293.0

I'm pretty shocked! I can't lie. My Weight Watchers group didn't meet last week, so today was the first time I've weighed in two weeks. During those two weeks, I haven't been the best at staying on track. I've stumbled a lot. Alas, I lost 3.8 pounds (bringing my total weightloss to 7.4). No complaints here!

Joseph and I are meeting with a personal trainer tonight. No, we didn't win the lottery, and we won't be meeting with a trainer on a regular basis. The gym we joined gives new members an hour with a trainer to go over how to use the equipment properly and whatnot. I'm hoping he'll be able to give us some good advice on how to work out most effectively so we can lose weight and tone our muscles.

Thank you for your continued prayers and encouragement! I really appreciate you!

A Good Hour

Joseph and I just returned from the gym. We've kind of sort of joined Pivotal Fitness. It offers everything we want/need, and we don't even really have to leave our neighborhood to reach our destination. Their facilities are really convenient for us.

We met with one of their managers yesterday after work, and we talked a little about our goals. It's a little difficult for me looking at someone and saying "I need to lose 150 pounds", but I know I'll never reach my goals if I'm not honest about them. If I had said something ridiculous like "I need to lose 20 pounds", he probably would have called me on the carpet anyway!

The manager told us it's a good idea to do about 7-10 minutes worth of cardio, then weights, then another 30-45 minutes of cardio. He said we'll achieve a better workout that way. So that's what we did today! Well, we did 7 minutes of cardio, weights, and then 20 minutes of cardio. I wussed out and didn't feel up to pushing myself through those last 10 minutes. Maybe next time we'll do 25 and then 30 the next time. We'll reach that point!

I feel really good right now. I know I just did a good thing for my body. I know I just honored the Lord with how I spent my time, because He has charged me with the task of caring for my earthly body. I also was able to spend some good, quality time with my husband. All in all, a good hour!

296.8

I'm trying not to be discouraged about gaining .8 pounds. I'm sure I'm just bloated or something. It could even be a difference in the clothes I was wearing. It still stings a little. I know I messed up a few times over the week (sigh ... Billy Barou, I still love you), but I still felt like we were successful overall.

We've kept up our streak of cooking dinner every night. We're up to almost 2 weeks straight! Again, as I've mentioned before, this is REALLY good for us! I acknowledge that has been a positive change. The only times we ate fast food were when we ate healthy options from Chick-fil-a (the chargrilled chicken and fruit salad ... so good and only 7 points for the salad, crunchy, yummy granola, and fat free honey mustard dressing).

We also went to the gym and worked out 4 times. That was 4 times more than we've been in the last, hmmm, oh, I'd say at least 6 or 7 months.

So we're doing OK! I can shed that extra weight in no time if I stick to the plan this week.

One of my goals this go 'round is to be more forgiving of myself. Not forgiving to the point of making excuses to do anything I want, but forgiving enough that I can make a mistake and move on. If I gave in to temptation and ate snacks at community group, I'm going to acknowledge where I could have planned ahead and try to learn from it.

In the past, I've let my mistakes pile up on me and turn into excuses to make more mistakes, which just ultimately resulted in me giving up on the diet completely. I don't want to do that this time.

As I was walking to my car after work today, I had an idea that I might pursue. I think I'm going to make a weight loss box. It will contain things such as pictures and lists of reasons I want to lose weight. When I'm feeling discouraged and want to quit the diet, I'm going to pull out my box and remind myself why I'm dieting in the first place.

If I go through with my plan for the box, I'll post some photos and whatnot that will give you a glimpse inside the box (Doesn't that sound thrilling? I don't mean that sarcastically ... I love it when people offer me glimpses inside boxes!).

296.0

I attended a Weight Watchers meeting today and had my first week weigh-in. I've lost 4.4 pounds. Not too bad, huh? (Joseph has lost 6.8! I'm SO proud of him!)

I confess that I didn't stick to the WW plan 100% this past week. Joseph and I talked about it some, and we felt like stressing over sticking to the plan just wouldn't work for us. We knew that if we grew unhappy about our diet (lifestyle change?), we would just quit after a few weeks. We don't want that to happen.

So we decided to focus on one big change last week: planning ahead and preparing our meals at home. I'm convinced one of the main reasons we've both gained so much weight over the last year is because we relied pretty heavily on fast food. As of tonight, we will have prepared dinner at home 5 nights in a row, which is really good for us! We've also been packing lunch boxes every day with snacks and lunches. That works well for us.

I think our week 2 focus is going to be exercising. We went to the gym this evening, and we have passes for 4 more days for free. If it seems like something we could continue easily, I think we'll join.

Keep us in your prayers, please. We want to stick with it this time! Thanks!