Minute wise, I’m now up to 871 minutes for the month. I’ve just got to get  hours in over the next week to meet my monthly goal. It’ll be a piece of cake.

For the week, I went from 230.6 to 227.9, for a loss of 2.7 lbs. Yay, finally an actual loss instead of gaining and losing the same pound! I got into 400 minutes with a goal of 250! for the month, I’m at 669 out of 1000 minutes so far. Should have no problems hitting 1000 with 2 weeks to go.

Food wise, it’s not so bad. Last week, after I got home from the store, I went ahead an portioned out most of my meals, so I don’t have to worry about that at meal time. That has been really helpful for me, esp on the nights that hubby isn’t home for dinner, so I’m basically cooking for myself. (The kiddies are more than happy to have pb&j and fruit on those nights.)

Feb Goal (which was a bit high based on the amount of time)

Feb Work Out Goal

And finally, Total 2009 Goal

I’m not actually expecting anyone to read this. I’m keeping the blog mostly just as a keeping everything all in one place kinda thing for me. I may get rambly at times or may neglect it for a while. I’ll do my best to update my weight and minutes twice a month though.

730/1000 mins = 73%
14/31 days = 45%

Fortuntely I’m doing good getting my minutes in because I fell yesterday. Hard. I twisted my ankle on a mountain path. It twisted so far I couldn’t regain balance quick enough, and slammed into the ground on my knees. So today I’ve got a sore swollen ankle and two scrapped, bruised, sore knees. It looks like I’m left with bellydance and pilates for at least a couple of days. On a funny note though, I managed to hit the shutter button on my camera on the way down and have a terrbile picture of the back of my son’s head to commemorate the day. Behold:

I was able to customize it to look like me (it’s a good thing I don’t still have the pink hair - it wasn’t an option, lol) and then show a side by side with weight loss. The current looks pretty close to me. So now I have some motivation:

This will start going on my weekly update thread, but for this week, here are my starting measurements:
Neck: 15.25″
Bicep: 15″
Chest: 39.5″
Waist: 39.75″
Hips: 48″
Thigh: 30.25″
Calf: 18.25″

It looks like I don’t have a ton to loose in the chest but roughly 10″ in the waist and hips.

I’ve actually been doing great with my water intake, more than meeting my goal. I’ve actually been getting to at least 7 cups of water daily. (The fact that we’ve been having 90+ degree weather with high humidity has definitely helped me there! lol I don’t think I’d be off to such a  great start in the winter.) I haven’t been tracking my food intake, but I’m quite confident it’s fine. (I’ve tracked in the past. However despite my OCD organizational tendencies, I just can’t stick with calorie tracking.)

Exercise. I’m kicking exercises butt! I just have to think outside the box a bit.

Aug 1 - can’t remember
Aug 2 - can’t remember
Aug 3 - 20 min playing tag with the kids (20/1000)
Aug 4 - 30 mins walking (50/1000)
Aug 5 - 3 hours (180 mins) hiking in the mountains (230/1000)
Aug 6 - 2 hours (120 mins) yard work (mowing, weet eat, etc) (350/1000)
Aug 7 - 45 mins playing soccer (395/1000)

I’m 40% there, and only 23% through the month!

Running, push-ups, and the belly dance dvd haven’t even been though about. I’ve been having too much fun with creative ways to get my exercise in (though I am excited about the belly dancing!).

Weigh-in time -

Here are some of my basic goals:

1. I am NOT dieting. Diets suck. In all honesty, the food department isn’t really where I struggle anyway. I already eat healthy foods in appropriate portions. When I really want chocolate or ice cream or whatever (usually cheesecake, yum!), I indulge, but in moderation and rarely. We don’t eat out or eat many processed foods. So other than taking a few weeks to track and see where there’s room for improvement, I’m not gonna worry about food.

2. Water,  this is a struggle for me. So let’s start small. Instead of my 20 oz of mountain dew (my one true food vice), I’m going to cut back to 12 oz a day. For this week, I’m aiming for 4 glasses of water a day, or 32 oz. More would be great, but I don’t want to set myself up for failure so quickly. Therefore I’m aiming low to start.

3. Exercise. Again aiming low to start. I’m going for 1000 mins in August, or approximately 30 minutes per day.

4. Running. I want to do a 5k next spring. I’m so not a runner though. Never was actually, even when I was a soccer player. So perhaps this one’s gonna be a bit of a stretch and will get scrapped. We’ll see. I’m going to try using the Couch to 5K plan to start.

5. Push-ups. I came across a link for 100 Push Ups, and I figure why not.

6. Belly dancing. Oh yeah baby!  Eventually I’d like to take an actual class, but my self esteem just ain’t there yet. So for now I’ll be doing it at home using dvds. Next summer, I’m totally dressing as a belly dancer for the Ren Faire!

Now for the squeamish, you might want to leave. For those of you that are brave, you’re going to be treated to the harsh reality that is me - my current weight and measurements, plus pictures of my scantily clad self. This will serve 2 purposes. First, it’ll give me motivation to get off my rear. Second, I’ll be updating with new images as I go, and this will be a visual reminder of the work I’m doing.

*back later with the pics*