take a few minutes and wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving! I hope that your day is filled with good food, lots of friends and family and even more fun! I hope everyone decided to splurge just a little for pumpkin pie or whatever your favorite is and that we’ll all get back on track tomorrow.

Oh so STUCK!!!

2009-11-18T20:29:00.000-08:00

Well I only have a second so this is going to be short and sweet and to the point... my scale is oh so stuck! No, really it's the scale! I promise… it’s the scale! Ok, so maybe it’s my fat butt drinking coffee and not eating nearly as much as I should. Anyway, I’m actually dropping body fat and inches but my scale hasn’t moved all that much. I know I’m not working as hard as I could be. Seem to be going in waves this month. Working my bum off one week and nothing the next week I think I lost my motivation or determination or maybe I just found a whole bunch of excuses and I’m pulling them out of my pocket and throwing them around. Huh? Well I said I’d keep it short so that’s all for now folks. Sorry I haven’t been commenting much. Too much work and not enough play makes Mindy a boring (and apparently not much skinnier) girl.

30 Never Looked Sexier!!!

2009-11-12T16:25:00.000-08:00

Happy birthday to me!

Happy birthday to Mindy!!!

Thirty sure looks sexy!

Today is my birthday and YES it’s THE BIG 3-0!!! People keep talking about how 30 was really hard for them but I don’t feel a day over 29. Besides… who knew 30 would look this good? :0)

All I wanted for my birthday was a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and a thick layer of gooey chocolate cream in the middle! But, since my daughter is still preventing me from eating chocolate I settled for pancakes for breakfast. Went all out with butter and rich maple syrup! YUMMY!!!!

This week has been ok, I’m back down from my small gain over the last week but I think my scale is broken or possibly just stuck on this damn number… I’m thinking someone else needs to come over and stand on it to make sure it’s functioning properly. Better yet maybe not, because if someone does and it really is working, it may shatter my broken scale illusion and open my eyes to the reality that…
I’M SLACKING BIG TIME THIS WEEK!!! LOL!

Back to my birthday, my parents gave me money to get a new cell phone, my husband took me to breakfast and gave me the gift of time alone to take a long bath so I could relax and unwind (much needed), my friend treated me to breakfast the other day and I’m going out with friends to dinner tomorrow night. Along with that it looks like God gave me snow… I’m not entirely sure if that’s a great birthday present or not. I’m kinda partial to sunshine and long walks with my daughter. However, since God usually knows best I’m just going to thank him for it and move on. I used to really hate the snow until one day I looked up and the flakes were sparkling in the sunlight as they fell. I suddenly realized… Snow isn’t the horrible icky stuff I thought it was… snow is just God scrap booking with glitter!

Can’t wait for the weekend! I hope that all of you enjoyed my birthday as much as I did!

What a week

2009-11-06T16:09:00.000-08:00

So I had this big crappy thing happen at work last week so I decided to hell with it… I’m not going in. So I had this whole week off and it was wonderful and awful all at the same time. Wonderful because I got to spend TONS of time with my baby girl, awful because now I don’t ever want to go back to work. Wonderful because I was able to wean myself back off coffee (I was getting out of control with it again), awful because I didn’t eat nearly as much as I should. Wonderful because I got to go walking in the sunshine with my little girl, awful because I didn’t eat enough food to sustain my level of activity and I’ve gained instead of lost! UGH!
The biggest thing I really learned from this week as far as my success at loosing is that I MUST eat a lot of food if I really want to lose (healthy, nutrient dense calories of course) and that eating 6 times a day even if my proportions are not perfect has me losing 3 times as much as when I eat 3 times a day. I’ve got the rest of the weekend to spend with my girl then Monday I’m back to work… back to 10 hour days 6 days a week. I love it and hate it at the same time. I love that I’ve got a good job making good money and that in this economy I’m able to work overtime every weekend. I love that my husband is able to stay home and take care of our little girl… but I wish that I could be the one to stay home with her. But no day care for this little girl and that makes my very happy!

Well, that was sorta like a big poor picked on me blog wasn’t it? Well, I guess that’s how I’m feeling today. My next blog will be a smiley happy message OK.
Later girls! Hope you are all have an awesome weekend!

Holy Cow!!! Is this month over already?

2009-11-01T06:56:00.000-08:00

I can’t believe how quickly the month of October has come and gone. Everyone told me that once you have children time really starts to fly. I always thought they were exaggerating but HOLY COW is October really over? Halloween was yesterday as you all know. I spent the day working overtime and spent the evening at my parents’ house. Guess how much Halloween candy I ate… NONE!!! Not even one piece. I did have a little incentive because all my parents had to hand out were chocolate bars and I haven’t eaten chocolate since July 23rd. Seriously! That’s right 101 days, chocolate free. I’m not talking about only a little here or there I’m talking about NOT ONE TASTE of chocolate since July 23rd. I am a machine!! LOL Ok I must confess, I’m not a machine at all, I’m nursing and chocolate makes my baby sick so I don’t eat it. Most days I don’t miss it but some days I really, really do! She’s totally worth it. Here she is in her little Halloween costume. She lasted in this thing for about 32 seconds. Just long enough to snap a few pictures. Isn’t she adorable! I can’t wait for next year when we get to dress her all up. It will be so fun.

Anyway, today is a new day and the start of a new month. I’m weighing in this morning at 314.4 not as low as I’d like but I’m making progress. I hope all of you will keep an eye out for my “Good Bye 300” blog. I know it’s coming soon and I can’t wait till it does! Good luck to all of you. This is another holiday month so I hope we can all resist the mouthwatering temptations of home made pie at least until thanksgiving day.

Look at me now!!!

2009-10-25T16:57:00.000-07:00

Today is a GREAT day!!! A few days after I had my baby I went shopping. I was desperate for pants and sick and tired of wearing my maternity gear. While I was there I found a rack of pants for $6 and so I immediately tore through them. I found a pair of pants and a pair of shorts that fit me then so that was great but I also picked up a pair of pants that were WAY too small. No matter what I tried I couldn’t even get them past my thighs. Determined to lose weight and loving the $6 price tag I bought them. I told myself that I would be wearing them before Christmas. Well guess what!!! These are them!!! This morning while getting ready for church I realize that all of my pants are dirty. So I thought what the heck and put these on. To my great delight they went on easily. These pictures don’t really do them justice because they have cute little pin stripes that I don’t think show up in here. They are fantastic!

I love this competition and the support and motivation you all provide. Since I was taking pictures I took some in my jeans… these are the ones I was jumping for joy about getting into not too long ago. Well now they to big!!! They just look sloppy when I wear them so I’m going to have to dig through my closet to find some that are smaller. Go me!!! :0)

One Pound at a Time!

2009-10-19T18:32:00.000-07:00

Well, I’m not feeling quite like the big "BLAH, BLAH LOSER" that I was last week. Work is still stressing me out but mentally I’m pretty sure I’ve made it over that lump of frustration that was pushing me down. I want to say thank you to all of you that sent me encouraging comments after my last post. I swear it was all of you that helped me make it through without gaining 10 lbs. :0) I did lose a couple pounds even and that was good because I wasn’t sure that I would be going anywhere. I weighed in today at 319.6!!! GOOD BYE 320’s!!! WOO HOO!!! I’m NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER going to see them again!

By the way… has everyone seen Karilynn’s AMAZING & BEAUTIFUL family pictures? If you haven’t then you must look at them. I don’t know about all of you but that is some serious motivation! Look at how far she’s come in a year. I wanted to publicly say thanks to Kari for not only getting me into the competition but for being a constant inspiration and encourager through out! I love you girl!!!

BLAH BLAH BLAH

2009-10-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

THIS WEEK FREAKING SUCKS!!! OK LAST WEEK KINDA SUCKED TOO!!! MY SCALE IS NOT MOVING! I'M TIRED, FRUSTRATED AND I WORK TOO DAMN MUCH! I MISS MY DAUGHTER AND MY HUSBAND AND ALL I WANT AT THE END OF MY 10 HOUR DAY IS A COLD BEER AND A TUB OF BEN AND JERRY'S!

Little Black Dress

2009-10-08T13:23:00.000-07:00

This is my little black dress. I know this picture does it NO justice but it has a Marilynn Monroe quality to it. It's SUPER cute on... when it fits that is. I bought this, to go to a wedding, years ago and wore it only a couple of times. My goal is to go to a New Years Eve party wearing this dress! I can't wait!

What the hell! Right?

2009-10-02T19:44:00.000-07:00

Ok ladies I’ve decided it’s time to get down and dirty!

Up until this point I’ve been very careful about what I’ve put on my blog as far as weight and stuff goes. I haven’t linked the biggest loser blog page to mine in an effort to keep those not in this contest from seeing it. I have this insane fear that people that don’t “really need to know” will see my weight on there and look at me differently. I have friends and family that read this blog and I guarantee none of them realize how much I really weigh. I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY wanted to keep it that way. Well that is until today anyway. Today something changed! I’m not really sure what but here is what happened.

Every other Friday when I work there is only myself and one other guy in the whole building. I love these days because it give me TONS of time to get stuff done that I’ve been putting off or that requires some quite research time. It also gives me lots of time to think and reflect. I didn’t plan on thinking about this contest but since it’s the beginning of the month I found myself doing just that. I was thinking about where I have been and where I’m at… more importantly where I want to be and I realized something. I’m exactly where I want to be. At a starting point.

October 1st was yet another starting point for me. I was thinking about the past month and being really hard on myself because I didn’t show a higher weight loss. I was thinking and overanalyzing the choices I made and nit-picking even the slightest error in judgment. But holy crap… look at the inches I’ve lost this month! I’m beating myself up because the scale didn’t move enough and ignoring the 2 pant size drop. What the heck? Sometimes I think about 3 years ago when I lost “this weight” or “that weight” or weighed “this much” or “that much”. I get caught up in the “used to be’s” and the “might have beens”. I can spend hours second guessing myself and the choices I’ve made over the past couple years. But it doesn’t really get me anywhere. Today I realized that thinking about the past, especially when it’s a negative thought process, only does one thing: Takes my eyes off of my future! What is the point if looking back makes you feel crappy when looking to the future is SO full of promise?

So here I am… at a starting point. This is me in ALL my glory. My current weight: 326.6 lbs.

My height: 5’ 10.5” and these are my “before” and “current” pictures. I must admit that it would have been much harder to post these pictures without having some current pictures to go with but, this is still VERY difficult for me!
However, I’m finished! I’m finished worrying who might see my true weight and gasp in surprise or cringe in disgust. I’m finished because, I’m finished being over 300 lbs.
Hell I’m even finished with being over 250!!!
SO HERE I AM!!!

My goal for this month is to look to the future.
Each day I get a new starting point and each day:
I’m going to make better choices than the one before it.
I’m going to walk faster and run farther.
I’m going to smile more and bitch less.
I’m going to set at least one goal for that day and accomplish it!
I’m going to read one chapter in my bible.
I’m going to pray.
I’m sure I’ll think of more to add to this list but I think this is a good start. Don’t you?

For Karilynn

2009-09-30T16:30:00.000-07:00

I'd like to formally thank Karilynn for the brief and yet scintillating mention of my name in her recent blog “For Melissa”. I’d like to go on record by saying that although it is true I made out with her “now gay” HS boyfriend I’m pretty sure he was gay the whole time she was making out with him as well. :0)
LIFE: it comes at ya!

Oh and about this month I’m ending it with only about a 5.8 pound loss (it was 6.4 in my first pic but i forgot my spoon and when i re-did the pic it seems i gained. EEK!). I know that’s not going to get me in the top three but I also know this… I ROCK! I’ve managed to steadily if though slowly lower my weight and I’m keeping it off! But even more than that the inches seem to be just falling off me! I’ve found EVEN MORE pants that are fitting me now that I had no hope of buttoning merely weeks before. WHOOT WHOOT! I’m still fired up and VERY excited to start October. I’m back to work full-time and I now get paid to go to the gym for 3 hours a week. I love working for the government! :0) In addition to that my sister, who is an avid marathon runner, has asked me to run a 10K with her early next year. Although the prospect of that is, at present, scary as hell it also gives me something to work toward. Wish me luck!

I scream! You scream! We all scream for Ice Cream!

2009-09-22T20:18:00.000-07:00

So, I’m not the type of person that can deny myself completely of all things yummy. If I try to do that, I end up eating twice as much as I would if I had no restriction at all. My solution to this is to allow myself 1 dessert per week with no regrets and no negative self talk. I find that in doing so I am MUCH choosier about the dessert that I ultimately end up eating. Every sweet thing that crosses my path becomes a 20 minute internal debate before I sink my teeth into it. This is excellent because usually during that debate I can talk myself right out of the desire to “cheat”. Thoughts like, “is this ___(fill in the blank with the item)___ worth losing my free dessert over?” Usually the answer is no so I move on.

Well the other day I chose to eat Ben & Jerry’s Key Lime Pie ice cream. It’s a lovely ice cream. I discovered it shortly before starting this competition and I’m sure I must have eaten 3 or 4 whole pints in that week alone. I LOVE ICE CREAM!!! Always have and probably always will. Ben & Jerry… they are some of my best friends. Just ask my hips and butt because they’ve been gaining ground thanks to those two guys for years! :0)

MY BREAK THROUGH: I opened up that pint of creamy ice cream and started to eat it. Usually if I am having a dessert I’m having it all. But this time I didn’t. I got about 1/3 or the way through that pint of ice cream and realized that I was finished! Done! I had, had enough ice cream to satisfy my craving and I didn’t need to eat any more. Now in the past I would have set this thought aside and pushed through to the bottom of the container. I would have been determined not to waist my dessert with a mere fraction of the total contents. But this time I STOPPED! I put the lid on and put it away! Then guess what else happened. To my utter surprise I was not haunted by the ice cream looming in my freezer. In fact it didn’t bother me at all that it was there. One week later when it was time for my free dessert again I simply opened it up and ate some more. It was awesome!

I'm On A Roll… Get Up I’m Hungry!

2009-09-15T20:56:00.000-07:00

Get it? If someone says, “I’m on a roll.” I like to reply, “Get up I’m hungry!” As in, “Get off the roll so I can eat it!” LOL! I think I’m funny.

Ok so I’m not on a roll but I’m sporting one!

This is me and this is my totally fabulous spare tire I havebeen carrying around since my baby was born (July). The amazing thing: IT’S SHRINKING!!!

I had my husband take these pictures today because these jeans ACTUALLY FIT!!! Just 2 weeks ago, that’s right just 14 days ago; I could not even button these up!

I’m not sure what came over me but this morning I decided I’d put them on, just to see. I almost wet my pants when they not only buttoned but they buttoned easily! I jumped around shouting and cheering at this huge improvement. Just last week my husband took all of my measurements and I was horrified at what they were. I was feeling pretty bad about it… you may all remember my fatty, fat, fat blog. Anyway, now I’m SOOOOO glad that I did that and wish I had done it sooner because obviously I’m changing and gaining ground. (Or should I say “loosing” it!)

Also, my scale has barely been moving but it is holding steady and that makes me VERY happy because that means the weight is actually gone. I’m not just fluctuating because of water weight or something. I was telling Karilynn I feel like something has clicked. I’m not sure when or what exactly it is but at some point I stopped just going through the motions and now I’m ALL FIRE UP!!!

So, look out ladies because I’m feeling good and working hard. If you’re not feeling that kind of energy I pray that God will bless you with it from this point forward! Love to all and many thanks for all of the support! I think this group ROCKS!

Walk On

2009-09-12T20:33:00.001-07:00

I got a new pair of shoes this week. They’re great shoes! Trail runners, water resistant, excellent support, and bright orange! Plus they were on sale. I don’t know if it gets any better than all of that. HOWEVER, two days ago when I went walking I wore short socks and since they are new and not broken in my beautiful new shoes were rubbing bad on the backs of my ankles. I got about 2 miles from home and realized it was starting to hurt. Nothing to do but to walk home right? I got to the end of my road and could go no further. I took off my beautiful shoes and put them in my stroller and walked the rest of the way in my little black socks. Let me tell you the pavement was freaking HOT!!! So I traded one pain for another. When I got home I finally looked at my heels and there I’ve got blisters the size of quarters! Ok maybe the size of nickels but still HUGE!!!

Last night we went to my parents for dinner and I didn’t get out on my walk before dinner so I went down into my moms basement to use her treadmill. I found huge band-aids and wore thick socks but my blisters popped and the pain is INTENSE! But I pushed through and walked and walked. I walked for what felt like 27 years, because my feet were killing me, only to look down and see I’d only gone 2 miles. Merely half the distance I went yesterday. I read about so many of you running for 4 -5 miles or more and I’m thinking. I can’t even walk 2 miles? UGH!!!! Well I'm hoping that doing something is better than nothing. I'm also praying that these heal quickly! Until then I guess I just have to walk on.

Seriously? We’re fighting over a waffle? UGH!!!

2009-09-12T08:15:00.000-07:00

Ok so my friend and I have a side bet going on our diets. My husband has developed menus for both of us and in an effort to stick with it we’re doing a little competition. We get a point each time we eat exactly what’s on our menu. On Sept 20th whoever has the most points will treat the other person to a $50 outfit at Lane Bryant! (WE LOVE LANE BRYANT!!!) As of last weekend I’m TOTALLY loosing and as far as I can see I’m still behind.

All of that to say this:

This morning I wake up with a MAJOR craving for waffles. My husband comes upstairs and I ask him if he’ll make me breakfast. He enthusiastically tells me he’ll make pancakes and I’m like, “pancakes would be good but I’d really like a waffle”. Regardless, pancake OR waffle, this fantasy was short lived because we don’t have anything in the house to make either. I said, “Well how about eggs? Then I could be on menu still.” But alas, NO EGGS!!! He decides that he can go to the store to get ingredients but I have a better idea. I coolly suggest that we go out to breakfast. I say something like, “If I’m going to loose a point I may as well get a really good waffle.” That did it! I must have offended him because suddenly he’s all huffy and going off about how we don’t have money to go to breakfast. Now I’m confused… 10 seconds ago you were headed to the store for groceries but we don’t have money for breakfast? Well apparently those are two totally different things and I was completely insane for thinking they weren’t. So I say, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll just have a freaking protein shake.” The results: he’s stomping around all bitter and angry because I won’t let him make me breakfast and I’m thinking, “Seriously? We’re fighting over a waffle?” UGH!

Fatty, Fat, Fat...

2009-09-08T21:06:00.000-07:00

That’s how I feel today! Fatty fatty boba-latty and so forth. I, like so many of you, got down and dirty and took my measurements. My husband helped me with this and needless to say it was less than exciting!!! I HATE to see the changes in my body especially when they are negative changes. His response was, "WOW, you seem SOOOOO much smaller to me today than in those last few days of the pregnancy. I wonder what your measurments were then. Hmmm?" I know he didn't mean anything by it. I have to admit I've been thinking the same thing. Still, it's a sucky thought.
Yesterday I was feeling like a rock star. Today not so much. I have decided to hide my scale. I’m putting it in my basement. This way I have got to REALLY want to stand on it otherwise I won’t bother. I’m not one of those people that can weigh themselves everyday. I know how much a person can fluctuate in a day. In my mind I have this information but my heart seems to forget. When I’m down it sings with delight but one tenth of one pound shows back up and my heart breaks. Then here comes the fatness and the fat thoughts and the fat fatty fat, fat. So to hell with the scale! I’m doing the deeds… DIET, EXERCISE and LOTS OF WATER. I'm going to view this as a starting point and nothing else. (That's what I keep telling myself anyway.) I’ll weigh myself again next week or something.

To eat or not to eat? The truth about caloric intake!

2009-09-04T08:06:00.000-07:00

Ok do you all want the truth? If you truly want your body to burn fat and maintain muscle mass then you must consume as many calories as you are burning in a day. How do you know how many you are burning? Trainers and nutritionalist will use your RMR. Your what? Your RMR is your Resting Metabolic Rate. You can go to gyms or a nutritionalist to get an RMR test. This will tell you how many calories you are burning (roughly) per day. To find your RMR they hook you up to a machine and have your lay at rest for a set period of time. Then they calculate how many calories per minute you burn while completely at rest, multiply that by the total number of minutes in the day and Ta-Da: your RMR.
Now let’s say your RMR is 1700 Calories per day. They ask about your “level of activity” and the computer will calculate how many calories it thinks you burn doing low, moderate or high levels of activity. At a moderate level (working out regularly) they would probably say you burn about 2800 calories per day. Then they would take that number and tell you how many calories to restrict to loose weight.

Scientifically speaking: To lose 1 lbs a week you should have a caloric deficit of 500 calories per day. That’s 3500 calories per week which is how much is how much it would take to loose 1 pound of fat. (One pound of fat contains 3500 calories.) Here’s the thing... Once you have reached a certain percent of body fat EVERYTHING you put in your mouth is converted into fat. Once you have restricted your calories so much that your body is in a state of starvation it will stay that way and the BEST thing you can do is to EAT MORE!!! If you think that you want to loose 3 lbs a week so you restrict 1500 cal a day your body will do exactly opposite or what you want. It will store fat not burn it! But if you break out of that starvation mode then it may not just dump 1 pound per week but 3 or 4 with no extra effort on your part.

I know I know it goes against everything you’ve ever heard, everything you’ve ever been taught and most of all your emotions pick up and yell, “This can’t be true! It doesn’t make sense to eat more if you want to loose more!” I was there. When my husband told me all of this, I told him it didn’t make sense. I wanted to eat less and have my body burn up all the freaking fat I was carrying. He said this, “Your body doesn’t have emotions and your body doesn’t think. Your body is a machine! A perfect beautiful and creative machine that will functions that way if you give it everything it needs.” If you give your body all of the carbs, protein and fat that it requires to function well it will do just that. In fact if your body is getting everything it needs then it will stop running in a mode of starvation and begin running like a well oiled machine. It will send out the signals to dump the excess baggage (fat) because it doesn’t need it anymore.

The trick: NUTRIENT DENSE FOODS!!!!!
Good food like grilled chicken rice and vegetables. Also it is CRUCIAL to get Protein, CARBS (good carbs like rice, pasta, even bread if you’re careful and of course fruits and veggies) and FAT!!! That’s right folks you MUST eat fat every day. We all need good essential fatty acids you know the good stuff like Omega 3, 6 and 9. If you don’t eat fat your body will make it!

If you read my comment on Karilynns blog then you know that I am eating approximately 3700 calories per day. That is because I’m burning 3500-3700 calories per day right now. I have not been eating enough and my body, being the perfect machine it is, has been in starvation mode and storing fat like a champ. I’m going to reset my system by eating as much as I’m using. I’ve been at this about a week and going strong. I know most of you are thinking this is the craziest thing you’ve ever heard. But somewhere some of you may be thinking that it makes sense. I will say this, how many trainers that put you on your 1500 calorie diets will guarantee that you loose weight without working out? Have you ever heard of any? They all say work out! Work out! Work out! My husband will guarantee fat loss by eating on his menu even if you don’t change your level of activity at all! So am I crazy? Is he? Ultimately, time will tell. In a couple of weeks I’ll either have lost or gained. You’ll have to wait and see!

Sneaky Little Bastard...

2009-09-02T15:56:00.000-07:00

Why is it that every time I put my mind to something these evil thoughts start creeping in. I’m totally geared up and ready to get on track with my diet and suddenly there are Baskin Robin signs EVERYWHERE!!! Things I NEVER eat like potato chips, candy bars and Twinkies suddenly have appeal and seem to be calling my name from ever nook and cranny. Everyone at work has chips and salsa, chocolate bars and salt water taffy on their desk. To top it all of there are 3 rows of GIANT cans of Pepsi filling the vending machines that line the halls at work. As if a cold refreshing Pepsi is not tempting enough now they have shiny, beautiful 16 oz cans. Short of Beer at the gas station I’ve never seen a can this big. All I can say is big blue has never been sexier and just in time for my diet. EEK!!!
Well I’ve decided! It’s the devil! He’s a sneaky little bastard that wants nothing more than for me to fail. He sneaks into my thoughts and is trying to cloud my judgment. Well I got news for you devil, you can tempt all you want but I’m not giving in!

I'm not just talking about it anymore!

2009-09-01T17:02:00.000-07:00

Ready Set Go!!!
*I’d like to start off by saying that spelling and grammar are not my strongest features so if you’re way into that… SORRY! But you’ll just have to get over it!*

Hi everyone! This is my very first time blogging EVER so I’m not sure exactly what to write. I promise you there are people falling down dead from shock just by seeing this happen. LOL

I guess I’ll just tell you a bit about me. I’m 29 years old, married and just had a baby girl in July. Isn’t she adorable? I wish that I could say that I’m this heavy because of the pregnancy but the fact is, is that I am 4 lbs less today than the day I got pregnant. Most people would be saying good job that awesome… but hello? Have you seen my weight?
Needless to say I’m not at the peak of fitness but all of that is about to change!

My husband is a personal trainer that specializes in nutrition. I was hesitant to say that because I thought people might think I had an unfair advantage. To those of you that are thinking that again… hello? Have you seen my weight? My husband is an amazing man and incredibly knowledgeable about what he does. I worked with him a couple of years ago and got in the best shape I’ve been since Jr. High but as you can see I gained it all back plus more. Living with him I’ve gained tons of knowledge about health and wellness, specifically about nutrition. I love to talk to people about proper nutrition and proper positioning when working out but often I think the information falls on deaf ears. It’s something like the blind leading the blind. (the over weight instructing the over weight. You get my point.) So, here is the plan. I’m taking all of this knowledge that I have crammed in my head and I’m putting it to work. I’m not just talking about it anymore!!!