Today's hump day, as they used to call it at work...middle of the week...only two days left.  Well, Tuesday would be my hump day...two days until I weigh again.  I have been doing pretty good, after Sunday that is.  Sunday was just a day of nibbling, as I have already said.  I went to the Y on my regular days..Monday and today.  I upped my speed on the treadmill to 2.7 and my time to 40 minutes.  I also upped my weights on the weight machines.  I think I am making good progress, as far as my exercise program goes.  It makes me feel soooo good to exercise. 

I told my DH that I can't imagine how good I will feel after I lose another 50 pounds, if I feel this good after the first 50.  I do feel a lot better...can move faster and my legs don't feel like lead.  My ankle still hurst, but I think I will always have trouble with my ankle...with all the problems I have with it...losing weight helps some, but unfortunately, the ankle will never be completely problem free.  All in all, I feel a LOT better!

Sometimes I could kick myself for not starting and KEEPING with a proper eating and exercising routine.  I think sometimes if I had started when I was younger, even in my 40's, I could have been feeling a lot better a lot sooner.  Oh well, that's water under the bridge now.  No use to think about it...just do it NOW!!

Hopefully tomorrow I will have lost more weight...I certainly hope so!!!

Well, the weekend is almost over.  I did real good on my eating yesterday...stayed busy cleaning the house, etc.  Then last night we went to church for a club we are members of.  It is called "The Golden Years Club".  It's for people 50 and over.  Last night, the pre-teens prepared a dinner for us.  I was hesitant to go but I decided that whatever they served I would eat just a small portion.  I didn't eat much during the day yesterday so I could be safe.  When we got to church, the younguns (that's what I call them), had everything set up very nice.  They had the table set so pretty.  I couldn't wait to see what they would be serving us. 

We were told that there was a "sandwich bar" set up and we could fix our own sandwiches.  They had a platter of sliced turkey, ham and roast beef...swiss and provolone cheese, bread and all of the different types of condiments usually served while making a sandwich.  I made a sandwich with one slice of bread, mustard and a little turkey.  We went to sit down at the table and I then noticed they had carrots, cucumbers and dip as an added extra.  I ate a couple of carrots...no dip. 

Then, the younguns started to serve us something in bowls.  It turned out to be homemade vegetable soup.  What a wonderful thing for them to serve!  I know the Lord was looking out for me.  I ate one small bowl of soup...no crackers...and drank water.  They had chocolate cake and mint cookies for dessert...which I didn't eat any of.  Sweets have never bothered me that much anyway..so that helps. I don't think what I ate hurt my diet too badly.  At least not what I ate then.

Sunday is always a bad day...as far as my diet goes.  My routine is totally different than during the week.  I need to find something to do in between church times on Sunday.  I know I could read...that helps...but I need to find something to occupy my time.  I'll try to focus and get something in mind before next Sunday rolls around.

I decided to take a couple of pictures today to compare with my before pictures.  I can't really see a lot of change except in my face and neck area.  When will the rest of my body catch up??  I guess everybody is different and my body just seems to be the **odd** one!   

When I lose my next 50, I will try to post the newer ones.  Be looking for them...I hope they will be there some time in the near future.

YAYYYY!!!  I had a great result this morning!!!  I have lost 5.4 pounds this week!        I realize it was a lot of the gain from the week before, but hey, I'll take it!!!  I still have about 6 pounds to go before I even get back to my weight before Thanksgiving week....but I'm working on it!!!

I don't expect next week to have such a big loss, but even if I lose a couple of pounds, that would be just fine for me!!

Just thought I would say a little about myself.  I am a 57 year old retired woman who has had weight issues her entire life.  When I was born, I weighed 7 lbs. 12 oz....which isn't all that bad...but I had chubby cheeks and legs.  My Mama's doctor told my Mama that I was the prettiest little baby...he thought I looked just like a baby doll.  Oh well, that might have been okay at the time, but not now!  When I was in school, I was always "chunky", as Mama put it.  I remember when she bought me clothes we would always have to go to the "plus" size for little girls.  I don't think that's what they called it but it was something like that.  I remember one time when I had visited my Great Aunt that lived in another city, she was putting me on the bus to come back home.  She had bought a ticket (1/2 price because of my age), gave it to the bus driver and after she was satisfied that I was okay and ready to go, she said good bye and left.  When she left, the bus driver turned and said to me, "Now, are you really as young as she said you were?"  I was about 10 years old at the time and I was so upset.  I remember thinking he was going to make me get off the bus and I knew my Aunt had already left.  I got so scared.  I told him how old I was and he said, "You sure do look a lot older than that!"  Isn't it funny how some things that happen in your life just stays with you.  I remained overweight on up until high school.  Even in high school, I didn't even try to lose weight.  I had my "click" of friends and thought that was all I needed.  I hadn't realized that people would treat me differently once I got out in the real world.  I'm not trying to get on a soap box or anything like that, but people do treat overweight people differently.  I know it's because they don't have any respect for them.  Some people tend to treat overweight people as a second class type of people. I could talk about lots of stories of how people treated me in my lifetime but I really don't want to.  I expect a lot of overweight people know where I am coming from.  When I was 22 years old I married my husband.  At the time I was weighing 230 pounds...so I wasn't small by any means.  Don't laugh, but he was a blind date and he was the first guy I had ever dated.  (Does that tell you something...I never had any confidence due to my weight either.)  We dated 9 months and then decided to get married.  After we were married, I really put on the weight.  I'm thankful for my husband and for the fact that he was not the type of man that went for "body" only.  We are the best of friends and have been for 34 years.  We never had any children...medical problems for both of us.  We do have three cats who we baby to death.   

As far as diets go, I think I have tried everything out there.  I went to be hypnotized..didn't work.  I had accupuncture...didn't work...I tried Weight Watchers...that worked a little but then got to be too expensive.  I tried Nutri System...which worked very good...but that too got to be expensive.  I've tried counting carbs...found out I couldn't go on a low carb diet because of the meds I was taking for diabetes.  I lost weight on the low carb diet but my sugar level dropped too low...I wasn't eating enough carbs to keep my sugar leveled off.  I never could figure out just how many carbs to eat so my sugar wouldn't drop too low and still lose weight at the same time.  Then there was this one time I was under a doctor's care (as far as a diet, that is) at the age of 28.  He gave me diet pills, thyroid pills (without even testing me for thyroid problelms), vitamins and told me to stay on a 300 calorie a day diet.   I lost right at 100 pounds that time.  Even with losing 100 pounds, I still weighed around 215.  Then there came financial problems...I got stressed out and turned to food...gaining all of my weight back and then some.  I know why I gained it back...it's because I didn't have a lifestyle change as far as my eating habits were concerned.  I just wasn't eating anything at all...and you can't live like that.  I'm sure there are more but right now I can't think of them.  Even when I lost during these times, I felt like it wasn't coming off fast enough.  I guess because I have soooo much to lose I thought the quicker the better.  I know now that's not the way to do it.  It has to be a life time change!

Well, to try and make this short...which I am not good at...when I went for my yearly physical exam in the year of 1988, the doctor informed me that I had sugar diabetes.  He said if I lost weight, along with the oral medicine he put me on, it would drastically help my diabetes.  I think I panicked and gained weight instead.  As I look back, I really do believe I was in denial.  How could I have diabetes???  I was very ignorant of the disease...what caused it...how I should eat...but most of all I asked, "Why me?"  I think from the denial stage I went into the anger stage...that's when I gained a lot of my weight.  I ate food I shouldn't and acted like everything would be okay.  WRONG!!!  I was soon put on insulin...then was put on the second type of insulin...put on oral meds along with insulin...put on Byetta (another medicine that had to be injected also)...all because I didn't eat and exercise as I should have.  Finally I decided to take my disease seriously.  I started eating a little better and with my doctor's help...by him changing medicine...trying several different variations and combinations of medicines...I finally got my sugar under control.  I was still on all the meds, but at least it was under control.  Even though my sugar was under control, my weight wasn't.  I reached my highest weight of 348 in February, 2004. 

Then May of this year I told myself, "Why don't you just lose weight!  You could get off of some of the medicine you are taking for your diabetes...especially your insulin!"  Now, if you have never had to take insulin, you don't know how much of a pain in the hinny it is.  Different types you have to take in different ways.  Some 30 minutes before you eat, others 15 minutes before you eat and then there is one type that you take and eat as soon as you take it.  I know, because I have tried all three of these.  Since I started my diet on May 1st, my doctor has been able to take me off ALL my insulin and one of my oral medicines.  I weighed in on May 1st at 332.8...and I now weigh (as of last Friday) 284.6.  (I had lost down to 273.2 the week before...but we won't go there!)  Losing enough weight to get off of the insulin was worth every thing!  I hope to keep on losing...and maybe I will be able to get off ALL my medicine.  That would be great!  I would feel like a million bucks and like a normal person! 

The reason I recorded my weight at 284.6 as a starting point for this site was because that's the weight I was at when I started visiting ExtraPounds.com.  That is where my weight tracker will start at and go from there.

So, at this stage of my life, this will be my last diet!  This is my final journey and I plan on getting this weight off...even if it takes me 3 years to do it!  So you see, I need all the support, help and encouragement I can get!  I will try to encourage all that I can too!

God bless!

Well, after Thanksgiving...gaining weight like I did...I have really been trying to get back to where I was before Thanksgiving...273.4 (yes, I have to put that .4 along with it ).  That's 11.2 pounds to lose.  I last weighed on the Friday after Thanksgiving..11-28-08.  My usual weigh in day is Thursday...so tomorrow I will see if all my hard work pays off.  I increased my incline today on the treadmill as well as my speed...just a little...but boy could I feel it!  I increased my weights on the weight machines too.  I increased one machine by 15 pounds...the machine that works on your stomach and back areas at the same time.  On the machine that works your upper arms I couldn't increase it but by 5 pounds.  The trainer told me that most of the time women have more lower body strength than the upper body and men have the upper body moreso than the lower body.  I never thought about that...but I guess it's true.  I use a lot more weight on the lower body machines! 

Anyway, tomorrow will tell the story.  I have been eating the **right** foods this week also...so we will see!

I have been trying hard all day today.  I have kept myself busy with housework, etc.  I have been on the computer a lot today, just to keep my mind off eating.  Why should I have to do that?  Keep my mind off eating, that is?  Do **normal** people do that?  Is it just the ones on a diet that think about food all the time?  I have always considered myself to be normal, but now I wonder. 

I am trying soooo hard to get the pounds I gained over the Thanksgiving weekend off!  Keeping busy helps me...but when I stop to eat, it's always the same thing.  What to eat...what's best for me...how much can I have...etc, etc. etc.  Sounds like I am having a real pitty party... so I will stop.  There is nobody to blame but myself!  Nobody forced me to eat what I ate...so...to myself I say..suck it up and start over.  I haven't came this far to give up!

I've started on ***another***diet.  On May 1st of this year I started on my final journey.  I say final because I fully intend to reach my goal weight this time!  It doesn't matter how long it takes me...two, three years...it doesn't matter to me as long as I reach my goal! 

I wanted to start this blog in hopes that it will help me to keep focused and possible meet new friends that understand what losing weight is all about.

When I started my final weight loss journey, my weight was 332.8.  At my last weigh in, I have lost 48.2 pounds.  I must confess, I had lost 59.4 pounds...but I lost my focus and had a relapse.  I am hoping and praying that will not happen again...at least not gaining that much again!!  My final goal weight I have set for myself is to weigh 170.  I am 5' 9" tall and I believe that weight will be just fine for me.  That's a little over what the doctors want me to weigh but it's what I want to weigh.

I will try and post a blog every day.  If anyone reads this, please be patient with me.  I realize some of my blogs will be boring to some but I am going to post what I feel I should post on that particular day.

I have one picture on my blog...it's a picture of me two years ago...when I was at my highest weight.  I did diet from time to time...lost down to 332.8...then I realized I needed to get serious about this weight situation.  Sticking to a diet is not something I have ever really been able to do...but this time..OH YEAH!!!  I'm sticking to this one!!!