July

Might as well post here once a month so I remember it exists!

Another month down, and I'm right at my pre-pregnancy weight. Wahoo.

More exciting, we get to find out baby's gender next week. Yay!

Well...

This isn'tmuch of a weight-loss blog anymore. Oh well! I'll get back to it in another 6 1/2 months! :)

As far as goals go, I haven't put on any weight since being pregnant! I'm actually down two and a half pounds. Yay! I am actually pretty surprised. I was felling really sick there for a while and was nibbling on something or other all day long in hopes that something would ease my stomach. But I guess it wasn't too bad and I've been moving exercising enough! I'm very happy!

Now, to keep this up for the next two trimesters!

I can do it!

My Excuse

So, you may have noticed I haven't blogged in a while. So much for continual motivation, right? Wrong! Things were going great-- I was still motivated, I had found a great walking work out DVD, and the weight was coming off.

Then I took a pregnancy test out of curiosity.

This is what I saw:

That put a big screeching halt in my weight-loss plan!

It's unexpected and not the best timing, but it means a baby, so hey, I'll take it!

So now I'm not doing sparkpeople anymore. I'm doing babyfit, which is a subsidiary of sparkpeople. My new goal is to gain 0 pounds over the next nine months. Not quite the 22 pounds I was hoping to lose by June, but a good goal, nonetheless!

Hmmmm?

What to do now?

It All Sort of Evens Out

We went to New York City yesterday. It was a fiasco and I didn't end up eating very well, but we walked a lot and I think my metabolism has been jump started, so I still weighed less this morning than last time I weighed myself. Thank goodness. If I had gained weight after all that, I probably would have just a hate-hate relationship with NYC, instead of the love-hate I'm at now.

GREAT Walking Start!

I walked two miles today! On accident! :)

We (me and the kiddos in a ginormous double stroller) headed out for a walk this morning, determined to go as far as we could. We explored our immediate area and had a really nice time, despite the cold. I kept telling myself to just go to the end of that street, then the end of that street, just keep going! Then we turned around and came home the way we went so we didn't get lost. :)

Back at home I tracked our route ant it came to 2.08 miles! Yay! I honestly thought that I was so out of shape that 1 mile would be hard. But I did two without even knowing it. What a great surprise!

I think we found our new walking route!

What's Been Working For Me

After such a successful start, I thought I'd share what exactly I'm doing and what my plan is.

After becoming acquainted with SparkPeople.com, I put in my weight loss goal (23 pounds by June 30) and it told me I need to eat 1200-1500 calories a day and burn 850 calories a day to reach my goal. Good to know! So I've been tracking everything I eat. I know I'm going to see the exact nutritional facts about everything I eat, and that's helpful in keeping me away from the really bad foods. I put in what I had for breakfast, and it calculates calories, fat, carbs, etc., so I know how much I can still eat. And I really try to stay right in the brackets it set for me. There has only been one day so far that I went over. I've been eating a lot of fruits and veggies and a lot less carbs. (hard!!) I basically bought out the produce section at the store. It's been great. I even had half a can of corn for a snack. Yum. I've been eating mostly toast and yogurt/fruit for breakfast, then something light for lunch and some kind of lean meat for dinner. And when I'm starving and need something to really fill me up, I either eat a half serving of Wheat Thins (reduced fat, of course) or have a cheese stick. So far so good!

I haven't been doing a whole lot more exercise yet, though. Tomorrow I hope to start my new walking routine. I know I can't walk very far yet, but I have another goal here. By the end of the summer (beginning of September-ish?) I want to be able to walk to the Public Library, and back home. That will be a round trip of 5 miles. I'm fairly confident that I'll be able to walk there without too much difficulty by the end of my first goal date, but I think it will be a real challenge to get back home too. Right now I'll start with about 30 minutes of walking a day and see where we are in a week.

I'm feeling really good and more confident than ever. Isn't it weird how just admitting to myself that my weight has become a problem, and knowing that I'm on the path to fixing it has made me feel confident and pretty again? This is going to be great!