short and to the point

Hey Everybody, So its a new year. I am focusing and RE-starting my weight loss journey. For Christmas my sister payed for me to go to the "core" classes that the ymca offers that I've been wanting to do for so long. I was getting really frustrated because i wasn't able to make my work schedule what it needed to be to be able to take any classes. Then I got frustrated because my mom and i were supposed to take the Zumba class together and I was really excited about that but then she backed out. SO NOW I'm back into what I was focusing on when I started this journey a year ago. I AM DOING THIS FOR ME AND NOBODY ELSE!! I am going to get my butt back to the gym on a regular basis. AND I also received from my sister for Christmas a couple of books on blogging. So hopefully I'll learn about a few new creative ways to keep this blog up to date and interesting. :) I'm also going to Boston with my sister to see our other "sister" at the end of the month.... it will be my first time on a plane and I'm terrified but completely excited as well. So that is just a little information on what is going on with me and now I have to get my butt to work. Soooo.... I'm gonna go and hope all of you are back on board with me... OH I almost forgot to mention that one of my places of employment is having a "biggest loser" competition. :) I don't know if there's any prizes or anything but we just had to sign up and put (if we wanted) what our starting weight was and how much we plan to lose by April 1st. I said I was going to lose 20 pounds in 3 months so I better get to it :D ok really thats all. BYES

Hi

Hello Everybody,

I'm BAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCkkkkkkkkkk!!!!!!!!!!!! I've actually missed you all. You may not believe me because I have the power to write or not write in this blog. But honestly I have and I've done alot of thinking today and I wanted to share it with you.

But first I would like to just let you know part of the reason I haven't written in here for so long. LIfe for my family has been kind of crazy at the end of October beginning of November. My dad has been having problems at work and as of right now has not been working for 3 weeks. Also just after we found out he wouldn't be working we found out that 3 cousins from my mom's family all died very tragically and we're all still trying to cope with that. I'm not telling you this as an excuse I'm just saying life has been crazy and I wasn't/ haven't been very good at fitting my workouts and healthy eating into that crazy and hectic life. Unfortuantly it doesn't end there. My mom has also been having some health problems and had to have surger a week ago yesterday and it did not go quite as planned it went well but the recovery process is going to take a little longer than any of us planned on so I have been trying to work as much as possible as well as helping my dad around the house and taking care of my mom while also grieving the losses we had in our family. On the "brighter" side of things I did finally get under 200 pounds :D and even though I was not making it to the gym in the last couple of weeks I did not gain any weight :)

Now as far as my weightloss goes, like I said I did get under 200 pounds I've been staying pretty steady at 198-199 but thats ok I'm very excited about this. In addition, you may (or probably may not) remember that when I started my journey I was in a size 24 clothing. I'm pretty much at a steady size 18 now depending on the clothes. However here is the exciting part I wanted to buy a new shirt for the funerals we had and I work at lane bryant and we had just gotten a beautiful new shirt in. It literally wasn't even on the floor yet I was hanging them when my shift ended and I grabbed one up in the normal size 18 that I had been wearig and guess what..... IT WAS TOO BIG!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I bought the size 14-16 :D I was so super excited. And it's totally cute/beautiful. I'm in love with it. If I could get away with it I would want to wear it every single day of the week. lol.

I went back to the gym for the first time since October 29th on Monday. I was a little dissapointed in my workout but I figured I had been out of the gym for so long I would just have to get used to it again. I was a lot weaker than I thought I would be and tired out a lot faster as well. I did my normal half hour warm up on the eliptical but silly me I got on one without a tv figuring I had my book to read but I finished the book in the first ten minutes then got completely bored the rest of the twenty minutes so it really dragged. Then I went to do my weights and was really not into it I have been making my goal of 3 reps of fifteen on all my weights. I only got through like one or two reps then I left :/ However I did go back on Wednesday and had an amazing workout. I started with my half hour on the eliptical and did the weightloss program which was an excellent workout I felt. It would start me off with a low incline and crossramp then wam flip me up to a high incline and cross ramp and it just kept going back and forth like that for the whole half hour. Then I did my arm weights, the full 3 reps of fifteen on EVERYTHING. THen I did my two leg weight machines and attempted to jog a lap around the track in between my machines and it felt great but I don't know if I was going super faster than I normally do or if I was just that out of shape but when I got done I felt like I was going to die so I didn't do another lap like I usually do or probably should have :( But then after ALL THAT I went over to the mats and balance balls and did my crunches. This is something I really feel like I need to do more of becuase my stomach is the slowest place I see changes happening. So I definently want to start incorporating more of these into my workouts. So I got into my "MAN IN THE MIRROR" song and did my 3 reps of 15 crunches then continued going till I couldn't go anymore. Then I was smart and stretched my stomach so it wouldn't hurt super bad today and proceeded to starbucks to have some warm vanilla milk and do some reading.... IT was an amazing night :D I felt great afterward and feel great today and my stomach just has a tiny ache to remind me of how great I did yesterday.

Last but not least I would like to fill you all in on some thinking I was doing earlier today. This morning I wrote the prayer for thanksgiving dinner. I feel with all the difficult times my family has been having lately I was very inspired in this prayer that I wrote. Anyways in writing this prayer it got me thinking about what I was thankful for this year seeing as Thanksgiving is the time that we think about what we're thankful for and who would we be thankful to other than God? So I just wanted to share with all of you that the thing I am most thankful for this year is my weightloss journey. I feel like I have learned alot and I finally took matters into my own hands and finally made the change in my life that is not temporary but permanent. You see for so many years in the past I have prayed and wished (I feel are the same thing) for two things. 1. TO lose my weight. and 2. To have a boyfriend. and yes I do know how silly that sounds :) So I do find myself thanking GOd on a regular basis for finally helping me make this wish/prayer come true. I would also like to thank all of you for being on this journey with me I'm going to try to do some research on some other blogs and see what I can come up with to help me get on here on a more regular basis. THANK YOU ALLL hopefully we'll talk soon!!!

BYE- Kelly Jo

grocery shopping and calorie counter.... oh and

Hey everybody, So I know I know I haven't beeen on here for once again... FOREVER!!!! :( I just don't feel like I have a whole lot to say. So I'll tell you what I have. SO my mom and I recently got together to do some tweeking with my eating habits. Since my work schedules have been so crazy latley I have been doing alot of eating out which anybody who's ever attempted a weightloss journey knows is no good. I've been telling me mom I'm all for packing my lunches which would inevitably be much healthier and in the long run much cheaper. So my mom asked me to give her an example of a menu for three days. Three options of meals and snacks that I would normally eat on a regular basis and what I would need grocery wise to make that happen. Then we made a list of all those ingredients and I have been given the task of finding out the *first calorie count *then later the fat sodium fiber etc etc of all these items and tonight my mom and I went grocery shopping to get a bunch of stuff. It was actually kind of nice. Now I just have to put the work in. I'm supposed to be searching for my calories right now but I figured I haven't done this in a long time and it is an element of my weightloss journey so.... here I am.


Also I have been making a point of getting to the gym more often. I had a couple of great workouts last week. Full hours on the cardio equipment and extensive weight workouts. I was feeling great but then tonight I went to the gym and was just completely and utterly not into working out and only to make things worse I seem to want to eat everything in site and greasy things sound even better. ugh I hate it when i feel like this.

One last thing... I just saw on facebook that two of my favorites from season 9 just got engaged :D I'm very happy and excited for them. They're both great people, worked hard and deserve all the happiness they've found.

Ok so I'm going to go do some calorie searching. Ya'll have a great night.....

SEE YA KELLY