Hey all! I haven't been posting on here much (if at all) lately because I've been incredibly busy.
Today I start week 4 of working out. I've been running and doing weights and tonight a friend of mine (who is a trainer) is coming over to help me focus in on my workout and help me figure out some diversity. I LOVE running (I used to run 2 miles a day - but that was years ago) and it feels so good to sweat out everything.

I created a spreadsheet (I'm a nerd) to chart my progress. I enter in my weight, daily (which seems to be harmful, but it's not - at least, not for me. It helps me see my day to day fluctuations and think, hmm, maybe I had too much salt yesterday - I'll drink more water today, etc), I track how long I've run, how far, etc.

My weight has barely budged since I started this, 4 weeks ago. I've lost all of 3 miserable little teeny pounds.
Well, in the second week, I though, you know, I'm using weights so I'm guessing that I'm losing the fat slowly and building muscle. So a better way to gauge my weight loss, at this point, would be to use a tape measure. So, in 3 weeks, I've lost a total of 9.5 inches off my body, in various places, most notably, 4 inches off my waist and 3 inches off my thighs. I am ecstatic about this!

Feeling great! Got a 5k in May and I'm hoping I can do it! I can struggle through running a mile right now, but I'm keeping at it!!!

Hee! I'm glad I'm not the only one! I've got a spreadsheet too. You should see it. It's got my current weight, goal weight, calories in, calories out. And you should see the formulas! Oh my! I'm analyzing that data within an inch of it's life. It's the sort of think I find fun .

WTG on the inches! I want to track that too, but so far I can't quite bring myself to do it. I'm not sure I really want to know how big I am right now.

I didn't want to know either, but since the scale wasn't budging and regardless that my clothes are fitting better, I wanted concrete evidence. Using the tape measure has satisfied the nerd in me!

Congrats on the inches. I broke my scale over a year ago which helped me to just ignore my weight (which increased) and try to focus on injury recovery. I've been working on losing weight since about January and got back to my old successful strategy about a month ago.

I can't find my old handy-dandy fat notebook with all my charts, graphs and measurements. (A fellow geek!) So, I've been using my clothes as a guide. I'm starting to fit back in pants that were completely too small (though I can't go out in public in them yet). Other pants are barely wearable but today's pants are lose. Yeah.

I'm going to measure because I think for me that's more important to my weight loss and maintenance motivation than a weight number. When I originally set my goal I wanted to reach the top weight of a healthy BMI. When I reached it, I kept going a little ways. Now, I want my final goal to be the middle of my BMI (135). While losing weight in 2009, I was so motivated by smaller sized clothes or fitting in to a super nice fabric and nice design. I don't like fashion per se but I do want to wear a top that looks nice and sensible shoes that are nice too.

I was going to measure this weekend but I ended up biking with my kids both days on our first nice weather weekend. I loved it! So, I'll do it this coming weekend. I have plans to lose weight until about mid-July (if all goes well). I'm trying to fit in to this dress that's a size 6. It has an open back and pencil skirt and is purple. I never wear skirts or dresses anymore. I can't imagine ever wearing it out in public but it's been an amazing motivator for some reason.

Measure yourself. No joke.

If you can't bring yourself to see the numbers, then have someone like your husband, or a family member do it, write the numbers down, and put them somewhere where you can refer to them later.

It's like having a scale number. No one wants to see the 'big' number, but it's so important to have it later to realize how far you have come.

If you don't do it now, you'll never even know how much you lose or how much you change your body.