Happy New Year!

Well, I'm a little early with the New Year wishes... but I probably won't remember to blog tomorrow, so the wishes are coming now. :)

December has been a good weight loss month for me. I lost 10 pounds in December! Who does that? Certainly has never been me before... I usually gain 10 pounds in December from all of the Christmas treats and goodies! But, my trainer gave me a challenge to lose 10 pounds this month and I actually did it. After a 7 pound loss in November, I was happy to be in the double digits this month... barely, but it still counts. :)

I can't believe I've lost 110 pounds in the last 9 months! It's not like me to stick with a healthy eating plan for this long... and it's definitely NOT like me to stick with exercise. But it feels really good to see the scale go down and see my jeans size shrink. The 24's that were tight last month are feeling really good now. I can't wait to buy a pair of jeans from the GAP, though! I've always thought of the GAP as the store for cute skinny girls. While I will probably never be "skinny" I will be healthy and I'll be rockin' the GAP jeans before I know it. :)

I think that 2008 is going to be a good year. :)

Merry Christmas!

Yesterday I had 12 people over for dinner. My husband's family has their big Christmas celebration on Christmas Eve, and this year we hosted. There were some no-no goodies around here, but I didn't have any. I roasted a wonderful turkey and made some stuffing out of whole wheat bread. So, I ate turkey, a little stuffing, green beans, and a salad. For dessert I skipped the pies and cookies and just had a few strawberries with a little bit of whipped cream and some sugar-free apple cider. I wanted some of the fluffy mashed potatoes, because I make some really good ones, but I refrained. I know that it's just one day, but I didn't want to have a repeat of what happened at Thanksgiving. I ate well and I went to bed at the end of the day feeling good and proud of myself.

Today is leftover turkey, which I love! :)

Merry Christmas, everyone! If you stay on plan, good for you! If you don't, that's okay... just make sure you are right back on tomorrow!

Italian food... Are you kidding me?

So, the teachers in my grade level wanted to get together for an early dinner last week as our little grade-level-Christmas-celebration-whatever-thing. And they picked an italian restaurant. They wanted to get together at 4:00 on a Monday afternoon for dinner at an italian restaurant. They know that I'm dieting. I don't eat pasta! They know that I go to the gym practically every day after school, between 3:30-4:30. So, I wasn't happy about the thought of being in an italian restaurant during my normal exercise time. But, I felt like I had to go... so I knew that this would take quite a bit of self-control. I sort of looked at it as a personal challenge.

I packed my workout clothes in my car and had a plan to go to the gym immediately after the restaurant. This meant that I couldn't eat a full dinner meal and then expect to hoof it on the treadmill without throwing up on the equipment, which is really frowned upon at my gym. So, while everyone else ordered super delicious Italian meals, I had a small garden salad and lots and lots of water with lemon. Yes, I sat there at the table surrounded by plates of Sicilian pizza, chicken parmesan, fettuccine alfredo, baked ziti, and spaghetti and meatballs... and I ate my small little lettuce, cucumber, and tomato salad. And the never-ending baskets of hot, fresh, buttery, garlic knots were killing me. Absolutely killing me! But I drank more and more water and kept my thoughts on my goals. And I didn't touch any of that food.

Towards the end of the meal, one of the women I was with commented that I have much more restraint than she ever would in that situation. I told her that my goals are more important than any of that food. I left the restaurant in good spirits and went straight to the gym for 30 minutes on the treadmill. And it felt really great. It felt like I had accomplished a huge thing for myself that day. I realized that I can be in the same room... at the same table... with some of my favorite foods in the whole wide world... and that passing them up won't kill me. Who'da thunk it?

I'm a 2-hundred-something!

After hitting 300 the other day, I knew that my time weighing over 300 pounds was quickly coming to an end. It ended today! I wasn't going to weigh until Saturday, but something made me try it out today and I'm glad I did. 298.5!

When I went to enter my weight into the elliptical machine, I absentmindedly pressed the 3 as in 3-hundred-something. Then I remembered that no, I'm no longer a 3-hundred-something... I am a 2-hundred-something! Yay!

I think the last time I weighed under 300 pounds was at least 10 years ago. From this day on, I will do everything in my power to never weigh in the 300's again.

100 pounds gone!

I got on the scale this morning hoping, praying, to be under 300 pounds. The digital scale read 300.2... then dipped down to 299.9... then kept hopping between 300.2 and 299.9. I stood as still as I possibly could and the scale finally stopped bouncing and rested at 300 even. I found myself feeling really bummed about it. :( I didn't do so well on Thanksgiving and the scale was all the way up to 306 at the beginning of this week. So, I decided to be very disciplined with my eating this week and paid close attention to portions and water and everything. I really wanted to get under 300. So, I spent a minute feeling down over the weigh-in.

But, then I realized that weighing in at 300 means that I've officially lost 100 pounds. That's definitely nothing to be bummed out about! So, I started feeling a lot better once I realized that I'm the girl who has lost 100 pounds in exactly 8 months. Not a lot of people actually accomplish that, and I should be proud. And I am. :) I've lost a lot of inches, too... 8 inches off my bust, 10 inches off my waist, 5 inches from my hips, 7 inches from my thigh, and 5 inches from my upper arm.

My mom came to visit me today and she was really excited about my milestone loss. She wanted to take me to buy a new outfit to celebrate. I bought a pair of size 24 jeans! They have a slight stretch to them, which I know helps them fit. They aren't tight, but are definitely form-fitting... but, they slide on, button, and zip and I can breathe and sit comfortably, so I'm claiming it... I've gone from a 32 jean to a size 24. In 8 months!!

Here are my old jeans... it might be hard to tell, but they are filled with a lot of air now. And, yes, I know I have no head...