Disapointment

This week I wanted to drop close to 3 pounds in order to hit 200 even. I worked out extra hard with a run on the elliptical, a Zumba class, and some at home exercises. I took the stairs more than the elevator in my dorm, and I walked more than usual. I was sore all week, and I really thought I had done a good job, but my eating habits weren't so good this week. I ate Chickfila (the grilled chicken sandwich and yogurt) and half of a large pepperoni pizza this week with half an order of cinnamon sticks. I'm not sure if it was the bad food or muscle gain that prohibited the weight loss, but I only dropped 1 pound this week. I'm just a little disappointed in myself, but I'm not giving up.

I'm readjusting my methods a little bit this week to ensure that I start losing weight again. I've lowered my calories to 1450 a day, and I'm going to be very strict about my fat and sugar intake. I will continue to work out 4-5 times a week, and we'll see how it goes!

<3 Claire

Lean Cuisine Reviews

As I've mentioned before, I'm a college student, so eating healthy on a budget has proven to be a challenge in itself. With the microwave as my biggest kitchen appliance, I'm a little limited on preparing delicious and nutritious meals. I'm extremely wary of frozen dinners, so I usually just walk to the cafeteria across campus to eat. But lately, I've been feeling a little adventurous. So I picked up a few boxes of Lean Cuisine to try them out. I've only had a few so far, but they seem to be the best instant meals I've ever had. My absolute favorite is the Spinach, Artichoke, & Chicken Panini. It's not the soggy mush I was expecting from frozen bread. It has so much flavor - and this is coming from a girl from South Louisiana! So it must be good ;) I have to give credit to the Sesame Chicken and the Chicken Club Panini. Both were good, and I would definitely eat them again if I was hungry. I still have 2 more in my freezer to sample, but I'll happily take any suggestions for new Lean Cuisine meals to try.

<3 Claire

First Coke in a Month

So I finally decided to have a coke after banning all carbonated beverages for the month of February. I wasn't sure how I would react to it. Honestly, I thought I was going to down all 16 ounces of it out of withdrawals. Surprisingly, I had the exact opposite reaction. It was great at first, but after a few sips, I didn't want anymore. It was so insanely sweet! It tasted like syrup. I guess my taste buds haven't experienced that much sugar in weeks, and it was overwhelming. I guess it's true that you can break an addiction in 21 days. So I guess that's the end of my coke addiction :)

For the month of March, I have given up ice cream. I LOVE ice cream, but now I'm wondering if I will still enjoy it so much afterward. After all, I did end my love affair with coke this way, but I guess we will see!

<3 Claire

Right On Schedule

After doing lots of research on healthy weight loss, I learned that 1-2 pounds a week is a safe, steady average. Any more than that can be dangerous for your health and makes it harder to keep off long term. I weighed in this morning to find that I lost another 2 pounds this week, which brings my total to 17.6 lost!

I told one of my former professors about my lifestyle change a month or two ago, and I went to go surprise her with an unexpected visit at her office last night. She's one of those rare teachers that can inspire you and support you in every area of  your life while educating you. As soon as she saw me, she complimented my appearance. She said she was very proud of me, and that meant the world to me. She's truly a special person.

I did the math today to find how much weight I could lose by my birthday on April 19th. If I keep losing 2 pounds a week, I can be 30 pounds down by my 21st birthday :) If that's not a motivating challenge, I don't know what is! Just gotta keep on, keeping on.

<3 Claire

Love/Hate Relationship With Weekends

Like every other person on this planet, I love the weekend! I mean seriously who doesn't like to sleep in late and relax? But with the fun days come the bad food. And if you're in a rush, then it's really bad food...

Just in this weekend, I went out to eat 3 times! Raising Canes, McDonald's, and Texas Roadhouse. I didn't do so well at the fast food places, but I was astonished at my own strength at my favorite restaurant - Texas Roadhouse. I didn't do any mindless snacking on the peanuts; I knew I didn't need all that sodium. When the hot rolls came, I indulged in one, but skipped the cinnamon butter. I got water to drink, and by the time the waiter came back, I knew exactly what I was getting (thanks to a little homework on the restaurant's nutritional info.) I ordered the sirloin kabobs with seasoned rice and a house salad with ranch on the side. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect, but I was surprised to find out that it was more than delicious than I imagined! Normally, I would've had 2 hot rolls with lots of cinnamon butter, a sweet tea, a 6 oz. sirloin, a caesar salad, and loaded mashed potatoes. Sounds good til you realize that it's well over 1,000 calories! But my alternative meal came in right under 700 calories.

I didn't lose any weight this weekend, but I'm certain it's because I wasn't very disciplined. I ate pretty much whatever I wanted and didn't make time for workouts. I really want to get back on track this week and do better than I have ever done before :)

<3 Claire

I Made It!

I hit the 15 pound mark!!!! I finally put it out there on Facebook and my friends are being so supportive :) This is a huge milestone for me. I never lost this much before when I tried to change my lifestyle. I'm so thrilled!

My next goal is 30 pounds down by my birthday on April 19th. That means another 15 pounds to lose in a month and a half. It won't be easy, and I'll probably have to step it up a notch, but I'm going to do it!

In the meantime, my short term goal is to drop another 5 and be an even 200 pounds. I made a goal chart the first week I started changing my habits. Once I got to 210, I treated myself to some expensive eye shadow from Sephora. When I hit 200, I'll reward myself with a curling rod. I'm not sure if it's the goal chart or the success I've been having, but something is motivating me forward! And I thank God for that :)

Another thing I started was completely eliminating bad things from my diet that I really love. For example, February's was coke. March is ice cream. Things that I don't have every single day, but I really, really enjoy.

So I was logging food this morning on my calorie count profile, and I remembered I had a dream last night where I went out to a restaurant. Then it hit me that it was a nightmare that I had about drinking a coke! Hahaha. I used to LOVE coke. It was my favorite carbonated drink, but for the month of February, I told myself that I would not have any cokes. So I think it's pretty hilarious that I had a nightmare about breaking my deal right at the end of February! I am relieved that it was just a dream, and now I'm wondering what my reaction will be when I finally allow myself to have a coke. Hmmm. I'd be happy if I found it too sweet or not as wonderful as I remember, but we shall see!

<3 Claire

Slow, But Steady Progress

I didn't lose much last week (only a few ounces) because my eating habits had gone bad as I had mentioned in the last post. But just a few days after I got back on track, I lost another pound. This brings my total weight loss to 14.2 pounds! Definitely excited about that. My goal is to bring that total to 15 pounds by next weekend. It's definitely going to be a challenge because it's Mardi Gras here in Louisiana and that means time off of school and king cakes!

I got a great work out in yesterday. Started with weights, switched to Just Dance on the Wii, and ended with a long walk with my dad. I'm insanely sore in my sides and my calves today, and I haven't even attempted to get some exercise in. For now, I'm just strictly monitoring my calories and keeping them under 1500 each day. I'm determined to lose at least 30 pounds before summer...

Speaking of summer, I found the cutest swimsuit top on Old Navy's website a few days ago. It was a black, strapless bandeau top with 3 big ruffles. I haven't worn a bikini top in years because I'm so self-conscious about my stomach. I always wear the long, tankini tops that cover my stomach. So my plan was to buy it in a large (since I'm currently an extra-large) and hang it on my wall to motivate me, but sadly I checked for it yesterday and it was out of stock. Hoping they'll order some more because it is seriously the cutest swimsuit I have found so far!

P.S. If I hit the 15 pound mark, I'll finally go public with it and tell my Facebook friends :)

<3 Claire

Slacking

I was taking it easy the past few days. Eating a few donuts, chocolate chip cookies, french fries - all the deliciously horrible things I had been avoiding so well. But they found me! Pair that up with laziness and you get NO WEIGHT LOSS. Shocker huh? Anyway, today I was determined that wasn't going to happen anymore. I made a quick list of the reasons I've got to stick to it this time. This is what I came up with:

Reasons for Losing Weight

1. I have to be able to get up the stairs to my 4th floor dorm without gasping for air

2. I need my arms to stop going numb while I'm fixing my hair

3. I want to be able to cross my legs like a lady instead of awkwardly sitting like a guy with my ankle on top of my knee

4. There's a super cute plaid shirt in my closet that I can almost button up 

I'm out of my slump and back on track for now. I even chose a Special K Bar over a Snickers Ice Cream Bar! Now that's worth something right? I really need to just focus on one meal at a time instead of overwhelming myself with the idea that I've got a long road ahead of me.

<3 Claire

Progression Pictures

So I thought it would be a good idea to post some pictures so y'all can see the changes as the weeks go by. I apologize in advance because there aren't many. I was so disgusted with my body last year that I hardly took any full body shots at all.

 This is from June 2011 on vacation in Colorado. I was probably around 221 at that time.

This is from October 2011 on Halloween with my two sisters, Caitlyn & Chelsea. I was about 219 then.

This is January 2012 - First day of the new semester. I had just started getting serious at this point. I was roughly 216.

This is February 2012 - Dressed up for an interview. I was finally starting to see a little difference at 210.

Thanks for looking! If you have any suggestions or questions, feel free to tell or ask. 

<3 Claire

Introduction

Hey everybody! My name's Claire, and I'm totally new at this whole blogging thing! I'm 20 years old from a small town in Louisiana. I'm a junior at Southeastern Louisiana University majoring in Business Management with a concentration in Small Business and Entrepreneurship. I've wanted to start one of these for a while now because I wanted to document my weight loss journey. I've struggled with my weight my entire life, but now I'm finally fighting back :)

I had attempted this many times before, but never as seriously as I am now. At the end of 2011, I weighed about 221 (The highest I ever saw on the scale was 227 - Yikes!). Way too much for a 5'5 girl. It's now February, and I'm 208. It hasn't been simple, but it certainly hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be. I can't explain what sparked the beginning of this journey. It was like I woke up one morning over Christmas break and decided enough was enough. I wish I could better describe what happened, but it just felt like something inside of me snapped, and I knew what I had to do.

The first thing I changed was my diet. I used to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it. Clearly, that was not working for me! I got really serious about counting my calories and logging them on caloriecount.about.com. I highly recommend this site, mostly because it's free, but because there are a lot of members to support you, and the website itself gives you an analysis of your intake of nutrients. (If you want to support me on there, my account is chevygal09.) I went from eating pizza rolls, french fries, and cokes to eating strawberries, yogurt, and salad. I'll admit, I'm not crazy strict about what I eat. If I want a chocolate chip cookie one day, I'll allow myself to have one - not 3 like I would have had in the past!

Not only was my diet bad, but I used to be a lazy person. After I graduated from high school, I stopped dancing and therefore stopped exercising. It got to the point where I'd sleep in late, hardly exert any energy all day, and then go back to sleep. Exercise was a big lifestyle change for me, but I quickly found out that I enjoyed some activities. I've been alternating walking, running on the elliptical, Zumba, aerobics, and playing on the Wii. Right now, I'm averaging about a 2 pound weight loss per week, and I'm very happy with that.

That's enough about me for now. I can't wait to share this experience with you. My hope is that I will stay motivated through this blog and that it will inspire just one person to make a change in their own life.

<3 Claire