In a funk...

Don't you hate the fact that a stupid little metal box can make or break your day? The dreaded scale... ugh. I am such a scale junkie it isn't even funny. My scale here at home finally has a dead battery, and I'm not letting myself replace it. So, I only weigh myself when I go to the gym... which means I weigh myself almost every day. Everyone says that it's better to weigh once a week... and I always tell myself that I'm not weighing until this day or that day... but then once I see the stupid thing I have to hop on it.

When I see a loss, I'm excited! But, when I see a gain my whole day becomes a downer. I know that most of my little gains are fluctuations from water or too much salt... and I know that in a day or two I'll be back down. But I still get mad and frustrated with it.

Yesterday was one of those "up 2 pounds" days... and I was so mad about it! I didn't want to see 327 on that scale! So it immediately put me in a bad mood and I started with all my thoughts of "what's the point?" I am 5 months into my diet... that's dangerous territory for me. The longest I've ever stuck to a diet is 5 months. I always get the feelings around 5 months, if not before, that I'm tired of dieting and tired of exercising and tired of everything. Then I cheat... and cheat some more... then I skip exercise... and it's a slippery slope and the pounds pack back on. Of course, I've never lost this much weight at one time, so the loss has been a big motivator for me. If I turn back now I don't think I'll ever actually lose the weight.

I know that I have so many reasons to continue with my way of eating and my exercise routine. If nothing else, I feel better than I have in a very long time. That should be reason enough.

Today the scale read 324.6... so I'm a happy camper. :)

75 pounds... gone gone GONE!

My weight has stuck at 325 for the last couple of days, so I've officially lost 75 pounds. I'm almost halfway to the 200 pound goal I set for myself. Of course I have a lot left to lose... but I'm finally starting to feel like I'm accomplishing something. FINALLY!

I went shopping for a new top/blouse to wear with black pants for my school's Open House the other night. I was super excited to fit into a size 22/24 top! And it wasn't even a stretchy top! I've been in a 26/28 (3x) top for soooo long now. It feels good to be able to buy something smaller than usual.

I mentioned to my husband that I am now at a lower weight than when he met me. So, my weight is going to start being uncharted territory for him from now on. :) I am really blessed to have the husband I do. He has loved me as a fat girl for so long now. I hope he can get used to the shrinking wife he has. He has mentioned that he doesn't want me to be "skinny". I told him that he has nothing to worry about because I don't even want to be skinny. I just want to be a normal size... I want to be able to go into any store and get a pair of jeans without any problem. I still want to be curvy... but shapely-curvy, not fatty-curvy. I'd be happy at a size 14, I think. Of course I might change my mind when I get there... which is why it's a good thing that my goals don't have to be set in stone.

I'm just tired of being fat.

Back to work...

Today I went back to work after being off for the summer. I got a lot of compliments from people about my weight loss. I've lost 40 pounds over the summer since school let out. I'm really proud of that, but I can't help thinking that I have so much more to lose.

One bad habit that I can't seem to get rid of is not being able to take compliments. I've never been comfortable with being complimented. I don't like the attention. I'm not sure why, but I've always been like this. When people tell me that they notice my weight loss and they tell me that I'm looking good, I wish I could just say thank you and move on. But, I can't seem to. I always say Oh, I still have a long way to go. I still have a lot more to lose. I think, and hope, that as I lose more weight, I'll get better at accepting compliments and just saying thanks and leaving it at that.

Being back at school is going to make my diet and exercise plan a little harder to stick with... but I'm going to do whatever I can to make sure I don't stray in the wrong direction. When I was home for the summer, I got into a routine of going to the gym when I woke up in the mornings. Now I'll have to go after school in the afternoon after a full day's work. And I don't buy junk food and don't bring it into the house, so I have total control over what kind of food surrounds me when I'm home. At school there are a lot of snackie temptations. I just have to stay strong. I have to. :)

New Clothes...

Today I actually squeezed my fat ass into a pair of size 26 jeans. Yes, they are stretch denim... and yes, they are tight. But they buttoned and zipped without me having to lay down to do it. :) They are snug on my belly area but they fit really well in the thighs and legs. And I think they look good... so, I bought them because they were on clearance and I know they won't be so tight after a few weeks. Or at least that's what I'm hoping.

This whole buying new clothes thing is going to be the most annoying part of my weight loss, I think. That's only because I don't have lots of extra money floating around to spend on new clothes that I will only get to wear for a certain amount of time before I go down a size. Once I'm at goal, I'll buy lots of new stuff and I'll love doing it. But who wants to spend money on temporary clothing? I have to get some new stuff, though, because I'm going back to work next week and all of my pants have a serious case of super saggy butt and crotch. It's bad, people.

Why I want to finally lose the weight...

I have pretty much been fat my whole entire life. I think I was normal-sized up until I was 5 years old. Then I started gaining and it was a slippery slope from there. Have I tried to lose weight before now? Yes, of course. What fat person hasn't tried the popular new diets, hoping that this would be the one that worked? I would lose 10 pounds, then gain back 15... lose 10 pounds, then gain 20. Over and over again. It was madness, really.

But this time is different. I'm 29. I want to have a baby and I'm obviously no spring chicken when it comes to the fertility department. So, this has to be done and it has to be done now. Yes, I know that overweight women become pregnant all the time and they have healthy babies without complications. But I don't seem to be one of the women who can get pregnant at such a high weight... or I would have had a baby by now.

I don't just want to lose weight to have a healthy pregnancy... but I want to be a cute pregnant chick. One of the ones who has the pretty round baby belly and can wear cute tops that cling slightly to that pretty round belly. I don't want to be a fat pregnant girl who still wears huge shirts because of lumpy, bumpy fat rolls. I want people to actually see that I'm pregnant... and not think that I'm just a fat girl getting fatter and fatter.

I want my husband to be able to put his hand on my pregnant belly and easily feel the baby move. I want to enjoy being pregnant... not be worried about my blood pressure or gestational diabetes. I do know that these things can occur in the tiniest of pregnant women... but we all know that the risks are higher for overweight women. That's the reality of it.

Goals...

So I do actually have some goals to accompany all of this diet and exercise madness. :) I suppose it's good to actually have them on record instead of floating around in my head.

My ultimate goal at this time is to lose 200 pounds total by the time I turn 30 in July 2008. So, that would be 72 down, 128 to go. Actually, to be really specific with it, I want to lose 201 pounds because I want to be under 200 on my birthday... even if I'm 199.9... as long as it's under 200 I'm good. It seems a long way off... and it feels like I have a million pounds left to lose. But I know I'll get there... I just have to.

Since my long-term goal is such a long ways off, I do have some short-term goals to keep me focused and on track in the mean time. Here are my short-term goals, roughly...

Aug. 20, 2007 = 325

Oct. 31, 2007 = 299

Jan. 1, 3008 = 275

March 31, 2008 = 240

June 1, 2008 = 220

July 26, 2008 = 199

These are rough estimates of where I'd like to be on each of these dates. I don't know how attainable each one will be, but it's good for me to lay it out like this and see what I need to lose each month. As it stands, I need to lose about 12 pounds a month every month to reach that 199 goal. That's 3 pounds a week. Wow.

All I can do it try my damned hardest.

Four-and-a-half months ago...

Four-and-a-half months ago I decided to finally do what needed to be done to lose weight. A lot of weight. I don't know why I didn't think about starting some type of blog/journal about it then. But now when I think about it, I think that it's a good idea to record my trials and tribulations as I go through this journey... my journey to become an ex-fatgirl.

So, since April 1st, 2007, I've lost 71 pounds. Not bad, eh? I used to weigh 400 pounds. And now I weigh 329. I can't believe that I actually ever reached the 400 pound mark. But I did. And I'm ashamed of that. Very, very ashamed. But it happened and it's over. And I'm no longer there... and I vow to never be there again. And if that means exercising my butt off every day for the rest of my life, I'm on it.

I have a lot of reasons for wanting to lose weight. I've wanted to lose weight my whole life... I just didn't have the right mindset to actually get it done. Not only that, but I didn't even know exactly what to do about it. Eat less, move more... right? I'm finding that it's actually not as simple as that. There are tricks to the trade, my friend. And I'm actually learning what those tricks are. And I'm having success... and it feels really good.

My intentions are to use this blog as a way of recording my progress... but, not only that, I think it will be a form of therapy for me when I need to vent or sort my thoughts. Losing weight isn't easy... but it's necessary.