Things are still going pretty well. I am now down 21.4 pounds which I find so amazing. The new jeans I bough over the weekend, well I have to wear a belt with them. That isn't a terrible thing! On Monday, I did a whopping 73 minutes of cardio, and yesterday I did 60 minutes. Today, for some reason, I am feeling rather weak. I only did 45 minutes of cardio today. I think I may be fighting getting a cold. I sure hope I don't get sick.
Funny story today. I went to Subway to get a turkey sandwich. I got the footlong, so I could have 6 inches for lunch and the other for dinner. Not only was it the last day for $5 footlongs, but they were giving away a cookie with every purchase. I did decline, but it is crazy how much temptation is out there. I have to constantly be on guard for temptation. Knowing that is very helpful.
Keep up the good work to all of you who are taking this journey also. Until next time.......

Heather

What a difference a few days make! I was so frustrated earlier this week, and now I am so happy! I have lost a  total of 17.6 pounds. A friend mentioned to me the other day that I needed new jeans because the ones I was wearing were too big. I went to the store last night and to my surprise, bought a pair of jeans 2 sizes smaller than the ones I was wearing! I almost cried right there in the dressing room. That was such a great reward. On top of that the scale is continuing to creep downward. This great feeling so much overshadows the frustration I was feeling over the last few weeks. Until next time...

Things are going better since my last post. Thank you to everyone who is supporting me! I would list you all, but I'd be afraid I would accidentally miss someone. You are all being such a big help to me! So, I say the personal trainer on Wednesday. That has made a huge difference. She game me a plan to follow for the next couple of months. I have used her plan twice now, and am now down 0.6 pounds since Wednesday. I am so excited to see the scale moving again! Yesterday, my friend Maureen said to me, "Heather, it is time to go buy a new pair of jeans. Those are now too big." Talk about making me feel awesome! I explained to her that I am going to wait a couple more weeks. We will be going to Hollywood in a little over 3 weeks. My goal is to lose at least 8 more pounds before we go. I plan on doing a little shopping right before we go. It sure is painful to know that soon I will be having to start getting rid of a lot of my clothes. Andrew is "complaining" about all the money that I will be getting rid of when I do that. I guess it is one of the prices that have to be paid. As my friends told me yesterday, (straight from Dr Phill) the only reason to keep those clothes are if I am planning to get fat and need them again. How true! I have no plans of needing them again!

I guess my purpose for today's post is just to tell everyone that is on the same journey as I am, that when you hit those plateaus to stick with it. Keep doing the right things, switch things up and the weight will start to drop off again. Don't be discouraged. Thanks again to everyone who told me those same words when I was feeling down. Until next time......

Yesterday was a rough day for me. I have been stuck at having lost 15 pounds now for a couple of weeks. I was very frustrated. Thankfully I have so much support. Thanks to Andrew, Stacey, and others for reminding me to hang in there. I went to the gym, still feeling kinda down, but had a wonderful workout. I love the fact that I leave feeling so energized after my workout. I am tired and wired at the same time. It is so odd, but awesome! Anyway, having the support of the people around me is so key. There are days like yesterday that I feel hopeless and stuck. I know there will be more, but having others by my side keeps me going.

Today, I donated blood. That lead to me eating a little differently than I would have. I also was unable to go to the gym, but I think the rest will do my body good. I have worked very hard all week.

I hope the next time I write to be able to report some more weight loss. Until then....

Heather

I am a little low on motivation to go to the gym today. I am going to go anyway, but I am going to make it a "light" workout tonight. I am still pretty sore from last night's workout. Maybe just some cardio tonight......

I have been feeling some frustration lately. It seems I have hit a plateau. I have been stuck at 15 pounds for a while now. I know I need to just stick with it, and I will start to lose again. Watching the scale is my biggest motivation. The loss of inches is a good motivator as well. :-) I will keep plugging away. Until next time......

Heather

I had the most interesting epiphany today. Weight loss is the perfect example of process improvement and the tools that I work with teams to improve their performance. People sometimes do not get the connection to do true improvement work with one major aspect. They don't want to or find it important to study the results of the thing they are testing. One would never do that with weight loss. If you change your eating habits, the measurement is your weight, and you "study" to see if that change made a difference. (For my Improvement Advisor friends out there, you might look at blood pressure, blood sugar, or cholesterol levels as balancing measures.) No one who was seriously wanting to decrease their weight would not use these same principles that we use in performance/process improvement. It seems so logical. Having come to this realization will give me another tool when working with teams. :-) Many of the apps that you can find out there for weight loss even have the ability to chart your progress over time. It is amazing how much it lines up!

On a more personal note, I am still holding at 15 pounds lost. I am looking forward to a great workout at the gym tonight.

Until next time.......Heather

I have recently embarked on a journey. A friend suggested that I blog about this journey in order to help others who are on, or will take this same journey. I hope that I am able to encourage you along the way of your journey.

Were to begin......I guess it goes back many many years. I have been overweight for more years than I care to admit. Mostly because I only claim to be 29 years old, and telling how long I have been overweight might dispute my age of 29. Anyway....I would say that by 5th grade for sure I was becoming overweight. I guess it would depend on your definition of overweight, but I was certainly not skinny. By the time I was 18, I was what doctors would consider overweight, but not morbidly obese by any means. At that time I got pregnant with my first child. After giving birth, my thyroid stopped working and made losing the weight I gained during pregnancy extremely difficult. Time went by, gain a few pounds a year and by age 21 got pregnant with my second child. Again, taking the weight after did not happen. Over the years I took medications that added to the weight gain, as did diet and inactivity. I do take responsibility for the choices I made that lead me to be so overweight now.

OK, so more recently, I decided to make some changes. I decided I was going to work on eating better and exercising. My goal is to make myself healthier. I needed to start practicing what I preach. In my job at Kaiser Permenente, I have been encouraging staff to take care of their own health and hadn't been doing it myself. So I started slowly with the choices in food I was going to eat. Lucky for me, my husband was having the same thoughts, so we started working on this together. In the first 3 weeks, I had lost about 7 pounds. We then decided to get a gym membership at Planet Fitness. I have been working out now 4 or 5 days a week for at least 60 minutes a day for the last two weeks. All total in 6 weeks, I have lost 15 pounds. It hasn't been easy by any means, but I am taking it one day at a time. I hit a point where it seemed I had hit a plateau, but I kept at it and have now gotten past that. One of the biggest pieces of advice I could give right now to someone getting ready to take this journey is to drink tons and tons of water. It really does make a difference.

I guess that now you have been brought up to date with where I am at. My hope is to share with you along my journey. I thought for years I wouldn't be able to lose even 15 pounds and I have shown myself I can do that, so I know I can get down to where I need to be. I want to encourage you to make the changes in your life to help you become healthier too.

Until next time.........Heather