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Saturday, December 31, 2011

2011 Year-End Stats

Starting weight : 173.0 lb

Ending weight : 148.2 lb

Change : 24.8 lb lost (average 2.07 lb lost per month)


It's been one crazy year, with a move to South Carolina and an imminent move to Germany. We've taken lots of trips, but the best move of all was getting a membership to the YMCA. Without that, I don't know how much weight I would have lost. I was 166.8lb when we joined in May and lost the last 18.6lb since then. So basically, I tripled my weight loss from the first 5 months of the year during the remaining 7 months by going to the gym.

24.8lb in one year is really amazing. It's almost 0.5lb per week, which is pretty average on weight watchers. I've gone from a size 14 pants to a size 8. I have traded in my larges for mediums, and more recently traded in my mediums for smalls. I have lost a total of 10.5 inches from various parts of my body (2 inches from my waist, 2 inches from my bust, 1 inch from each thigh, and 4.5 inches off my hips). I have busted out of the 170s, the 160s, and the 150s. I'm at the lowest weight, I've been since I was 14. I can only hope next year can be just as great (although, the same weight loss in a year would put me underweight, so I don't think I will push it that far). I would love to hit the 130s and maybe even achieve my ultimate weight goal of 130lbs.

Friday, December 30, 2011

December 2011 Stats

Starting weight : 150.4 lb

Ending weight : 148.2 lb

Change : 2.2 lb lost (average 0.52 lb lost per week)

This time last year : 173 lb


Considering my goal for the month was to maintain, I am very pleased to have lost 2.2lb. With the holidays, it's nice to have a little buffer. It was a great feeling to leave the 150s behind and gain a little more confidence in myself.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Single Digits!!!

Just before coming home for the holidays, I had tried on some dress pants and was in between sizes, so I bought a black skirt instead. If I'd bought the pants, I might not have worn them more than once and I knew I'd get more use out of the skirt. I had plans to buy some more clothes after the holidays because the spring/summer clothes will be in the stores and the clothes I had last summer are not going to be a viable option this year. It's not even worth my while to ship them to Germany.

This Christmas, my aunt decided to get me a pair of nice dress pants. She called me in to try them on because she had a back-up present just in case they didn't fit. They were a size 8, so I was really skeptical. I went upstairs and was stunned when they actually fit. She explained that they were a special "curvy" fit, which is just perfect for me. I was just thrilled to get into a single digit pants size for probably the first time since 7th grade when I wore a size 9.

Just yesterday, I went shopping to use a few gift cards I'd received as gifts. It was the perfect opportunity to see if those size 8 pants had been a fluke. I was in desperate need of some new jeans because all the ones I had were sizes 11 and 12, and I always needed to wear a belt to keep them up. I took three pairs into the dressing room. I decided to try the size 8 first, because I always try on the smallest first, because if they fit, there's no need to try on the larger sizes. They fit and I always try the "sit down" test and they worked out pretty well. I had pulled in a size 10 of the same jeans, so those immediately got set aside. I had also brought in a size 9 of a different cut (especially since they were a junior size instead of women's). They fit great with a tiny bit of wiggle room. I was so excited to walk away with two new pairs of jeans and both of them in single digits! The best part was that they were both on clearance, so I was able to pick up other things on the gift card and not spend a single cent.

Getting into these smaller sizes helps keep me on track because I want to get into smaller sizes. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I always thought a size 6 was a small size that was pretty average without being stick thin, so that's my ultimate goal. I'm only one size away and I can't believe it!

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Weight vs. Inches

A lot of people just think about weight loss in terms of pounds and if they've hit a plateau they get really frustrated and give up. Something I have learned is that measuring inches can help with this frustration. Sometimes when you're stuck at a certain weight, you can still lose inches.

I have come face to face with this issue in the last 6 months. We joined the YMCA in May and started working out several times a week for the first two months straight. Over the course of those two months, I lost 6.4lb and 1.5 inches off of my hips (my problem area). I then started to slack off quite a bit and didn't make to the gym for three whole months. Although I lost 8.8lb in that time, I only lost 0.5 inches off my hips. I was losing weight, but my measurements weren't changing, so my clothes fit almost the same.

I was getting frustrated watching the end of the Biggest Loser when the contestants would come out and show what they looked like after they'd been at home for a couple of months. There were several women who went home 30-40lb heavier than I currently was, but they were wearing the same dress size as me. That just got me mad. It wasn't fair. That's when I decided I needed to do something to change that.

I started to hit the gym again at the end of October and from then to now, I've lost another 3.4lb, but I've lost another 1.5 inches off my hips, 1 inch off my bust, and 1 inch off my waist. I also started measuring my thighs during this time period and lost 1 inch off each one. My pants are starting to fall off and I look forward to the prospect of buying myself some new clothes. This was our last week in the gym before Germany and we have no illusions that the gyms there will have daycares, so it may be a while before I make it back into a gym. I hope to lose more weight over there, but I know realistically, it'll be harder to lose inches.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Pizza Surplus

Several months ago, Andy brought home a pizza fundraiser form from someone at work. They were the kind where you get the frozen kit and then make them at home. I said it was fine to get the kit that would make three whole wheat cheese pizzas. I had completely forgotten about the whole thing until Andy says he's coming home for lunch to bring home the kits because they have to stay cold. This was the day after we came back from Thanksgiving.

He walked in the door with way more boxes than I expected. I started looking at the boxes and immediately had questions. I had said to only get the box with three pizzas. Andy had taken it upon himself to also order a box with nine personal pan pizzas and since he ordered two kits, they threw in a free box of chocolate chip cookie dough. Just what we need. Not only did more pizza come into my house than I had anticipated, but there were cookies, too!

Andy's excuse for ordering a second kit was that he thought they would come in sooner. Since they took several months to come in, we had enough to have pizza six times and less than six weeks left in this house. That meant we had to eat pizza on average more than once a week which is insane. We only have pizza twice a month in a bad month. We had pizza that night since we were fresh back from a weekend away from home and hadn't been to the store yet. After that, we would have to start to get creative.

Luckily, we decided that we'd have our cousins over for dinner and they said they wanted to eat pizza. That gave us the opportunity to make two of the full-size pizzas in one night and not have to eat it all. That really helped us out, and just tonight got rid of the second to last serving of pizza. That means we have one more night of pizza when we get back after the holidays. Sometimes you just have to punt.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Weigh-in for 12/17/2011

Last weigh-in (12/10/2011) : 149.6 lb

This weigh-in (12/17/2011) : 148.2 lb

Change : 1.4 lb lost


I was very happy with this week's weight loss. This was a tough week, so to have any loss was great. We had dinner guests twice this week, but the good thing about being a host is you can control most of what is eaten. For example, during one of these dinner parties, we were playing board games and while our guests had some appetizers and coffee, I had celery and tea. They didn't mind because I wasn't making them eat celery. We also had my MOMS Club Christmas party. It was a potluck type dinner, so we brought a dish we knew would be good for us to eat and then could pick and choose what else we added to our plate. On top of this all, I only made it to the gym once this week because I caught Brady's cold and cardio probably would have killed me.

It will be three whole weeks before my next weigh-in. In that time, we will have Christmas, New Years, and traveling in the car back and forth to Pittsburgh for those holidays. There will be the baking of Christmas cookies this week and several holiday dinners. I'm not the best when it comes to tracking over holidays, but I'm not the type to gorge myself either. I've learned (the hard way) how to stop eating when I start to get full instead of trying to push past it in order to keep eating delicious food that will be gone tomorrow. I am hoping for no more than a 1lb bounce up at the next weigh-in. Last year I bounced up 2.2lb.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Holy Cow!!! I Just Saw Myself the Way Others See Me

I've mentioned before that I have a hard time seeing the changes in my body. I was just talking to my mom this week about how I don't feel like I look any different from 15lbs ago, which is where I got married, etc. She said that I see myself every day, so it's hard to notice a change in myself. Even though she said that and it made sense, I felt like 15lbs should really look different.

Sure enough, last night, I pretty much got the shock of a lifetime. Each year (since last year), we've made a year-end video of some of the best videos that year for ourselves and the grandparents. We had so many more videos this year than last, so I had the huge task of going through all of them last night and choosing which ones were going to end up on the DVD. I only made it to February before I was dealt this great shock. It was a clip of my son's 1st birthday and we were bringing him the cake for him to blow out the candle and smash it a bit. Since I was in the video, I got to see myself as other have and I didn't like what I saw.




This is a screen shot from that video and I paused it right here when I got a good look at myself. OMG!!! I've always known that I was bottom-heavy, but I didn't realize it was that bad! On this day, I was 170.8lb, so only a little over 20lb more than I currently weigh. I shudder to think what I looked like at 200lb right after I had Brady. How could nobody have stopped me in my tracks and told me how bad I really looked? I've always had a big butt and hips, so I'm sure if they told me, I would've said, "Yeah, I know," and would still have been ignorant to how bad I looked. I wish I had seen this video back then. It might have helped me get back on track a lot sooner than I did. I think the problem I have seeing a change now, is due to the fact that even though I'm much smaller, my butt and hips are still disproportionately large. Watching this video helped me realize how well I have done and although there is room for improvement, things could definitely be worse. I never want to go back to that place.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Biggest Loser Finale Results







Last night was the Biggest Loser Finale. I was excited to find out how I stacked up among the women contestants. I'm proud to say that I finally did it!!!!!!!!!! I weighed less than every single female contestant. I mentioned yesterday that I was concerned about the last woman to be voted off the ranch and she did look amazing. When the revealed her weight, she was 150lbs! I beat her by less than half a pound, but boy did it feel good! I did a little dance around the room as a sort of celebration. The next closest women were in the 170s. I was really shocked that I beat every other woman. Usually there are women in the finale and the ones that have won in the past have made it into 120s or sometimes lower. I'm very proud of myself and I can only hope that by May when the second season for the year ends, I will be even lower and can once again beat out all the female contestants.

For those of you who were wondering, my favorite finalist, Ramon did not win the title of the Biggest Loser last night. He was up against a former NFL player and a man who came to the ranch to win from day one and was ruthless the whole time. I would have been fine if the NFL player had won, because the other guy was really nasty and played the game to the point where he hurt other people. Unfortunately, that man, John, won. He lost 220lb total and started at 445lb.