What keeps you motivated?

It's Saturday..I have 6 days in a row of work ahead of me..Today is one of my only days off and I do not want to work out..Not even a little. I go to the fridge to get something to eat, anything..And I see the pic I put on the fridge..AH HA! There is my motivation! Thank goodness it was staring me in the face. Skinny me circa 2002. Oh how I miss her lol.

So I don't eat a tub of butter and I move on. And at some point this afternoon I will get up and work out. I never would have been able to do this without a little motivation here and there. My friend Sherri had a baby this spring. She dropped a lot of that baby weight pretty quick. Without knowing it, Sherri was some motivation for me. Gave me a tad of a competitive edge when she started working out too. I get to shop in normal stores again, not the "plus size" ones. That motivates me. My debit card has my picture on it from my bigger days..Everyday I see that, it motivates me. The people in my life telling me that they are proud of me, that motivates me.

So when you get started on this weight loss journey, find some motivation..It'll push you harder =)

Ups and Downs

One thing I have learned from all this dieting is that it has some major up days and major down days..Let's take last night for instance. I worked out yesterday like I was supposed to..I ate right allll day long and then around 9 pm I got this huge craving for ice cream...not just any ice cream..Dairy Queen ice cream. Now if you have lived in Texas your whole life like I have you know that your inner fat girl is addicted to some Dairy Queen...I thought it over in my head, made some excuses like "I'm pmsing..that means my metabolism is higher..I can sooo eat ice cream"..you get the drift. I caved...I had a chocolate covered strawberry sundae in a waffle bowl..It was heaven.

Soooo today I made up for it by eating really healthy and working out..I probably won't lose a pound this week because of that dang sundae, but if I deny myself something that I really really want all the time, I''ll end up gorging on 100 calorie pack snack food and that's no bueno.

Tonight's blog will have some before and after pics...the first pic was taken back in October sometime at my heaviest...The second pic was from today...after my workout.. It's not amazingly impressive..but it is about a 60 pound difference.

PS...Yes..that is the Mad Hatter and Alice on my wall..

The Journey

I am going to start blogging about my weight loss because I think it will help keep me motivated to keep trying harder to be healthy everyday. So where else do you start but at the beginning ? =)

When you are the chunkiest of three teensy sisters, you are never quite sure where it all began. I've always just thought I was bigger. Even when I was younger and was in no way fat, I always obsessed over the idea that I was.

I started my first crash diet the summer after my sophomore year..We called it the "grapefruit diet". It consisted of ten days of nothing but salad, bacon, eggs, and grapefruit..It was not good lol. I always dropped a few pounds but nothing really significant. So I started working out.. A lot. I played tennis and that kept me in decent shape throughout high school..Granted, I still thought I was a monster because I was never the petite, small boned, small chested girl.. I was just ..thick.



So needless to say...my weight has been on my mind probably since about the age of 12 and on. I went to college, quit working out, became best friends with my local Jack in the Box and by the time I was 19 I had gained almost 45 lbs. I went from a size 8 to a size 14 in one year. I stayed at that weight until I got pregnant in 2005. Luckily I only added about 15 more pounds with my pregnancy. When my son was about 6 months I had gotten back down to a size 14 but still weighed about 190 lbs.. once I stopped breast feeding the weight went back up..again..

I didn't care enough about myself to do anything about it.. I hated it but I had given up and just lived with it..in the summer of 2009 I got pregnant again, but lost the baby and almost my life to an eptopic pregnancy. The sadness consumed me and I again just did not care what I looked like..I was empty inside. I had reached 230 pounds.

That was it...I couldn't do it anymore..I was disgusted with myself and the direction my life was going.. I was depressed, and a little lost. A friend had posted some pics of his amazing weight loss and it inspired me. I asked him for his secret and he introduced me to Slim in 6. A workout program from Beach Body.com. I was hooked. It was not a hard work out and I could do it at home. I modified my diet and started working out and it is now July and I am halfway to my goal ..