End of Week 9

Well...another week down.  It is going so fast!  This week's weigh in was much better than last week.  I lost 4.6 pounds for a total of 31.4 pounds in 9 weeks.  I know I have not giving my weigh before but anyone can go on the website and look so I might as well talk about in here.  They best part about this weigh in is that I am now under 300 pounds!  Mark my word...I will NEVER be that again.  I can't believe that I ever let myself get that bad but I did.  Know I have done the work to get better and get healthy again.  Andrew asked me what my new goal was going to be now that I am under 300.  I had not thought about it.  So my new goal is that I want to be 275 by the end of the 15 weeks.  With that being said to reach that goal I will have to loss around 3.5 pounds a week to be at 275.  I know that I can do this. 

This weekend I went through my closet to get rid of all of the cloths that are too big for my garage sale in two weeks.  Mean do I have a lot of cloths that are too big!!!  I love it!  I fit into some old pants that were 4 sizes smaller than I had been wearing.  That just feels so good.  I had to go out and buy a belt for the first time in years to hold my pants up until I go and get new cloths.  It was really hard not to get any new cloths because I know I would not be in them for long but I really just want to shop!  I have not said that in a long time.

Another great thing happened today.  I was getting ready for work this morning and after I got dressed I thought that I really looked pretty.  I have not felt that way about myself in a very long time.  Andrew would always get mad at me because he would always tell me how beautiful I was but I could not believe him because I did not believe it myself.  I had on a jean skirt and a pretty fitted top on for the first time in a long time and I just told Andrew, I feel pretty today.  I can't believe how much confidence I have regained since starting this.  I believe in myself more and know that I can do anything that I put my mind too.  When I gained all the weight I used to go to work every day in jeans and a T-shirt and my hair in a ponytail because I just did not care about what I looked like.  Now, I am noticing that I make an effort in the morning when I get ready for work.  I dress up for work now and enjoy looking nice with my hair and make-up done.  It is crazy to me just how much I have changed the way I view myself in just the past 9 weeks.

In other updates, I tried running again for the first time in 3 weeks today.  I did it very slowly and I only did a little bit here and there.  I don't want to push it too soon.  It is nice to know that when I was running it did not hurt!  That is very good.  I don't like being injured because I just feel like I can't give everything I have.  Well, I think that is all for this week.  Next week we do not weigh in until Tuesday morning before workouts because of a special class we have next Monday so you will have to wait until then to find out how this week goes.

End of Week 7 & 8

I know...I know...I am running a little behind on blogs.  I have been so busy with work I have not had the time to get any done.  Okay...here is to get you up to date on everything.  I had a great weigh in for week 7.  I lost 7.4 pounds!!!  Everyone asked me how I did that and I have no clue.  I did not do anything different and worked out the same, so my guess is that it was just my time to lose it.  Week 8 weigh in was not good at all!  I only lost .2 pounds for a total weight loss of 27 pounds in 8 weeks.  I really can not believe that we only have 7 weeks left.  It is going by so fast and I am really not ready for it to be over.  For those of you that don't know, our last week of the program we have to run a 1/2 marathon and it is open to the public.  If you are interested in running in it just go to the link below and sign up.

http://www.runrace.net/findarace.php?id=11183IN2&tab=a2

As far as my injury goes I am starting to get a little better.  I tried jogging for the first time on Tuesday and it did not hurt to bad.  So hopefully I will be able to finally pick it up again next week in workouts.  I thought I would never say this but I miss running.  Well I guess it is really a jog to normal people but to me it is running.  Workouts have been getting harder and harder but it is so worth it.  Our TV show was on the other night and they showed some footage from the very beginning of the program to now and it is such a big difference from the way everyone looks to the workouts we are doing.  I am just so proud of everyone because we are all working so hard and it is paying off. 

And I saved the best for last.  I know that I am two weeks late but here is the new hair cut!  This is the only picture I have of it.  And this is Hannah that is in the picture with me, she is a Senior at South Side and I went and took pictures of her before she went to prom.  She is kind of like my little sister :)

End of Week 6

What a week.  I am so sorry that I am writing week 6 blog at almost the end of week 7.  One it has been one crazy week!  It is prom craziness at work, and two the blog has been down I guess.  So here we are...Monday's weigh in was not a good one.  I don't know why I am so all over the board.  This week I only lost 1.2 pounds for a total lost of 19.4 pounds.  I know that is great but I was not happy at all.  I know I could do so much better.  I also thought it was going to be another good week because I thought I did so good, so it was a little disappointing to not do so good.  After weigh in I was looking at my food log and I think the reason that I did not do to tell is that I did not eat all of the calories that we are supposed to.  We are supposed to eat 1600 calories and our dietitians told me I should be right at that number.  I know it is no excuse but this week was so crazy I really didn't eat.  Most of my days I only had 1100 calories!  So I know that was a big part.


Well...I have had my first injury of the competition.  This week I have been fighting a pulled calf muscle.  It started to feel a little bad last week but by the weekend I did not think anything about it.  Then Tuesday morning workout I could hardly walk or ran by the end of the workout.  My calf was a solid ROCK!  By the time I got home from workouts, showered, and was getting ready for work I could not even walk!  If I tried to walk it was a shooting pain right up my leg.  You all know me I am stubborn and I was not going to give up.  It was not any better Wednesday morning for workouts.  I could somewhat walk but they would not let me workout.  I got sent to the pool to do a workout there.  The great thing was that this week was our pool workout on Thursday, so I did get 2 pretty good workouts in this week.  Tina made me go to the doctor to find out what was going on.  I could not get into my doctor so one of our sponsor Dr.'s that I know checked it out for me.  He said that I was going to be okay but just needed to take it easy for a couple days and gave me some medication to help me out a little bit.  Today was the first day that I had been on it all day long and it did not hurt at all.  That makes me feel so great!  So Tuesday he said I could start working back into workouts!  That's good because I don't like being on the sidelines.

So I did do some other crazy stuff this week.  Some of you might now but I cut off 12" off my hair.  Yep...It is all gone...Here is the before picture.

I have not taken an after picture yet.  I will do that tomorrow and post it.  Don't worry...I donated it all to locks of love!

Next I would love to show you some beautiful flowers that I got this week from Grandma and Grandpa Sands.  I was so surprised when I got to work and I had this large basket of flowers on my desk.  So thank you so much!  I love them and it means so much to me to know how proud you are of me!

Last...I had Andrew take a picture of me so you could see the changes (Mel stop reading the blog if you don't want to see the changes) I forgot to take one the first week we started so I am going to use the last picture that I had taken of me which was Christmas (sorry honey to cut you out). The new picture was taken last Friday at the end of 5 weeks.  Also wanted to tell you that the shirt I have on in the new picture didn't fit 6 weeks ago :) ( I also Photoshopped these pictures together so you can see them side by side)

Andrew said that he was sad that I was losing some assets on the backside that me married me for and he does not know about this :)  I just laughed...Got to love him!  Well that is all until Monday. 

End of Week 5

Well what a week!  I can not believe we are at the end of week 5.  It is going by so fast.  So I will just start it off with our weigh in from last week.  Needless to say I was not happy with my weigh in last week so I worked hard this week and it has paid off.  I lost 5 pounds this week.  It felt so good to see that loss on the scale.  I have not lost that much since the first week.  I have to say I was very proud of myself.  Now, I want more!  I want that feeling every week.  I was so excited to find out that I was the 4th biggest loser this week which made it even better.  Now my goal is to be first.  So for a total for 5 weeks is 18.2 pounds.  I can't believe that!  I made my choice this morning that I was going to push myself in workouts as hard as I can.  I have worked hard but today I did not care how tired I was I was going to give that extra that I didn't think I had in me.  And I did.  We did a different workout today than normal.  We ran on the upper track plus did some other circuits and I made myself run a full lap on the track without stopping.  I have not been able to do that before!  I know for some that is no big deal but for me it is a HUGE accomplishment!  I know my run is more of a jog but then again 5 weeks ago I could hardly run without being out of breath in less than a minute.  Even moving stuff around at work I would be out of breath and now it is completely different.  It is so crazy to think how just almost 20 pounds has already changed my life so much.  I feel so much better about myself personally and I can not believe how much more energy that I have.  I used to be tired all the time at work and barely make it through the day and now I can go straight through the day and not be tired.  I think the best part of today's workout was the end of it.  I was talking with a friend after work outs and he was saying how proud of me he was for working so hard and doing all of this.  Then he did something that I would not have thought about doing...he grabbed a 20 pound dumbbell and handed it to me.  He told me to hold that and feel what I have lost.  Normally I would be like 20 pounds that is no big deal but as I stood there and held that weight I could not believe how heavy it felt to me.  I then held that weight to my waist and was like that 20 pounds was there!  Now as I write this it makes me want to cry because I know that I could not have done this without this program.  I don't know if I would have had the drive and the will power to do it.  I know that by doing this I have probably saved my life because I don't think I would have ever changed because I had just given up.  But now...that is not an option.  I am so motivated and I am ready to lose that next 20 pounds!

I really don't have any funny stories to tell you this week but Hannah and I did try out a new Saturday class.  We went to Groove.  I guess it would be kind of like Zumba but it was so much fun.  I laughed so hard at Hannah because as she says her "ghetto" side came out.  I think that be my new favorite class.  You do get a good workout but at times you can just do your own silly moves or be crazy.  So I think that is what we are going to do again this week.

Before I rap up this post, I did want to thank everyone for all of your support.  It just makes me feel so good to have all the support behind me.  Everyone is always asking how things are going, and how do I feel and it feels great.  I think this might be the largest group of people that I have ever had behind me.  I also want to do one special thanks.  To Leah, it just means the world to me how much you are supporting me.  I have to say I think you might be my biggest fan!  It just made me feel so good when we talked at the volleyball game.  It just gives me so much more energy to do this with all that support.

I am going to try and post a picture of me now.  I want to put an old picture up beside a new one.  Now just for all of you to see but I am excited to see the difference too.  Last I wanted to add this link to my post.  It is just a minute and half trailer that they have made of us working out.  I love it!  It is very cool.  Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1NmhferCEQ&feature=share