this is how much weight i lost this week. that's a lot of butter.

i also got S to measure me on thursday i believe it was. here are the results. (the numbers in brackets are taken from the february 14th measuring. some nice results although i always wonder about my husbands ability to use a tape measure.

arms: 14 inches (15 inches)
bust: 47 inches (49 inches)
stomach: 47 inches (48 inches)
hips: 50 inches (51 inches)
thighs: 24 inches (27 inches)

so there are inches coming off. it's happening!

today was weigh in day. i'm down 5 pounds. yippee!!! after all those 3 long weeks of not losing anything i'm so incredibly happy to have lost this weight.

eating right and working out really does pay off.

i was beginning to get so discouraged. i really needed this loss.

i've already re-evaluated my short term weight loss goal and my plan is to lose 15 pounds by May 24. i know this might seem like a small amount in a long time period, but i definitely don't want to set myself up to fail. i would rather reach the goal early than not attain it at all.

tomorrow is weigh in day.

i'm actually looking forward to it this week. i've exercised a ton and ate well since monday.

i'm going grocery shopping today and i'm going to attack it slightly different. less groceries, more trips. our fridge is so tiny that food gets lost in it and then i find it weeks later rotten. eww. it is such a waste. so canned goods and baby stuff and bathroom/cleaning stuff i'm going to buy the same amount, but produce a lot less. there is a fantastic little fruit/vegetable stand a couple blocks over that me and the baby can walk to. it will be good. exercise for me, outdoor/fresh air for the baby. i think i will do the same with meat. meat also disappears in the freezer and doesn't get eaten for months and months.

i'm really enjoying the watp dvd. i've only done the 1-mile workout as of yet cause i want to save the others for a while. does that sound weird? i really enjoy the host (what's her name?, i forget) and the movements are simple and gentle. it's a gentle workout. no lunges or squats until i feel like i want to die. it's a very brisk pace they walk to. at first i couldn't match it at all, but i'm getting better.

wish me luck for my weigh in!!

church is stressing me out and i know it's not supposed to do that. there's a whole bunch of stuff going on with employees and changing their positions and money problems and crap and it's stressing me out. last night i had 2 cigarettes. i wanted to binge but instead i had the 2 cigarettes. i don't know which is worse. smoking or eating.

i dream of going to a new church where nobody knows me and the music director isn't a nutjob and the custodians aren't yelling at another committee member and the minister isn't being yelled at by a nutjob. *sigh*

• to live longer
• to be healthy
• to not be fat
• to feel prettier & sexier
• to get rid of the fat that hangs over my stomach
• to be able to run
• to teach andrew how to eat properly
• to set a good example for andrew re: exercising
• to be a role model
• to fit all my clothes again...properly
• to not go through what my mom had to go through
• to not be embarassed
• to only have one chin
• to look good
• to be able to go for a hike...and enjoy it
• to not be morbidly obese
• to have other people give me second looks
• to not wheeze
• to have energy
• to not be a square
• to not get diabetes or other problems
• to motivate others to want to lose weight and feel better
• to have pants that get looser instead of tighter

S and the baby are sleeping right now and i'm surfing 3 fat chicks and Hitched! it was S's birthday yesterday. we went out for curry and i ate waaaaay to much. now i have no flex points left for the week. again. i find myself in this situation quite a bit every saturday morning. although the food last night was good, it wasn't THAT good and it made me feel like CRAP and it made me feel EXHAUSTED. in fact i was in bed and sleeping by 10 pm. i even missed Most Haunted which i am addicted too.

i just have to figure out how to make better food choices!!!!!! how do i do that?

i don't like the scale anymore. it's not my friend and i wish it would just disappear or else start doing my bidding. it read 250 pounds...again. i could sit here and write excuses (like i'm having my period right now, i'm retaining water, i ate too much salt), but i know they really don't mean anything. it's simple calories in (or points in) equals calories burned, right? maybe i'm just being to hard on myself right now. i'm still trying to ensure that i make good food choices and remember to eat at least 3 times a day. i made my goals and i'm following them (eating properly, exercise, and lose 10 pounds in three months). i'm 1 pound away from that goal and i've got a month and a half to go. why am i so pissed and worried and upset and mad? why do i want this to happen overnight, without putting any blood, sweat, and tears into this?

i forgot to mention that i've ordered 'walk away the pounds'. it's supposed to arrive monday or tuesday, so i'm looking forward to that. i like the biggest loser dvd but i think the watp will be a nice addition for my 'slower' days...

and i'm wondering what i should eat with them. i should have an orange or a vegetable, but what i really want is a cookie. scrap that. what i really want are cookies. dad's oatmeal cookies to be exact. but 3 cookies are 4 points. dilemmas. dilemmas. i could exercise, earn some AP and then indulge in the cookies.

decisions. decisions.

i'm still not sure how i feel about the measurements. i mean, i'm glad i lost inches around my waist but why have my bust and thighs increased in size? i think what i'm mostly having problems with is the fact that this weight loss journey is not happening overnight. intellectually i know that losing these 50ish pounds is going to take months and months, somehow emotionally i think that tomorrow i will wake up a size 2 (which according to some girls on hitched! really means a size zero now). wee! but alas and alack this never happens. sigh.

tomorrow is weigh in day. first thing, sleeping on thursday nights never goes well.

**update about the cookies. i ate them, so i guess now i'm supposed to exercise...

what to post about today?

today is valentines day. how are we going to spend it? S is going to measure me. lucky him, huh? it's been almost a month since i have started and i'm curious to see if i've made any progress.

i'll have to come back later and post my progress (if any).

okay back here with the updates...i'm not sure how i feel about them...

in the brackets is the old number taken january 17/06 byS as well

Arms--15 inches (15 inches)
Bust--49 inches (47.5 inches, this i don't get at all...??)
Waist--48 inches (50 inches)
Hips--51 inches (51.5 inches)
legs--27 inches (26 inches)

i'm going to sleep on this....i'll let you know how i feel in the morning...

all reason and sanity have left my house.

we have a teething baby. now we've had a teething baby before (he's already got 4 teeth) but never like this. yesterday at my grandmothers all he did was cry and wimper and whine ALL AFTERNOON LONG. even once we got home it still continued until he fell into a whimper induced sleep. apparently making teeth is hard, hard work. *sigh*

between spending time with my family (which also drives me crazy) and the uspet baby i was driven to making horrible, horrible food choices.

why does my grandma have to have 4 different kinds of nuts right there on the coffee table? why does she have to have sour cream and onion chips right next to those 4 cans of nuts? why does she have to always feed us lunch AND supper (even if that time period is less than 3 hours apart)? and why does she have to serve completely unrelated foods? last night we had meatballs, cockatil weiners, asparagus and spaghetti. is my grandma on crack? oh and i almost forgot, there was salad as well, with a variety of high fat, high calorie dressings. *sigh* and if you don't have seconds of everything that's all you hear about...."eat some more...someone finish of these weiners i don't want leftovers....do you want some secconds?....how about a bun....i can get buns...anyone need butter?...i've got wine....who wants wine?....don't forget there's desert everybody...i don't want leftovers of that either...." desert was black forest ice cream cake. i'm rolling my eyes, can you see??

it was a big messy day.

today though i'm back on track: cottage cheese and strawberries and a banana for breakfast. yum!

**that baby in the picture is not my baby but that's what yesterday was like, all afternoon and evening long..........**

so i changed the blog template. the other one just wasn't doing it for me anymore. i'm kinda liking the green. a lot more eye catching. more pleasant? i hope so.

i've also tried to update the hitched girls blogs, if i'm missing anybody, let me know please?

today i went to this baby expo thing with my little guy. it was a lot of walking all morning. i even had the heavy lad in the baby trekker for about an hour. i'm absolutely exhausted now. i feel like i should have earned 20 AP. :P

i just want to go out and gorge on burgers and fries (notice how i put burgers. i'm even at the point where i'm trying to rationalize why i need 2 burgers to fill me up?). i think i've gone crazy.

update: well i didn't eat burgers and fries but we did go out for supper and did have a jalapeno beer cheese soup and a chicken burrito. i'm thinking those are better choices than two burgers and a huge plateful of fries.

the scale read 250 again. i'm okay with that. i didn't make the wisest food choices this week so i'm just happy that i didn't gain weight.

this week will be better! no birthday parties, a fridgeful of good-for-you food, and no dinner dates with friends.

wow, where did the week go? i've been on track all week (well since monday). i've exercised and haven't ate the exercise points b/c honestly i haven't felt hungry for them. vegetables and whole grains are my new friends!

i stepped on the scale last night (2 days before my weigh in) for some reason ubekwnownst to me. what was i thinking? i promised myself that i would only step on it once a week. but, last night, i started looking at it. it looked friendly. it looked nice. it looked promising. i thought to myself: 'i can just step on it and see how much more i can lose by friday'. wrong. how wrong. it said 251 (last weigh in i was 250). so, needless to say i fell asleep feeling not very pleased with myself. i'm blaming it all on the weekend. *sigh* supper with my best friend (a small pizza for myself, i thought i was making an okay choice b/c it had chicken and mushrooms on it--wrong again!), my grandfathers birthday (steak and potatoes...and cake and candy) and then supper with S at the dreaded nacho place (which i don't think i'll ever be able to give up, it's simply too good although i got a tostada instead of the nachos which is a better choice food wise). *sigh*

this week i am hoping for maintenance. that's it. keeping my fingers crossed.

i realize i haven't posted since friday. i'm having problems staying motivated and staying on the bandwagon. it's so easy to slip off it. i don't even realize i'm doing it. case in point: yesterday at coffee after church they had banana bread. before i knew i'd chowed down on 3 pieces of it. and it wasn't even that good. but i ate it because it was there and cause it's what you do at coffee after church.

S doesn't get it at all. 'you're exercising, you're eating better. it doesn't matter if you have pizza and nachos. you can't let this counting points take over your life.' and it's true (maybe?). sometimes i don't like how thinking about food and and how food in general is consuming my life. if i have some cashews it's the end of the world, i've let myself down if i go out with my friend and get some pizza, i'm going to gain weight if i eat regular cheese. am i sabotaging myself? why am i sabotaging myself? somewhere down in the back of my brain i can't see myself as a skinny person. i can't see myself as anything but fat.

i've got this biggest loser workout dvd and i've used it three times in 2 weeks now. *sigh* i made such a big deal out of ordering and now it's just sitting next to the tv. and it's stupid but i don't want to do the video b/c of the lunges...what a silly thing, huh?

anyways...i'm off to find some reasonably healthy food for breakfast. there's half a jug of milk that needs to be drunk before it goes bad. maybe i'll have some cereal.

i've decided to change my weigh-in day.

my new weigh in day will be friday. a whole new beginning and best of all a whole new set of flex points. i think it will work better for me to have these available for the weekend instead of for monday. if i have them during the week i just seem to snack a lot and then when it's the weekend and i'm going out with friends and stuff i have no points left. this way if i want extra points to eat during the week i'll have to exercise to earn APs. now that sounds like a plan.

so, i stepped on that scale this morning got hubby to read the number and it read 250 pounds. i am so stoked and proud of myself! down another 2 pounds. i can't believe i'm succeeding at this. another pound and i'll have reached my mini-goal weight which i had set to achieve by april 19th. i'm already starting to think of what i want to do next.

i wonder if it's a good idea to set rewards for certain amounts of weight lost. should i say when i lose another 20 pounds i get treated to a meal out, or a new pair of pants? or should the reward simply be better health and improved self-esteem?