Can I Scream Now?!?

I'm trying really hard not to be completely annoyed with my body right now. I have worked really hard all week and I have seen very little result. I was told that mixing up your calorie intake (just by a little) each day will keep you body from hitting a plateau but that is clearly not working for me.

Seriously, I am losing weight in .2 lb increments. I know I should be happy that I am losing but when I still technically weigh the same at the end of the week that I did at the beginning it makes me want to scream and probably throw out all of the "healthy" food that I despise that I have been forcing myself to eat all week!

I know this too will pass and until it does I just have to stick it out. I do have a new incentive to stick with this as well. Not only am I in one of my best friends wedding on October 20, on October 26 I am flying out for a week long vacation. I again will be cruising to the Bahamas with friends. This time my friends Tabatha and Mary Catherine will be joining me and I cannot wait! This intense lifestyle change I am making right now to make myself a healthier and happier person is really hard but having both of these girls going through it with me makes it a whole lot easier! I am so thankful for my friends who have already gone through this before me and those that are going through it with me, and thankful that I serve a God that helps me through even the smallest of tortures (like 45 minutes on the elliptical!).

Encouragement!

So I haven't weighed in a few days so I really don't have a weight update. I do, however, have a new inspiration. Another friend of mine that I haven't seen in over a month has lost close to 30 lbs in just those few short weeks. I am so excited for her! I haven't seen her in person yet but in photos she looks A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!! I can not believe how much of a difference one month can make.

So, I am once again encouraged. Encouraged to do my best, even after a bad few weeks. Encouraged to get healthy for myself, not to impress or gain the acceptance of those around me. Encouraged to finally get to a weight that I am comfortable with and where I can be completely happy with myself.

I have never been one to dwell on my weight, I guess because I have always been overweight but always able to do as much as the other kids in sports and such. Only recently have I realized that, yes, I am getting older, and while the appearance part of being fat isn't the best thing in the world, the effects internally of being fat are killing me and I'm just sitting by like an innocent bystander. I am responsible for myself and while I was fat as a child I am an adult now and I can not place blame on anyone but myself. It is time for me to step up and get healthy for me and my future family. They deserve a healthy and happy wife and mommy. I can do it and I will!

P.S. In other encouraging news, my parents have both taken to healthier eating and my dad has lost nearly 60 pounds since February and my mom has lost 20 pounds in the past two months! Yay parentals!

Disgust

It has been nearly five months since I have posted. Five months ago I weighed 215. By now I should weigh somewhere around 185 at the most. Do I? No. Did I gain weight? Yes. I'm I super disgusted with myself? Yes. 

I never really thought all of the stress from school and work and family stuff would ever get to me to the point it did. The last three months of school I was getting up at 5 a.m. not to workout but to do homework that I didn't finish the night before when I quit at midnight. 

I know, I know, no excuses. And really I don't have any excuse. I gave up. Simple as that. I didn't stick with my healthy eating or my exercising the way I should have and because of that I have failed myself. 

Am I going to give up on this weight loss challenge I have set for myself? ABSOLUTELY NOT! I may not reach my goal weight at the time that I had originally planned to, but darn it, I will get there. 

As of now I have a new goal. I'm in my super gorgeous (super skinny, get it girl!) friend's wedding in October. October 20th to be exact. That gives me 134 days or just under 20 weeks. I want to loose an average of 2.5 pounds a week. If I keep it up, and I will this time, I will be right around 180 at the wedding. Not my ideal weight but it will be great progress and I will be super proud of myself. 

Looking to friends and of course my girl Mandisa (No, I have never met her and no, she probably doesn't know I exist BUT she did retweet me. That has to mean B.F.F.L. right?), for inspiration and reading my instruction book, aka my Bible, I know I will make it through. Things are not going as quickly as I would like but you know what, God made this body I'm in and I'm going to love it no matter what size I am. Just because I don't have a 5'11'', size 2 body doesn't mean that I can't be content with this 5'6'', size 18 body I'm rockin' now! It's all about how you look at things and I chose to have a positive outlook! 

^{Romans 7: 15-25} 

¹⁵ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶ And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.^[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

²¹ So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²² For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; ²³ but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. ²⁴ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature^[d] a slave to the law of sin.

Truth

My goal with this blog is to be completely honest about my weight loss issues. So in all honesty I am ridiculously frustrated. I got so excited to be down to 213 only to be disappointed when I woke up and weighed 214. I did nothing different but still gained a pound. I thought it was not a big deal, that I would be back down the next day. Didn't happen. Three days in a row I was at 214. So in my fury and rage against my body that was protesting my healthy changes, I protested back. Dumb, right? Definitely. For an entire day I pretty much ate whatever I wanted. It was absolutely ridiculous and I felt so disgusting but as a newbie to this whole thing I honestly didn't know how to react to over a week of 213 and then gaining a pound. I recognize now that what I did was an idiot move. Especially since I gained up to 217. How does that happen? It takes me nearly 2 weeks to lose three pounds but I can gain it over night?!? INSANE!!! Anyways, I am currently back down to 215 and I just got home from the gym. I spent about an hour and a half on the elliptical and I'm definitely feeling it. I'm hoping and praying that God will show me the increase in this and I will see a drop on the scale in the morning.

Also I got some great advice from a new "Twitter friend" that I randomly started following because she was friends with a former Biggest Loser contestant. This girl is legit, let me just say. Anyways, said girl was tweeting about  struggling with losing weight slowly so I had to message her to see what she was doing about it and how she was staying so motivated. (Once again, this girl is legit. She posts her workout pics and sister sweats it out!) So Twitter friend's advice was: count calories! I know this sounds like a duh but since I was sticking almost exactly to the diet the trainer gave me I just didn't worry about it. I didn't realize that at my weight I might have to start out eating more calories than, say, someone who is 150. Basically she said that under-eating can be just as harmful to weight loss as over-eating. Something I had never really thought about outside of the obvious eating disorder of under-eating.

Anyways, I'm going to continue to pray this thing out and stick to my workouts and meal plan just altered a tad. I know this is not going to be a fast, easy journey because if it was I would have been healthy and slimmer oh about 10 years ago.

Looking up!

After my horrible weekend and my last weigh-in at 216 I knew I had to get back on track and fast! I have yet to really get back in the gym like I was before this week but I have been doing cardio kickboxing and Pilate's at home on top of sticking almost exactly to the meal plan. (Instead of Greek yogurt, some days I have a 90 calorie brownie for my snack.)

Anyways, I am super proud to say that as of this morning my weight is officially 213.2! I'm getting closer! I was so excited to be under 215 and now I cannot wait until I am under 200!

With a cruise to the Bahamas officially booked for March I have just around 60 days to lose hopefully around 30-40 pounds. If I can get that much off in that amount of time that leaves me with just another 30ish pounds to lose by graduation in May. I know that is a lot of weight to lose and really I would be find just losing the 30-40 pounds by May and the rest by October (gotta be looking decent for a certain somebody's big day!).

Either way, I am extremely blessed to be healthy enough to successfully workout and stick to a meal plan. I'm so thankful that God is supplying the increase in the lifestyle change and I'm so grateful to have friends and family to help me along the way!

Cheater, Cheater, Pumpkin Eater

So, I was soooo excited to be able to post about being under 215. I could have officially posted about it last Wednesday but I wanted to give it a few days to make sure my scales were not just teasing me. So Wednesday I was 214.6, Thursday I was 214.4 and Friday I was 214. Then, the big game changer.

I went out of town with a group from my school's BCM. We worked a D-Now Friday-Sunday, and I got very lucky to get the senior girls. The only problem with senior girls...THEY ONLY EAT JUNK FOOD!!! So three days later I had officially eaten my weight in pizza, cookies, cake, raviolis, etc... I definitely did not do good on my healthy eating this weekend.

Then I get home and start back doing really good...UNTIL...one of my best friends grandmother passed away and the funeral was yesterday. Her Granny pretty much raised us during the summers when we were in middle school so she was like family. Anyways, their family asked all of the friends to come have lunch with them, which was really sweet and all but everybody knows people make "comfort food" for the families after a funeral and everybody knows there is nothing healthy about comfort food.

To top it off, after my Relay For Life meeting last night I went to dinner with some of the other committee members at the amazing Umami's. I ordered fairly decently, a California roll and I shared crab wontons with my cousin. Then everyone decided it would be a good idea to plop their sushi on my plate so I could try the different kinds...the sushi was then followed by fried calamari...needless to say more bad decisions on top of bad decisions.

This morning I weighed 216...depressing, I know. So basically I have to KILL myself in the gym this week and completely stick to my meal plan! And let me just say, after several days out of the gym it is SOOO hard to make myself get up and go! After work today, I'm all over it though!

I can do all things...

Since I last blogged (3 days ago) I have been working my butt off in the gym and I only cheated once on my diet (it was a bridesmaids get-together...totally necessary to have a cupcake, right? and let me just say it was amazing...). Anyways, on the 5th I weighed 218. On the 6th I weighed 216.4. Now the depressing part; the last two mornings I have weighed 218 again. I don't understand this at all. I'm hoping for an amazing weigh in tomorrow.

With the awful weigh ins my current short term goal is to just get under 215 in the next 3 days. I know this doesn't seem like a big deal but it will be the first time I have been 215 or below since I was a sophomore in high school. That really wasn't all that long ago, but it seems like a lifetime and I am soooo tired of the 220's! I'm out of them and I'm definitely not going back!

After talking to my mom about my frustrations with my weigh ins she gave me the best advice I have received in a while. The sad part; it should have been completely obvious! I have been praying about this weight loss journey for a while and I have even discovered that when I'm on the ArcTrainer and the intensity is absolutely REDIC I can pray right then for God to give me strength and endurance to make through the rest of my workout and it hasn't failed me yet. My mom simply said to stick with what I am doing and eventually I will see the results. It may not be in my timing, but I shouldn't want it like that anyways. And the best piece of advice...pray for God's increase! 

I'm going to add  in this new prayer with the old ones and keep on keeping on in the gym and with the meal plan. I can't wait until I get to blog about weighing in under 215! It's going to happen and hopefully soon! 

Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.

The desires of my heart...

Psalm 37:4 (AMP)

⁴Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart.

I have come to realize in the past year that this verse is so so true. Especially now that I have finally really thought about what it is saying. God is not going to give you the desires of your heart unless you are delighting yourself in Him. If you are delighting yourself in Him you are going to want His will in your life. You will be so close to Him that the desires of your heart will be whatever He wants for you.

This is what I want in this new year. I want to be so close to Him that all I want for myself is what He wants for me.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (AMP)

¹⁹Do you not know that your body is the temple (the very sanctuary) of the Holy Spirit Who lives within you, Whom you have received [as a Gift] from God? You are not your own,
    ²⁰You were bought with a price [purchased with a ^[a]preciousness and paid for, ^[b]made His own]. So then, honor God and bring glory to Him in your body.
 
This verse clearly says that our bodies are not our own. They belong to God and have only been gifted to us for a time. In the time we have them we should honor God in everything we do.

I have worked my hardest to honor God in every way possible. The one area that I am lagging in however is honoring God with my physical body; as in my health. If He is amazing enough to give me life, I should be thankful enough to work to have a long and healthy life so I can lengthen my time as a witness here.

Because I want to honor Him in every way possible in this new year I am continuing my weight loss pursuit in an attempt to be healthy.

In this blog I will be brutally honest and open about everything concerning my weight loss and my walk with God.

To start out being completely honest, I don't talk about my weight...EVER. I have always been embarrassed about my weight because I have ALWAYS been overweight. A great friend started a blog kind of documenting her weight loss and it has been great not only for her but for myself and those of us who need a little inspiration. She has lost of 100 lbs in a year. Crazy right!?!

So, if she can do it what is stopping me? Myself. And I'm tired of it, so here it is:

My starting weight: 247
My current weight: 218
My short term goal weight: 170 (I'm going on a cruise in March and would love            to have lost this much weight!)
My long term goal weight: 140

I am approaching the rest of this weight loss differently than I did the first 29 pounds. Prayerfully.

I hope that as I go through this experience myself and blog about it I will be able to find inspiration from others and maybe even help someone else.

Good luck to you all in your weight loss pursuits in this new year!