I decided to weigh in on Thursday this week instead of Friday because tonight, at 9pm, is the Full Moon 5k. Since I’m running so late and will likely be eating/drinking late, I didn’t want that to have an effect on my weigh in tomorrow morning. So, here I am blogging and happy to report a 1 lb loss this week. Seriously…who knew. I was expecting a gain or at least a stand still due to last weekend’s partying with beer and food. I guess I’m doing something right. LoL. According to “the man”, I’m still 2.5 lbs over the line between “healthy” and “overweight”. That always makes me laugh. While I don’t let that determine my goals, I do think it’s good entertainment to see what I’m “supposed” to weigh.

This was a good week for me, even though I stayed the same weight-wise, I hit a new milestone – 5k with an 8:57 pace! I am amazed, to be honest. I’ve been pushing myself in my runs lately because I don’t really have a desire to go further than the 4 miles I usually do, so I’ve been pushing myself to go faster. Next week Thursday is my next race – The Full Moon 5k. I am nervous, although there really is no reason to be since I run more than 5k most days for a regular workout. It’s the anticipation of the race. And the fear that I’ll come in last place and get laughed at. Haha. But that’s the fat kid in me worrying. I should know better! But no matter how much I weigh, the fat kid in me sometiimes wins out. Which is why this is a lifestyle, not a diet.

Something awesome happened this week – I made it to the 160′s! It’s been over 3 years since I’ve been in the 160′s and I am so pumped about it. I lost 4 lbs this week, which puts me at 168. My lowest weight ever was 161 and I felt like I was starting to look a little “sunken in” at that weight, so I had decided to set my goal at 165. But now being only a few lbs away from there, I am thinking I will continue on below 165 and see how I look/feel. Having babies has changed my body and at this point, I’m not sure what I’m dealing with until I get there (ie: extra skin, inner-tube around the mid-section, ya know, all that fun stuff). So for now, I’m super happy and proud of myself for all of the HARD WORK that it’s taken me to get here. Don’t be mistaken, this leg of my journey hasn’t been easy, but having the right mind set and lots of self control has made it easIER.

Even after a week of traveling for a death in the family, I lost 2 lbs. I attribute that to my visits to the fitness room at my hotel. I had some good workouts running side by side on the treadmills with my big bro. I won’t lie, I ate some bad food, but I didn’t get out of hand with the amount of food I ate and working out helped keep me in check. Onward to the next goal.

Happy 4th of July, everyone! It’s about that time where I am closing in on my goal and I’m having to put in harder work for less weight loss, which is completely normal, yet also rather annoying. This week’s loss was 3 lbs, which at this point in my weight loss is pretty darn good. My mini-goal was 173 today, but I am 174. And if you’ve followed me on this journey, you’ll know that I consider that a victory. Right now, I’m the smallest I’ve been since before I had my first child, which was over 3 years ago. I got to this weight before I got pregnant with my second, but I am in WAY better shape right now. In fact, with all of my running, I believe that I am in the best shape right now that I’ve been in my entire life. It’s an amazing feeling! I had a realization this week that also made me feel pretty good: My extra skin inner-tube is getting smaller! Haha! Well, of course it is as I lose weight, but all of a sudden, it’s noticably smaller and I am pretty excited about that. No matter how much I lose, I’ll always have quite a bit of extra skin and I am totally ok with that – I consider them my battle scars.

Also, I’ve been looking at my goal graph and I’m pretty happy with the way it’s looking:

I feel really great this week after some great workouts. I ran 20 miles so far this week – and it’s only Friday! Maybe I’ll try to run a marathon in a week. Now, that would be a nice little workout goal. It may not seem like a lot to some, but with working almost 50 hours a week, 2 kids 2 and under, a husband, working on making baby #3, and a household to manage…I think it’s pretty darn good! I only lost 1 lb this week due to exceeding my calories last weekend. My next mini goal is 173 by next week, which means a 4 lb loss this week. And that means a flawless weekend, as far as sticking with my calories. Good luck to me!

6 years ago, I would not have bet $1 that I could run for more than 30 seconds. I was pushing 300 lbs and the most physical activity in my life was lifting a fork or glass of beer to my lips. Today, I am proud to say that I have run over 200 miles in the last 3 1/2 months. When I look back at the old me, I’m not ashamed, because all of that made me the person that I am today. I have learned many valuable things along the way. Of those things, the most important lesson is: when you push yourself, you’ll be AMAZED at what you can accomplish!

It was a good week around here and I am happy with a loss of 3 lbs! I thought maybe I would have a smaller loss because I went over my calories by about 600 on Saturday and Sunday last weekend, BUT, I did keep up with my workout routine and because of that, it wasn’t a problem. My next mini-goal is to be 173 by July 2, which is 2 weeks from now. That means I need a 2 lb week and another 3 lbs week. Sometimes the pressure I put on myself for my mini-goals is annoying, but in the end, it really does help push me to reach that next goal. If I didn’t have such high expectations for myself, I wouldn’t be as motivated…and look what my motivation has done for me so far! Hello 170′s! And my final goal of 165 is so close I can taste it!

I weighed in today at 181 – 1 lb up from when I went on vacation 2 weeks ago. I would love to be lower, but after gaining about 6 lbs on my week off, I am glad to have already gotten rid of 5 of those lbs. I’ve revamped my short term goals and now it’s on to my next goal of 175 by July 2nd. My overall goal weight is to stay within the range of 165 – 168. I’ve been 163 in the past and looking back, I think that was a little too small for my frame. Then again, I’ve had 2 kids since then and my body has changed, so we’ll see. But 175 is the next stop and I have 3 weeks to do it. Here I go!!

I felt the urge to post today, even though it’s the day before weigh in day. Tomorrow will be my first weigh in since my vacation week. I had a great time, but it’s been tough getting back into the swing of things. I did workout a couple of times last week, but then didn’t do the greatest at working out or eating last weekend. All week I was off…not sick or anything like that, but I was really tired and just didn’t feel right. I think it was partially due to the lack of workouts and partially due to catching up on sleep after Vegas, but I also think a lot of it had to do with what I was putting in my body. Since I’ve been eating clean for about 4 months, my body did not like the non-clean food that I put it in. I’m not against the occassional burger and fries or pint of Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked ice cream…but “occassional” is the key word. It felt like it took me another week after vacation to get back to “normal”. Just today I finally feel really good about myself and my body has gotten rid of the ick. I’ve been working out every day this week – back on track! As for my weight, I stepped on the scale when we got back from Vegas and I was up 7 lbs. Part of that was the bad food and lack of workouts, but part of it was hormones (that time of month) and water weight from flying, etc. Tomorrow I am expecting to be about 1 lb over my pre-vacation weight. That’s ok with me because I’m back in the right mind set and ready for my next goal, which I’ll determine when I post tomorrow. Until then!