Weigh in Wednesdays-A year ago

One year ago today I weighed in at 191 and I was thrilled! I had just started recording my weight in my blogs and I remember I was just starting to feel good about myself physically. I know 191 does not sound like a great place to be but considering that at my heaviest at 9 months pregnant I weighed 70 pounds more- I was ecstatic just to be under 200! How my life has changed in the past year and weight of course has a lot to do with that. My confidence is much higher and my weight is no longer 'weighing' on my mind. I of course want to lose more weight, I do want to eventually reach my life long desired goal weight, but right now I feel good about myself. This time last year, I was constantly comparing myself to other women. Where ever I was I would look around and try to find someone chubbier than I and think ' ok, at least I'm not the only overweight person in the room'. Now I don't even think about it. Until a few days ago when I had my first flamenco lesson in about 7 months. I haven't had many since my daughter was born- but from the very beginning in 2009 I always felt like a giant heifer next to my tiny instructor. But when I had my lesson Saturday for the first time I felt like she and I were in the same category. My flamenco skirt looked good on me, and in fact it could have been a little tighter. Everything looked better, my dancing, my arm movements, my legs- I used to hate lifting my skirt to watch my footwork in the mirror but the other day I was watching myself and thinking 'dang-that doesn't look too bad at all!'. It has taken me 2 years to lose 100 pounds, which seems like a long time but it has flown by. If you are a person who wants or needs to lose some weight, start right now. Don't pig out and start tomorrow, start with your very next meal or go outside right now and go for a walk. Walking can do so much more than we realize.

That was about a year a half ago...about 235 lbs.

I have lost probably 20 or more pounds since my last flamenco lesson and my instructor was stunned. The neurotic side of me has been thinking 'uh oh, I'm not even "exercising" how am I losing so much weight-maybe there's something WRONG with me.' No, there's nothing wrong...I have a 2 year old. After I got married and immediately packed the pounds onto my 125 pound body I kept wondering how this was happening, I exercised a lot! And I did "exercise", with videos, aerobics classes, krav maga- lots of things-consistently at least 3-4 strenuous hours/week, which I though was really good. Even though it was 3 hours of very vigorous working out it took me 3 years later to realize what the problem was. The rest of my hours were spent sitting. Just sitting. Barely even moving. I was in class 12-16 hours/week-sitting. Then I would study about 20 hours per week-sitting. I worked 30 hours/week-mostly sitting. Then at night we would go to the bar with friends-and sit...sit, drink and eat. When we had people over we would play cards-and sit some more. Then when we weren't doing those things we would SIT and watch tv to relax. RELAX?! I say as a mother now, what in the hell did I need to relax from--I spent all my time sitting down!

Taken in August 1.5 years after the above pic-and about 60 pounds less.

Now as a mother of a two year old, I get to spend very little time sitting. I do not exercise, I just move. That is all I am doing- moving my body all day long. If my daughter is awake 12 hours/day I am moving 12 hours/day-we play, we take walks, I am constantly picking up after her, making her meals and snacks, and if she lets me sit, it is only for sheer moments before she takes off and I have to make sure she's not coloring on the walls.

I had to buy some more clothes last week since my jeans were starting to hit that ghangsta faze again. I'm not buying a lot of things nor am I spending a lot of money because every few months I've had to buy some new stuff as I start to swim in what I had, so last week I was able to buy a size 10 pair of jeans I remember how thrilled I was when I went from a size 16 to a 14 just a year and a half ago.

November 14 2012.......161 lbs
November 16 2011.......191 lbs

This was actually about 2 weeks BEFORE I got pregnant.

October 2012

October 2011