Dear Jennifer Hudson (week 29)

Dear Jennifer Hudson,

I am BEYOND EXCITED to report to you that even with having company stay with us for 6 days (which can put you in vacation mode...a.k.a. forget about your diet, and put exercise on the back burner),  I stayed in the diet/exercise zone, and I had an amazing week in weight loss...I lost 6.8 pounds on the scale at my meeting this morning!!!

But even GREATER than that number, is the fact that this loss brought me to the 50 pound lost marker (51 to be exact, lol) with Weight Watchers!!!

And EVEN GREATER than that number, is that this week's loss has brought me to an all new personal-lowest-weight-ever in my adult life!!!

Such an exciting day for "dieting-me!" :0)

Another 3 months have come and gone in this journey, and so it's time for me to give you a wrap-up on my progress. First, lets talk more numbers!

I have been doing WW, and have been committed to regular exercise for 6-1/2 months now. Day 1 was January 1st.

In the past 6 months, I have lost 2.5 inches in my arms, 3.5 inches in my thighs, 6.5 inches in my chest, 7 inches in my hips, and 8 inches in my waist!!! That's a total of 27.5 inches lost over my body! :-0

I started the year wearing a size 16, and now I am comfortably in a size 10.

Now, for my favorite part of the re-cap....PICTURES! In my day-in and day-out life, the "transformation of me" hasn't seemed that drastic, but to see my Day 1 pictures is CRAZY! I truly didn't think I was all that big back then. And then when I took my 3 month pictures, I thought that progress was INCREDIBLE!!! But now, to see the difference 6 months later, is...well...I'll just let you be the judge! :0)

(Just a reminder, the red ribbon around my waist, is from watching a random episode of Dr. Oz. In this one and only snippet I have ever watched of his show, Dr. Oz had mentioned that a healthy weight for a woman, is when the smallest part of your waist is 31 inches. He recommended cutting a ribbon the length of 31 inches, and then wrapping it around your waist every so often to check your progress...so I did.)

Day 1 front profile:

3 month front profile:

And now, 6 month front profile:

Did you notice!?!?!?...the 31 inch red ribbon now wraps completely around my waist!!!

Ok, now for the side profiles...

Day 1 side profile:

3 month side profile:

And now, 6 month side profile:

Isn't this so stinkin' cool!? I am so glad I have taken these pictures along the way...it is so motivating to see the difference bit by bit!

So as you know, I have been doing WW for 29 weeks, and I have been working out very consistently. I used to track my WW points on the WW website, but now that my smart phone was upgraded from a Blackberry to an iPhone, and I get to the use the SUPER GREAT iPhone App for WW, I almost always track my points from my phone. Tracking my points everyday has been KEY! And going to the WW meetings have been equally as important to my success! There is accountability there. You know you have a date with the scale when you go to the meetings. And I'm not talking about a date with my home scale. The mental game of weighing in on someone else's scale is somehow WAY different/important/scarier than weighing in on your own scale! The 3rd aspect to my 3-prong success is exercise. I know not everyone has this kind of time, but I do...and so I usually exercise 2 times a day...totalling 2-3 hours. I found that when the kids were in quiet time, I would use that time to veg-out...a.k.a. sit on the couch/sit at the computer, and EAT! And while I still do that for a portion of their quiet time (hey, everyones gotta eat lunch sometime, lol!) I devote about an hour of the kids' quite time to doing my (well, my step mom's) at-home "Insanity: The Asylum" strength training. Those workouts are truly INSANE! And then, in the evening, after my hunny goes back to bed, the kids and I head to the gym for about 2 hours while I get my cardio on...mostly that means running 9 miles, but once a week, that means Spin class (my VERY fave!!!). About twice a week, on Rick's days off, I get to ditch the gym, and I get to run around our neighborhood...right beneath Spin class, running outside is my next favorite form of exercise. My neighborhood route is a 3 mile loop...I do 3 laps, equaling 9 miles. I pretty much keep this routine 6 days a week, and I have 1 day out of the week that I devote to resting my body from (intentional) exercise.

So J Hud, you pretty much already knew all of that...I think...but what you may not have remembered/cared about (lol) is how many days/weeks I have FAILED! This journey has not been all loss! I wish I could say that I was humble enough to have attended all of the WW meetings every week for the 29 weeks that I have been doing WW...but 2 of those weeks I was so discouraged by my weight gain, that I couldn't bare to face the scale...I hope you are NEVER as cowardice as I am! But the interesting thing I found in my record keeping, is that of the 29 weeks, 9 of those weeks I recorded a GAIN...that's almost 1/3 of the time! :-0 And equally as shocking as that, was I was surprised to find that when I totalled the gain from those 9 weeks, it came to 25.6 pounds! :-0 Craziness.

Fortunately, those gains didn't keep me down and discouraged for too long, as I was able to lose those 25.6 pounds along the way...and an additional 51!!! Woohooooo!!!

As you know, I'm not done with this journey. The 50 pound marker is GREAT, but I still have 18 more pounds to go until I reach my initial goal. At that point I will re-access my situation and see if I'm content at that weight/size, or if I would like to lose a few more pounds.

Whew...that was a BIG update/re-cap! My typing-fingers definitely got a workout, lol!

But that's it for me J Hud! I hope you are having a great week too!

Your biggest (but not largest, lol) fan,
Elizabeth

P.S. The ending quote at my WW meeting today: "You lose weight so you will look good in your clothes. You exercise so you will look good when you aren't wearing clothes." Hahahaha...loved that!