Weight Loss Wednesday

Start Date: 12/13/12
Today's Date: 12/19/12
Weight Lost Gained: +0.4

Week Successes:  Unfortunately, I need to look to elsewhere besides weight loss to have some successes for the week.  I took my American Music final last night and only got one question wrong.  I am now one final away from being DONE with my undergrad degree.  I cannot wait!

Week Struggles: I struggled a lot with the weekend.  It was graduation day on Saturday so I was not home for the majority of the day.  But that's no excuse to let my efforts to drink 8 glasses of water fall to the wayside.  Definitely something I need to work on because not only did I let the weekend get away from me I've been letting the poor weekend habits carry over to the week so far.

Lessons Learned: I think the lesson I learned this week is the weekends do matter.  I cannot slack on the weekend and expect to jump right back into it on Monday.  It just doesn't work like that.  And I can't expect it to work like that when right now the bad habits are stronger than the good ones.  I need to push for those good habits to be at the top of the list.

Goals for Next Week: I'm going to continue the goal from last week, drink at least 8 glasses of water every day.  I need to do this.  I feel better when I do this.  I found last week at work I was getting up more to use the bathroom but it actually made my legs and rear end feel better because otherwise I will just sit at my desk for hours.

So, to sum it all up the week was not a success in my opinion when it comes to weight loss.  But to look on the bright side of things, I did only show a gain of 0.4 of a pound, it could have been much worse.

28 Day Challenge Update: Today is day 7 of the 28 day challenge and as evident by the above recap of my week I'm a little bit further from my goal than I would like to be.  If I buckle down this week I think I can get back to where I started, and maybe a little closer to my goal.

Do you struggle with changing bad habits on the weekends?

Weight Loss Wednesday errr Thursday

Just want to do a real quick Weight Loss Wednesday (Thursday) post before I have to finish getting ready for work.  Side note - I am LOVING not starting until 10am.  I can sleep until 7 and still have 2 hours to get ready and not feel rushed.  This lets me pack food and do my hair and stuff, something I used to not have enough time for because I would stay in bed long after I should have gotten up.  Anyways, back to WLW.

Start Date: 12/13/12
Today's Date: 12/13/12 - Day 1 of my 28 Day Challenge with Lex
Weight Lost: 0

Week Successes: I'm going to just focus on Monday through today (Thursday).  I have been successful in getting up when my alarm goes off and not using the snooze button.  This is something I definitely want to continue with, especially once I go full time and all I'm doing is work.  I don't want to be late ever, unless it's for some reason other than over sleeping that isn't really in my control.

Week Struggles: Right now I would say my struggle is not knowing how to handle lunch at my new job yet.  This is the second day now that I am packing snacks rather than an actual meal for lunch.  I'm definitely going to ask about how they do lunch today so I can plan ahead for next week.

Lessons Learned: Well what I've learned isn't really something new but I'll share it anyways because it is important.  Weight loss doesn't happen on its own!  I can't sit back and expect the pounds to come off while I'm not exercising or watching what I'm eating.  So, starting today that's changing!

Goals for Next Week: My goal for today through Wednesday (12/19/12) is to drink at least 8 glasses of water every day, even weekends (my weakness).  I would also like to see at least half a pound lost.  My first week back in the weight loss game so I'm setting a reasonable goal.  Ultimately my goal for every week will be to lose one pound.

Have a great Thursday peeps!  I'm off to finish getting ready for work and then heading in for my second day!

Weight Loss Wednesday: 28 Day Challenge

Remember when I posted about Holding for the Holidays?  Well, obviously since I left my job I won't be completing the Hold for the Holidays challenge.  Doesn't mean I won't still be working towards my weight loss goal and at least holding for the holidays.

My good friend Lex (who blogs at LifebyLex, check her out!) is trying out this new (I think) thing called Diet Bet where you pay in a set amount of money "betting" that you'll lose 4% of your body weight in 28 days.  She blogged about how she joined a Diet Bet challenge that starts the day after Christmas (read about it here).  I had left a comment wishing her luck and saying I just couldn't justify spending $25 (which is the entry "fee" for that particular challenge) when I've been spending my money a little crazily lately.

Tonight Lex emailed me about a Diet Bet challenge that starts tomorrow for only $10/entry. A much more reasonable price for me with my out of control spending.  But when I really thought about it I decided Diet Bet just isn't for me right now.  Mentally I'm not ready to put money down and have to lose 4% of my body weight in just 28 days.  It's a pretty lofty goal, like 2 pounds per week for me.  Granted, I'm at the start of my weight loss (again, ugh!) so maybe the pounds would fall off pretty quickly if I stuck to eating better and working out but there's just something mentally stopping me.

Luckily Lex is awesome and understands and offered me an alternative.  I'm just going to follow along with the challenge (while she really does it) and try my best to lose that 4% of my body weight in 28 days, starting tomorrow.  So, essentially Lex and I are in our own little game.

Since Chelsea moved to Maryland I've lost my workout buddy so I've been struggling to go to the gym.  Actually, I'll be honest.  I've been struggling for months, even before Chelsea moved.  Which means I've been paying for months of Y membership that I haven't been using.  This needs to stop!  Wasn't I just talking about how I'm out of control with my spending and here I am wasting a monthly membership fee by not even using it?!  Horrible I know.

Tomorrow begins my 28 day challenge with Lex.  Weigh-in tomorrow morning before work.  Healthy food and water to take to work and Friday I'm hitting the Y to get a work out in.

I'm also going to bring back the Weight Loss Wednesday weekly post that I failed at earlier this fall.  Here's the format I'll be following.  If I get the chance tomorrow I'll do an actual post on WLW (even though it will be Thursday).

Start Date:
Today's Date:
Weight Lost:

Week Successes:
Week Struggles:
Lessons Learned:
Goals for Next Week:

Support and encouragement are definitely welcome!

Weight Loss Wednesday

My friend Alexis who is the author of Life by Lexis started a weekly themed blog post Weight Loss Wednesday.  I'm sure her intention wasn't for bloggers to jump on the wagon and link up their own Weight Loss Wednesday posts to her blog but that's exactly what I am going to do!

Like Lex, I have a wedding coming up on September 30th which I was asked to stand up as a bridesmaid for my best friend Chelsea.  I joined my local YMCA in January to try and slim down for the wedding.  I was working out regularly until summer hit and I started making excuses for why I couldn't go to the gym.  I didn't make up for not going to the gym by being active at home.  Little to no activity coupled with reverting back to my old eating habits (whatever I want, whenever I want, and however much I want) led me to more than likely putting the few (5) pounds I had lost back on.  I say more than likely because I haven't been on the scale for a few weeks now because I was afraid of the number I would see.

It saddens me to think that had I stuck with the workouts and eating better since January I could be at or very close to my goal weight and feeling much more confident about myself and my body.  But I can't change the past so I am just going to focus on what I can do from here on out.  It's a new month and a new day so I am going to start TODAY!

Lex and I actually "met" online through the weight loss community Sparkpeople.com which is an awesome place for support, and tools to help you succeed with weight loss.  I'll post more about this awesome website another time but if you're a member of the site already or join and want to be friends my user name is COUNTRYSTRONG21.

Starting today, Wednesday August 1st, I am going to commit myself to posting a weekly Weight Loss Wednesday post for the next eight weeks, maybe nine as Chelsea's wedding is on the Sunday following what will be the eighth post.

I am going to follow the same format Lex is using which looks like this...

Start Date: 8/1/2012

Today’s Date: 8/1/2012

Weight lost: 0 lbs

Week Successes: Coming to the realization that I need to let my brain catch up to my stomach instead of shoveling more food than I really need into my mouth.

Week Struggles: Fair food!  The Wisconsin Valley Fair is going on July 31st through August 5th and you know that means lots of deep fried goodness food.

Lessons Learned: Slow down when eating!

Goals for Next Week: Track everything I eat and do for activity using Spark.

Be sure to check out Lex's Weight Loss Wednesday post from today!

I promise not all Weight Loss Wednesday posts will be so long but I wanted to give you a little background to why I'm doing this.