May Your Way (or The Month I Lost 8.4 Pounds!)

May has gone very much my way for losing weight. I can safely say that this month has been one of the most successful for me in A LONG TIME!! So a big THANK YOU goes to the Sisterhood of Shrinking Jeans for being here to encourage, push, and challenge me to a great weight loss this month.

So here are the stats:

Starting weight 3/25/09: 226.8

Starting weight for challenge: May 1st, 2011 - 201.0

Last week: 195.2

Today's weigh in: June 1st, 2011 - 192.6

so what does this mean? It means I lost a freakin' 8.4 pounds in just a month!!! Even with my set back last week I still managed to lose weight and recover from a few bad days last week, get back on track and pulled out of the slump I was in and I started losing weight again!!

How did I do it, you might ask? Well first of all I set out 3 goals for myself and I stuck to them pretty well, ifIdosaysomyself!

1) Follow a Low Glycemic Index diet (as much as possible): Accomplished I have a list on the side of my fridge of foods that follow the Low Glycemic Food Index and every time I ate something I looked at that list to see if what I was about to eat (or had eaten) followed that plan. I'm a pretty picky eater so my list of foods that are eat-able(yes that's a word!) is not too hard to browse through quickly. I'm also in charge of the cooking and grocery shopping so I pretty much know what is in the house and available to eat! Shockingly, it wasn't that hard to stick to this plan...I don't know why I didn't stick to it 2 years ago. BUT, I'm sticking to it now and that is what matters, right?

2) Exercise a MINIMUM of 30 minutes a day: I admit I missed a few days on this goal but I'm not beating myself up over it. (Shocking, right?) I'm still calling this goal accomplished because the only days that I didn't exercise 30 minutes were not because of laziness. They were simply days that things like caring for a family got in the way. That Kid moved back home this month, my hubby has finally gotten extremely busy with work, therefore making me busier cuz he can't help out as much and then this weekend That Other Kid got sick. I still have managed to exercise MOST days this month and that has certainly helped me lose weight!

3) Track food and exercise on MyFitness Pal/Livestrong: Accomplished
Yes indeed, every day this month I have tracked my food into My Daily Plate. There were a few days that it was not pretty and I really didn't want to record those brownies bananas that I ate, but I did it anyway. It was very eye opening, too. We eat out one fast food meal a week and those nights I got online and checked out the food choices that I wanted to eat. There was one week I went to 3 different places just so I could get something that wouldn't blow my plan out of the water!! And did you know that a hot fudge sundae from Sonic (yum Sonic) has 342 calories?? It was soooo not worth it so I TURNED IT DOWN, thankyouverymuch!! And did you know that a huge salad that you make at home only has around 60 calories without dressing?? That has been a huge help in keeping my weight going down this week, because I've had a salad nearly every night!!

My final goal that I set up for this month was to lose 11 pounds so that I could be at 190 pounds by today, BUT I felt this was a pretty unrealistic goal for myself. I'm not holding this against me because although I had set out to lose 11 pounds this is the first month this year that I have actually lost a decent amount of weight! I'm counting this as a "mostly accomplished" goal since I lost 8.4 pounds this month and that was even with having a gain last week!

I also found I was having a harder time getting a decent amount of sleep so I added a goal of getting to bed by 1 am and getting at least 7 hrs of sleep. There were a few nights that I didn't get to bed by 1 am but if I didn't I made sure I managed to sleep enough to get my 7 hrs or more of sleep. One night this weekend I think I got about 4 hours of sleep but that was because That Other Kid was sick and kept waking up....he's better now but still has a cough and a stuffy nose...allergies suck is all I can say about that!!

So...overall, I am very pleased with the way May has gone and I'm happy to be 8.4 pounds lighter than I was a month ago!! I had fun participating in SisterChats and the SisterSays challenges. This week's challenge was to try new fitness/exercise - I did a couple of different things; I did a 30 minute Nike Training Club app routine and I did a Netflix Instant dvd exercise routine - Dance off the Inches - Fat Burning Jam. It was nice to push myself in a different direction with these exercises although That Kid thought my "dance" moves were a bit goofy! But that's what he gets for coming through the living room while I'm exercising! lol

I missed the SisterChat this week and for that I am bummed. I heard it was just Mary and one other lady so apparently everyone else was busy or forgot too! It was nice to sit down and chat with my sisters for a bit and I got lots of laughs and a lot of information too! I hope this feature hangs around cuz I need this!!

I did manage to do #Tworkout every week this month...even the week the Dallas area was hit was tornados and everyone was telling me to get to shelter!! See I'm telling you the love is thick around here!! I did head to one of our bathrooms and I took my phone so I could keep up with everyone and the weather! I did the tworkout mostly on my own that week but at least I did it, right??!!

All in all it was a great month and a super week! I hope you guys have had a great May and are looking forward to a wonderful summer! It's already stinkin' hot here in Texas so I'm looking for things to do INSIDE or late at night! I'm also checking out the apartment complex pools to see if any of them are clean enough for us to use this summer so we don't have to go to the community pool and pay money to use them!

Hugs!!!