Getting Motivated

It's been a while since I last wrote on here. I've been pretty busy and the summer was absolutely crazy. Lots of things have changed in my life over the past several months, some exciting and some kind of scary. I'm back on here though to try and re-motivate myself to work on losing weight again. Honestly my schedule now makes it pretty difficult to get in any workouts so I've had to watch what I eat more closely.

By the time summer rolled around I was around 157-8 and not as happy with my weight as I knew I could be. Thanks to summer camp and the unforgiving southern heat I managed to make it to 151 by the end of the summer. After that I felt that I was stuck for a while. I was pretty good about weighing myself everyday to know where my weight was. That is probably one thing I can say that helped me stay on track and maintain any weight loss. By the end of summer I had to move into my new apartment. I got a great workout going up and down the stair and hauling boxes all day. By the next day I was at 147. Then school started and I wasn't eating as well as I usually do and I was getting stressed about school and homework so I gained a few pounds back. I am not back at 148 as of today and I am looking forward to hopefully losing another 10-20 pounds.

I think right now the biggest struggle for me is trying to make time to do things for myself. I find that most nights I am doing homework or dreading going to class. Sometimes I procrastinate because right now I'm in the mindset of "I'm a senior and I want to have fun" but I'm trying not to think like that seeing as starting January I will be student teaching. That's probably another thing that has helped me maintain what little weight I have lost. Nothing like 23 5 year old's to keep you busy and running around all day.

I am going to start trying new things like walks and possibly doing Zumba. Well that's all I can say for now. I'll write more later about how it's going! I'll end this with a quote:

"Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right." -Henry Ford

Counting

I feel like I'm always counting, whether it be counting how many days until spring break, counting how many calories I put in my mouth, or counting how much weight I have lost or gained. I am constantly obsessed with numbers. I feel like right now I am defining and success and failures by what the scale tells me every morning. For instance this morning I stood on the scale and I had gained .6 pounds. All I could think about was what I ate yesterday, maybe I had too much sugar, maybe it was because I ate half a tablespoon of peanut butter or the half cup of ice cream I had. Whatever the case may be I am working harder with being satisfied with myself and how I look. I have heard so many people in my life say "Mandy I would love to look the way you do" but to me I think I would love to look like me 20 pounds lighter. Even though I lost 20 pounds this summer I have to be careful about not rewarding myself for that. I tend to want to reward myself with food because that's the easiest thing to go to and fairly cheap. I try to set goals for myself now, like if I lose 10 pounds I can go buy that new shirt I want. I'm not sure if I will ever stop counting. I think I find a sense of security in knowing what I can and can't have and how many points everything is. I was proud of myself this weekend, I managed to go the whole weekend and not have a splurge day. I was watching this show about cheeseburgers yesterday and I wanted one soooo bad but I didn't give in and every time I thought about giving in, I also thought about the new bikini I bought. I have to give my sister props too, every time I wanted to eat everything in the house she encouraged me and told me I didn't need it. I even hung out with one of my friends and managed to stay in my point range. So maybe I won't make it to 10 pound weight loss before spring break, but I know I will make it at some point. Once I reach that goal I will reward myself with something other than food, and take time to compliment myself. After that I may try to lose another 10 pounds and be closer to my goal. So as of right now I will keep up the good work but I'm going to stop counting how many pounds I lose until spring break.

Bikini Season is Here!

Okay girls, suck it in and stand up straight because they have returned! That's right, bikini season is here for the summer! Regardless of the fact that not everyone looks like the girls from the Victoria's Secret swimsuit catalog, there is a good chance you'll still need a swimsuit. There are many options out there for different body types and to fit any need. There are the tankinis, monokinis, bikinis, one piece, and they all come in different varieties from string to sport. So of course this year I went out and got a BIKINI! that's right... a bikini




Spring Break is a mere 13 days away for me.I will being going to FLORIDA...I can't wait! I bought the bikini with 22 days to go... and with 20 days to go I started on my journey to lose 10 pounds before spring break. It's been almost a week and I have lost about 4 pounds. I'm at 157 right now! yes! back in the 150's! hopefully not for long though (meaning I would like to be in the 140's).
So how have I lost the weight so far? well that's easy. I've only been eating 1200 calories or less a day (I ate a little more yesterday which is probably why I only lost .2 of a pound today) I figured it up 1200 calories is about 18 points a day plus I have been doing the Jillian Michaels 30 day shred. Let me tell something (<-- if you ever hear this phrase from a southern person, it's going to be a long story so get comfortable!)that dvd is probably one of the best workout dvds ever!! I was sore for a good 2 days after doing it. It has different stages and I considered myself to be pretty average as far as fitness goes, not so with this! I was dying but in a good way, and after I did it the next day I was down another pound. Another thing i've been trying to do so I lose weight (and not just water weight) is to drink lots of water and my favorite, Diet Lemonade from Chickfila! it's 0 points and its so good, not to mention a natural diuretic! I'm trying to be really good and not have a splurge day like I normally do we'll see how it goes.

My Goals

This is a picture of me when I was around 140 in my senior year of high school. I would actually love to get to 135. I feel like that is a good weight for me to be at. I also want to drink more water and eventually drink only water, I cannot have juice in the house because juice is like crack to me. I want to get to the point where I eat lots of fruit and vegetables everyday and less red meat. I don't just want to be a smaller me, I want to be a healthier and happier me. I plan on making my 20s look as good as they possibly can!

This weekend has been incredibly hard for me. I have given in a few times to temptation but I'm hoping that me getting out of the apartment today and walking around will help. I am little tired of being cooped up but with the snow from last night every thing is cold, wet, and mushy. I am going to take some pictures today :) Hopefully I can get over giving into the temptations. It's hard to stay away from fatty foods especially when everyone else around you is also indulging. I think it is time that I go to the store and buy food just for me. Food that is healthy and that only I eat.

I'll write more later after my explorations!

Weighing In

This is a picture of the scale I have. I bought this scale as soon as I got up to Clemson this year because I knew that I desperately needed an accurate scale. I decided that I wasn't going to worry about how expensive it was because I would have it for a long time and I see it as investing in me. So I went to Walmart and literally pulled every single digital scale out of the box to check several things 1. to what decimal place it weighed you, 2. how large the foot area was (although I'm not a giant my feet are a size 9 so those little scales that required your feet to be the size of a babies to fit entirely on the scale, do not work for me) and 3. I wanted to see how big the display was because I like to weigh every morning after I get up and pee (sorry if that grosses you out, just being honest) and that early in the morning I definitely do not have contacts in so the display needed to light up and be big enough that I could read it with out contacts.



I really love my scale, would you like to know why? Well I'll tell you, when you first purchase this scale you stand on it until it says 1 then you get off and it does this weird thing...with like lines and zeros...I always stand there and make noise like a robot like "beep, bloop, beep, processing" during this process, then it zeros out and you stand on it. Well my friend you have just set your starting weight on this scale. This is not just a Health o Meter oh no, this is a Guilt o Meter and I'll give an example from yesterday. My pervious weight before getting on the scale was 160, I stood on the scale and it weighed me at 164, then across the big digital screen, an arrow pointing up appears and it says : "Up 4.0 pounds" that's pretty much enough motivation for me to never want to eat again. I think of it as having my mom here pretty much to motivate me and when I see that on the scale it is like my mother saying "Mandy have you gained some weight?" or "is that a muffin top over those jeans?"

So I strongly encourage anyone looking for a good scale to purchase the one I have. It's great and it's motivating especially when it states the obvious (btw, this scale is not one of those scales that talks... I just make up the voice in my head but those work well too because they say your weight out loud)

Today I got on the scale, I am now at 163 which means I have lost a pound since yesterday. I'm going to try to eat a little better today though. I am not sure how much exercise I am going to get today because I am currently not wearing contacts because my eye has decided to get some sort of infection, therefore I can't see too well and I lost my glasses. I will probably do my Jillian Michael's 30 day shred or whatever it is called that way I can just stand really close to the TV and do it. Also anyone looking for a good video to do at home I would suggest the Slim in 6 DVDs. My mother purchased them and I did them for a while when I was at home. I didn't do the program that came with it because I'm already doing weight watches but it is a good way to burn calories and build up strength.

So what's on the menu this weekend? Well some friends and I are going out to a micro brewery on Friday for dinner. I can usually eat out for about 13 points and at my meetings for weight watchers they said that just pretty much always assume it is 13 points even if it is less, that way you don't have to worry about calculating it, and I have found with most meals it is usually right at 13 points. I will probably get a hamburger just because if you know me that is a staple in my diet, but I won't get cheese because that saves a point (and 10 grams of FAT) and I'll drink water...or unsweetened tea yum! Sunday I am not going out because unfortunately I am not part of a couple :( but that's okay I'm happy being a me.

First Post!

Okay everyone, so for those of you who are confused by the title..."taking the Moo out of Moo" it's because Moo is my nickname. Anyways this is my first post yay!
So what started this today was I got on my scale and it said error, not because I was too fat to weigh but just because I don't know how to use a scale...but when I did finally get it to work I realized I gained like 4 pounds (stupid super bowl party and you're tasty food!) I am hoping to lose 10 pounds by spring break (just 30 days away!!!!!)

Today, I went to the gym... that was an experience. I had to park super far away because it was like 10 am, then I thought well it won't be too bad I can't just walk to the gym, it's sunny so it should be a nice walk/warm-up. WRONG...it was so COLD and WINDY. The cold wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the wind. The wind just cut through you like a knife.I'm a little sick so perhaps I shouldn't have gone to the gym but I was tired of just sitting around. I got to the gym and I was on the elliptical for about 35 minutes then I did some weights. I left the gym walked all the way back to my car and almost got blown down.

I tried to eat pretty healthy today although I did eat a piece of dark chocolate and I had a mountian dew...bad I know! Well that's all I can think of I'll write more later.

-Mandy