My Routine for the Next 12 Days
 

Alright... so here's the deal. I haven't lost any weight for over a month now, and it's really getting me down. I guess I can admit that I've eased up a bit on the strictness of my diet... but now it's time to SHOCK myself back into losing!!!!!! I'm going to post my routine right here and update this thread once a day for the next 12 days (in twelve days I'm visiting my boyfriend... so yeah). I know there is a blog feature but this is a major accountability thing for me (I promise I won't clog up this section with posts... just once a day for the next 12 days and that's all!). Anyway, here is the routine that I have just invented:

Diet: For the next 12 days (actually starting right this second), I will only eat salads. Now before you say that's nuts... I'm going to allow chicken to be in the salads, as well as cheese and hard boiled eggs. I'll also be using a dressing that comes in a spray bottle (it's lower calorie) ***UPDATE: I just found out that you can purchase Olive Garden salad dressing (my ultimate favorite) at any Olive Garden location... so I'll likely be using that exclusively starting tonight!!!*** In addition to that I will only be drinking water. Lastly... no food from 8pm - 8am, no exceptions.

Exercise: I'll start off with a 25 minute walk/jog before I eat anything for the day. Additionally, I'll do 1 exercise video and 1 hour of house cleaning each day (mom has been bugging me to clean up around here, so she will LOVE that one). I also have an exercise class that I do 4 days a week!

And that's it! Starting this RIGHT NOW... (so that means no more food for me tonight). I'll update tomorrow!

****UPDATE**** I've read all of your advice, and I appreciate it very much! After thinking it over I have made the following changes: I will now allow myself ONE piece of fruit each day... and I'm cutting out the workout video. I realize that 25 minutes of exercise in the morning, plus my fitness class (that I do 4 days a week for over an hour each time), plus an hour of house cleaning AND a workout video might be a bit dangerous with the kind of limited diet I'm attempting. I WILL NOT make any further changes though... :).

*SECOND UPDATE* Ok so.... I lied. I'm going to make one more change, which is sort of a big one I guess. You know the foods I mentioned I would eat? (Salads, hard boiled eggs, chicken, and cheese)? Well, I've decided that I'm going to allow myself to eat those foods separately (without them always being put together in salad form). So I guess the plan isn't changing *that* much because I'm still eating the same things, but not every meal will be called a "salad" anymore. I hope this doesn't make me a major wimp :P. Either way, my food selection remains very limited so I'm hoping that will make up for it!

(As of July 14, I can eat until 10pm on days that I do my exercise class).

It sounds like a little much...just make sure you get enough calories, because having to little will not let you lose weight either...especially with all that working out! Just a quick little note...and make sure to drink that watter....it helps I swear!!

Sounds ok to me (but pretty tough- only salads!) but you might want to eat before you exercise in the morning- it'll give you more energy so you can have a more intense exercise, and its probably safer too

I second what IG said.
no food from 8pm-8am and then you exercise before you're having breakfast? I think that's a bit hard. Should eat something VERY light like a little nuts or something and then exercise and then have breakfast. ^^ cuz i experienced dizzy and low blood pressure if i don't have enough "energy" to fuel me before exercise. Just my 2 cents though.

all salad is pretty tough btw :) But it doesn't sound bad. Good luck ^^

The salad part seems tough (but I hate salad, so that's just me). I actually don't eat after 8 at night and exercise at 5 am and I'm fine. If I eat before I work out I feel sick, so you might be okay in that aspect.

If you're eating salads, are you not eating any fruits? Not sure if you're planning on putting them in the salads or not, but I would keep fruit in your diet as long as vegetables if I were you ;)
I agree with others about making sure you're getting enough calories each day, as you plan to be working out so much! Looking forward to seeing your updates. You can do it!

Well, I made it through the first day. I did make a few changes though (look to my original post for the updates). I did my 25 minute walk/jog this morning and it was harder than I thought it would be. I live in Florida so it was HOT out... I definitely broke a sweat. Unfortunately I missed my exercise class AND had to eat after 8pm. That was because I ended up falling asleep at around 7 and before that I had only eaten one salad for the day. Overall today was great though! Oh and... my house it already looking cleaner... imagine that :).

hi kimmie, im glad you made it through the first day. keep up the good work! dont worry about missing your exercise class...and eating after 8pm...actually, yesterday, i went to the coldplay concert and didnt get home till 12in the morning and had an ice cream cone...i feel bad now...

Way to go on doing well, Kimmie!

Make sure you're getting a good number of calories tho, you don't want your body to rock the starvation mode, which would just make weight loss harder! :)

Today was successful. I ended up eating an apple before my workout this morning because I waited until around noon to finally do it, and I didn't want to jog while being totally famished. I completely stuck to my plan today and also went to my exercise class tonight. Darn it... I just remembered that I haven't done the hour of house cleaning yet! I'll get going on that in just a few minutes. From there, all I have to do is abstain from food until tomorrow morning and I'll be golden... Only 10 more days of this to go.

P.S. I just extended my food cutoff point to 10pm on days that I do my exercise class. On all other days it will stay at 8pm. This exercise class that I go to plus everything else I do in a day has made it difficult for me to get enough calories in before the cutoff... I KNOW I haven't had enough today. I'm already pretty hungry and it's likely still a few hours before I'll be asleep.

I think it's perfectly okay for you to extend your cutoff time on days like this! It is very important for you to be getting enough of your calories in, as you are obviously already aware. I'm impressed that you are still doing your hour of house cleaning today after all that exercise.

Wow! I weighed myself this morning and I've lost 2 pounds since starting this crazy plan! Admittedly, I looked slightly ghostly this morning (pale lips) and it scared me just a little bit. This is NOT some anorexic starvation diet, so I've yet again decided to make a change. For the remainder of this experiment I'm going to have 1 cheat meal on every 3rd and 5th day. So that's days 3, 5, 8, and 10. However a "cheat" meal to me means eating something HEALTHY outside of my very limited food allowance. Also, I'm still only allowing myself to drink water even during cheat meals. They may be "cheats" but I still need to maintain an element of discipline (and avoid refined sugar). Today my cheat was a bowl of cereal and a piece of fruit. I figure the losses will keep coming and I won't kill myself in the process. Anyway, I'm pretty happy right now! I still have a ways to go, but I haven't been at this weight in like 2 years...! I'll update later with how today went (the day isn't over yet), but I'll put the update under this paragraph since I promised to post in this thread just once a day.

*Update* Today was pretty good. Unfortunately it rained all day so I couldn't get my walk/jog in (and I'm sad about that). Also, I blew off the house cleaning. Reason was because I woke up so late today that I barely had time to do other important things like practicing my music. Good thing I still went to my exercise class even though I was tired. We did a bunch of sprints and I was totally sweating! Anyway, I'm proud of myself for staying strong and am looking forward to seeing more results! My goal was to get to at least 145 pounds by July 25th, and at the rate I'm going I could even drop below that. All in all I would be thrilled to make it to 145. That will mean a loss of about 11 pounds since my boyfriend last saw me :).

P.S. Heading into day 4 now! Only 9 days left to go!

kimmie, im getting tired of the slow progress so i was thinking about a 2 week agro jumpstart myself....just make sure you limit it to 2 weeks...ill be watching and cheering for you

Hey Kimmie, it's nice to read about your progress so far!

I increased my exercise, and decreased my carbs as well as keeping close track of my calories, and I've told myself that I will stick to this for 2 weeks and then if it's too much I can back off the exercise (currently an hour of intense cardio every day) or eat a little more leniently. This is day 4 for me, and I've lost 1.8lb since Monday, so it sounds like we're doing about the same! Keep up the good work. :)

Keep it up!!!