My Journey: Positive Outlook For 2013

Hey Mandy, it's always fab to get some positive comments from people around us that notices the weight loss. It's like it just fuel injects extra motivation to keep going. I've also joined the new challenge and hopefully I can reach my goal I've set.

Good luck and will be checking in with you.
 
Cory, that's what I keep telling myself. For the most part I am eating what I want, just in a smaller portions and less frequency. The other night I did have a little bit of ice cream. The old me would get a big bowl and fill it right up and smother it with chocolate syrup and frozen strawberries. This week I only had 3 spoons of it plain. Contrary to what I thought, even that little bit was quite satisfying! :)

Mands, thank you! It is definitely a nice feeling when someone notices. Kind of like a breath of fresh air. I don't think I've checked out your diary yet, but I will when I have more time later today. Good luck with the challenge. :)

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Well, it looks like the scale woes have passed. I weighed myself 5 times this morning and every time it showed 211.4lb. I'm happy to see it go down, but at the same time I'm not to fond of that number. That's the same exact number that I stalled at last week. Oh well, hopefully it'll be lower tomorrow!

Hope you all have a great weekend and good luck to those of you who are participating in the challenge. If you haven't already signed up, pleaes do! It'll be fun and motivating!! :)
 
Yay on the scale being lower! :) And it is a good thing you hate seeing that number...more motivation to make it disappear forever!!!
 
Camilla, it's definitely a good motivator! I've been desperately trying to get out of the 200's for a while now. I'm so close I can taste it. :)

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I had quite the productive day today. I spent most of the morning shopping for clothes which I always dread. To my surprise I made out pretty well! Four new shirts, two are a little tighter than I prefer, but I’m hoping with the weight I’m losing they’ll fit comfortably in no time. I also got two new pairs of jeans. I have my weight posted for all to see, so I might as well get into my jean size too. At my heaviest I wore size 26. I’ve been wearing them all along, but they’ve been getting looser and looser so I had to break down and get some new ones. I’m very happy to announce that I can fit into a size 20 now! Even though they are a bit tight, they’re definitely wearable. I figure they’d be good to measure my progress once they start to feel looser.

When I got home I got right into my tae bo for over an hour. I rewinded the DVD a few times to try to get better with some of the moves. In the end I burned 988 calories according to my watch. I was very happy to see that number!

Food intake wasn’t the greatest today. Not that I ate bad foods, but I didn’t eat as much as I should have. My poor attempt at breakfast consisted of a slice of turkey rolled up with a slice of swiss cheese. Lunch was a BMT sub from Subway and I had a chicken breast with a single serving of stove top stuffing. No more food today! I’m at just over 2 liters of water, but I’m determined to get to 3 for the challenge points.

I hope you all had a great Saturday!
 
Hey, you had a great day! i know what you mean about shopping...
It could be sooo frustrating - and finding pretty items in size big is not really easy. I was always confused about the sizes and how much people weighed..but then again it must have to do something with height and heavy bones ( which i m pretty sure I possess :D ) My heaviest I wore size 20 UK - That's 18 here in the US I believe.
Now I m wearing size 16. But then I never know how it changes from one shop to another. So it's a nightmare ordering online.
Awesome news that you could get into smaller clothes!! I tend to buy clothes that are little small too - unless I need to use them instantly :) they are pretty cool motivation I must say!!
& holly cow - you are burning tons of calories!!!I m so happy when I reach 500 on elliptical! Kudos to you!
 
Cory, it feels so good to get into smaller clothes! Just proof that the hard work is paying off. :)

Justina, that does sound confusing! It is weird sometimes because I can fit into a 1XL shirt of one style, but will need a 3XL of another style. I guess it matters on who makes the clothes.

As far as my calories burned, I'm not sure my watch is 100% accurate. It knows my age and my gender, but that's it. The rest of the calculations it gives me is from my heartrate which I try to recheck every few minutes. I think it's probably saying I'm burning more than I actually am, but I'm working up a good sweat and end up out of breath a lot doing tae bo so I know I'm burning a good amount and I actually read that some people can burn 1,000 calories or more in an hour with tae bo so who knows. :)
 
Size 26 to 20 - that's awesome!!! I also dredd going shopping and the worst of all are those mirrors in the shops. I have now refrained from shopping for the last 3 months and waiting for the weight to drop before I buy some new clothes. Luckily in my profession, being a photographer, it's casual all the way!

Well done on the cals burned!!! Get into that breakfasts and have a healthy good fulfilling breakie!!
 
Mands, I despise clothes shopping! It seems that all the styles these days are for girls who want to wear skin tight clothes or have their boobs falling out of their shirts. Guys may like that style, but I surely don't! Still, you gotta wear some clothes. My size 26 jeans were starting to really slip so I had to get some new ones. :)

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I did tae bo tonight for just over an hour, but I wasn't feeling it today. I only burned 537 calories. It's still better than nothing so I'm happy about that. Tomorrow I'll go back kicking butt again! :)
 
So, a second coworker just asked me if I'm losing weight!! I spilled everything to him, that I'm doing the treadmill and taebo. He was very supportive and said I'm doing a great job. :) It's SO nice to get these compliments, especially when the scale's not moving in the direction (212.4lb this morning). At the same time, after so many years of not getting compliments it's kind of hard to accept them. It just feels awkward and I could feel my fash getting hot (blushing). Oh well, I'd rather get the compliments and feel weird about it than to go back to the old way! :)

Hope you're all having a great Monday so far. :)
 
Awesome, Mandy! That's got to feel pretty inspiring. You deserve it.... your efforts have been applause worthy.

Have you been secretive about your efforts? I have blabbed to everyone and anyone... in an effort to make myself accountable. That way, if I slid and started eating junk, maybe someone would intervene and knock the Cheetos out of my hand. I've even gone so far as to tell people my starting weight! I have NEVER told people my weight when it was embarrassing... but this time it's different. I want to face the music this time.
 
Don, I haven't told everyone. My family that sees me regularly knows and my close friends know as well. Now, a couple of coworkers are in on it too. I think that's partly why I haven't told everyone. I wanted to see who would take notice and say something. :)

For the most part I'm a pretty "keep to myself" kind of person. I'm not very open about my personal life to people who really know me. I don't know why, but that's how I am. Here is different. I feel comfortable posting such personal details because we're all pretty much fighting the same battle just to different scales (no pun intended). It's a great support system here and I feel free to share stuff that I'm rather shy about saying to my friends and family. Maybe I'm a weirdo in that way. LOL
 
I completely understand, Mandy. I've always been the same way about my weight and trying to lose it.
This time is different for me than it has been... I have this notion that the losses WILL happen... no ifs, ands, or buts. This time, I'm telling people because I believe at some point in the future my weight will be much healthier (maybe even "Normal"?) so we'll all be able to look back at this effort as a winning one. I sure hope that my beliefs aren't founded in fantasy. :)
 
Trusylver -- What you're saying definitely does make sense. :)

Don -- I have no doubt you will reach your goal. You're doing a fantastic job and you will get the results you want. :)
 
Hey Mandy

I hear you on the fashion nowadays. It seems the tighter and skimpier the better. And that is totally not my style. Even if I was thin I wouldn't wear the fashion.

I'm with you on the compliments and blushing story. It's like you are quite invisible when you are fat but once we start to lose weight and becoming a bit thinner all of a sudden we are noticed and then worthy enough to give a compliment too. I go completely red in the face when someone compliments me on my weight loss.

But hey, its good, its positive - so lets take it and enjoy it :)
 
Mands - I completely agree! I'd rather be uncomfortable getting the occassional compliment than being uncomfortable in my own skin every day!

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I didn't update last night. My legs were toast yesterday for some reason so I only got half hour in on the treadmill. I knew I could never get through tae bo, but didn't want to not do anything so I did the treadmill instead. I only burned 417 calories, but that's more than if I was just sitting so I'm pleased. :)

The yoyo act continues. I was just over 212 yesterday, but this morning I'm back down to 211.6lb. I measured myself last night and my waist was 1" lower than last week. I highly doubt I lost a full inch so I'm thinking it's just a matter of how tight I had the tape measure last week compared to this week. My thighs were slightly smaller too. I know I'm shrinking judging by my clothes, but I'd really like to see it verified by lower numbers on the scale. I'll keep plugging away at it though.

Yesterday afternoon I had an appt with my rheumatologist so see what the next step will be with treating my RA. I had blood work drawn Saturday and it came back perfect so she upped my methotrexate dosage and we're going to gradually taper off of prednisone. She's very pleased that I'm losing weight while on prednisone because a lot of people end up gaining... a lot. When she first put me on it I got scared, but I'm doing well on it. I can't be on it forever though because it's a steroid so we're weaning off. While I'm not gaining weight, I'm wondering if the prednisone is at least causing some stall in the weight loss.

That's about it for now. The plan for today is to eat well and get my hour of tae bo in. I feel better today so hopefully it'll be a go when I get home tonight. :)

Have a great day everyone!
 
Hey Mandy, that is so awesome that someone else noticed! I know what you mean by being slightly uncomfortable with the compliment but I say you just own it! You've been working hard and having others notice is just one of the many payoffs! :) Just imagine what people will be saying 20, 30, 40 pounds from now!!

I have some family members with RA, and I know how much of a struggle it can be. I really admire that you are taking your health head-on with weight loss even while suffering with that. You are doing some amazing things for yourself. Keep it up!

~Camila~
 
Honestly Camilla, if it weren't for RA I probably wouldn't be here on this forum right now. I'd still be living my life eating unhealthy foods and drinking soda, no exercising, etc. I started to feel the effects of RA in 2010, but after getting blood tests done it was found that I had a vitamin D deficiency. That was my original diagnosis. At that point I decided to change my life and gave up soda and started walking, but when summer rolled around it got too hot to walk so I stopped and ended up back on soda again. My aches and pains only got worst, much worst. I was at the point where I'd go to work and fight through the day, then go back home and lay down for the night. I couldn't do anything! Not even play with my dogs which killed me! It was just too painful. So I had to go back to the Dr early this year and that's when I was diagnosed and treatment finally began. I'm a researchaholic so I immediately started researching it and everything I read said to lose weight if you're overweight to help manage it. So, here I am! I'm doing MUCH better now that I'm on the appropriate medications. Without them there's no way that I could get on the treadmill nevermind trying tae bo! So, it may sound weird, but in a way I'm kind of thankful for the diagnosis. It was a reality check for sure, but I'm taking much better care of myself now which is good. :)
 
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