No more blogging?

I don't know if I have to do a post about the fact that I am not blogging lately. You can all figure it out. I just wanted to say that my heart doesn't seem to be into blogging these days. It has dropped way down in the list of priorities. It doesn't mean I am giving up on living healthily. I am still exercising most days and trying to watch what I eat. I seem to be holding steady at 170, which doesn't thrill me so I know I have to step it up.

I just wanted to let you all know that I am officially on a blogging break. I hope to return someday. Maybe monthly updates is all I can handle. I don't know.

Please know, I am so grateful for each one of you that have continued to follow and encourage me on this journey. I would never have made it this far without each one of you.

Weigh-In-Wednesday

It has been about 3 weeks since I officially weighed in. Here is my first official weigh-in of 2011. Today the scale read 170.8. That is a couple pound gain since I last reported, but it is only .3 off of what I weighed at the beginning of December. I will take that! A .3 pound gain in December is acceptable to me. Maybe I'm justifying it too much, should a gain ever be acceptable especially considering I was actually down during the first two weeks of December? Be honest, people. I can take the truth.
Bigger picture news. I began this journey at 205.5 pounds, today's weigh in brings me to a net loss of 34.7 pounds this year. That is 16.89%!
This is my blogiversary! I am so grateful for having made the decision to blog about my weight loss journey. It motivates me to do better because I am accountable. I have also made some great friends in cyberworld and reading your blogs motivates me even more! Today has to be a short post, but I hope to do a post tomorrow. It will be more about how wonderful you all are and what you have meant to me over the past year.

A New Year: A Not so New Me

Happy New Year, my blogging friends! Thanks to all who have been stopping by to check in on me. Let me explain my title. I guess I am a new me from who I was last year. What I mean to say in my title is that I like who I am now and don't feel I have to become some new me this year. Isn't that great!? I hope all of you enjoyed your holiday season. I enjoyed mine for the most part. Here's a rundown on what has happened in my life over the last 2 weeks:

-My hubby and I celebrated 14 years of marriage. (Hooray for us!)
-On the same day, my Granny Auntie passed away. :(
-We celebrated my husband's birthday
-We enjoyed a quiet Christmas at home with our little family and the grandparents stopped by
-I spoke at my Granny's funeral :(
-I was rear ended on the way to an eye appt. An inconvenience, but no injury or major damage.
-We rang in the New Year at home, with a family game night.
-We have been dealing with sick kids.

So you can see, that the holidays were a mixed bag for me. The death of my Granny Auntie was unexpected and sad, but we'll get through it. I know she is happy to be reunited with her husbands that had passed on before her.

The last time I checked in, I had actually lost weight...IN DECEMBER. I wish I could say that held true for the whole month. It did not. I will officially weigh-in tomorrow. I had hoped to stay in the 160's, but that hasn't happened. Having said that, I don't think my monthly gain will be too bad. I'll just have to accept it for what it is and move on. Because today is a new day and a new year!

Tomorrow will mark the year anniversary of my blog! Wow! I am grateful to have made it this far, even though my blogging has been sporadic over the last couple of months. I think now is a good time to reflect on my 2010 goals and look to the future. Here were the goals I outlined in this post a year ago:

Long-term goals:

Lose 50 lbs in 2010-This did not happen. :( Yet, I'm still happy with my loss of about 35 lbs.
Run a 10k in 2011- Stay tuned.......
Develop a life-long pattern of regular exercise and healthy eating-I am definitely on track with this one. I am so pleased with the changes in life-style I have made over the past year. I've improved the most in the exercise dept.

Shorter-term goals:
Lose 25 lbs by summer-Accomplished this one!
Run (the whole thing) a 5k in 2010-I have yet to run a whole 5K, but have participated in a few organized 5K's and continue to do them on my own almost daily. I am pleased that my run/walk approach puts me at about 35:00 minutes. I will look to improve on this in 2011.
Work up to running 2 miles on treadmill this winter-Not sure I accomplished this last winter. In fact, it is hard for me to run 2 miles on a treadmill this winter! However, outside I could run 2 miles fairly regularly.

Again, I did not meet all my goals. Should I feel disappointed? I am somewhat disappointed not to have reached my weight and running goals, yet at the same time I am proud of what I have accomplished.

Now for the 2011 goals:

• Lose 15 lbs. by my birthday (August 16th)- This will put me to about my 50 lb. goal and means I will have to lose 2-2.5 pounds a month. That seems totally doable to me.
• Improve my 5K time to 32 minutes- I am beginning to doubt I will ever be able to run a WHOLE race, but know I can run a little bit more and improve my time.
• Participate in a 10K race-This may be my limit, but I am excited to do it!
• Lose 20 pounds by this day next year

Here's my exercise/eating schedule for now (it needs to be changed up every so often):

• Spend 50 minutes (usually 3.25+miles) on the treadmill 3x's a week.
• Spend 60 minutes (4+miles) on the treadmill one time a week.
• Spend 45 minutes on the stationary bike 4 times a week.
• Attend my strength training classes on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.
• Track my calories and consume about 1600 a day.
• One day a week of bonus exercise as often as I can.
• Rest on Sundays

So there you have it. I know my exercise schedule is only set for 4 days a week. But it just seems that is what is most realistic for my life right now and I do not want to get discouraged because I am not meeting my goals. That is why I added the bonus day at the end.

I do hope to move to 4 miles on the treadmill on 2 days a week in February and then bump it up to 5 miles in March. Even writing this I have a smile on my face. This time last year, 2.5 miles on the treadmill was a great accomplishment and most days I did 2 miles!

I hope all of you feel good about the progress you made in 2010 and are looking forward to what you can accomplish in 2011, I know I am! Have a good day and stay tuned for my first weigh-in of 2011 tomorrow.

Weigh-In-Wednesday

Good morning, bloggers! I thought I'd better check in for those who actually still care and follow me. I weighed in at 168.6 this morning. That is a 1.9 lb loss from my last weigh-in post. I actually lost 1/2 of it last week (just never posted) and 1/2 of it this week. I am pleased with the loss, obviously. This past week I attended two Christmas parties and exercise was somewhat limited due to business and feeling crummy on Monday. So a loss is great!

I am cautiously optimistic about my chances of seeing a net loss in December, a month that I have wondered about it even being possible to lose in. I am cautiously optimistic because the next 10 days or so will be challenging. We will be celebrating our 14 year anniversary (at a fancy restaurant), my husband's birthday (with his favorite pasta dish for dinner and pie for dessert) and hosting Christmas Eve dinner (honey baked ham, yummy rolls, Christmas jello, etc) all in the next week. Not to mention Christmas day and then New Year's after that. I am happy with my loss so far and don't want to ruin it. Actually, I came into this month just hoping I can stay in the 160's and then hit it hard again in January, after the holiday craziness. I think that is a doable goal.

I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday season and enjoying family and friends....and not too much chocolate. I hope to catch up on reading some blogs in the next couple of days.

Throwdown Results!

Well, as you can see Leah clearly won our challenge! She had a great loss and I had a gain in the four weeks we tracked. To say I am disappointed would be truthful. I really wanted to do better. I started off so well and then things went downhill from there.

My glass half-full approach is to celebrate that I only gained .1 last week, with Thanksgiving and all. Actually, I hoped to see a loss. I felt like my eating (besides Thanksgiving) was better and my exercise was still on track. But the truth is, I wasn't tracking so my eating may not have been as good as I thought.

I don't have the energy for a long, reflective post right now. Hopefully, I can make up for it the next couple of days. I just wanted to let you all know the results of the challenge and give Leah a big shoutout for doing so well! Congrats, Leah!

Throw-Down-Challenge- Week 3

Well, I'm a little late on this but I need to post Week 3 results of our throwdown challenge. I weighed in at 170.4 for another gain. Leah also had a gain, but it was small and she is still way ahead of me. She has now lost 2.35% and I have gained .83%. So my goal for this week is to have a loss and get back to atleast even.
I am proud of Leah, as she has obviously practiced a lot more discipline in her eating than I have. I am proud of my exercising and figure the gain could be a lot more if I had not been so disciplined and exercised most days.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I really enjoyed mine. My husband had the whole week off and we were able to spend some much needed time together. He has been working 60-70 hour weeks the last few months so it was good to have him around. He will be taking a couple of weeks off in December, too. Woo hoo! This may mean my blogging in December may be sporadic, as it has been of late.

I'm hoping to get back on track with blogging in the New Year. I figure I made it a resolution last year and it worked out pretty well for me, so why not start anew with it in 2011.

Have a healthy week! I'll post the final Throwdown results on Thursday!

Throw-Down-Challenge- Week 2 (It's not good)

Leah created this lovely scorecard for our Throwdown Challenge. As you can see, I have fallen behind. I had a 1.5 gain this last week. Not good!

Leah, however had a 3.5 pound loss. I am so proud of Leah, who is continuing to work hard and make good decisions. She had a busy week and wasn't able to track really well, but still came out ahead in the challenge.

I was also busy and didn't track very well, but obviously didn't do as well with it.
Here is an update on my goals:

1.)I will walk/run a minimum of 3.25 miles, 5 days a week.

Well, it doesn't seem to be happening for me five days a week. I am really good about doing it four days a week and I'm actually okay with that. I think I will change this goal to walk/run 3.5 miles on four days of the week.

2.) I will ride the exercise bike for 50 miles a week (I usually do 10 miles in 40 minutes)

Again, I haven't quite met this goal because I seem to be only exercising 4 days a week. However, I'm not going to change this goal because I need to motivate myself to get on the bike at the end of the day if I missed my morning exercise session. I can just as easily watch TV and ride the bike as I can watch TV and sit on the couch. :)

3.) I will track my calories on sparkpeople and aim for no more than 1450 a day. I have decided that I will not track on Saturdays (hopefully it won't be my downfall).

Fail,fail, fail! No excuses here. I just have to do it!

Well, I sound like a broken record the last couple of months, but it's time to get back on track! Being the competitive person I am, I do not want to creamed in the challenge! In fact, I don't want to lose at all. :) That means I have a lot of work to do. If I do lose, I want to go down fighting.

I hope you all have a healthy, happy weekend!