Post Baby Weigh In Week 1: A Huge First Step!

I have AMAZING news! 

Tonight I stepped onto that scale at my weight loss competition and I lost SIX pounds. 

This was my exact reaction:

"Um. That has to be wrong. Yup, I'm sure that's wrong"

My Coach: "Nope, it's not wrong...you lost 6.2lbs!"

I am honestly in utter amazement. What a great feeling to start off my new journey!

Now, I know a lot of it may be "water weight" or whatever...but I am going to celebrate it like it's six pounds of pure fat! I'm so over the top excited!!

So that's it for my first weigh in on this journey. I am SO PUMPED!

I don't care.

The title of this probably makes me sound like I am some crazy insensitive person. And after I write this you make think I am....but...I don't really care :)

Being a mom has taught me so much. People like to give their opinions on everything from sleeping to eating to pooping. And while some of this advice is friendly and loving and caring, some of it is simply not. You learn pretty quickly as a mom that you have one of two options:

1. You allow others thoughts or feelings about you affect you and get you down 

-or-

2. You simply don't care.

Not caring includes ignoring, letting the words "roll of your shoulder" or just simply stating politely "Thanks, but I think for MY family we have found that some other options work best!"

This attitude can be applied to so many things in our lives. A nasty coworker that is intent on bringing you down, a grumpy grocery store clerk that is angry at your coupon usage, a nasty family member who tends to live on the negative side of life. 

Now I am not saying that I am anyway near not caring about what people think of me...but I AM saying that it's a new goal of mine :)

Guess what? At the end of the day it's YOUR life and theres only one person that has to live with your decisions: you. So why don't you start today at taking steps to make YOU happy and not care what anyone else thinks? I know I am!

Looking Forward

Tomorrow is my first weigh in through this weight loss competition. I'm excited and nervous all at the same time. A lot of me wants to think don't expect much, but then again I don't want to get myself down or discouraged. I had a fairly rough week this week but I do have to reward myself and say it's been the best week of eating in the last 5 months. And that's what counts right? There's no way I'm going to go from all or nothing. I'm learning how to adapt to a whole new post-pregnancy, nursing mother, out of shape body. 

Right now I'm not counting calories and just focusing on eating nutritious, which I think is a great, long term route to go. I will always allow myself a treat or two once in a while because in the past if I ever tried not to I just ended up bingeing. 

I remember one of the key aspects to my past weight lost journey was remembering to never give up. Even if I had days, or weeks where I consumed massive amounts of unhealthy calories, I put it behind me and looked forward and asked myself: how can I make the next eating decision a healthy one- from this moment on?

My pledge:

I will not start to tomorrow, or next week. I will start now. I will not give it up and say the day or week is ruined. I will make the choice to make my next decision a healthy one, no matter what!

It's all about the money

I would love to say I'm not a person that could be pulled into anything and completely motivated by a chunk of change, but if I said that I'd simply be lying. Being a stay at home mom means living on one income- which means spending cash is few and far between. So when I heard about a local weight loss competition in my area that promoted a cash prize for the biggest loser, I knew I had to be a part of it. 

I actually heard about this competition a little over a year ago when I had already lost the 35lbs and was working my way down. At that point I thought it would be fun, but I also knew that I was close to my goal weight already and I didn't probably have enough to lose to make it worth my while. 

So maybe I can think of it as a positive thing that now I have weight to lose? haha. It is definitely serving as the motivation I need in order to get my butt in gear!

The cool thing about this competition is that it's actually a nutrition "class." It lasts 12 weeks and each week we learn something new about healthy eating. This week's topic was protein! I will never say no to an opportunity to learn something new, especially when it has to do with a subject so close to my heart (or belly) :)

The best thing I think is that the competition and class only cost $35! That seems like a steal to me since I am an ex- Weight Watcher that was easily throwing $40 bucks a month away and eating mine and my friends share of points! (I think WW is awesome and a totally amazing program, just not for me)

I weighed in last Wednesday night, got my measurements, and "before" pictures taken. I am so pumped about this new 12 week journey! 

Is anybody out there?!

Hello to whoever happens to still subscribe to this blog. I wrote a while back that I would be taking a break from the losing weight game to focus on growing a human inside me. Well guess what? That human finally appeared...on my birthday! March 17th, 2011, my baby boy Haden Carter was born into this world:

What an amazing feeling becoming a mom is! My kiddo is now 5 months old:

How cute is that?!

:) it's been an amazing 5 months and although I would have loved to keep up with the blogging thing throughout and capture all these amazing moments...I had a newborn...so yeah! I'm sure all you other parents can sympathize. 

The one not so lovely thing that has appeared in my life is the awesome pregnancy weight that decided to stick around! Thanks to a lovely 9 months of "indulging" myself (all for the little guy of course) I am now up a good 20lbs from where I started from last summer. But that's ok! Because guess what? I lost 35lbs before I got pregnant, and by golly, I CAN DO IT AGAIN!

So welcome, or welcome back, to my journey as I hope to lose the "baby" weight and get back on track to my lost but not forgotten healthy life!

(if you are reading shout hello! I'd love to hear from you!)