Day 345 - Pictures from England

I thought I'd post some of these, since I can no longer take progress pictures in my old apartment. I'm going to have to find a place to do it in the house so I can keep up with my weight loss. But it was so cool to look at the pictures from our trip and find so many of myself that I liked! There were always those few that I didn't, but it's so awesome to see the change in my body on camera.

Hooray for liking to look at pictures of myself for once!

Day 116

I'm going to make this kind of brief, as I'm exhausted and the head hurts and I need my beauty sleep. BUT, some good news first - the scale finally went down!!

I jumped on it tonight before my shower, just for a looksy, and lo and behold, I was down to 213.6! And at night, too! I don't really know what to make of this...losing almost four pounds in three days. Only thing I can think is that I was retaining water for some strange, unknown reason. But I'm not complaining! I hope it's not just a fluke. I rechecked it three times to make sure it was accurate, but who knows? Anyways, it was really nice to see some friendly numbers on the scale after two weeks of not so friendly numbers. Hopefully this will continue!

One thing I've decided to try doing is giving up soda. I drink a LOT of it. I always get diet, so I tell myself it's okay, but I know it's bad for me. And I've heard that it can actually make it harder to lose weight. So I'm going to try and nix it. Water is always better, but if I have soda in the house, I will always grab that first. So I got some flavored sparkling water to wean myself off, and it hasn't been bad so far! Hopefully I won't miss it too much...I've been using it to satisfy my sweet tooth at times, so I'm going to have to think of new strategies.

Also, I went for my walk today! It was an absolutely beautiful day, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

Here's what I had for dinner, Chicken Bacon Bites and Creamed Spinach. I switched with Tuesday because I don't trust the salmon at Wal-mart and didn't feel like dragging myself to Kroger just for salmon.

I know, I know. There I go again with the bacon. But between the two pieces of chicken up there, there was only one slice of bacon, so I don't feel too bad. Moderation! Sadly, the spinach didn't turn out quite how I intended. I'm not sure what I did to it, but it was a little too salty, and I'm really sensitive to salt. Sigh. I'll try to get it right next time! But the chicken bacon bites were pretty much amazing. The glaze you put on them is delicious...usually I have to put sauce on my chicken, but this didn't need it at all. SO good.

So I'm going to go crash now. Love you all! Thanks for all the sweet comments! You guys are so great at keeping my spirits up.

Day 115 (continued)

So I just had to post this really quick. I happened upon a video I recorded with PhotoBooth on Day One, in which I have some serious chub going on. I wanted to see if there was any difference in the way my face looks today. I tried to get as close to the original position as possible for a fair comparison.

What do you guys think? Is there a difference?

Day One

Today
(I'm not wearing any makeup. Ignore this.)

Day 102

So, in continuing this dialogue of success, I had to drop in for an early post to announce that I lost another 2.4 pounds! That's right, folks...I got to see the number 15 on the scale today! I actually reweighed myself three times to make sure it was accurate, because the last time I weighed in (I think it last Friday or Saturday morning) I was still at 218.

Now, to be fair, I weighed in at noon instead of first thing in the morning, so I'm not going to panic if it's a little higher on Friday morning. But it just felt so good to see the scale go down, I had to do a little trumpeting!

It's especially encouraging considering the fact that I've been struggling a little lately.

Here are some more cool news:

1. I've lost an inch from my neck, two inches from my waist, and four inches from my hips!! I hadn't thought to measure until now, and I'm SO glad I did! I haven't really felt the difference in my clothes yet, but to see actual inches coming off, well, that was really cool.

2. On my walk today, as well as the past few walks I've taken, I've noticed that it's taken me around two minutes less to make my four laps around the neighborhood. When it started, four laps took me an even 30 minutes...lately it's only taken 28. I take this as a sign that I'm getting in better shape, and therefore walking faster! It looks like I might have to add a fifth lap soon. :)

I've thought of another important reason for me to keep this up: simply to prove to myself that I can see something like this through. For most of my life, I've been kind of notorious for getting really gung-ho about something, then dropping it like a bad habit (except a lot of times, it's a good habit!). Sometimes this happens because I found something else I'm more interested in, and other times it's because whatever it was got too hard. So really, this is also a test of my ability to stick with something that challenges me. I know that passing that test will boost my confidence far more than smaller waist ever could.

Thanks to everyone who left such sweet comments on my last post! It means so so so so much!!