Whew, good workout!

I definitely recommend the 10 minute solutions videos.  I love them!!  I just did a couple segments of the target toning and it's great.  I did two segments of it last week and was sore for a couple days afterwards.  Wonderful feeling.

I bought some vanilla-flavored almonds today, and my goodness are they good!!  they weren't any higher in calories than regular almonds so I didn't figure there'd be any harm in it.  I measured out one ounce in a small container and made sure I ate that one ounce throughout the day.  I'm going to set that ounce aside every morning. Delicious snacking!  And way healthy too.

Not much is going on here.  It's humid as heck and I'm ready for fall to get here.  With my daughter starting kindergarten and work schedules this summer, we just didn't use our pool much, which is a complete shame! We swam on average twice a day the past two summers.  And we even had our yard landscaped all beautiful this summer too. 

But we'll be sure to use the yard a lot come this fall and just enjoy the outdoors.  It'll be so nice to have the back doors open and feel the breeze in the house.  Ah, one can dream    It's bound to cool off here sooner or later.

I'm also looking forward to bike rides with my daughter and walks with my friends.  I think we're buying a pop-up camper, so we'll be able to go camping on the weekends    I'm a huge chicken and don't want to sleep in a tent on the ground!!  But cut me some slack -- there's damn near every poisonous snake possible in Arizona and coyotes, mountain lions, bears, and god knows what else out there in the wild!  I think we'll rent one first to make sure Kimberly and I are okay with it.

I pushed work aside tonight to get my exercise in.  I've been letting work get in the way a bit lately, coupled with my not feeling well.  I'm happy to report I'm feeling 100% normal again!!!  And I'll find out this week whether or not I was on Lorcaserin.  I've asked Arena to reimburse me for my hospital co-pay so they are going to unblind the study and if I was on Lorcaserin, they are going to pay the bill.  If not, I'm on my own.  But if I wasn't on the drug, then that makes me wonder what was causing the dizziness.  A little scary.

I had my second echocardiogram yesterday and my heart is in good shape.  I believe I'll get another one at what would have been my 52 week appointment time. We'll see.  I guess it depends on if I was on the drug or not.  And I may have to go back for a final weigh-in at 52 weeks.  So next June.  Wonder what my weight will be then!!

Gosh it'll be Thursday in just two more days and time to log my weight again.  I hope it's gone down!  I haven't been getting on the scale every day. I'd like to be surprised at least one week. 

Where's the time go?

So hard to believe it's already September. Sheesh, the year is flying by.

I really thought i'd be much more excited when I started getting into size 12s than I am.  Anyone else have that happen?  Maybe it just hasn't hit yet.  I can't explain it.  It's sort of like, "yeah, okay.  I'm almost 175 now.  25 more to go," like it's no big deal.  Maybe because it's just a part of who I am now and I don't really have to think about it anymore.  I'm puzzled.

The dizziness is much better, and i'm going to do a video tonight and sweat away some of the cheeseburger and mac-n-cheese I had for dinner!  I feel like I ate too much.  But damn it was good, and I usually just have a couple bites of the mac-n-cheese. Tonight i had a full serving!  Ooh, one whole serving. Whoop-di-doo    But much more than that and the calories add up fast.

Y'all have a good week!

Feeling ditzy - uh, i mean dizzy

After some symptoms and issues that took me to the hospital on Sunday, I have finally made the decision I am done with the drug study for Lorcaserin.  I wasn't finding i had any benefit from it after the first few weeks as far as appetite control goes, and with the possibility of it damaging my heart when i'm not morbidly obese, it was stupid to continue.

That's enough said about that, so Devin, do not bother emailing me.  Okay?  I'm done discussing it.  I have some personal issues with the drug company that I will be handling separately and will not publicize it.

My weight yesterday for my weigh-in was 179.4  Today I weighed in at 176.8.   I had felt fat the past few days so no surprise with the higher weigh-in.  I was retaining water.  Today I feel thin.  My pants are falling off.  maybe I'll take a picture of them.  I can be cool now with low-riding pants that show my undies.  HAHAHA 

So it looks like i finally dropped a few pounds that have been hanging on for a couple weeks.  I had been fluctuationg right around 178 and now it looks like i'm below it.  yay!

I'm having horrible dizzy spells and with the dizziness comes nausea so no problem with my appetite. 

I found out I have high cholesterol still so I emailed myself a list of the foods that are supposed to help lower that and I added some spinach leafs into my pasta with lunch and some olive oil too.  That's a start!  But the pasta isn't good for the tryglicerides, but it was all I was hungry for and a girl has to eat

In Denial.....

Wow!!  I never thought I would be in denial that I'm getting smaller

I went to Ross yesterday to find some new brown slacks for work.  I picked up two pairs of size 12 that I thought I would like and seeing them on the hanger they looked way too smaller for me  .   So I grabbed a 14 as well and headed to the dressing room.

I put the size 12s on, both of them, and they both fit!!  I wanted to confirm this, so i held them up to the size 14 to be sure they were,  in fact, smaller.  LOL  I was thinking they had to be marked wrong.  There's no way I'm in a size 12.     But they fit!!!   So I bought both pairs and left the store.

they are sitting on my kitchen table in the bag still.  I still find it so hard to believe that I am in a size 12.  I'm almost scared to go try them on again, thinking I may have just been in a dream and that they don't fit.  Weird huh.

So I guess I still see myself as "bigger."     I need to get over that and celebrate my smaller self!

Can it be true? Insane!

I weighed 178.6 yesterday.  I'm down to 177.6 today. Sure I went poop after dinner last night but i didn't think it was enough to cause me to drop a pound!!

I did eat low calorie the rest of the day, so guessing on the food at Carrabba's, I was thinking I had about 1700 calories, and I got in about 26 minutes of dance aerobics.

A huge storm blew through here yesterday and picked up our gazebo-type thing in the backyard and moved it.  So hubby had to go out there and unhook the fabric on the corners so the wind couldn't pick it up again.

We have a massive palo verde tree on the side of our yard, and it knocked over a huge branch off of it.  Hubby took pictures and now he's out there cutting it all up.  I'll post them later.  The weatherman said we had hurricane force winds up to 80 mph, and I believe it.  I stood on the back porch and it was insane.

My new favorite snack is this organic pumpkin seed and flaxseed granola cereal mixed with yogurt and add some wheat germ to it.  OMG it's awesome!  You don't have to add the wheat germ but it's very good for us, so give it a try.  I noticed no real flavor from it either. 

Maybe a new healthy thing you can try this next week is adding wheat germ to a few of your meals.  Read up on it.  It's awesome stuff.

Jump around Jump around

Jump up, jump up, and get down

That's how I feel sometimes doing my videos.  I'm sure I look like a complete dork, but who cares!?!?  I don't!

Down a whopping..... drum roll ............... point 2 pounds.  Wahoo!  NOT!  I bet I'll be down more tomorrow, of course, cause it's not the day I record my weight.

Ate out at Carrabba's tonight.  Food was delicious.  I had two small pieces of bread, a salad with a couple tastes of dressing and then I had two stuffed shrimp, some asparagus -- first time I've ever had it and i loved it!!  -- and some crusted trout.  It all tasted heavenly, but I could not believe the amount of butter it was sitting in   Holy shit you should have seen it.  At least a few tablespoons covered the bottom of the plate. 

I haven't eaten like that in I don't even know how long.... needless to say, my stomach does not like it and it is not a happy tummy at all.  I don't even think I can go do my exercise, but I'm going to damn sure try.  On the upside, I'm not sure I retained any of the food to gain calories from it     TMI I know!

I can't wait to stop feeling bloated and I'll take my measurements and write them down and compare them with my last few measurements I took.  That's why i set my background to the bear wrapped in a tape measure.  Sometimes that's how I feel trying to measure myself.

Have a great night and a fabulous Friday.  I'll check back in the morning some time.

My abs!

I can actually feel my abdominal muscles while exercising!  They were sore today.  I started off with Self's Bikini Ready dvd and go to 20 minutes and wanted some cardio.  It was all muscle work.  There was quite a bit of standing ab work and I could feel it.

Then I decided to do a dancing dvd and the first two segments had so much shaking of hips back and forth and man I could feel my abs there too.

When will they show through my blubber!!?!?!?      I need to burn some more of that fat away, but I'm afraid I'll never have a toned tummy.  I have never had one and it's so jiggly and gross.  Just cut it all off   That's an idea I like.

Losing inches!

So the scale is being whacky lately.  I was 178.4 and then 179 and then 179.6.  It's TOM so I know I'm holding onto some water, but give me a break!!!   I'm on the pill for crying out loud.  That should take care of water gain every month.  Sheesh.

I'm eating low sodium and lower carbs today and see if that helps.  I was really looking forward to being 177.8 tomorrow, but not sure that's going to happen.  Hrmph

But on the upside, I'm losing inches, and in the grand scheme of things, that's all that matters!   

I tried on some 12s today that I couldn't get up past my hips a couple weeks ago and I can slide them on but my damn belly won't let them button comfortably.  So I am very close to a size 12.  And who knows?  Maybe some other brand of a 12 will fit 

My body fat has gone down  in the past 7 weeks from 32.1% to 30.7%.  That's gotta count for something.

When doing some stretches the other day while laying down and holding my leg in the air, I can feel my hamstring muscle so well and it was an awesome feeling.   If I flex my arms, i can feel my bicep and tricep.  Sure, I have fat to be removed there, but I will have some good-looking muscle that will be showing in a few months!  Yeppers.  Wahoo!

I am just so pleased with myself.  I haven't been this low in weight since probably the  early fall of 2001.  That's such a long time ago!  I wonder how I'll feel in just a couple weeks when I am saying BYE-BYE!! to my 14s and HELLO!!  to my 12s.

Forgive me fellow bloggers

for I have sinned

I bought those miniature pecan sandies cookies on Friday figuring it's 140 calories for 4 of them.  I could deal with that.  Nice thought, heh?  Well, I ate 4 of them.  I didn't even really like them, but I ate 4.

Then the next day I ate 4 more.  Had a moment to really think about whether i liked them and figured I'd better eat 4 more just to be sure.  LOL 

But here's the good part!!  I threw them in the garbage.  Yep, I sure did. 

I figured I could throw away a $3 or $4 package of cookies and feel good about my eating because they won't be here to eat -- even though I didn't really like them!!  -- or I could keep them and eat them, god knows how many a day, and maybe stay the same weight or even gain weight.  So i tossed them into the garbage.   Bye-Bye temptation!

So my overeating tendencies is better.  I was smarter this time and removed them from my grasp, but it still bugs me that I feel compelled to eat sweets if they are here in the house.  Will that ever change?  I'd love to be able to bake cookies and not feel like I have to eat them all, and do most of the time eat them all!  not really, but the majority of cookies, sure.

So there.  I have my bad moments too, but the good definitely outweighs the bad.

Got past 178.8!

I'm downt o 178.4 this morning!   I also took a few quick measurements and am down the following:

• .5 inches on my thigh
• .5 inches chest
• 1 inch stomach

I'll do them all next Thursday after TOM is gone and officially record them. I don't want to be bloated come this Thursday and the number not be accurate.  I am really hoping to at least be 178 even for Thursday.  But 177.8 would be even better.

Have a fantastic Monday!