This post is long overdue. And it’s going to be a long one.

It’s no secret that I struggled pretty bad last month. Thankfully, I’m making strides now to “come back” and re-lose what I gained. I’m getting my mojo back and I sure don’t want to lose it again…so that’s where this post comes in. I want to give a complete status update on where I am currently in my journey as well as share my plans going forward.

This is me wiping my hands clean of the last month and starting anew.

WHERE I’M AT:

Mondays are my ‘official’ weigh-in days and as of Monday of this week I weighed 200.5 lbs. I’ve lost a total of 55.5 pounds since the beginning of my journey 9 months ago, which is 21.6% of my starting weight.

When I started this journey, my BMI was 44.1, which meant that I fell into the “morbidly obese” category. At 5′-3″ and 200.5 lbs, my BMI is now at 35.5, which means I’m just “obese” now without the “morbidly”.

My measurements as of today are as follows:

Waist: 44 1/4″ (3″ smaller than it was on 1/25/10 and 5 1/4″ smaller than it was on 7/27/07.)
Chest: 45 1/2 (3″ smaller than it was on 1/25/10 and 8 1/2″ smaller than it was on 7/27/07.)
Hips: 49″ (3 3/4″ smaller than it was on 1/25/10 and 5″ smaller than it was on 7/27/07.)
Thigh: 23 1/2″ (1 3/4″ smaller than it was on 1/25/10 and 3″ smaller than it was on 7/27/07.)

So, OVERALL, I’ve lost 5 1/4″ in my waist, 8 1/2″ in my chest, 5″” in my hips, and 3″ in my thigh.

So that’s where I am in the numbers. Now let’s see where I am in pictures.

WHERE I’M GOING:

One of my good friends, Steve, recently wrote about his struggle and his PLAN to overcome it. His posts on that really inspired me to regain my footing and part of that process is to instill some new goals (and maybe resurrect some new ones).

That’s the one thing this journey has made me — very goal oriented. I LOVED being part of the various challenges that have been out there, especially the ones that required a weekly check-in on our goals. I attribute a lot of the success I’ve had to those challenges! It’s been months though, since I’ve last been a part of one…and although I said I was going to continue weekly goal tracking anyway, I didn’t. That changes now.

NEW WEEKLY GOALS:

• Run at least 10 miles this week.

Many of you know that my goal for the year is to run/walk/jog 500 miles. So far, I’m at 179.8 miles logged. I’ve fallen behind. I’m still confident that I’ll reach my goal, especially as my miles increase in my half-marathon training, but I need to at least get 10 in per week to stay on track.

• Ride my bike at least once this week.

You may recall that I was actually scared to ride one for a long time, but finally did several months back. I really don’t enjoy bike riding, but that may be just because I never do it and haven’t given it a chance to grow on me.

• Not drink ANY soda.

So far, it’s been 277 days since I last had a drink of soda and I’d like to make it a year.

• Eat breakfast everyday.

I’ve struggled with this since the beginning, but there is a clear difference in my energy levels on the days I have breakfast and the days I don’t. I perform better with it!

• Go to bed by 11:00 on work nights, and by 8:00 PM on Friday nights.

I meet with Caleb’s Crusade at 5:30 on Saturday mornings, so that’s why I need to be in bed so early on Fridays.

• Do one exercise class this week (Yoga, kickboxing, bootcamp, etc)

I was doing SO well when I was attending the kickboxing class every week, so I’d like to start going again. I’m really looking forward to incorporating this back into my routine.

• Keep my training log updated.

I need to keep up with this, even on the days I can’t get online…so I have a paper journal that I will use for those times.

• Do 5 days of training per Caleb’s Crusade schedule.

Well, I obviously couldn’t discuss my goals and the future of my journey without talking about Caleb’s Crusade! They are the group that I am running the Disney Half-Marathon in January with/for and what an amazing group of people! I feel so blessed to have met them. My training consists of 2 days of running through the week (usually Monday and Wednesday) and 2 days of cross training through the week (usually Tuesday and Thursday) and then our “long run” on Saturdays with the group. For my cross training, I want to ride my bike one of the days, and then whatever class I join (see above) will be my second day of cross.

For our long run this week (tomorrow) we are on schedule to run 5.5 miles. The longest I have ran thus far without stopping to walk is 4.5 miles, so we will see how I do. I’m not going to over-push myself, but I really would like to see if I can run the whole way. I am also planning on getting my new running shoes tomorrow that I won! I wish I could have gotten them already so that I could wear them for tomorrow’s run, but my schedule just didn’t allow for it.

So that’s it. Those are my new weekly goals, some of which may look familiar to you. I’ll check in every Friday** with an update. Speaking of goals, I’ve updated my goals pages here and here if you want to take a look.

**You may recall from my last post that I don’t have internet at home right now. This was a hard decision for us to make as a family, but it was necessary. So, for the next few months, my internet access will be limited to my lunch hour at work or whenever I can go to the library or use a friend’s computer. When I can get on, I’m going to try to keep my blog updated as much as I can…if nothing else, I’ll at least post my weekly weigh-ins (Mondays) and weekly goal updates (Fridays). I need to do that for me. For my journey. The worst part about this is that I won’t be as connected to you all as I once was. I have really thrived on the accountability and encouragement I get from you guys and am not sure how successful I can be without it. Obviously, I won’t be able to read your blogs and comment like I used to. However, I can encourage you on facebook or through email (both of which I can access on my phone). So I’d love for you to add me on facebook or email me (josiephelps @ inbox .com) if you want to stay connected that way. ♥

I warned you this was going to be a long post! Congrats if you read the whole thing…hehe.

179.8 miles walked/jogged/ran since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 500)
49.5 miles biked since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 300)
(6) 5Ks finished since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 12)

Let’s recap the weekend, shall we?

Weekend Warrior Goal: Go grocery shopping. I have to say that the best part was embarrassing my daughter in the produce section:

Weekend Warrior Goal: Workout for at least 110 minutes. I originally planned to do this Friday night, but I had so much left to do to get ready for the yard sale, that I put it off until today. Better late than never.

I walked my first mile (19 minutes):

Ran the second mile (13 minuntes, 35 seconds):

Ran/Walked the last 1.26 miles (21 minutes):

For a total of 53 minutes done on the treadmill. I decided to do the rest out on the road, so I ended up walking for about an hour. Me and my red face after it all, haha:

Weekend Warrior Goal: Don’t drink any tea. I didn’t do so hot on this one. I had a glass on Saturday and a glass today. Still, that’s a lot less than I had last weekend, and I drank a lot more water too, so I’m content.

The yard sale on Saturday was a MAJOR success! The first person who stopped by bought $35 worth of stuff and the very next woman bought $44! So I made $79 in just the first 30 minutes! My goal was $100 and we ended up making around $200 after all was said and done. YES!

All in all, I’d say I had a successful weekend; hopefully the scale will reflect that tomorrow for my weigh-in. How was your weekend?

149.7 miles walked/jogged/ran since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 500)
49.5 miles biked since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 300)
(5) 5Ks finished since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 12)

Those of you on my Facebook already know this, but the 911 Fitness Challenge that I joined in January came to an end yesterday and here’s how I did:

• Jan. 1 - 231.2
• Apr. 1 - 207.0

So I lost 24.2 lbs for the duration of the challenge (and 49 total so far – 1lb away from 50!.

We don’t yet know who the winners are, but we think we might have gotten 2nd or 3rd in the team category based on how we know other teams did. We also think/hope that 4 of our 5 team members might have placed in the individual categories. There are prizes for the top 3 teams and for the top 10 women and top 10 men with the top prize being $500.00. We won’t know for sure till next week, so there’s no point in stressing over it. (Easier said than done?!) I’m really proud of our team…we lost a combined total of 108 pounds!

I’m just glad it’s over. I kinda freaked myself out over it the week to the point where I wanted to get my hair cut to try to make me lighter (even though I’ve been trying to let it grow out for a year now) Needless to say, I didn’t like what I had become for those last few days. Think long term, Josie, long term.

Oh, here’s something else pretty interesting about the last six months. I lost 24.8 lbs during my first 3 months and 24.2 for the last 3 months. If nothing else, I’m consistent, huh?

Now it’s time for my weekly goals update:

• Eat breakfast every day this week

Success.

• Stay under 25 WW points per day this week

Last weekend was an epic fail for me, but I was on target other than that.

• Go to gym before work every day this week (M-F)

I didn’t go at all. My lower back was still hurting from last week and without going into too many details, I had a lot of crap going on at home. This meant a lot of late nights and mentally draining nights, so getting up at 4:30 AM was just near impossible for me. I wouldn’t have been able to function properly had I done it. It wouldn’t have been healthy. (I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m making excuses…I still worked out in the evenings, just not the mornings)

• No Soda!

Success. I want to remove this from my weekly goals because I think I’ve gotten this one beat…but I’m scared that as soon as I do, I’ll slip up. So for now, it stays.

• Walk/Run/Jog 10 miles for the week

13.7 Miles!

• Work on C25K Program at least 3 days this week

Success. I’m ready for Week 3

• Ride 5 miles on bike or exercise bike 5 days this week

I only biked 5 miles this week.

126.7 miles walked/jogged/ran since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 500)
45.5 miles biked since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 300)
(3) 5K finished since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 12)

Today marks SIX months since I embarked on this journey! A lot has happened in the past six months that has drastically changed my life – in such a positive way. I’ll likely always be a work in progress, but I’m very proud of how far I’ve come in the last six months.

Let’s recap, shall we?

• One of my biggest successes so far is giving up Pepsi. Day 2 was the hardest, but it gets easier each day. I still have dreams that I slip up and drink it though.
• I joined a gym. You can read about my first workout in this post from day 5. Basically, I walked a little more than a mile at 1.5 mph and my face got THIS red from it:

  

• I unofficially joined Steve’s Hot 100 Challenge which helped me stay on track through the end of 2009.
• I started going on walks with my family…a first!
• I had my first Turkey burger!
• I joined Daily Mile and started tracking my workouts there.
• I tried grilled Tilapia and liked it!
• I reconnected with a dear friend from high school and come to find out, she and I were on similar paths to healthiness! She has since started blogging herself.
• My husband got laid off. Not weight related, but definitely affected my mental state and the type of food I could eat for a while.
• I fell and seriously injured my arm…was diagnosed a few days later with a torn bicep. This seriously affected my workouts for several weeks, but I did not give up.
• I planned a healthy menu for Thanksgiving and when my mashed cauliflower didn’t turn out, I didn’t use that as an excuse to gorge on mashed potatoes. I went to plan B instead. It was my first Thanksgiving ever where I had proper portions and all healthy choices!
• I signed up and walked in the Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot 5k...my first ever.
• We celebrated our wedding anniversary in a different way this past year…we brought Olive Garden to us!
• I started C25K and made it through Week 3! (It just took me four months to do it
• I set a goal for myself to walk/jog/run 500 miles for the year 2010!
• I got new sneakers which were MUCH needed.
• I joined the 9-1-1 Fitness Challenge with Lynne and a few others. My final weigh-in for this challenge is on Thursday and I’m hoping to win something!
• I joined Steve’s Perfect 10 Challenge which was the perfect follow up to his Hot 100.
• I started to run! and LIKED it!
• I joined a weekly kickboxing class!
• I tried Zumba, but hated it. LOL
• I conquered my fear and rode my bike.
• I participated in (3) 5Ks so far this year; the Calusa Bug Chase, the Walk for Wishes, and the Hope, Love, and Faith 5k.
• I decided to reward myself!
• I said goodbye to my dear Uncle Larry.
• I’ve learned that this journey isn’t just physical…
• I had a Workout Pledge on my blog and you all helped me get a killer workout in!
• I started eating the Weight Watchers plan
• Michelle, the gym owner, offered to train with me each morning! What a blessing.
• I started C25K again.
• I had my first workout puke!
• I completed a mile in just over 13 minutes!

Last but not least? I’ve met the most amazing people ever! Yes, I mean YOU.

Sorry that was so long. It’s good to look back and realize how far we’ve come…it helps put things into perspective, y’know?

Now for today’s Weigh-in Results:

I weighed in this morning at 208.0 lbs which is a .9 lb loss for the week. This brings my total weight loss so far to 48 pounds. In the last six months, I have lost 18% of my weight and my BMI has gone from 44.1 to 36.8.

I want to state my appreciation to all of you for being there for me through the past six months…without your accountability and encouragement I doubt I would have stuck with it, so THANK YOU and here’s to the next six months!

Here’s something I never thought I’d do…but here goes:

How’s that for exposing myself?

115.5 miles walked/jogged/ran since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 500)
40.5 miles biked since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 300)
(3) 5K finished since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 12)

How’s that for a title? This is gonna be one jumbled post of randomness.

GIVEAWAY
First things first, my friend Kat is having a giveaway on her blog for Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil…Check it out…you have until March 29th to enter.

C25K
She has also decided to start the C25K training program with Kim, Kelly, Craig, and Erin. I’m going to join them as well. As you know I’ve been working my way through the C25K for the past four months. That’s how long it took me to just get through Week 3! I think going back and starting from Day 1 will be good for me because I can work on my endurance and speed to better prepare me for weeks 4 and beyond. I’ve made a lot of progress since I first started to run in my workouts, but I still have a long way to go. My next running goal that I want to reach is to run a full mile without having to stop. (Right now, I can do about a half mile before having to stop.) After that, I want to be able to run a full 5K hopefully in time for this year’s Turkey Trot. Last year’s Turkey Trot was my first 5K ever and I told myself then that I wanted to run it this year.

BLOG STUFF
You may have noticed that I changed the layout of my blog. This has been something I’ve been wanting to do for a while now. My previous theme had so many limitations and apparently, some security holes. I came to post a blog the other day and my site wouldn’t load, rather it was redirecting to a host provider that I had never heard of before and the page just said “Site Unavailable”. This happened once before a month or so ago and when I called my host to find out why, they didn’t know and while they were trying to figure it out my site just magically started loading right again. I was pissed off then because I didn’t understand how another host could have access to my site to have it redirect to theirs. So when it happened again last week, I wasn’t getting off the phone with my host until I had some concrete answers. Well, I may not have liked the answer, but at least I got one…my site was hacked and whoever did it added some type of code to redirect my site to theirs. Weird. So, for the past couple of days I’ve been restoring everything and making some changes to make the site more secure. I also (obviously) changed my theme. I had bought Thesis a couple of months ago, but just never got around to playing with it until now. Let me know if something doesn’t work right or if there are any broken links or anything like that. Also, I changed the way my site accepts comments and added an extra spam filter, so if your comment doesn’t appear please let me know. At any rate, it’s nice to finally have things like threaded comments. I’m still playing around with it – wow the options are endless – but so far, I’m loving Thesis.

PERFECT 10
It felt really weird yesterday not doing a Perfect 10 post. I don’t know why, but having those weekly goals really helped keep me on track (Thanks Steve!). So, I’m going to keep tracking my weekly goals even though the challenge is over. After my talk with Michelle (my gym owner) on Wednesday, my goals are going to be a little different than they have been:

• Eat breakfast every day this week
• Stay under 25 WW points per day this week
• Go to gym before work every day this week (M-F)
• No Soda!
• Walk/Run/Jog 10 miles for the week
• Work on C25K Program at least 3 days this week
• Ride 5 miles on bike or exercise bike this week

I know today is Saturday, but I’ll keep tracking these on Fridays just like I did for the Perfect 10. I don’t know what I’ll call it, maybe the Imperfect 10 like Pippa is?

104.5 miles walked/jogged/ran since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 500)
23.5 miles biked since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 300)
(3) 5K finished since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 12)

This will be a short post because as the title implies, I am SORE and very tired. I mean, sore like I’ve never experienced before. My legs are so sore that when I went to workout on the treadmill today, I literally couldn’t. My knees kept buckling and every few seconds I felt like I was going to fall because my legs would buckle. So I got off and did some on the elliptical and exercise bike. Not much, but at least I tried.

Today was also day 1 of my new Weight Watchers eating program. So far so good! I had breakfast this morning which is a victory in itself. I’m now sitting at 23 points for the day which is right on target. I’ll admit, that I’m pretty hungry tonight. I’m having to try really hard to resist getting a snack. It’s probably more mental than anything. My mind knows that I’m changing my eating habits so I want more. I dunno, but I think I’m just gonna go to bed. It’s so much easier to resist food when you’re asleep!

G’night everyone!

103.75 miles walked/jogged/ran since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 500)
20.5 miles biked since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 300)
(3) 5K finished since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 12)

Today was such a whirlwind, I hardly know where to start.

I showed up at the gym this morning with my list of exercises from my workout pledge ready to go. My sister was there to join me but what I didn’t know was that Michelle, the owner of the gym, would also be there ready to help me get the most out of my workout. Right away she looked at the list I brought to figure out a plan for the day. She asked me how I normally “warm up” for a workout and I told her I normally just hop on the treadmill. Oops, wrong answer to tell a personal trainer! LOL She said “hop on the bike” so that’s what I did for 12 minutes at Level 5. That was my warm up. Then my sister and I did some stretching before getting to the meat of the workout.

I won’t bore you with every detail from the day, but basically she had me do circuits of all the different exercises. I started with the crunches, squats, and weight machines where I’d do 20 crunches, then 20 squats, and then 20 reps on the leg abduction weight machine and then I’d start back with the crunches and do it all over again.

She had me hold my fingers in a diamond like that and look at this blue piece of tape up on the wall. I guess so that my head stayed up? I’m not sure, but I think I looked funny.

After those circuits were out of the way she had me do the exercise bike and stairmaster. I’d do 3 minutes on one and then go hop on the other until I had all of them done. (Level 5 on the bike and 6 on the stairmaster)

After those circuits were done she had me get on the elliptical where I switched between the elliptical and the treadmill to finish out the workout. I’d do 2 minutes on the elliptical and then run on the treadmill.

I still can’t get over how red my face gets! And because I truly have no shame, I’ve uploaded a short video of me on the treadmill if you want a good laugh.

At one point on the treadmill I really felt like I was going to puke, so I got off, ate a protein bar, rested a few minutes, and then got back on and finished my workout.

So, I did it all – everything on the list and then some! Michelle was like my personal trainer, right there beside me for practically the whole time, making sure I had the correct form, checking my heart rate, etc. When I started running, she explained how I was making it harder on myself with my form. I told her that one of my goals is to become a better runner, so she gave me some helpful information like showing me how to increase my gait. It was so awesome to have that one on one with her today.

It got better though.

After the workout was done, we all went into her office and started talking. She asked me how much I have been losing a week. Recently I’ve only been losing less than a pound a week to a pound. I thought that was to be expected since I’ve lost a good amount already. I expected the rate to slow down. But, when I told her that, she felt differently and told me that she thinks I could/should be losing more a week still. So she started asking me about my eating habits and such to try to pinpoint what I’m doing wrong. I’ll be honest, all of this time I thought I had been doing pretty good with my food choices. She, however, was not impressed. LOL I mean, yes, what I have been eating is far and away better than I was before I began this journey, but still not completely healthy choices. For instance, Subway. I thought if I had a fresh fit sub about once a week that it was a good, healthy choice with only 280 calories. She quickly brought up the website showing there was almost 1000 mg of sodium in that thing! Then she brought up the issue of breakfast, which I’ll admit, I rarely eat. She pointed out that if I eat dinner at 7 PM and then don’t eat until 12 PM the next day, that I basically fasted for 17 hours and that I *need* breakfast to get my metabolism started for the day. These conversations continued for a while and I just sat there like a sponge trying to just soak in all the valuable help she was freely offering me. (Yes, freely!) I learned SO much today!

She suggested I start eating Weight Watchers style, keeping my intake to 25 points or less. She also said that if I wanted to start coming into the gym at 5 AM, she would meet me there and work with me for about an hour a day! Really, I’d have to be DUMB to turn down an offer like that! OF COURSE I will do that! She’s convinced that I could be producing better results on the scale and wants to show me different exercises and such to get them.

Needless to say, I’m stoked. Just when I thought I might be starting to plateau, this happens and flips everything I’ve known and been doing on its head. I’m excited to enter this new phase of my journey…and yeah, hopefully she’s right and I can start losing 2-3 lbs a week again. So that’s my exciting news for the day. I’ll now be doing Weight Watchers (unofficially) and meeting her every morning for some more personal training. Could it get any better?!

Christina, thank you for going with me and for taking the pictures for me! Michelle, thank you for all your help and advice today….YOU ROCK and I will see you bright and early tomorrow morning!!!

p.s. I did not keep track of my mileage today. Doh! And since I don’t want to guess with my yearly goals, I’m not adding them to my totals below. Today was just extra.

102.75 miles walked/jogged/ran since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 500)
14.9 miles biked since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 300)
(3) 5K finished since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 12)

I’ve decided to join the Weekend Warriors Challenge being offered by Brandon.

Weekends are my weakness when it comes to exercise. Don’t get me wrong, I’m active and I get out and do stuff, but I rarely go to the gym on the weekends or purposefully exercise -that’s always been reserved for the workweek. So this challenge will be good for me and might also prove to be beneficial to my weigh-ins, which are always on Mondays, right at the close of the weekend.

The rules are simple; Set 2-3 health/fitness related goals each weekend and report our progress on Monday. Here are the three things I want to accomplish this weekend so I can be a warrior!

1. Work out Friday night (something I never do) for at least 30 minutes.
2. Map out and walk/run 3 miles on Sunday. If any of my local friends read this and want to do this together, let me know!
3. Limit myself to 1 glass of tea each day. (I’ve noticed that I’ve been drinking way too much tea on the weekends and not enough water.)

So those are my goals. I should also point out that I should be getting a fair amount of exercise in on Saturday as well. I’ll be doing the Hope, Love, & Faith MS 5K Run/Walk first thing Saturday morning. By the way, my goal for this one is to complete it in less than 50 minutes. I think/hope this is reachable since I’ve been increasing my pace lately. Then, Saturday night, we’ll be in yet another parade:

This will be the Celebrate Cape Coral parade, and I’ll again be walking (as a snowflake) along with my daughter’s float. The route is about 2 miles long, I think, so that’ll be a total of about 5 miles for Saturday alone.

Now for an update on my mom; thank you to everyone for all the well wishes and prayers you sent our way. The surgery went well and she’s recovering. There were some issues yesterday with her blood pressure. It was at 72/38 when she came out of surgery and they couldn’t get it to go up until around 6:30 last night, but at least it did finally go up. When I called her this morning, she informed me that she had ran a fever all night, so hopefully they’re able to stop the fever and she doesn’t run into any more issues. There was a rather emotional moment yesterday. After surgery, the three of us were just sitting in her room and she was talking her weight and she said she was so proud of me and my sister for losing the weight we have to be healthy so that we won’t end up with a lot of the health issues she has. She said she only wished someone would have told her years ago how it would have affected her life because she would have made changes a long time ago, not only for herself, but she also said she would have fed us differently as children. I don’t blame my mother in the least and I told her she had nothing to apologize for. It was just the kind of moment that sticks with you though and makes me even more committed to this new lifestyle of mine, not just for me, but for MY children. Ya know?

72.5 miles walked/jogged/ran since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 500)
13.9 miles biked since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 300)
(2) 5K finished since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 12)

I got this idea from the lovely Mary over at A Merry Life and thought I would join in on the food love/hate fest.

FIVE FOODS I USED TO LOVE:

Burger King Whoppers I had these nearly everyday for lunch during the work week. MmmmMMm. I’d scarf two down, along with fries and/or onion rings literally almost every day. I am happy to say I haven’t had a BK burger since September.

Ice Cream I’ve been known to eat a whole quart of cookies ‘n cream ice cream before. This is something else I haven’t indulged in since I started this back in September.

Pasta made from white flour Pasta is a huge weakness of mine, I just love the stuff. Now when I have it I eat whole wheat pasta which is so much better than the white stuff. I don’t ever want to eat the white flour stuff again.

Cheese I was always a HUGE cheese lover and would eat cheese on lots of stuff. The more the better. I still like cheese, but since September, I’ve been real careful about having less. Like when we have chicken tacos, I eat mine without cheese now and honestly, I DON’T MISS IT AT ALL.

Pepsi Drinks count, right? Hi, my name is Josie and I’m a recovering soda addict. I had a long sordid affair with the stuff and am SO glad it’s finally over. Yes, I still crave it from time to time, but with each passing day it gets better.

FIVE FOODS I LOVE:

Fruit Parfait This has become my new favorite treat. I’ll take some plain greek yogurt (something I never had prior to September!) and add some fruit, either fresh or frozen. MMMmmmm. I love this stuff and it’s so good for you.

Whole Grain Pasta See above list. I just love this stuff and wish I had tried it a lot sooner in life. I don’t eat near the amount of pasta I used to, but when I do, at least I know I have a healthier option.

BLT I love BLT sandwiches and take one for lunch a lot of days now.

Strawberries My favorite fruit! I eat strawberries as a side dish with dinner a lot of nights…so yummy! I also love foods made with strawberries like strawberry pie (Perkins is the BEST), strawberry muffins, etc.

Mashed Potatoes Oh, how I love thee! I haven’t had any since I started in September. None, at all. Not even for Thanksgiving and Christmas…but I still want them SO bad. Potatoes are truly a weakness of mine. I was telling Lynne the other day that it was nothing for us to get up on a Saturday morning and fry up a whole 10 lb bag of taters. Talk about portion control!

FIVE FOODS I HATE:

Mayo I’m lucky in this regard because I see a lot of dieters struggle with trying to eat less/no mayo. I have always hated the stuff!

Greens Turnip greens, collard greens, etc…YUCK. I may be a southern girl, but not when it comes to greens! blech!

Sour Cream Ew. Just Ew.

Rye Bread Just something about the aftertaste it leaves, I can’t stand it.

Oats I really wished I liked these because I could always use more fiber in my diet and some of the dishes I see made with oats ‘look’ so good. But, something about the texture I just can’t stomach them.

Feel free to join in on the food love/hate fest! It was neat to sorta jog my brain and ponder how my eating habits have changed over the last five months!

I don’t know if I ever mentioned this before, but my mom had the Lap Band surgery a couple years ago. Well, she’s had a lot of complications since then and now her gall bladder has stopped working altogether. So, tomorrow morning she’s having surgery to have her gall bladder removed. Hopefully all goes well. In the past I would have just gone up to the hospital after work, but in light of all the loss this past month (my uncle, Steve’s dad, beej’s uncle, and Karyn’s dad) I don’t want to take any chances, so I’ve taken the day off tomorrow to be with her. If you feel led to pray or send good thoughts, I’d sure appreciate it on her behalf.

In other news, if all goes well with her tomorrow, I will be doing something very exciting with my family tomorrow evening. Stay tuned for more details!

71.5 miles walked/jogged/ran since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 500)
13.9 miles biked since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 300)
(2) 5K finished since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 12)

Let me warn you right now – this is going to be a very long post. I am still computer-less at home for the moment. We are having a local PC shop build us a new one, which is new experience for us, I am excited about getting our new system just the way we want it at a lower price than the box stores could’ve given us. Hopefully it’ll be ready to pick up tomorrow or Thursday, so until then I’m stuck blogging from my phone or from my work computer as I’m doing now…don’t worry, though, I’m on my lunch hour

First things first, yesterday’s weigh-in results:

I weighed in yesterday at 215.4 lbs which is a 2.6 lb loss for the week. This brings my total weight loss so far to 40.6 pounds!

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t stoked about this. I’m SO close to being out of the 200s now, I can hardly believe it. By the way, I’ve decided how I’m going to reward myself once I do hit the elusive “Onederland”…DAVE MATTHEWS BAND tickets! They’ve been my favorite band for 18 years, yet somehow I’ve managed to go all this time without ever once seeing them live. (oh the shame of it all!) Every summer my sister goes and every summer it’s another excuse as to why I can’t, but not this year. I’ve got the money put aside so the day I step on the scale and the number staring back at me begins with a 1 instead of a 2, I’m ordering tickets. OH YEAH! If that isn’t motivation enough to stay on track, then I don’t know what is.

Now onto some fun stuff. You may recall this post back in November when we first started working on the float for my daughter’s clogging team. Here’s what it looked like back then, before we started:

and here’s what it looked like the day of the Edison Junior Parade on Valentines Day:

Pretty awesome, huh? Our theme was “Winter Wonderland” and we have been working on it almost every weekend for the past few months along with several other clogger parents. Here is a picture of it all lit up during the Edison Grand Parade this past Saturday night (see all the cloggers in there dancing?):

And a few more pictures to share…we had SO much fun.

Here I am with Madelyn, my little clogger, right before the Junior parade on Valentines Day. Please note, I live in Florida where heavy coats are not usually required, I’m wearing it to coordinate with our winter theme. (I walked alongside the float, so I had to be in theme). I bought the coat and scarf specifically for the parade…Note: The coat is an XL and was way too small for me…I couldn’t close it any more than what you see in the picture, but I bought it that way on purpose…maybe by next winter it will be too large!

Here’s a closeup of the ‘igloo’ portion of the float:

Can you believe there’s a truck in there?

And here is our title “Clogging on thin ice for Mr. Edison”:

For those unfamiliar, the Edison Festival of Lights is a 3 week celebration of Thomas Edison who resided in Ft. Myers during the winter months. The festival is our way of honoring his innovative legacy and includes many events including the junior parade, the Grand parade, a Day of Discovery, and a 5K run.

For the Grand Parade, a couple of the moms made these really cute lighted snowflakes for the walkers to wear…here I am sporting mine:

And now a video, that is so incredibly embarrassing, but we had a lot of fun. You’ll get a kick out of it, I’m sure! (I’m the one in the white/black coat with hot pink scarf).

Laughing yet? See, I told you you’d get a kick out of it! I’m pretty good at the air guitar, aren’t I?

The parades were a blast! It was a totally new experience for us because it was my daughter’s first year on the team. Being in the parades also helped me realize just how far I’d come in the last five months. Five months ago, there was no way I could have walked in those parades. NO WAY. Especially the grand parade which was rather long and we were moving FAST…jogging speed. The route itself was about 3 miles long, but you have to remember I was jumping all around, dancing, and working the crowd along the streets. It wasn’t just a casual walk. We got home that night and my feet had blisters because of the shoes I had on, but I was so thankful for the positive changes I’ve made in my life over the past 5 months, because had it not been for that, I wouldn’t have been able to have enjoyed that experience with my daughter. How’s that for a non-scale victory? We’ll be in yet another parade in 2 weeks!

Gosh, I told ya this was gonna be a long post…and truth be known, there’s so much more I want to write…it’s been really hectic around here the past few weeks. Please forgive me for not coming by your blogs, but without a home PC and as busy as we’ve been, it’s really difficult to do. Just a couple more days and things should be back to normal around here.

Edited to add: I can’t believe I forgot to post this part, but we won “Most Outstanding” float in both parades!

64.35 miles walked/jogged/ran since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 500)
13.9 miles biked since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 300)
(2) 5K finished since January 1st. (2010 Goal: 12)