Officially Forty Pounds, GONE.

Drumroll, please...

Since April of this year, I have lost 40 pounds. My start weight was 283. Today, I weigh 243.

-confetti-

Jillian Micheal's 30 Day Shred: Day One

I first encountered Jillian Michaels on Level Two of my Biggest Loser Cardio Max DVD. I liked her exercises of choice, and they always kick my butt. Lots of butt kicks involved, so take that last sentence quite literally... I've never owned one of her solo DVDs, and so I bought 30 Day Shred because I liked her segments in my Biggest Loser DVDs and I saw nothing but rave reviews for the 30 Day Shred.

I'm heading to Florida in 30 days, so hopefully... the boast on the front of the DVD comes true: "Lose up to 20 pounds in 30 days!" I'd love to be twenty pounds thinner, and more than halfway to this year's weight loss goal by mid-August. I'd be going on vacation slimmer and trimmer, and also back to school in a smaller, healthier, and more fit body. That will be excellent and I am thrilled with the DVD so far.

There are three workouts on the DVD, denoted by level of intensity. Today was my first day with the DVD, so naturally, I started with Level One. Each level is a twenty minute workout which includes a two minute warm-up, three sets of 3-2-1 Strength, then Cardio, then Ab circuits, and then a two minute cool-down.

The circuits are hard enough to be challenging, and I love that you move on to the next exercise before getting tired of the one you're doing, but then revisit that exercise before the circuit is complete. Let me explain: each circuit consists of three minutes of Strength exercises, two minutes of Cardio exercises, and one minute of Ab exercises. Jillian keeps you motivated and moving through the exercises so you never feel like you're doing too many squats or not enough. It's just the right amount, and by moving from exercise to exercise fluidly and quickly, I never got bored.

(You may think it's hard to get bored in only twenty minutes, but trust me, I've done enough workout DVDs that you very well can get bored with an exercise in that amount of time.)

I like Jillian's attitude, she's hard on you, but as she repeats throughout the DVD, she's promising results that would take you hours and hours in the gym pounding a treadmill, in twenty minutes a day. She doesn't allow you to take breaks, because she wants to get the most out of you in the twenty minutes she has you there to work out. I like that! I like that I'm kept intensely exercising for the whole twenty minutes, and I'm not feeling worn or too tired because she keeps me moving so quickly from exercise to exercise. At one point, during a set of jumping jacks, she says that there are no modifiers for the jumping jacks because she gets 400 pound people to do jumping jacks. That made my arms and legs fly even faster because I weigh half of that and am only twenty-two years old, so I knew I could do it, and it pushed me to stop half-assing the jumping jacks as my lazy body was trying to do, and push harder!

I'm very excited about this DVD, I think it will kick start my exercising back into high gear and will also push me past my weight loss plateau to lose my next twenty pounds!

naughty neglecting

Wow, I have completely neglected this blog and that saddens me because I really intended to map my progress, my emotions, my drives, any failures, etc. of my journey to happiness and healthiness. But it seems that now that exercising daily and eating better are more or less routine, I find it hard to blog about these processes.

However, I have started making video blogs on Youtube again, a past time I gave up when I could no longer stand how I looked on camera. But now I'm back at it and although I'm not as regular at it as I had intended, I am enjoying making the videos and interacting with the people who watch them and comment on them. Some of them describe my methods of weight loss, so feel free to drop by my Youtube channel for more hints and tricks and to physically see weight loss happening before your very eyes. :D

http://www.youtube.com/GinaKnoxville

In other news, I have some quick comparison photos I took last night that I can share with you:

This illustrates how that purple shirt fit me back in April of this year, and how that same shirt fits me now. You can see how long it is now that my boobs and tummy are smaller. And yes, I realize the khaki pants in the more recent picture are really baggy, but when I bought those, I actually had a proficient muffin top when I wore them, and although the legs were baggy they weren't THAT baggy. I wish I had taken pictures of me wearing those pants when I first bought them early this year.

Here are comparison shots of how my workout clothes fit me back in April and how they fit me now. You can see the drastic change in the size of my thighs and the muscles of my calves. Also, my butt is more muscular and lifted, and notice in the recent pics how I'm pulling the shirt tight, whereas in April, it hung loosely around me and was meeting my body. Now I have to pull it taut to get the same effect. Also, the shoulders of the shirt are halfway down my arm as opposed to resting on my shoulder like they did back in April.

So I'm keeping up the good work! Some new tactics I am going to try are fitting a salad into every week, if not a few times a week, and I'm going to do Jillian Micheal's Thirty Day Shred DVD series, and I'm doing a beginner belly dancing class. I'll be sure to update with the progress!

Youtubage

So I've decided to take my happiness and healthiness journey to Youtube. I'm doing a Video a Day in July (VADJ, lol) and doing daily video blogs. A majority of them will be pertaining to my weight loss journey and my goal of becoming happier and healthier. Check it out if you want!

http://www.youtube.com/GinaKnoxville

I'm keeping up the great work, and my weight loss tally is up to 37 pounds! Got quite a few to go, but I'll get there.

Update!

Damn, I'm looking GOOD.

That is all. :)

Long way to go still, but I'm loving the journey and the joy it's brought me.

re-adjusting

I've been holding steady at my current weight for the past few weeks. I haven't gained any weight, but I'm also not losing much. Plateaus are a fact of weight loss, there will be periods where the weight won't fall off like it had done previously. I'm just disappointed that it happened only 30 pounds into my weight loss regime.

I've also noticed a few of my old habits trying to sneak back into my life, and I'm stopping them in their tracks today. For the past few days, I've been staying up later, which is a no-no, and I've been eating a bowl of cereal every night before bed, another no-no. Those habitual problems are down the drain. Eating before bed makes it harder to sleep because instead of resting, your body is digesting the food and then of course your metabolism is down while you're sleeping, so nothing is being burned off, it's just being left on your body all night.

This leads to my detrimental habits of sleeping for ten+ hours, not feeling rested, rolling out of bed and running into work, eating haphazardly. This isn't going to happen. The thirty pounds are staying off, and seventy more are going to follow.

I'm excited, looking forward to a happier and healthier me that is down the road. I look at pictures of girls and I realize that I will eventually look how I want, and I will feel confident and be able to smile and glow like they do. I'm not looking at them and wanting to have their body, oh no, I'm looking at them and I want their confidence! I want someone to be able to take a picture of me, and I can smile and not worry about looking like a walrus in the picture. I can't wait for that day to get here, and I know it's within my grasp.

There's a lot of work ahead, but I've made it this far. I'm not turning back now. This plateau is not going to trip me up. I'm running right past it and continuing up!

My plans to get over the plateau:
Work out BEFORE work and on my dinner break at work. I've been skipping my workout before work, and I think that early boost to my metabolism is very important and greatly enhanced my weight loss, so I have to get back on it.

I'm not eating before bed, and starting my day with a quick breakfast such as toast or yogurt or fruit. Eating breakfast is very important. It doesn't have to be anything heavy, just a quick bite to break the fast from sleeping. I've been skipping breakfast, so I have to start eating breakfast again.

Other than those things, I'm going to stick to the path I'm on, and just do harder workouts, since my normal workouts aren't working me as well.

Onward and upward! :D

day fifty-two: time flies when you're having fun!

I can't believe I have been going steady and strong on the road to happiness and health for 52 days now. Edging closer and closer to two months, which will bring me closer and closer to three months, four, six, a year! It's getting harder and harder to keep track of how many days this has been going on because it's become a lifestyle, it's become the way I live, and that was the goal all along.

However, I must confess... last weekend has thrown my sleeping schedule a bit off course, and I'm struggling to get back on track. I haven't been waking up with enough time to work out in the mornings, but have been maintaining my lunch break workouts in the evenings. Tomorrow is Friday and yet another weekend will then be upon me and I will stick to my sleeping, eating, and exercising schedule through the weekend.

I have plenty of projects to keep me busy over the weekend (I'm re-decorating my bathroom as a tribute to a trip to London and Liverpool, England, I took a few years back complete with a London-themed shower curtain, framed photos from my trip, and a Mind the Gap sign. It's going to be magnificent!) and I'm also planning on going clothes shopping and maybe getting my hair cut. It's starting to become bothersome, especially when I work out and my hair gets sweaty and falls in my face, so I'm planning on getting it cut over the weekend.

Through all of that, I have to fit in at least one workout a day, and stick to eating home-made, healthy meals, at a set schedule. Otherwise everything gets thrown off track and I start slipping and sliding down that scary slope toward my bad habits. Just this week I've eaten out numerous times: once at Puerto Vallerta, and twice at Subway. And I even slid through the Arby's drive thru on the way to work one day this week because I hadn't eaten before leaving, thinking I wouldn't be hungry, and I was as soon as my car hit the highway. So I had a Grillen Chicken Salad Wheat Wrap at Arby's, and was quite proud at resisting the urge to get curly fries and a soda with it.

But it was still a bad/lazy decision to eat fast food. I have to pull the reigns back on myself, plan my meals, and stick to the plan, as I have been doing, instead of wasting money eating calorie- and fat-filled food at fast food places. NO more. I'm through with fast food, I'm sticking to my guns.

This morning for breakfast I had a yogurt and then for lunch I made a salad with grilled chicken on it. It was delicious. I had ranch dressing with it, but I just put the ranch on the side and dipped the bottom of my fork into it before spearing my food with the fork. I do that so I don't use hardly any ranch dressing and I refrain from just pouring it onto my veggies and drowning them in excess fat and calories, which is all ranch dressing is (hence it's tastiness). The salad made me feel so good and I could feel my body almost heaving a sigh of relief at getting fresh and wholesome calories and nutrients instead of stuff prepared at fast food places.

Side Note: The food I chose at the fast food places was not that horrible. Veggie subs both times at Subway and the Grilled Chicken Wheat Wrap at Arby's. I had steak fajitas at Puerto Vallerta. However, for my wallet's and body's sake, fast food is back on the no-no list and I'm avoiding it at all costs.

I have some friends possibly coming over to help me paint some picture frames and hang them in my bathroom as a sort of "project party" and I'm going to make sure I have enough food around to feed them so the urge to run to a restaurant doesn't happen. If everyone gets hungry, I could throw together something quick and easy for them to munch on. That's the plan. I'm avoiding restaurants! All it takes is a little planning to stay on track, and I am the master of planning.

So there's a little update. I haven't died. I haven't given up. Me and my goals are going strong! Viva la HEALTH AND HAPPINESS.