Monthly Weight Loss and Pictures

Hey, beautiful people!

 

I hope you all had a great weekend. I sure did. I'm just loving fall! :)

 

My mother-in-law, Sandy, is here visiting and Brad and I have been having a nice time with her, as always.

 

Tomorrow is Brad's 35th birthday. Instead of making a cake for his birthday, I made him Dutch Apple Pie completely from scratch. I've never made a pie before and have always wanted to. So, since Sandy was here and she makes pies a lot, I had her talk me through it and I did everything myself (besides peeling and slicing the apples, to save time). I took a picture of the pie before I baked it and after ... the after is missing a piece because Brad couldn't wait to tear into it. Lol. It came out really well, if I do say so myself. :-P You can see some pictures we took here.

 

I weighed-in this morning at 170.8, which means I lost 3.8 lbs this month for a total of 126.2 lbs lost so far. I never made it into the 160s like I wanted to but I'm still very happy with that number, considering that I now am only getting to the gym three days a week, compared to six in previous months, due to my new job (which is going great, BTW) and that I'm getting smaller. My monthly weight-loss goal has always been at least five lbs a month and I'm still definitely shooting for that but I'm completely fine with losing three to five lbs now.

 

Here are my pictures for the month:

 

 

Fall blessings, 

The Camera Is Not My Friend

My video shoot for National Fitness Center was this morning. I was up late last night practicing what I was going to say, as well as this morning. I was a nervous wreck, to say the least.

 

Just when I started getting semi-comfortable with what I needed to say, I found out that it was going to be a question and answer type of thing. I never got the email that everyone else got about what all was going to happen today. The girl felt really bad and I kept reassuring her it was ok. However, because I never got the email, I never knew I was suppposed to wear my gym clothes. I was the only one dressed up.

 

So, while everyone got filmed doing their favorite workout, my workout clips consisted of my feet getting filmed dancing and me fake laughing on an exercise ball. Lol! Please, try to imagine how goofy this looked. Haha! :o)

 

When it came time to do the interview, I was very impressed with how professional everything was. The three people doing the questions and video were super nice and made me feel as comfortable as I could have felt in that setting.

 

I was so nervous and it REALLY showed. Even though I knew how to answer the questions they were asking me, the words just didn't come out right and most of the time I just kind of froze and forgot what questions they asked or forgot what I was saying in the middle of saying it. It was BAD! Lol.

 

Because they were so nice, they assured me that I did a great job and that the video guy would edit everything and make me look great ... we shall see! My face also decided it wanted to break out really badly today, which was wonderful. I sure hope I don't look as stupid as I felt.

 

After today, I don't have high hopes that I will win but there's always a chance. I haven't completely given up hope. I know this sounds corny but I'm already a winner in my book for getting this far. We're supposed to find out in a few weeks who the winners are. The NFC higher-ups are going to be the ones picking the winners. Once I see the video, and IF I like it ok, I'll share it with you guys. If not, well ... then I won't. Don't get your hopes up about seeing it. Ha! :-P

 

I'm still not positive about what all they plan on doing with the videos and all of that (they told me but I was too nervous to process everything). I hope I gave you all a good laugh for today. :-D

 

Your foot-dancing friend,

 

I'm a Finalist ...

Hey, guys!

 

A few weeks ago, our east Tennessee gym chain, National Fitness Center, held a testimonal contest. I sent in my story with a before and current picture along with my blog link and pretty much forgot about it. Well, I got an email a couple of weeks ago telling me that I'm a finalist. There are 12 finalists total. The winner receives $500 and second and third place winners receive a prize worth up to $500. I'm not sure if they plan on doing anything with the winner's testimonal and pictures or not ... I'm guessing they will probably do something with them.

 

I got the call yesterday telling me that I need to be at my gym this Saturday at 12:00 and that I have one minute to tell about my journey in a video shoot. How do I even begin to explain my journey in one minute? The lady told me to practice what I'm going to say, so Brad is going to help me on Friday. To say I'm nervous is an understatement. Lol.

 

The winners will be picked based on the video shoot. I'm not sure when we'll find out the winners. I'm also not sure if the gym chain leaders will be the ones voting or if they will be putting it online for anyone to vote. I'll find out soon enough! I would love to win, of course, but I am beyond thankful and honored to have even been chosen as a finalist. It just reminds me how far I've come.

 

PLEASE pray for me! I'm not good speaking in front of people and a camera will probably make it that much harder (especially with the pressure of only having one minute to say what I need to). Oh, and they are shooting it in the personal training room which is surrounded by glass so everyone can see in. Haha! :-P

 

I'll post again on Saturday and tell you all how it went.

 

Love,

 

 

 

A Whole New World

Where do I even begin?

 

First off, let me say, I am SO thankful for all of the weight I have lost and will continue to lose by God's grace. I wouldn't trade it for anything ... even the frustration that I'm currently dealing with.

 

With that being said, losing 122 lbs takes you to a whole new world of clothing and I'm having a really hard time with it. It's so weird not having to shop in the plus-size section of department stores anymore. I'm having to relearn where everything is and getting to totally discover stores that I've never even been able to shop in before but that's not a big deal at all -- it's even kind of fun.

 

The issue is clothes not fitting me right. I'm not exaggerating when I say that in the past week, I've tried on around 60 pairs of jeans. NONE of them fit me right. Why? Because for a size 12, my calves are big. They're very muscular from carrying around so much weight for so long; plus, of course, I'm not at my goal, so there is still some fat that could be lost. So, pants will fit me perfectly, except for bunching up on the back of my leg above my knee because my big calves are preventing them from hanging properly or something. It looks so ugly and abnormal.

 

I've tried Belk, JC Penney, Cato, Target, Walmart, Old Navy, American Eagle, Gap, Burlington, etc. I literally own zero pairs of pants right now and cold weather is right around the corner. I had the same problem with capris this summer but thankfully was able to find some that didn't do it. Like I've said before in past posts, until I hit my goal, I try not to buy many clothes each season -- just enough to get me by with a week's worth of outfits or so. Every season I have to start from scratch; this gets very expensive and frustrating (but I'm still thankful).

 

I'm not your typical girl when it comes to shopping for clothes ... I hate it. If I could just pick something up off the rack without trying it on and know that it's going to fit me perfectly, then I would probably love clothes shopping but that just simply isn't the case. I also am having a really hard time with tops. I wear a size medium in most stores but because of how big my arms still are (loose skin ... that's a whole other blog post) the arm's are way too tight in a lot of the tops I try on. I just thought that when I got down to where I am now, I wouldn't have an issue with clothes and that shopping would be fun. I guess I'm going to just have to look ridiculous wearing bunched up jeans this winter because I don't have a choice. If I had never gotten fat, I wouldn't be having any of these issues with clothes. But I did get fat and I'm having to deal with the consequences, even after having gotten most of the weight off.

 

There are other things that I could go on about but I think I've said enough. My intention isn't to complain. I hate complaing because it sounds like I'm not thankful but I'll say it again ... I AM thankful and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I mainly wanted to write this because I know that a lot of my readers want to know ALL about my journey -- the good, the bad and the ugly -- because they are on their own journey or just starting out themselves. I just want to be real and let you know that there are some parts about losing weight that aren't so great (i.e., the loose skin) but it still beats being unhealthy and fat.

 

Please pray that I can find some pants and some fall/winter clothes that I feel good in. I've worked really hard and at least want to feel good about what I'm wearing.

 

Thank you,