Week 5

Hey guys, so it has been about a month now since I've started my weight loss journey.  It was really hard starting out, but I think that now I am starting to live a healthier life.  While I still get those cravings like everyone else, I am better at avoiding them than I was before.  I still have trouble with making too much, but now I can give myself a serving and then put the rest away.  Which causes me to have to ask myself once I've had the serving amount, "Do I really want this?" and "Am I really still hungry?"  Sometimes, unfortunately that means skipping out on some foods that I used to love.  But in the long run I am still able to eat the foods that I like, I just realize how even though I like them, they are not worth it, so I am choosing other foods.  For instance today I went to the grocery store and I went to look at the mac-n-cheese that I used to get, to see how bad that would be to have as a side for dinner.  And I about passed out!  It was like over 4 servings of chicken in calories!! I couldn't believe how bad it was for me.  It was much worse than the frozen kind, so I decided to just stick with that.  Just one of the many examples of eye-opening experiences during this journey.  I also found that when I am bored with whatever I am doing (reading, watching TV or movies, playing games, etc.) that I am much more likely to eat.  However when I found a show that had me hooked, I completely forgot about eating.  Which made it the easiest week of this experience.  I am now working on stopping myself from eating when bored, or lonesome.

So this past week I exercised everyday, and worked to find other exercises to do that wouldn't become boring.  While we love Richard Simmons, we can only do his workout a few times a week, so that we don't become bored of it.  So something that we did was that we went through my music collection and composed a workout mix.  We then took that mix and played it instead of listening to the instructors, since we have them basically memorized anyway.  That really helped to change the pace a little.  It is also funny to find how wrong the song is for the workout.  For instance, while doing Tae-Bo we had a Britney song come on, and it was hilarious because that was never something that would be playing in the background of one of his workouts.  At the end of this week I have also really started looking into finding exercises to do to help me lose weight in my stomach faster.  I am losing weight, but one thing that I learned from a friend, who knows about nutrition and the body, is that to lose weight in a specific area (instead of where it normally does) then I have to do exercises in that particular area.  So I have started doing some exercises to gain muscle and lose weight in specific problem areas for myself, and boy am I feeling it!!!  It was so painful to go up and down my stairs today.  And don't even think of asking me to lift anything heavy!  But I think that I will add those into my own personal workout regime for at night.

So here's what you want to know: 303 (current weight) - 150 (goal) = 153 pounds to go!!!!
 (So something to consider here is that I am now using two scales because one is electric and tells you a different number depending on different conditions, and the other uses a needle, but is harder to be accurate on.  So I am combining the two and averaging them out from now on.)

My goals for this week:

• Do cardio workout everyday M-F
• Eat more fruits and vegetables
• Pay more attention to calories
• Do muscle exercise 3 days a week

So for those of you who have been reading since the beginning here is an updated pic:

             So for the past month I've lost: 12 pounds total!!!!   Here are the pictures to compare. 
                                             (pink beginning, blue one month)