As promised...

... here is my final blog post before vacation!

After months of dieting and working out, I am about to come to a really important milestone! Anyone who knows me well, knows how much I look forward to my yearly trip to the lake, which is why it has always worked as a way to motivate myself to lose weight.

A few years ago, when I went on a successful diet, my aunt and I wrote our goal weights on rocks, and then buried them. When we returned to the lake a few months later, I dug up my rock, and realized that I had hit the goal that I set for myself.

It was a great feeling, which is why I am excited to say that, once again, I hit my Lake Erie Goal. Although I am no where near my final goal, this is a great first step!

Not only did I hit my goal, buy I surpassed it by 2 pounds, for a total of 27 lost!

I go back to school in a little over a month, and my goal by then is to be 35 pounds down. I am very confident in my ability to achieve this goal!

A lot of people have asked how I plan to stay on track while, at the same time, enjoying my vacation. I think I worked out a plan that will allow me to go a week without obsessive calorie counting! It comes with a price however! In order to be able to eat what I want, I have to make sure to get a ton of exercise including:

30 minutes of Stretching

1 hour of walking

30 minutes of Concentrated Swimming

1 hour of leisurely swimming

30 minutes of treading water

This seems like a lot... and I know that if I were to try to do this much exercise at home, it would never last, but when I made this plan, I took into account the fact that I already spend a lot of time in the water, and a lot of time walking everyday, as it is. I think in reality, I may get more exercise than this...and swimming at this size burns a ton of calories!

Anyways, I'm pretty sure that the next time you hear from me, I will be back from my trip... and hopefully the time goes slow!

Here is a really good blog that I found that has tips for eating healthy in all kinds of situations, such as ball parks and movie theaters! Enjoy!

http://adviceforeating.blogspot.com/

Triggers

So, I am happy to report that I have had a pretty successful week so far! I haven't had a binge for about a week which is really motivating!

On Thursday I weighed in with a three pound loss, which put me at my goal weight for vacation! So, I was pretty excited about that! The thing is though, I weighed in after not eating all day, and Wendy's scale weighs at one pound less than mine. So, getting my own scale to reach that number before Saturday is my current goal.

As I have mentioned before, I only seem to binge at my mom's house. I'm staying with her for a couple of days, and before I came, I thought about telling her to put away the stuff that typically start a binge. They include:

Little Debbie Cakes

Candy

Cereal Bars

Canned Spaghetti

Vegetable Soup in a Can

Anything that I can bake

Looking around though, I don't see any of my usual triggers lurking around... so I feel confident in my ability to no binge.

This week is filled with excitement (I'm leaving for vacation Saturday), but also a little bit of sadness. My cousin Charlotte's brother-in-law, Brian, was in a Kayaking accident yesterday and passed away. He was only 21, my age. Charlotte's husband, Matt, is currently in Afghanistan and is expected to be home in the next few days, but please keep their family in your prayers. They lost their father a few years ago, it seems like too much tragedy for one family.

I hope everyone is having a great week! I'll be sure to post again before vacation!

Disgusting

So, today I discovered something disgusting about my mom. She mixes chocolate syrup into her yogurt.

She mixes chocolate syrup into her yogurt and weighs less than one hundred pounds, while I eat half servings of low fat yogurt as desert and weigh about twice what she does.

Disgusting...

Day One

It is one-thirty in the morning... I am strung out on diet coke...and I am angry.

For the past two days I've done awesome. I have exercised, eaten healthy and all of that other stuff I am supposed to be doing. That lasts until about 9 p.m. and then it is binge city from there on.

Okay first of all uses the term "Binge City"? That clearly shows my distressed state of mind. Second of all, why is this happening?

Although I am terribly angry at myself for this, these aren't the kind of binges that ruin a diet. They are however the kind of binges that teach me just how little control I have over this monster inside of my body.

Even though I'm angry and I fear the results that I will get at the scale, I have come to a couple of realizations during these past two nights, that may help me along the way.

First of all, I figured out that the only time I binge is when I am at my Mom's house. Over the past few weeks, literally every binge that I've had (which thankfully there haven't been many) has occurred here. My first inclination would be to blame it on the fact that she always has a good stash of junk food here. But, the thing is, at my dads house I haven't even thought about over eating. Maybe its the fact that when I'm at my mom's I spend a lot of time in the living room which is right next to the kitchen? I'm not sure, but this information may help me to plan in the future.

My second observation, is that I feel totally sick after I binge these days, like barfing sick. I've always said that I can eat and eat and not feel sick, but something about going weeks without so much junk food makes me more sensitive to it. The last thing I want to do is build up tolerance to that shit again, which is why this has to end.

Tomorrow...

Tomorrow is my day one all over again. I will hit my vacation goal weight. I will hit my back to school goal weight, and most importantly I will hit my final goal and keep it off!

I have no other options.

13 days and counting!

In thirteen short days, this is where I will be! My favorite place in the whole world, with my favorite people in the whole world. Life doesn't get much better than that!

I have a weight loss goal that I would like to reach by then, and thanks to a four pound loss on Thursday, I am only about three pounds away! So exciting!

Today, my friend Brooke asked me if I am nervous about eating on vacation. The answer is yes, more than anything. The thing is, at home I binge for a couple of hours at a time (like all of that cheese cake I had tonight... yikes!). On vacation, however, I tend to binge for a week at a time. That could make it hard to get back on a diet.

My plan... is to make a plan. I know I'm not going to go to the lake and eat salad all day. I don't want to deprive myself. If I can just let myself eat the good food, and avoid bingeing... then all of the exercise that I will get should make up for the Eddie's Grill french fries and the Katie's Corner Ice Cream Cones!

Anyways, as I said a few paragraphs ago, I weighed in with a four pound loss on Thursday! That makes for a total of 21! I had my mom take a picture on her camera, so as soon as I find her USB cord I'll upload it!

I hope everyone is having a good week! Love you all!

Time for a Post I Guess?

Sorry for the shortage of updates! I guess I feel like the last few days of dieting have been pretty monotonous. I eat the same things every day, exercise on the same schedule every week. Listen to the same music while I exercise. Kinda boring.

I can feel my body changing though, which is encouraging. I'm still obviously whale-sized, but my face seems to be thinner, and my hands too. Normally I lose weight in my legs right away, but this time it seems to be coming off of my upper body. That's fine with me!

The thing that's been hard lately, is realizing that I'm going to struggle with this for the rest of my life. When I get to my goal weight, I can't let myself believe that I can go back to these bad habits. If I do, I'll be in the same position I was a few weeks ago (fatter than ever). The good thing though, is that I have the power to look at the weight that I used to be, and make sure that I never reach that weight again.

Sometimes I don't think I give myself enough credit. I think that my problems are out of my hands, they are to big for me to deal with. But the truth is, all I can do is take it one day at a time.

I had a rough night tonight. I ate healthy all day, and then I let my self have desert for the first time in a while. It fit really well into my calorie limit, but that little bit of sugar kind of put me into binge mode. Not only do I feel guilty, but I just feel physically sick, and I know that when I wake up my head is going to hurt and that I'm going to be tired. But, in order to overcome this stumbling block, I have to remember that just a few weeks ago, I was bingeing every day. I seriously ate all day long, so much that I never really felt hungry. I've improved so much from then, and hey, Rome wasn't built in a day.

2 binges in five weeks is pretty dang good, and I should be proud of that. Tomorrow is a new day, and I am so excited to see where I will be in another few weeks. It can only go up from here!