Am I Really That Fat?

I have the mindset that ignorance is bliss. I rarely take photos of myself - and even more rarely take photos of my whole body.

While we were on vacation a week or so ago, my youngest said she wanted me to ride an amusement ride with her. She chose the teacups (ugh!). I got on and noticed that I didn't fit very well. There wasn't much room between me and the spinny thing. No worries... she's little. She won't want the cup to spin very much. I noticed my husband, on the sidelines, had my camera in his hands. When I got off, I looked at the photos. Yikes. I should blow them up and use them as inspiration (too late though... I deleted them!).

I really AM one of the fat girls. I used to be so little. So skinny. So petite. Yeah... not anymore. But hopefully that will change and next year, I'll fit into the teacups a little better.

Random Thoughts

Last night, I had two bowls of Frosted Flakes. When I am going to get it through my head that I am not going to lose weight eating Frosted Flakes at 10:00 at night. But they're so, so good. I have no willpower whatsoever.

The good news is I've lost about 5 pounds in the past couple of weeks. The better news is I only gained back a pound while being on vacation at the inlaws last week. I've been doing fairly well with my walking. I only took one "planned" walk while on vacation, but I was on my feet a lot and managed to make quite a few steps every day.

A couple of weeks ago, I ran to the grocery store. As I walked in, I noticed a lady putting her groceries in her car. The lady was my high school boyfriend's mother. I could not let her see me. When I used to make out with her son (19 or so years ago), I was approximately 100 pounds lighter. ONE HUNDRED POUNDS. How disgusting is that? I could hear the conversation in my head... "Guess who I ran into? Boy, has she gotten fat. Her kids are cute, but her... wow! She's really let herself go." Granted she was (and I assume still is) a really nice lady, so maybe it wouldn't go quite like that.

And my 20 year high school reunion is coming up in another year. That's another motivation to lose weight. At my ten year reunion, I had just lost quite a bit of weight. I was probably about 60 pounds lighter than I am now. That's how I'd like to be in a year... if not more.

Walking Log Update... no soda... and a new goal

I turned in my pedometer numbers last night - my average amount of steps for the past week was 4,903. Not too bad considering one day I only had 1,294 steps because of the bronchitis that I was suffering. I'm supposed to try for an average of 5,303 steps this week (an increase of 500), plus walk a minimum of 10 minutes five times this week. Shouldn't be too hard. We went on a mile hike yesterday (helped me walk over 7,000 steps yesterday) and I did take a 15 minute walk today. The program is really designed to help people not gain weight (since the average adult gains 1-2 pounds a year). I hope it will help me lose weight.

I finished the diet coke that I had in the house and now I'm not buying any more. I did this as a new year's resolution and I did pretty well - until about a month ago. I bought soda for guests or something and became hooked once again. When the grocery store had a 5 packs for $10 deal a few weeks back, I couldn't pass up the deal. So now I'm only going to drink water at home (and the occasional beer or glass of wine). I will allow myself to drink it when I am out of the house, but that should only be a couple of times a week. Not the 3-4 habit that I was experiencing during these last few weeks.

My latest goal is to try to lose 18 pounds in the next nine weeks. Can I do it???

How many steps a day?

A friend of mine passed on an email with information on an 18-month university research project that is trying to get inactive adults (that's me!) to improve their nutrition, be more active through walking and not gain weight (that comes directly from their web site). I signed up right away. With it, I got a pedometer and a digital scale. I've been wearing the pedometer for about five days. It's quite interesting. I have certainly realized that I do not walk enough. My number of steps ranged from 1300 to 7500. Yikes. I've been sick with broncitis and the low number shows yesterday when I just layed around and did nothing.

I'm supposed to keep track of my steps for about a week and then report back in. The program includes a walking program and a nutritional program. We shall see... hopefully it will help.

The program is www.guide-to-health.com if you are interested in looking into it. At the moment, they are not taking new participants but that may change.