Vacation is Over

For the last 10 days I have been enjoying what is as close to a vacation as I get these days. Anyone with small kids knows that you never really get the mental or physical break from attending to your children's every need. I did enjoy a trip to see old friends in Gettysburg, a week off with Jason, and some priceless smiles and squeals from my kids . But, what you are really wondering is if I stuck with my healthy eating this week, right?
I seriously debated on whether or not I was going to strictly adhere to my eating plan or just vacation from all aspects of my life. I opted for the latter, with the assumption that I would enjoy eating with everyone else. I loved the fact that we all ate together and that I wasn't the annoying "dieter" out of the group. That was about it though. I really didn't love, no less enjoy, much of anything I ate. True, at this point of our life eating out consists of pizza, burgers, and Mexican fast food, so it's not exactly a sophisticated pallet.
I had two or three disciplined days thrown into the mix simply out of desperation. There were some days I felt so drained from eating so much processed, sugary foods. The moral of the story for me...vacationing from my healthy eating wasn't worth it! The end result: I added on two pounds. I'm pretty sure it will come off quickly. But, if I had stuck to my calorie restrictions and healthy food choices I would probably be down another pound or two.
Next time I'm faced with the question of whether or not to vacation from healthy eating I need to remind myself of how I felt last week. How it wasn't worth it. If I'm going to break the bank with calories I need to make sure it's really worth it. It needs to be something a little more fabulous than pizza and nachos.

Body Types

Maybe it’s your thighs, your stomach, or your upper arms. Regardless of where it is, many of us have at least one area that makes us feel self conscious because it isn’t as lean and toned as we’d like it to be – a problem area where stubborn fat gathers and stays.
When we try to lose weight we tend to focus on our problem areas and sometimes we get frustrated that we haven't seen a change. It seems we lose weight in every spot but the one we notice the most. Is it really possible to target those fat gathering locations and lose weight in one particular area of your body?
Here's what I found out: It is a myth that it's possible to cause your body to lose fat from only a certain area. You can tone a specific area with exercises, but you cannot cause your body to burn fat in one specific location. When we lose weight, we lose it all over. Fat comes off gradually from all over our body, not just a few selected spots.
Imagine with me. Remember when I used the analogy that a pound of fat is like a pound of butter? Well, every time I walk and am sweating I imagine the fat is melting off all the parts of my body, just as a stick of butter would melt. As the stick of butter melts it gets smaller, but it always retains its original shape.
Under all our layers of fat, whether it's 20 pounds or 10o pounds, we have a shape. My shape happens to be a rectangle. That means when I put on extra weight it gets focused from my thighs to my shoulders in a geometric shape that offers no rooms for waistlines and curves. It also means that when I finish losing weight I still will not have a waist line...bummer!
Keep your body shape in mind as you are losing weight so you don't get discouraged. I guarantee that as you lose weight over your entire body you will be happy with the results! You can't change your body type, but you can change the size and tone of your body. And to all the other rectangles out there...here's to wide belts!

Goodbye Size 10

Hello size 8! I have lost another pound, which makes the grand total of my weight loss 9 pounds. 5 weeks ago when I put my foot down and decided that I was going to finally lose 20 pounds I did a little research. How many pounds do you really need to lose before you drop a dress size?
I don't know why a woman's size is still measured by dresses, but I do know that the information seems to be pretty accurate. If you are currently wearing a size 12 or under, you need to lose 8 to 10 pounds to go down a notch. If you are a size 14 or up you would typically need to lose about 25 pounds. That seems pretty unfair to me, but part of the reason is because starting at 14 there is a 2 inch difference between sizes, as opposed to a 1 inch differential in sizes 12 and under.
So, now that I've lost enough weight I can actually comfortably wear most of my wardrobe! I just have to laugh at myself for buying those jeans that really didn't fit me in the hopes that it would encourage me to lose weight. Has anyone else ever done that? Bad idea!
The last time I weighed the same as I do now was in August of 2004. It was almost a year after I had Colin and Liam and I was very determined to lose weight. I was also in the wedding of a dear friend which was fantastic motivation! Notice the picture, I'm the third one from the front.
I'd encourage you all to come up with a timeline, or an "event motivator" to spark your weight loss or keep it going. My next motivator is starting back at work full time. In 3 weeks I rejoin the work force and I would love to lose 2 more pounds for my first day. What big events or milestones do you have coming up that will encourage you to get serious about shedding your unwanted pounds? A pound here, a pound there, and before you know it you're down a dress size!