The 500th Time

I decided it was time to start documenting my weight loss in the form of a blog. I've been thinking I should for a while now, and my baby sister (she hates it when I call her that) started her weight loss blog this weekend, Fatgirl's Journey, and motivated me to get off my butt and get busy.

In January of this year I started dieting for what must be the 500th time (hence the title) and for some reason this time it has stuck. I've never stuck to a diet for more than a week until now. I have to give some of the credit to my wonderful husband, who's lost over 65 pounds since last June. He's doing great and looking mighty fine these days, I must say. His success awakened my competitive spirit about the time he started weighing less than me. (wth, right? Rude!)

I've been posting my weekly weight loss every Monday morning on Facebook, but I've never had the guts (figuratively, of course) to post my actual weight, so I'm going to bite the bullet and do it here.

On January 11, 2010 I weighed in at 287.6 pounds. As of last Monday's weigh-in, I'm down 36.0 pounds for a current weight of 251.6 pounds.

Whew! That was harder than I though it would be.

I'm not doing any specific diet. I'm counting calories and trying to avoid sweets and fried food. I've made friends with lettuce and I think I eat it by the pound. I used to make fun of all those girls I liked to call "Salad Eaters" and now I've become one. I use an app on my Ipod called Lose It to track my weight loss and calorie intake. When I first started the diet, I was militant about recording my calories. If I couldn't figure out how many calories were in something, I didn't eat it. I have relaxed about recording everything, but I do try to track it all to stay within a daily calorie window. I try very hard to keep my daily intake between 1500 and 2000. I still haven't adopted a regular exercise regimen but I walk, workout with resistance bands, and have a lot of no holds barred, blinds closed, wild and crazy dance parties with my three-year-old son. Those are my favorite workouts, and let me tell you, I feel the burn. When I get tired he tells me, "You just dance really slow and I'll dance really fast."

My weight loss goals have less to do with weight than with feeling better about myself and wearing smaller (read: cuter) clothes. I'm doing it as much for my mental health as for my physical health. My Inner Voices were starting to sound like the mean kids on the playground, and I was inwardly saying things to and about myself that I would never say to my worst enemy. Like most women, I've never been completely satisfied with myself, but in the last year my self-image has taken a real nosedive. I knew I had to do something about it before it became a more serious problem.

The other biggest motivator in this whole weight loss thing is my son, Nathan. Like most moms, I'm completely head over heels in love with my baby boy, and if you follow this blog you'll probably get really tired of hearing about him. I want to be able to run with him, dance with him, play with him, look good so he won't be ashamed to be seen with me, and most of all, I want to live long enough to see him grow up and get married and become a neuro-surgeon (because he's totally that smart). I plan to have more children soon, and I can't even imagine how much better the whole pregnancy experience will be when I'm not carrying around all of this extra weight.

So that's it in a nutshell. In closing, I'll list some of my weight loss goals right here in black and white. This blog is about holding myself accountable and that starts here:

1. I want to shop in stores that don't even have a plus-size section. I continually bitch and moan about how hard it is to find cute clothes in that section, and it doesn't look like the stores are going to change so it has to be me.

2. I want to be able to wear free t-shirts. I never again want to ask, what size do they go up to, and is that a mens' 3X or women's?

3. I want to be able to look at a photo of me and not cringe. A candid photo where I didn't have time to suck in, turn to the best angle, and push out my chin to hide the other chins.

4. I want to be able to keep up with my kids and not have to say "Slow down! Mommy's having a coronary!" when we race across the playground.

5. I want to love myself again, and feel worthy of the love of my husband and son.

Thanks for reading this and thank you for supporting me in my journey!