Current Weight: 216. Goal Weight: 155.

I was sitting on the porch watching the girls draw with sidewalk chalk and I was thinking to myself how different I've been feeling the last week or so. I decided it was time to do another blog post. I know I haven't been posting much here and that's because I mostly post to my instagram account which has been a nice little diary/journal for me to record all my progress/weigh ins/food etc. But I feel like I have a little more to say so I'll just post it here.

I am currently down 36 lbs since November. I know. That's not really a lot to lose in the course of 10 months. I'm averaging .9 lbs a week. Which isn't bad. That's fine. But it is really slow. And the last couple of weeks I've started running. I decided to give the couch to 5 k program another go. I've tried it a couple of times in the past but always quit. I'm doing it again and I don't remember it being so hard! I must be getting old because it's been difficult. I'm actually in my 3 week repeating week 1! I think next week I'll move onto week 2. So anyway, since I've been running I feel a lot stronger. I feel slimmer. I feel like I can actually *feel* my body changing! I have weigh in in two days (Saturdays - and I always cheat the entire day and eat whatever I want that day.). So as of this morning I"m down to 215. So I'm kind of hoping I can be down to 214 by Saturday. I NEED a nice two pound loss. I really want to start upping my average loss to at LEAST a pound. I had a goal last year to get down to the 180's by October (we are going to Maui for our 10 year) but I won't even be close to the 180's at this pace. I've made peace with missing that goal, but I'm obviously still going to continue to do this! I'm actually enjoying it. I enjoy food way more when I watch my portions and exercising has been a nice challenge for me. I'm hoping that now that I am working out 3 days a week. I'll see a slight boost on the scale.

Perspective.

I got through my first week on my new approach to weight watchers. That's what I'm calling it. My new approach. I've been doing this since November. I'm currently in my 7th month of this. I've had several slips where I've gone off track for several days, even weeks. But I've decided it's time to buckle down. Especially if I want to reach my goal of being in the 180's for Hawaii. Tyson and I bought our tickets a few days ago, so there's no going back! We're going! And I will have a wonderful time if I'm at a weight I'm more comfortable with and also knowing that I made my goal!

Okay, here are the stats:

Starting weight: 253 lbs
Current Weight: 229 lbs
Goal weight: 183 lbs (I'm putting 183 because it's exactly 70 lbs from my starting weight, but honestly, if I make it to the 180's at ALL I will feel like I accomplished my goal!)

Ultimate goal weight: 155 lbs

Okay, the ultimate goal weight probably won't happen for another year, but I'm hopeful.

I found an account on Instagram of this girl named Kristy. She took an approach to WW I've never seen before and I'm anxious and curious to test it out. Here is what she does: Every morning she starts her day with a bottle of lemon water. She drinks that first and waits to eat breakfast for about 1/2 hour to an hour. She sticks to her daily points every day of the week except Saturdays when she lets herself eat whatever she wants. She claims to have never had a week where she didn't lose/gain/maintain. She lost 75 lbs in 40 weeks. That's an average of 1.8 lbs a week. If I follow her approach and lose the same amount of weight on average, I will be in the 180's by October. So I'm trying it.

I had cheat day yesterday and it was fun but it's also something I'm trying to get used to. The last two cheat days I've felt like I was gorging myself too much. Maybe even comparable to a "load" day for hCG. I didn't love the cheats. I also don't like that I have to "cheat" on a specific day. The beauty of WW is that you don't have to deprive yourself of anything and you can dip into those weeklies if you need to for a special event or whatever. So moving all my extras to one day is an adjustment. It will absolutely be worth it if it proves to give me big losses each week.

I'm hopeful that I'll get large losses on the scale each week and that will motivate me to keep going. This week I lost a pound. My scale is kind of stupid and gives me different readings so I'm not exactly sure what to think. Last week I was hovering around the 230's/229's and this week it kind of said the same thing.

So, I was browsing through facebook today and saw this post from my lean body challenge group I'm a member of...this girl posted pictures from January and comparison pics from May. So, I thought about how much a difference of 5 months can make and I realized that in no time, it'll be September and I could be down to the 190's or 180's. It might seem like taking it each day or each week will take forever, but it will be September eventually and I"m not going to waste anymore time feeling bummed or that it will take forever. I've had so many times I've wanted to quit this "diet" and I'm not going to. I remember when I got down to the 160's 2 year ago, Tyson couldn't keep his hands off me. I want that back again. I want to look and feel beautiful! Especially for my hubby.

Anyway, I'm not stopping. I'm going to keep drinking lots of my lemon water and regular water and hopefully I'll reach my goals by September. :)

229!

Just had to mark this occasion because it's very exciting. I started this journey at 253 lbs after I had Iris. I flew through the 240's and trudged through the 230's. Felt like I was in the 230's forever.

A couple days ago I kind of had a breakthrough. I found a girl on Instagram who lost 75 lbs in one year. She posted about how she did it and it went something like this:

She stuck strictly within her daily points range Sunday through Friday. Saturdays were her weigh in days and on those days, she ate whatever she wanted for the entire day. Then, Sunday it was back to business. She also said she drank lots and lots of water! She was talking about how much she loved diet soda and never drank water (SO ME!) and she said she believed her success was attributed to water and she didn't think she would have accomplished so much without drinking so much water. So I'm aiming to drink about 100 oz a day.

I've been doing the "stick to your daily points" thing for 2 days now along with drinking my water. I'm happy to say I'm now down to 229. Which is so damn exciting! I'm hopeful this new approach to weight watchers will help me accomplish my goal of being 185 for my anniversary in October! I've gotten renewed hope! :)

233

Progress pictures of me. Down 20 lbs since starting this journey last November.

3rd Time Starting Over OR 3rd Time's the Charm?

This is really difficult to post about. I have always struggled to stick with WW. It's SO slow and that can be maddening. Especially because it's mostly about learning to change your behaviors and habits. I went off track in December around Christmas time. I gained about 5 pounds then. I have since gotten off track a few more times. I'm back up to 241 after getting down to 237. I tracked solidly for a month and it was really great because I really did get in the habit of tracking EVERYTHING. By the end of the month, when Iris went to the hospital, I remember them bringing me some lunch after she was brought in and I was like, how am I going to track this? I have to track this. The habit was truly there. I didn't track because I knew I would be in the same predicament of "guessing" the points at every meal they brought me in the hospital. So I stopped tracking for a week. Only a week! I weighed in the next Wednesday and I was up EIGHT pounds. EIGHT!!! I was so devastated!!!! My entire month of tracking - down the tubes! I went back on track for a couple days and lost 3 pounds in 2 days. Then we went to Disneyland and I ended up going off track again (honestly, who wants to track points at Disneyland!??!). I got home yesterday and weighed in. I had only gained 1 pound from Disney. Not too bad. I tracked points yesterday and weighed in today. Lost 3 pounds in one day. I am now 4 pounds away from my lowest weight so far of 237.

This is seriously tedious. I now have to remove those 4 pounds just to get back to where I was before! It feels like such a waste of time! But I know it must be done. If anything, these "off track" moments are helping me to learn. I'm learning that if I DO decide to stop tracking (because that IS my choice), I should at least try to eat healthy still. I usually go completely ape-shit and eat the worst possible stuff I can! I believe experts call that binging! So I'm learning to try my best to make good choices, even when I'm not tracking. That will help me not to gain quite so much. :)

I'm also learning that what matters most isn't how much I've gained or that I "slipped". What matters most is deciding to try again. To start over. Again.

I read this quote that really stuck with me. It went like this:

Learn how to get back on track and get used to it. There will be times that you mess up. It may only be one meal, one day, one weekend, one week or an entire month, but it will happen...and that's okay. The secret is to learn to forgive yourself and start over again. Get up, leave the unhealthy habits behind, over and over again. Every. Single. Day.

It's a bit lengthy, but I like it. Mostly the part about getting used to starting over. I liked that.

So, here's to another month of honest tracking. Yesterday was day 1 and I'm sticking with a full month. Hopefully life will be a bit kinder to me this month. We've had a rough, rough, ROUGH month of the sickies here and I'm SO over it.

Starting Weight: 253
Current Weight: 241
Goal Weight: 233 (short term goal....)

A fresh new blog for a fresh new start!

Might even say a fresh new ME! I got the idea to start a blog from a weight loss program my friend was telling me about. I post about my weight loss on my regular blog/journal, but I think a separate one would be good so I can share my success with others and so it keeps it all together and doesn't take up too much space on my other blog. I've posted A LOT of weight loss stuff over the years on that blog. I don't know why it never occurred to me to create a separate weight loss blog!

Let me start from the very beginning! As a child, I wasn't overweight. I was actually quite thin. I developed early and I remember being a size 10 when I was in about 6th or 7th grade. I was never overweight as a youngster. I remember being around 145 when I was 14 years old (and thinking I was fat!)

When my family moved to Denver, Colorado in 1998 (at the tender age of 15), I got severely depressed and suffered from horrible anxiety! Because of this, I wasn't able to eat without getting sick to my stomach. Most days I would eat a piece of toast in the morning and that would be it for the entire day! I was just too nauseated! I don't know what my weight got down to, but I know my jeans were a size 8. That's probably the smallest I've ever been. I eventually saw a doctor and he got me on some medications and I was able to eat again. I gained weight after that and I got up to 190 pounds by my senior year. Yikes!

My parents divorced in 2001, when I was 18, and I moved to St. George with my mom and younger brother and sister. I gained weight again and was wearing a size 16 in jeans. I got a job in retail stocking shelves and unloading trucks and ended up losing a lot of weight, along with an exercise regime I had taken up. I got myself back into a size 12 jean. Later the next year (age 20) I would be in a 10. My weight steadied out during those years working hard at my job. When I started dating my husband I was 22 years old and wearing a 12 again. When we got married I was around 180 pounds, wearing a 14. After we got married I gained 20 pounds and was back into a 16. I decided to try weight watchers per the advice of my sister who had done it and had great success. I did it and lost those 20 pounds in the course of about 4 months. No exercise.

I became pregnant in November 2007 and lost the baby a couple weeks later. It was devastating for me and I packed those 20 pounds right back on. I remained overweight and struggling for the next couple of years. I couldn't seem to stick to anything! I really had just given up. In 2009 I heard of this diet called the HCG diet and told myself if my husband and I didn't conceive that month, that I would do the diet and put off trying to have a baby until after I did the diet. Well, that month I got pregnant with my oldest daughter (I was about 192 lbs). I got up to 242 by the end of my pregnancy. After my daughter was born, I was 222 lbs. I was soo upset at that! I couldn't believe I weighed so much! I bought an exercise kit off amazon.com called "The Firm Cardioweights System" and I did that along with healthy eating for about a month. I got down to 216 pounds (wearing a size 16 again), but my back went out and I had to stop exercising. I never got back into it. After I had nursed my daughter for a year, I decided to give the HCG diet a go. It was SO HARD. The hardest thing I've ever done. I was basically starving myself, but the HCG hormone supposedly makes it so you don't actually starve, but burn fat instead. It was still a very brutal diet. I lost all my baby weight and then some. I believe I got down to 174 at my lowest.

We decided to try for another baby after this and because I knew I was getting pregnant soon anyway, I gave up eating healthy and gained the weight back. I was back up to 210 pounds when I eventually got pregnant with my 2nd daughter. I enjoy my pregnancies and pretty much eat what sounds good to me. With my 2nd daughter, I gained even more than my first. When I weighed in after a couple weeks of giving birth, I was 242. Yikes. Again, I was agast at that number and knew I had to do something to change it. I signed up for Weight Watchers and really enjoyed the new Points Plus program. I lost about 20 pounds, getting me out of my size 20 jeans and into size 18. I gave up Weight Watchers after a couple months and didn't really try losing weight until another year had gone by. I decided to try HCG again in hopes that it would get me out of my funk! I did 3 rounds of HCG in a year. I went from the 230's to the 160's. It was the first time in YEARS I was in the 160's. Still wearing a size 14 at that weight, but I was so happy with the way I looked. And I had worked hard for it. Later that year (2014), my family moved to  Wyoming for my husband's entry level job that he landed after graduating from college as an Electrical Engineer. It was a really hard move for our family. I had developed really good eating habits by then (we're talking, NO sugar at all, ever) and I gave up AGAIN. I remember it starting with an M&M McFlurry. We had just moved to Wyoming. My girls were playing at the playplace there and I knew it was a bad idea to eat it. I knew it was. But I did it anyway. And it was all downhill from there. I packed the weight back on (dude, talk about yo-yo dieting! I am the QUEEN!!!!). I got pregnant 5 months later and I was once again back up to the 210's and wearing a 16 jean again! UGH! I had a tough pregnancy with my 3rd daughter, and I suspect it's because of my weight. I gained the most with my last baby. I got home from the hospital and weighed in two weeks later at 253.

Yeah....

So, as soon as I was cleared to start my weight watchers journey, I did. My first day of tracking was November 2, 2015. I was 253 lbs. I had a great November. I even lost weight during Thanksgiving. Christmas threw me for a horrible loop and I completely went bonkers. January 1, 2016 I pulled myself up by my britches and started over. I was 247. I had gained about 3 or 4 pounds over Christmas. Not as much as I had imagined I would gain. I lost those 3 pounds the first week back on plan!

Today is February 9 and this morning I weighed in at 238.5! Now, that is a really big number. Way way way higher than it should be. BUT, I'm proud of the fact that I'm 5 pounds away from losing my first 20 lbs. And I'm trying to be positive and optimistic about the fact that I have a very long way to go in this journey. And that's what it is, it's a journey. I know it's going to be tough and I'm going to want to give up. But I've had enough of this size 16 crap! The biggest obstacle in my life is ME! My brain told me over and over again that 180 was just too hard to get to! And 150? NO WAY! I have realized now that it IS possible to get there. I can do anything I want!

So, here's my short and long term goals (I have several...you'll see why...)

1. Take my weight loss 10 lbs at a time.

*I lost the first 10 pounds pretty easily and it wasn't "hard". It just took the effort of tracking what I was eating and staying within my points range. I'm currently 5 pounds away from my next 10 lbs goal - 233 lbs.

2. I want to weigh 185 lbs by the beginning of October of this year.

*My husband and I are celebrating our 10 year anniversary in Maui and I want to look like myself for this anniversary. I went to Florida in 2014 and I was 186 for that trip. I remember feeling pretty confident about myself at that weight. I will have a much better trip to Maui if I'm at a comfortable weight. So right now, that's my "mid-term" goal, haha! That's 53 pounds from now.

3. My long-term goal is to weigh 155 lbs.

*That's scary and quite a reach for me, but I know I can do it. We're talking losing nearly 100 pounds. It will be a lot of work, but I know it's attainable.

Right now, I'm doing a version of weight watchers points plus program. They recently changed the program from points plus to smart points. Smart points is a lot more restrictive and I wasn't happy on that plan, so I'm doing a version of that plan and tracking all my points in my phone.

Last week I exercised like a mad woman! I did my firm workout videos 4 days and at night, I would walk/jog on the treadmill. I'm sick this week so I haven't exercised, but I've stuck to my tracking and I'm pretty proud of that.

I follow a lot of other weight watchers enthusiasts and they keep me inspired and motivated! It's really great. This one lady I follow started a 30 day tracking challenge and I joined! I'm on day 19 of tracking and I've had great losses so far. I printed off a 30 day habit changing calendar and I put a sticker on each day that I track. I get two stickers for working out. :) It's been a great motivator for me to stay on track because I want to fill my chart completely with stickers with NO days missing and if I do miss a day, Tyson will see it! (I've got a lot of integrity and I would never put a sticker on a day if I didn't truthfully track that day!). Anyway, it's helped a lot. I was upset after working out last week because I saw gains on Saturday and Sunday, but Monday and today I've gone down to lower weights than I've ever seen. It's been fun to see some new numbers.

I'll add some photos and measurements soon. I've been writing this for much too long and I need to get off this thing. :)

XOXO Katie