Silly Me...

I totally forgot to discuss my progress pictures and the art of measuring oneself in my post this morning.

Well, maybe I didn't forget to post the pictures.  I am terrified to put these puppies up!  But, I decided to quit being a baby - here we go...  BTW, the ones dated 12.03.09 were taken right after I came home from the gym which is why my face looks so red and sweaty!

Each time that I make these little collages I want to see a huge difference, but I really don't see anything.  In fact, I think the pics from12.03.09 look the best!?!  Bummer.

Which brings me to topic number two - How the heck do I measure myself?  Dan has been doing my measurements but they are crazy!  In the first month he has me losing 16.5 inches (7 of which are in my hips alone)!  He swore he was doing it correctly; however when we went to do it this time he confessed that he has no idea where to put the tape measure.  WTF!

So, I have decided that I would measure myself myself - he has officially been fired!  The problem is that I don't know what I am doing either!  Where do you place the tape measure for each measurement?

I would love any advice you may have...

<3

50 People Find me Interesting?!?!

Hey All!

My Dashboard just gave me a great surprise!  I have 50 followers!  Thanks to Amy, I have gone from 37 Fabulous Followers to 50 Fabulous Followers!  Welcome everyone!

So, last week was a good week all in all.  I finally got the scale moving again and lost 2 lbs, which felt so great!  I couldn't have asked for a better number considering the weekend that I had.  Yesterday was Dan's birthday and on Friday he received a Gift Card from his brother for Asiate, which is a restaurant located in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel here in NYC.  It has amazing views of Central Park and the city.

This is a very small part of their Wine Wall - it is amazing!

This is where he and his wife stay when they are in town  We decided to use it Saturday.  We did the tasting menu with the wine pairing and it was very good.  It was 7 courses, I was completely stuffed by the end!  I also had Champagne to toast Dan's birthday, of course not realizing that the first course was paired with a Sparkling Wine!  I will say that at the end of the night when I was lying in bed I felt so weird, not sure if it was from the carbonation or not.  I drank about half of the Champagne and a little less than half of the Sparkling Wine.  This was deffinatly not the best tasting menu that we have had, it is a toss up between...

Esca located here in NY

Picasso in the Bellagio in Las Vegas

I completed Week 3 of C25K Saturday morning.  This morning I started Week 4 and was pleasantly shocked - I actually enjoyed running the first set (Run 3 minutes, Walk 1.5 minutes, Run 5 minutes)!  Well, I didn't really enjoy the actual running when I got to the 5 minute run, but I was really impressed with my improvement.  Last week I felt like the 3 minute run was really difficult and today it wasn't!  This is the farthest I have gone with this program and I feel fantastic!

Dinner with a Bandster, 3 Months and Yucky Pictures...

Hello Everyone!  It has been a few days since my last post so here we go...

• Monday night I had the pleasure of going to dinner with Jacquie!  It turns out that she lives in the neighborhood that I work in.  We met up at a great Thai restaurant at 6:30 and the next time that we looked at our phones it was after 9:30!  It is so nice to actually meet other bloggers.  I am so luck to live in NY, where there seems to be quite a few of us!  Speaking of - when is the next NYC Bandster Brunch?

• Today marks 3 months for me!  I can't believe how fast it has gone and how comfortable I have become with the idea of this "thing" inside of my belly!  I am a little bummed out about my weight loss progress.  I thought I would have been down at least 30 or 40 lbs by now.  Either tonight or tomorrow night I will be doing my progress pics and my measurements.  Maybe there will be some good new there!  I know that I feel better in my clothes, so that's gotta mean something.

• One of my closest friends got married back in September and just posted all of her pics on FB.  I was in the wedding and the dress was not flattering at all.  It was a disater to even get it ordered.  They had to order me a larger dress because my bottom half is larger than my upper half (and I got charged extra for the larger size).  It was embarrassing, I was by far the largest girl in the wedding party.  Well, when the dress finally came in I tried it on at home and found out that it was like three sizes too big, WTF!  I had to go and pay another $150 for alterations, which did not turn out too good!  The dress was way too short and the chest was not altered correctly.  Anyway, the point is that the pics are now on FB for the whole world to see.  Well, maybe not the whole world, but a lot of people.  People who don't even know me.  I actually cried this morning when I was looking at them.  There are like 50 pics there of me in this horrible dress next to tall, skinny, beautiful girls.  The only positive thing that I could think of was that these would make great "Before" pics.  This first pic that I am posting is the worse one.  This is the one that made me cry.  How did I let myself get this big?

The rest of these that I am posting still make me feel sad a little, but then they make me feel good - I have the bestest friends ever!  I had a great time at the wedding and as you can see I danced and sang like a fool!

If you see a faded sign by the side of the road that says
15 miles to the... Love Shack!

The Bridesmaids and Flower Girl

My Girls <3

You Guys Rock :)

Sarah posted today about training for a 10K and that has inspired me to sign up for the Race For Water 6K on April 18th!  Her accomplishments have been so amazing, please check out her "My Race Results" section to see her inspiring list.  These are the types of posts that continue to motivate me.  You all are the best, please keep sharing your goals and accomplishments!  It is what makes this bloggy world go round ;)

As you may know I began my C52K training last week.  I feel very good about my progress - even though I am only on week 2!  I participated in a 5K back in September, mostly walked and my time was not too good.  This was because I did the C25K program and quit way before the actual 5K.  My goal is to finish the entire 9 week program and to jump right to training for an 8K.  The reason for this is that there are like 6 or 7 weeks in between the time my 5k program ends and the race I signed up for.

An added incentive is that the race on April 18th and I leave for a seven night cruise to Bermuda on the 25th!  For the most part, I chose running as my cardio because I have heard so much about the results that you can get.  I am hoping that I am down quite a bit when the 25th rolls around!  Plus, after all that training and the actual race I will really deserve this trip away with my girls!

Slow and steady...

wins the race...right?

This week I show a loss of .5 lbs, nothing spectacular, but I will gladly take it.  This brings me to a total of 23 lbs lost, not that much considering it is almost three months.  Chrissy, the nurse at my doctor's office said that I am right on track and losing at a good rate.  I guess she knows what she is talking about, but I really feel like I need to step it up a bit.  Hopefully my fill yesterday will help!

I am happy to report that I completed my first week of C25K on Saturday and I feel spectacular!  I have updated all of my stats (links are on the right side of my blog), however I was a bad girl this month.  My goal was to do my measurements and progress pictures each and every month, but for some reason I did not do this for month 2.  My three month bandiversary will be on the 20th, so I will just have to skip month two and jump to month three.  I still have not posted my progress shots, I am too nervous.  I want to post them, but I feel like I still haven't had enough loss to see a difference.

As I mentioned, I had my second fill yesterday, which I desperately needed.  For the last week or so I really felt like I could eat and eat and eat!  In the long run I wasn't too nervous about the lack of restriction because I had this appointment scheduled already.  As long as there is still a steady weight loss I am not going to get worked up about it.  Even on the days when I felt that I ate too much - it was still way less than pre-band.

My fill yesterday was quite the episode.  I heart Chrissy, she is magnificent, she got in within 30 seconds without too much discomfort.  She gave me 2 cc's, which would bring me to 6 cc's total.  I received my little glass of water and waited to make sure everything was okay.  Well, it wasn't!  Holy salvation!  I took one small sip and instantly loud and juicy gurgling sounds escape from my throat, very embarrassing!  Then I couldn't swallow all of the liquid that my mouth was suddenly producing.  I ran to the ladies room and hung my head over the sink and let my mouth drop open - omg the liquid just kept coming out!  So, needless to say I had to go back and have some taken out.  She took out 1 cc so now I am at 5 cc's total.  I defiantly feel restriction with my water and protein shake, but nothing like the first fill yesterday.  I think this will be a good one!

Shout Out to Jen!!!!

Last night I went to Jen's to pick up some clothes that she has shrunk out of.  Well, to my surprise I ended up with tons of clothes!  Thank you so much, Jen!  I will post some pics soon with me in a few of my new threads.  My husband was amazed when he saw me walk in the door with two gigantic bags filled with my new loot.  I also received a kick ass puffy coat which came in handy this morning, it's been so cold.  The funny thing is that I was telling Dan on Sunday that I wanted to get a puffy coat next year since I won't fit in the coat I have now!  Awesome!!

So the best part is that I can now say that I have officially gone down a size - from a 22 to a 20!  With Jen's generous donations I will be fabulously chic in a size 20.  I work in a very casual office, we wear jeans, but sometimes I miss the days of having to dress for work.  Luckily most of the clothes that I received were really nice dress pants, skirts and dresses.

Once I got done my little fashion show last night with Dan, I was telling him how much this blogging community means to me.  I was a member of Weight Watchers off and on since I was 16 or so.  I went to all the weekly meetings but never really got anything from the experience.  To me going weekly was really just to get weighed in - the meetings never really helped me.  Don't get me wrong, I learned little tricks that were helpful and that I still use today.  I just never really felt connected to any of the people.  It is so strange that now I feel such a strong connection to all of you - people I have never met or have only met once or twice.  Your comments and blogs are what keep me going, what motivates me, thank you so much for being here for me!

I Heart Exercise....Sorta Kinda

Maybe not the actual preparation and physical act of exercise, but more the high you get after...  I just love the way I feel when I am walking home from the gym, like if anyone gave me the stink eye they would be uber sorry!

I feel spectacular all day long - more energetic, happy and beautiful.  That last part is a little weird, isn't it?  I can't explain it, but I feel more attractive on the days I workout.

So, with all of this said - how could I possibly hate exercise?  Why can't I just get out of bed when my alarm goes off without thinking of excuses not to go?  I don't do that for work, I have to go, I have no choice.

What do you do to motivate yourself?  Who has made changes in their life to make exercise a daily part of their life and how did you do it?  Just picking your brains - um, have you ever though of that phrase, like really pictured it in your head, gross, right?

Anyway, I exerciesed today and I feel super awesome!  This morning was my first time doing C25k since September and I lived to talk about it!  I was actually impressed with my progress, as I mentioned in my last post, I have started and quit this program so many times.  Today I managed to complete the entire 30 minutes without cheating - I ran and walked when I was supposed to.  Usually I would get through a couple of run/walk sets and then skip a run segment here and there, bad Colls!

The program that I am using is a new one.  Previously I was using a Podcast called Podrunner Interval on my iPod Nano.  This was a great program, however I hated the music that they used - I want to listen to my own music.  Well, luckily Santa brought me an iPod Touch this year!  Sunday night I search around for an interval training application and found a Couch to 5k app made by felt tip inc. - it is awesome!  The best part about this app is that I can listen to my "Workout" playlist while completing the day's training.  The app only cost $2.99, and I am not one to pay for a lot of apps, but I really recommend this one.  The screen stays on during your workout so you can see your progress and then it turns different colors when it is time to run or walk.  There is also a voice that will come over your music telling you to run or walk.  Oh, and if you have Nike+ it is compatible with that as well.

That's about it for now ladies.  Have a great day <3

Happy New Year!!

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

I know it has been quite a while since my last post, sorry.  Things have been super crazy with work and family.  Overall I am very satisfied with my progress in the last two weeks.  I managed to lose 2.5 lbs during the holidays, that has NEVER happened to me before!

I did some research this past weekend and compiled a strength training program which is to be completed three times a week.  I did the first one this morning and I am already sore!  I want to also begin the C25K program on my off days of strength training.  I have done the program before while I was training for a 5k back in September.  I completed the 5k (walked a bit and my time was really bad), but I have yet to actually complete the C25K program!  I have stopped and stared over so many times!  I hate to run, but I think it is a really good way to get cardio in and see results quickly.  I LOVE my spin classes and will mostly continue to go to the Saturday classes, but will have to cut out the classes during the week.  They start too late in the morning, so I am always leaving 15 minutes early so that I can get ready for work.

I will be posting my weight loss goals on my blog today.  10 lbs a month sounds like a reasonable goal to me. Right now I am so focused on the lack of weight loss I have had and I find myself constantly comparing my progress to other bandsters'.  I think that setting these goals will force me to focus on ME and MY progress.  Also, me and a few friends will be going somewhere "tropical" in April and I really want to look good!

Christmas Dinner - Dan and I (I hate how red my face gets)

New Years Eve - The Greatest Girls Ever!