365 Day Challenge-Day 2

Saturday Brendan, the girls, and I loaded up the van to start a trip up to Montana. We managed to drive in three different states both Saturday and Sunday. We went from 50 degree weather to 17 degree weather. We went from flat landscape to mountains. I can honestly say that I absolutely in awe of God's work. The scenery up here is just gorgeous!! I have never questioned my faith or wondered whether or not God existed, but if I ever did after today I don't think I would anymore. The mountains literally looked like they were hand carved by God. I have been to Montana many times and have never fully appreciated the beautiful landscape. I am so thankful that I get to share this place with my family. The girls absolutely love the fact that their is snow on the ground and Brendan loves the nice cool temps. I just love the state.

A New Year and a New Me!!

This year, I hope, to remake myself into a new me. I would like to build up my spiritual life and make my relationship with God a closer one. I would like to finally get to my goal weight. I also have two 365 day challenges for myself. One is to blog every day whether it's about something I have going on or holding myself accountable to my weight loss journey. Two is to read through the entire bible this year. This is one I struggle with every year, but I really would like to accomplish it this time.

So here is to a year of change and full of accomplishments!!

Thankful for...Day 3

Today I'm thankful for my mom.  She's a wonderful example of what a mom should be.  She's available anytime, day or night.  She is open minded when it comes to her advice.  She tries to make me see both sides of the situation instead of just taking my side.  I really don't know what I would do without her.  She's an amazing mom and an awesome friend.  I absolutely love how she can be there to give me advice, let me use her as a sounding board, or just hang out with and play catch up.  She is one of my best friends.  I pray that I have the same kind of relationships with my daughters when they are my age.  Thank you mom for being amazing!!!  I love you!!

Thankful for...

Today I am thankful for my husband, Brendan.  He is a wonderful Christian husband and father.  I feel extremely blessed to have him in my life.  There are times when I sit and wonder what I did to deserve to have such a wonderful person as my spouse.  He's also a great role model to our girls.  They definitely love their daddy.  I thank the Lord every day for bringing him into my life.  If you would have asked me 11 years ago if I would have thought about dating Brendan, I probably would have answered no.  He was a friend that I didn't really think of like that (not to mention he was dating someone else at the time).  Here we are after 8 years of marriage and 3 little girls and life just keeps getting better!!

A New Month

November 1, 2011--Where has the time gone?  The month of October is officially over and this month will bring on more weather changes and my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving.

Along with a new month is work on a new me.  The past month I was not diligent on working on my weight loss, but today is a new day.  I have a lofty goal for the month of November.  My goal is to be down 15 lbs by the end of November.  I fell 5 lbs short of my goal for October.  Another goal is to walk 2-3 miles at least 5 days a week and continue on my C25K program.  I am going to start week 3 over this week because it has been a couple of weeks since I've done the program.

With this being the month of November and the month that has Thanksgiving in it, I figured I'd challenge myself to write about something I'm thankful for and why daily.

Today I'm thankful for the Lord.  I know that even in my most stressful times, I can always turn to God to help relieve my stress.  If only I could remember this all the time.  The last year has been a great one and I know that whatever blessings I have are all from God.

Here is to a great month!!!

How To Keep The Motivation?!?

Well the Biggest Loser challenged has ended and I'm finding myself losing my motivation.  I think part of my loss is due to things going on at home that have prohibited me from being able to walk on a daily basis.  This week there has been a change in weather and Peyton has been a little under the weather so this has kept me indoors.  However, I did find a little solution to my issue.  I have a found a video on demand service through our satellite provider called Exercise TV.  Last week I did one episode of kickboxing and I thought my legs were going to fall off.

So here is my new goal:

Walk every day (regardless of weather conditions)
Alternate between kickboxing and pilates every day
Continue my C25K training (on week 4)

I have a goal to lose 8-10 lbs a month so hopefully I'll be to my goal weight by May.

Oh and to give me another little boost, my work is starting their own Biggest Loser competition today.  Can't wait to get this weight off!!

It's Not a Setback, but a Challenge

So last week I thought I was really making some progress.  I thought that I had had this really awesome week. Well imagine my surprise when I get on the scale (at church)

Sunday to only be down 1.4 lbs.  I got very frustrated because what I thought had been this awesome week wasn't near as awesome as I thought.  Going off of my home scale I was down 4lbs!!!  I know that's a lot in a week, but I had been walking and getting more strict on my food.  Well come to find out my scale at home was off by almost 5lbs.  Thankfully this had not been the case during this whole endeavor and it just started last week.

I started to get really frustrated and discouraged, but a good friend of mine told me not be discouraged.  She told me that you could really see that I had lost weight.  So, I am not going to look at the faulty scale as a setback, but a challenge booster.  It helped me to get more in focus and more on track this week and really buckle down.  I did purchase another scale though.

A couple of weeks ago, me and 4 other ladies from church have started walking twice a week.  The park that we meet at has an awesome walking track and we can get a good 3.5 miles in.  I was thinking today that if I can do that twice a week, what's to stop me from doing it every day???  So starting tomorrow I'm going to start walking 3 miles a day.  I had already worked up to 2 miles a day and am handling it really well.  I'm ready to step up my game.

As of today, I'm down 14 lbs from the first of August.  I am not sure of measurements, because I didn't think to do those when I started.  On the first of October I will try to do my measurements so I can see how I'm progressing.  The way I have been charting my progress (besides the scale) is by pulling clothes out of my closet that I haven't worn in a few years.  I wore a t-shirt the other day that I haven't been able to wear since Thanksgiving of 2009.

For those of you that have lost weight, what do you do with your clothes that are too big?  Do you go ahead and get rid of them or keep them?  I plan on getting rid of mine because I am planning on never getting back into them.  I have a ton of clothes that are a couple sizes too small right now, but I plan on getting into them. What I would really like to do is go and by a dress in the my goal size and use that as my motivation.
What do you use for your motivation?  Do you incorporate your friends to help hold you accountable?  When you hit a plateau, what do you do to help break it?

Thanks for reading and I hope that I have more loss to share in the future.