Whoops!

Well, clearly I didn't keep my promise to stay more active on here than I was last semester! Life and school gets so busy that this is one of the last things on my mind. (Especially since no one really reads this and therefore I'm not really letting any followers down by not posting...)

But anyway! I was right in my last post that I would most likely be within 3 lbs of the 155 lb goal I set for myself for Christmas morning. I weighed in at 157.8 lbs on Christmas morning of 2012! I was so incredibly excited that I had gotten so close to the goal I set for myself! My family doesn't really celebrate much of Christmas due to financial reasons, but that was a good of gift as ever possible!

On New Years morning of 2013, I weighed in at 157.2 lbs, meaning I lost 34.8 lbs in 2012!!! Especially when I remember that I didn't start this weight loss journey until the beginning of May, I'm pretty darn proud of myself! Some people who have a lot more weight to lose than I did would've probably lost more in that time, but like I said, I didn't have that much to lose so it was a little slower. I'm also pretty proud that I really didn't exercise much of that weight off at all; that's almost ALL diet! That's almost all due to my lifestyle change!

Now I'm  back in the same boat as I was just before Christmas. I am SO CLOSE to the 140's that I can FEEEEEEEEL IT. I've been somewhere between 150-152 for the last few weeks and my lowest was last week at 150.2. I would absolutely LOVE to be in the 140's before April, and therefore put me within a few pounds of being considered a "normal" weight for someone my height, which is 145 lbs.

I mean, how great would that be as a birthday present to myself? Going from being considered "obese" last year to being "normal" this year? Especially because I'm rounding out my "teenage-hood" and turning 20 this year. I am so pumped to start my "adult" life off on the right, healthy, active (ish, lol) foot! 

Happy Holidays!

Today is Christmas Eve and since my family is possibly celebrating Christmas this year, my dad is characteristically at Walmart right now.

I set a goal to get down to 155 lbs by Christmas day. I know I won't get down to exactly that tomorrow morning but what I do know is that I'm going to be within 5 lbs of that! Most likely less than 3 lbs of my goal, actually! I know that the goal is what I set it at, however if I can get close to that then it's good enough for me! I've accomplished so much that being this close is good enough for me!

I'll update more after Christmas to be sure as to how close I got to my goal, as well as to reflect on this past year. It's going to be a long post, so keep a look out! :)

When decorating the tree I found one of the jems that I created in elementary school. Go ahead, bask in that beautiful Santa that 8 year old me created!

The Slow and Steady Turtle Wins the Race... Right?

I'm still alive! I promise I'm still alive!

I've been gone for a while because I neglected to write anything on here during the fall semester. I'm really going to try to regularly post though, hopefully keeping myself more accountable.

I'm sad to report that although I blissfully wrote about how excited I was that I entered the 160's in August, I'm still there.

However! I'm ordering my HRM soon and I'm going to start Insanity after the New Year when I get back to my apartment and get back into the swing of things and back into my regular schedule. I'm going to move past the 160._ that I've been looking at for the past few weeks.

I AM GOING TO GET INTO THE 150s, BEFORE THE END OF 2012!

I AM GOING TO WEAR A BIKINI THIS SUMMER.

I AM GOING TO LOOK HOT DURING SPRING BREAK.

I AM GOING TO MEET MY GOALS.

To help motivate me, I compared May to December pictures. 32lbs lost. Even though I'm not a super fan of how I look in the second picture, since my tummy area looks a little weird, but I look fantastic in it compared to May's picture. Check it out! 

I will stay more active on here, even though I'm pretty sure no one reads this. lol! I'm doing this for myself, not for other people. However, if I could help someone else out by doing this, all the better! :)

Say WHAT?

Every time I go over my daily goal, literally every single time I weigh myself the next day to see the "damage" done, and I always lose weight! I ate a whole bunch yesterday and terrible food at that, but I weighed myself and I was down over a whole pound from before I left!

I don't want to increase my daily goal just because of that, but it is sort of nice to know that's apparently how my body reacts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Side note: At this point, I can't help but think that losing weight is easy. I don't think I've even gone to the gym in over a month and I'm still steadily losing weight and I'm pretty sure I'm not losing muscle mass because I wasn't very muscular before and I'm really just continuing the same sort of lifestyle I was before I decided to live healthier, just eating better.

I am only 7.4 lbs away from my halfway goal!

I am 3.4 lbs away from the goal I set for when I move back to Gainesville in a week. Now, I know that it's completely unreasonable to think that I'm going to lose that much before I go back, but I set my goals so that if I can get within 5 lbs of it, I'm satisfied because I know I'm still making progress, and right now I am even closer than 5 lbs within my goal!


Life is going splendidly! I'm going to a Jason Mraz/ Christina Perri concert in 3 days; I move back to Gainesville in 8 days; M and I's one year anniversary is in 10 days; Gator football starts in 21 days. :D

AHHHH!!

Okay, so this isn't a HUGE deal, but I am SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS.
Today when I woke up, I weighed myself and I saw 169.8 looking back at me. Granted, it's only .2lbs less than the last time I weighed myself, but this is the first time I've seen a number in the 160's since I was 16 or 17 years old?
FINALLY!

EAT!!

Let me just start this off by saying that I am NOT an expert on anything I'm about to discuss, but I do know from personal experience that it works. Hopefully no one takes offense to this.

When first signing up for MFP, it asks you how many pounds you want to lose per week, what your goal is, what you daily goals should be, ect. I know for me, originally, based on MFP's estimates, it was recommended that I consume and net 1200 calories for the fastest weight loss possible. The very next day I began very strictly watching what I was eating and keeping my net around 1200 calories or less depending on my exercise. However, I soon realized that I was kind of cranky and a bit hungry throughout the day, but I figured it just meant that my body was adjusting to the amount of food that I was eating, after all, I didn't get to my highest weight ever by eating proper portion sizes!

Lo and behold, I come across a whole bunch of people saying that I  should be looking up my BMR and eating around there. Since I always need to know about anything, I Googled it, of course. I ended up coming across this website and my calculated BMR is around 1700 calories per day. Now, I'm no expert, but I believe that means that as long as my activity level stays the same, that is roughly how many calories my body uses up, per day, purely by existing. 

Now that just so happens to conflict with the number previously suggested to me by MFP, so I asked around to my friends on MFP and I couldn't find a single one that had tried it and had negative effects as a result, so I figured why not. I set my calorie goal to be around 1550, because apparently it's okay to eat a few hundred (200-300) calories below whatever your BMR is to speed up weight loss. Since then, I've pretty much continuously lost weight, regardless of going to the gym or not. (Going to the gym just helps, and I can eat a little more on days that I do go.)

I guess the concept behind it is that although 1200 calories is what your body needs to stay out of "starvation mode," at that mark, it's kind of difficult to eat exactly 1200 calories per day, and there's still a huge debate as to whether people should eat back exercise calories or not (whatever, another day for my opinion, I suppose). SO BASICALLY, it's a pain in the butt to eat that little each day. If you click "complete entry" with 1199 calories in your diary for the day, MFP will alert you that you are eating too little and that it would be best for you to eat more, so I think it's fair to say that maintaining ONE more calorie per day is NOT the magic number. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I know, I know, this was a bit of a rant, but I've recently told people in my real life about what I've been working towards (now that it's becoming more obvious) and I've ended up finding out that a few people I know in real life have MFP accounts and they are eating at/usually BELOW 1200 calories per day! Yeah, they've lost 5-10lbs maybe, but I can't seem to explain to them that it's not good to be doing that. I know I'm no expert, but I really want to help. I think I do happen to at least know something if I can manage to lose 22 lbs to date in 3 months, and pretty much keep it off (if I didn't want to lose plenty more still, that is).

Sometimes, I wish people would just listen to advice, but I know that sometimes it's best to let them learn on their own. It's just really difficult to do when you know it's going to hurt them in the long run. :/

I'm back!

My internet connection was cut off for somewhere between 3-4 weeks, so about a week after I started the Back 2 Basics challenge, I was procrastinating updating my progress on here, and right when I was about to do it, my internet got shut off!!
SO ANYWAY. Here's an update on what's been happening:
I started a new job and basically, the job and the operation hours of the Y are the opposite so I kind of stopped going (with the exception of Saturdays that I'm off work and the Y is open when I'm awake. lol) It kind of sucks because I actually enjoy going to the Y and working out, but I work from 4:30pm-12:45am and I can't be making myself wake up early to work out and then risk falling asleep on my 30min drive home in the middle of the night.
Even though I've hardly gone to the gym in the last few weeks, I've still been steadily losing weight regardless! I'm sure if I were able to keep going to the gym, I'd lose a bit faster, but I'm quite happy with the results that I've been seeing. :)

There's probably other things that I've left out, but it's difficult to update the last month of my life. haha

Oh and my pants still fit the same, but my tops finally look much better on me!