Day 73 - Quickie

I have to work in just a little bit... but I wanted to get on here and post a picture. Actually two, but one you've already seen. I'm a big fan of pictures that SPAN the weightless journey, rather than one before and one after kinda thing. Those are very inspiring too. But I wanna see what it was like in between the beginning and the end. So... here's a "during" photo. It's from yesterday. I thought since I was wearing the same shirt yesterday as I was in a before picture, it'd be good to show the differences. Anyway, it's only after like 30ish pounds... So it isn't a mind-blowing difference. But I can see little differences!

November/December 2011 - Between 220-225 pounds

Yesterday - Around 194 pounds!

Like I said, not mind-blowing... but I like during pictures. And I can't wait until there IS a huge, crazy difference.

Hope everyone is staying on track and being good to themselves!!

Here's to hard work and determination,

-E

Day 72 - I'm More Than A Little Annoyed

I'm almost to the point of boycotting this website until they get something fixed. It's driving me insane having to practically hack into my account to sign in, then be unable to comment once I get here. For a while, it was letting me comment if I was running IE... but now every time I get a, "This site has a programming error" screen. Annoying. More than annoying. Get this crap fixed! I accept this is a free service and I should keep my expectations relatively low. However, I see ads all over the place. If the people who maintain this blog are making money off the advertisements, I'd say they need to be fixing this broken crap.

On to other things...

Yesterday I played a fun game called... "It's Warm Outside, Let's See What Spring Clothes Fit Now." It was lots of fun. And I definitely won. I pulled out all my shorts and a couple summery skirt things. I even dug out the stuff at the very bottom of my drawer that had been retired for being too snug/not fitting AT ALL.

All the shorts I was wearing last summer are way loose. Then, all the shorts and things I didn't wear much because they were tight and uncomfortable fit perfectly, if not a tiny bit on the big side. Then I got to the stuff I didn't even bother trying to wear last summer. I have a pair of khaki capris I was wearing when I graduated highschool, we're talking 2007 so that's like 5 years ago. This time last year, I tried them on... couldn't really get them past my hips, cried and took them off. Yesterday, I got them up and buttoned. Now... they are still way too tight to wear in public or for long periods of time. BUT the fact that they fit at all made me really happy, muffin top and all.

I'd found a few more shirts I can fit in more comfortably too. And I'm finding shirts that I'd been wearing the whole time (and probably shouldn't have been) are looking quite awesome on me. Today I'm wearing a shirt that I'm wearing in one of the pictures on my photo page. It's a cotton black short sleeve zip up shirt and I always wear a tank underneath it. It fits so differently on me today than it does in the picture. It's longer and looks less like it's uncomfortably stretched around my body. Pretty freakin' exciting.

So celebrations there.

I'm also still trying to decide what fun things to do with my hair! Even though I know you will not be able to comment... I'm going to be optimistic here. Here's a photo of my hair now... If anyone out there with a flare for hair styles or if I'm really lucky someone who is actually a stylist. Toss me some fun ideas. I'm ready for something new!



I don't know why my face looks 5 shades darker than my neck... and I promise my hair is even on both sides. It's hard to discretely take a photo of yourself in the middle of a computer lab full of people. Haha

I have no idea what I'm doing about meals today... It's a lot of running around and going to class and getting stuff done. I'll probably be very low on calories today. But one or two days of that isn't all that bad, I don't think. Better than WAY too many, in my opinion!

Evvverrrybody have an awesome day!

Here's to hard work and determination, and getting this blog fixed,

-E

Day 66 - This Comment Business Is Bugging Me!

I have been trying to comment on a handful of blogs for a little while now... With absolutely no success. I saw DietRiot was having similar issues on my blog... How about everyone else?

After typing that... I realize you will likely not be able to post a comment telling me you are experiencing similar issues, if you are in fact experiencing the same problems. I'll take your silence as a yes. haha

Today at 4pm is the official end of my vacation. I am so so so so sad. I need at least another 3 days. Ugh. ):

On the other hand, getting back into my routine will be nice too. I feel like I eat more regularly and am able to get off my butt and exercise more when I'm in a routine. So that's good...

My nails have finally started growing out again. I haven't mentioned my nails much in the weeks I've been posting but... I love nail art. I've been really into it for about 6 months... Then January/February came and all my nails started breaking and looking gross and I lost all interest in nail art. Well... I looked down today and can happily report my nails are looking healthy again (no doubt because I'm eating more). So I'm going to take some time today after laundry and before work and paint my nails! But while I'm waiting for my laundry to dry... I thought I'd share some photos with you all!

Let me also say, I'm no professional... This is just a hobby and I know they aren't amazing! But it's a lot of fun and I wanted to share with you guys!

I'll start with the really simple ones... Black tips!

Snowy French Mani-type Tips

Pretty Jade color... My nails used to be long and pretty. ):

First attempt at water marbling. Only on my ring finger. This is a pain in the ass! lol

Next water marbling attempt... Decided this was way too much work. But it looks neat!

I wore these all through January. Fun snowflake design...

Another fun Christmas design... Christmas lights!

Wore these on Christmas Eve/Day. Cute little Santa hats!

This one looks messy. I just did it to see if I could. Kinda neat tho, I guess.

Saved my favorite for last... Super Mario Nails!! My index finger got smudged. Sad face.

Okay that's it! Looking at these, my fingers look super pudgy in a few of them.... but oh well! I'm very excited that my nails are getting stronger again, so I can get back into this little hobby. Yay!

Okay, this was completely unrelated to weight loss... Forgive me! I just don't have much to report today... I eat the exact same things everyday almost. So... Uneventful. I'll do better next post. Promise!

Here's to hard work and determination,

-E

Day 27 - I Wonder How Long I'll Keep This "Day" Thing Up?

Heeelllloooo everyone!

I have had a really great day off. I usually work on Mondays... but as a result of some "end of the fiscal year cutbacks" they gave me a few less hours than normal and that resulted in an extra day off! I am NOT complaining! I slept till 10, got a TON of running done, made a delicious dinner, and got half my laundry done. Woot.

So in my last post I talked about some decorating I'm doing. I know this isn't related to weight loss or dieting... but I'll get there. I just feel so drab talking about the exact same things everyday. Calories and carbs and sweating and blah blah blah... This is something I'm really excited about and I wanna share.

So our bedroom is all white walls, because we live in an apt and we aren't allowed to do any serious changes. Our bed spread is black, and we have red accent pillows and a red blanket we drape at the bottom. We have black night stands and a black dresser. Then we have 4 red canvas totes we use to hide all of our "stuff". I keep photos and some owners manuals and other random things that wouldn't have a home otherwise (old keychains from my childhood I collected, some fancy hair chopsticks, etc). So basically, it's a black and white room with fun red accents in a few places. Sooo! We have a platform bed and no head board. I decided the wall above our bed (it's a king, so it's a huge area) is way too boring. I searched around for possible decorations... and ultimately decided on taking pictures of things that are red... in a mostly monochromatic environment, or just making the photo B&W except for the red... Then having 3 - 12x12 canvas prints made. And it turned out awesome, I think. We just picked them up today and I haven't talked bf into hanging them yet, but... These are the pictures:

Honestly, I'm not sure I can think of anything more frustrating on this blog than trying to post pictures in an even semi-coherent fashion. AArrgghhh... But, these are the prints. The wine is by far my favorite... and was also the most fun to shoot. But the others are also very neat too. Ummm... They don't necessarily mean anything. Wine, because I am a hardcore wino. Apple because... I always have apples on hand? And I wanna come up with something super clever for the royal flush... Like... love is a gamble and I have been dealt the best possible hand. (; But that's cheesy. hahah Also, please don't mind my messy dresser. It's covered in movies bf and I plan to watch sometime in the next 10 years.

I also wanted to show you guys the healthy meal bf and I created tonight. We just sorta felt like cooking. We did a cracked peppercorn turkey tenderloin in the crockpot all day. Along with some onions and mushrooms. Then we made cauliflower "mashed potatoes" and "creamed" peas. All the while, I was taking a stab at my first batch of apple chips. It was an overall success... Observe...

The dinner was only 265 calories because we made extra, super, amazing healthy choices when creating our "mashed potatoes" and "creamed" peas. Then the apples chips where... okay. From what I gathered, you basically slice the apple super thin, lay on cookie sheet, sprinkle with cinnamon and in my case Truvia, then bake at the lowest setting your oven has for 1.5-2 hours. Well. We joke about our over being a gate to Hell, or how we can't really bake anything because it's like cooking on the surface of the sun.. And it's completely true. Cookies that should take like 10-12 minutes are usually fully cooked and on their way to burnt after like 5 in our oven. My apple chips were done in like 50 minutes solid. It's an old oven and we are pretty sure the thermostat must be broken. Our fridge is similar. Except our fridge gets so cold it freezes our veggies and milk, and our freezer won't stay cold enough to keep ice cream frozen. Oh, the joys of living in a cheap apt during your poor college years. (:

Tomorrow is my weigh in! Today and yesterday were definitely light days, to try and make up for any damage I might have done the two days before that... So I'm not expecting INCREDIBLE things tomorrow morning... but certainly not a gain. Crossing my fingers for a loss tho! *Hopes*

Also, we went running shoe shopping today... We didn't get very far because neither one of us have ever taken up running. So we are total newbs. We are going to give the Couch to 5 K a shot. It sounds like a very promising program. I haven't ran regularly since high school volleyball conditioning. haha I'm not sure what I've gotten myself into... but I think it's important to be active and we have some pretty trails we can run that aren't far from home. Beats paying a bunch for a gym membership!

So definitely more research before we purchase any shoes... if anyone has any running/running shoe advice, please feel free to toss it at me.

Okay, I'm going to do a little elliptical I think and then wash some dishes while bf works on a big paper. This semester has been really laid back as far as HW goes... I shouldn't say that though, because as soon as I do... I'll end up with 15 things due at once.

Here's to hard work and determination,

-E

Day 20 - Hot, sweaty, and kinda anxious...

Hello everyone!

I haven't updated for a couple days. I didn't stop for any reason in particular... Just nothing special to really note. I worked all week. I stayed at or below my calories for all 3 days and 2 of the 3 days I did some kind of exercise. Not a ton of exercise, mind you. But anything is better than nothing!

I feel like I have a bunch of things I wanna talk about! Let's see if I can organize them into coherent thoughts...

For you calorie counters out there... I have fallen head over heels for an app I have had forever and only just recently started using. It's called "Lose It!" I have an iPhone, so I know it's available for the Apple devices, Android I'm not so sure. But it's definitely worth a look! At first, it seems like a run-of-the-mill food logger. However, it has so many features I just adore.

First, you can set up a weight loss program. So I put in my sex, age, weight, height, and my goal weight. Then it asked me how much  I want to lose per week. Then it calculates an estimated goal completion date based on all the info. It gives you the number of calories you should eat per day to achieve your goal.

Next, it keeps track of your calories every day, shows you where you are in reference to your daily calories goals with a little bar graph. I'm going to attach a screen shot, since it's sooo cool and all.

The thing I love, is the ease it makes logging food. If you are eating fresh foods, then obviously you just search for the food in their HUGE database and enter how much of the food you ate. But! If you are eating ANYTHING with a barcode, all you do is scan the bar code and it instantly recognizes the food, as well as the entire nutritional info and how much is in each serving. It makes logging in a meal as easy as taking a picture of a bar code. Pretty much amazing.

You can also input exercise and it keeps track of that in your daily food log as well.

For those of you interested in things other than calories, it keeps and daily tally and weekly average of all your nutrients. I like to watch my fiber, carbs and sodium as well.

And of course, a fitness app isn't complete without a weight tracker. You can track your weight as often as you like and it plots it on a line graph for you. Which I also love.

OMG INSERTING PHOTOS IS ENTIRELY TOO HEAD-ACHY!

Now... I apologize for the crappy quality. But I saved them as gif's and this is what I got. I just wanted to share my awesome APP with all of you. I really do love it.

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Now... back to talking about things. I also dusted off the ol' elliptical today. I know, I haven't mentioned it. I have a home-elliptical in the corner of my living room that I hadn't used in months. It's a shame, I know. And for a long time, including just recently, it has made me feel worthless and lazy when I looked at it. So tonight I decided to do something about that! And I hopped on it. For exactly 16 minutes. That was about all I could do. It was on medium intensity. But it certainly worked me out. According to my app and the elliptical I burnt around 230 calories in 16 minutes. That makes me really happy. I'm sweating up a storm right now, too.

I never use exercise as an excuse to eat more though. That's one thing I don't like about this app. I think I want to stay under 1500 (usually more like 1350) AND exercise. It doesn't make sense to me to eat more because I've exercised. Then, what's the point?

Tomorrow is my weigh day and I am SO anxious. I try not to get so excited... on the chance I don't change or god forbid GAIN! But I wanna see those numbers go doooown! Hopefully tomorrow is the day for that! (:

Also, and  it may be in my head, my work clothes are starting to feel just a teeny-tiny bit looser. It could be in my head, but either way it's very encouraging and makes me wanna keep going.

I'm a little more scattered brained than I originally thought. I can't think of a single thing I wanted to talk about. Geez... Brain fart. Oh well. I'll think of it later and I'll definitely include it tomorrow with my weigh in. Which I'm hoping *fingers crossed* will be down. 2 pounds would be incredible.

OH! I remember... This is what happens when I get bored, and thinking about my weight, and have access to Excel. Observe:

Oh geez. It's tiny. Click on it. I think that remedies the problem.

I don't know if I'm setting myself up to fail, or if this is a good, goal setting, motivational tool. But... but enjoyed making it. And it's pretty sweet, IMHO. (;

Okay. I'm done for the night. Time for a shower and a little How I Met Your Mother on Netflix!

Here's to hard work and determination,

-E

Day 17 - And Without Further Ado...

Hello everyone!

As promised, I will be attaching all sorts of photos to this post (some awesome, some NOT). I have to control myself a little bit though. Going back through all my pictures, I ended up with like 16 I wanted to post. Which is just crazy. But I'll post enough to let you see how insane my weight has fluctuated the past 4-5 years.

But I'm going to talk first!

I only work Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon every week because of classes. But they are always long shifts (9-10 hours) and by the end of the day I am usually freakin beat. Today I worked early. I'm kind of the designated opener in my little corner of the store. Which suits me, because even though I'm not much of a morning person, I love having my evenings to myself. I also find I can control my eating habits better if I am up early.

The past few days have been really great on the nutrition front. I have been eating a lot of Healthy Choice and Lean Cuisine meals.  Most of the time I pick ones that are lower in calories, then add things like veggies or fruit or low-fat dairy to them. They aren't very satisfying alone usually, but I can tack on some healthy sides and I'm good to go. Snacking has been minimal, and when I DO snack, it's always something like apples or almonds or a 100 cal pack. OH! And string cheese. Low fat, of course. But YUM.

I'm also a crazy dancing machine. Yesterday I spent another hour playing Just Dance 2 in my living room. I even drug bf off the couch to dance a few duets with me. haha It's really fun, and you definitely feel the burn after a while, especially if you really try to match what the person on the screen is doing. I was doing all kinds of arm motions and kicks and squats and hops. There's a mode in the game called "Just Sweat" where it keeps track of your songs and how much you moved around, then awards you "sweat points" at the end. According to the game's manufacturer, for every 4.2 sweat points, you burn 1 calorie. Naturally, this is an estimate and would vary enormously between people... But I earned like 2,500 of these "sweat points" which would supposedly equal like 595calories. Not sure I buy that. But I could believe 300, maybe? Not a bad workout, considering it's a super fun video game. Also, I look ridiculous playing it. (:

Alright... Enough chit-chatting. Let's see if I can master this photo stuff... I'll be adding then in chronological order, starting around age 18. Ok go! Also, it appears you can click on these to make them bigger... A few of them are really small?

Me, 18

Also about 18. This was my little sister's Halloween Costume. She's 6 years younger than me. I was just goofing off.

I think I was 19 in this one. NOT the most attractive. We were on vacation and I'd just woken up. But still on the slimmer side.

Definitely 19 here. Off taking pictures somewhere. I don't have a ton of full body shots. I had gained a little weight between the last picture and this one.

20 here. Putting on more weight, slowly.

Me at work... Laaaame. This is only 3 months later, but there's a pretty big weight difference!

Me, 20 still, another "picture taking" picture.

This was a little less than a year ago. When I first moved into my apartment. This is on here for good measure, to make sure you can all see how chunky I got. haha But not for much longer!

There's also almost an entire year unaccounted for... But I just stopped liking my picture taken. Sooo... ya know.

I was once a normal weight, and I will be there again! Enjoy, everyone!

Here's to hard work and determination,

-E