2 Months of Easy Maintenance

Heya guys! Just thought I'd check in and give an update.

My last post was on October 1, and now it's what, December 4? So it's been about 2 months. I'm still at 160-163 lbs depending on the day. Two months of maintenance! Now that I've been at this weight for a few months, I'm ready to take it a step further and am committing to a 150 goal for the New Year. Yeee haw!

Last month I ran a 5k and had my best time since I was 13! I ran about an 8:03 mile for a total time of 25:04. What's awesome is that on Thanksgiving morning I ran 4 miles at the same pace. Getting faster and faster!

My marathon is in 4 days and I'm totally ready for it. I did a 17-mile run a little over a week ago and rocked at a 9:57 pace. So for the marathon I'm shooting for a 10:30-ish pace which would be around 4.5 hours. I considered doing the race dressed as Elvis, but ran out of time to get a costume (it is in Vegas after all!).

What's exciting for me about maintaining this weight and size is that I've been able to relax quite a bit with my diet without regaining anything. I fortunately haven't reverted to how I ate a year ago, but I'm not stressing over croutons either. :D I'm mentioning this because I want to encourage everyone who's taking on the challenge to remember that losing weight is a phase. Once we step out of that phase it's a matter of maintenance and wise choices.

Whenever you work out for the first time you're going to get sore. But that soreness passes once you body gets stronger. Then you can take it up a notch, work out a little harder, and you'll get sore again. Eating can work the same way! Make a simple goal with your eating, stick to it, and when you've FORMed a habit, step it up a notch. (Mwahahaha I love a clever play on words.)

That's where I'm at - so come along! Four weeks from today will be the new year. If we focus on 2-3 lbs per week of healthy weight loss, we'll be 10 lbs ahead for 2009! Once we've dropped that weight, we'll never have to worry about losing it again - just maintenance which is 10 times easier! But I'll admit, it still isn't totally easy. Because of my gradual shift in diet during this maintenance period, I've admittedly been eating bigger meals than I did during the weight-loss phase. So FORM will come in handy for me once again.

I have to admit that just making this commitment right now is making me a little nervous. Can I do this? Am I kidding myself? Am I really committed enough? It helps to know that I'm not in it alone, and that I've done it before.

I have these images flash through my mind of me being hungry all of the time and suffering through eating rice cakes and celery ... and then I remember that I never had to do that to lose my first 30 lbs. Ha ha ha. It's like there's this programming in my mind that it has to be hard, it has to be rough and I have to keep reminding myself that I've got all of the tools necessary to make this an easy and fun process! Isn't that so funny and just bizarre?

So despite all of my cheery pump up above, know that I am scared about this. I am scared of failure and disappointment. If you feel that way too, it's cool, and it's because we're believing something that isn't true. This is easy! So I'm going to smile and my fear and just keeping moving forward. I'll let you know how that works for me!

I recommit. NOW! :D

Holly Sue - down 30 lbs in 12 weeks!!

So we decided to weigh in and measure today. And ... I weighed in at 165! Yahoo, that's 30 lbs in 12 weeks!!!

Let me tell you guys, I am looking s-u-p-e-r ... *wink wink*

Here are my measurements, and I'll copy the earlier measurements so you can see my progress:

..........Date: 7/10.........8/20..........9/30............Loss.................
Neck..........34.5 cm........33 cm.........32 cm.........2.5 cm = 0.98 inches
Shoulders......126 cm.......117 cm........114 cm..........12 cm = 4.7 inches
Chest..........104 cm........97 cm.........93 cm..........11 cm = 4.3 inches
Waist...........86 cm......78.5 cm.........77 cm...........9 cm = 3.54 inches
Hips...........120 cm.......112 cm........108 cm..........12 cm = 4.7 inches
Thigh...........72 cm........66 cm.........63 cm...........9 cm = 3.54 inches
Calf............40 cm........37 cm.........37 cm...........3 cm = 1.18 inches
Bicep (unflex)..36 cm........32 cm.......31.5 cm.........4.5 cm = 1.77 inches
Bicep (flexed)..33 cm......31.5 cm.........30 cm...........3 cm = 1.18 inches

So that's a total of 66 cm lost. If I add up all of my original measurements the total is 651.5 and 66 is a little more than 10% of that.

So I've lost 15% of my weight and 10% of my size! In ... 12 weeks. So that's about 1% per week I guess.

Did you notice by the way, that my thighs are 3.5 inches smaller? And that my hips are almost 5 inches smaller? I dare any one of you to actually take a measuring tape, and measure your thigh. Now, keep the measuring tape there, but stretch it out 3.5 inches more than where it's at right now ... that's a LOT of thigh Colonel Sanders! Try it on your hips too - wrap the measuring tape around your hips and see how BIG you would be if you were 5 inches bigger in the hips. That's almost a six-inch sub bigger AROUND.

12 weeks. And all I've done is change how I eat.

Yahoo?

YahoO!!!!!!

Holly Sue - days out from the 12 week mark

Whew! I've had a great week!

Last week I started a part-time graveyard shift to supplement my normal schedule. It's a really fun job, and it also took all week for my to get my schedule worked out. On Friday morning, I went to work out with Jess on 1 hour of sleep. I tried to convince him that I was too tired to come in the first place. Well, he left it up to me, and I showed up to work out, and about 30 minutes into it I was so WASTED that he told me to take it easy and go home. Woops!

But I think I have it all figured out now. I went for a long run on Sunday (longest run of my life - 11 miles) and I'm feeling fantastic. Oh, and I ran at night with the new moon so it was cool and quiet and dark outside - really beautiful!

Oh, also with my new sleep schedule the eating schedule is a little weird. I'm playing around with it to make sure I have plenty of starchy carbs in my system before my work outs, and that I stick with more proteins and vegetables/fruit as I get closer to bed time. Since my bed time was moving around all week, it was kind of hit-and-miss.

But I'm about 3 or 4 days out from completing 12 weeks using the O3 products and adjusting my eating. I'll be weighing in and re-measuring in a few days, and I'll post the results. No matter where they come in, I'm going to be THRILLED! I know where I stand and I how feel in my life right now - I can SEE how I look! There's no denying how far I've come!

Thank you, thank you to my fabulous support group!!!!

Holly Sue - Marathon in 70 days

Ever since I was 13 and made the cross-country running team at my high school I've dreamed of running a marathon...

Well ... 13 years later I'ma gonna do it! I just registered for the Las Vegas Marathon this December, and here's the catch: the race is ON my 26th birthday. So I'm going to run 26.2 miles on my 26th birthday. Isn't that the coolest thing ever?!?

I've got 70 days to go. I'm already running 5-8 miles a day, so I can just pick up from here and make sure I follow a schedule to increase my endurance. I have to say that every time I start a run, I kind of get this yucky feeling like, "Ugh, this is going to be hard ..." and then, about a mile into it I'm like, "Hey, this is actually fun and easy!" Amazing what a difference it makes to be carrying less weight around!

Anyways, I wanted to drop a line and say YAHOO - I'm so ready for this!

Holly Sue - Taking it easy

So this week I've been mediocre with my diet and I pretty much haven't worked out at all. I've been making a bunch of big changes to my schedule (like starting graveyard shifts for example) and just working a lot more than usual and it's been too much thought and effort to be hard core with eating and exercise.

I feel good though, and though I haven't been "hard core" I've definitely not reverted to my original diet. I just have been eating bigger meals, less frequently, and not very conscious of my fat-to-carb-to-protein ratios.

The good news is that I certainly don't feel "done!" Just like I've taken a much needed rest.

Tonight I showed my employees at my metaphysical center the form pill - I just did a demonstration with a glass of water. It was really fun to see their faces as we turned the cup of water over and VOILA! it wasn't water anymore. It's interesting how just telling people how it works doesn't sink in, but SHOWING them the Form pill makes their heads spin! Ha ha ha. Fun fun.

Ok, so I'll check back soon!

Holly Sue - better than I was at 19!

Wooty woots! Last week I weighed in at 169. I haven't weighed in the 160's since I was 19! YEEEHAW! (I didn't post for a week because of technical difficulties).

I feel G-R-E-A-T! I'm 2 weeks away from my 12 week/3 month mark and if I keep up the 2-3 lbs per week that I've been doing for the past 10 weeks, I should be right at 160 or ... even 159 ... by then!! When I weighed in with Jess on day 1, I was at 194. So, as of a week ago I was down 25 lbs, and I'll be really close to 35 lbs down when I hit the 3 month mark.

I have no fear, no hesistation and no qualms. My life is completely changed! I sit to eat meals with my friends and sisters and they all stare at me in disbelief when I say, "I've had enough. This was enough food for now." I pack up the rest and save it for later. My body is speaking to me very clearly. The other day I ordered a chicken burrito at a sit-down Mexican restaurant and afterwards I felt really sleepy. Because of the way my body felt after the meal, I made a mental note that I didn't want to eat that anymore. Since then I've had several offers to eat that type of food again and its so easy to say no, and choose something lighter because I'm feeling healthy, and I don't want anything to get in the way of that.

The Fixx shake is still my favorite breakfast. I love it with blended with ice, water, bananas and grapes. Jess, was raving about the ingredients in it the other day and the flavor. It's such an easy step to take for nutrition and portion control.

Now that I'm down 25 lbs (and I tried on a size 10 skirt the other day and I'm SO close) everyone is wondering what has changed for me. It's so satisfying to say, "I took a totally natural approach." From any internet access in the world I can show them the Form pill in action, and give them a pill to try themselves. It's ridiculously easy!

I weigh now less than I did at age 19. And the ONLY things I've changed in my life have been nutritional balance and portion control - made easy with Fixx and Form. It has taken me 9 weeks. That's it!

And I haven't even begun to slow down. YEEEHAW!!!!

Back from Vegas!!...So sad

So I'm back from Vegas and I'm a little bummed about it!! It was so amazing to get away from the rigorous and mundane schedule of everyday life! I will say that bringing my pills with me is soooo easy to do. I brought Form with me over the weekend and was able to keep up on my steady diet. Of course it was a little difficult to exercise when there was all that playing to do but I realized that there are so many different things to do that work your body out. On saturday we walked around and went shopping (with the girlfriend of course!! haha) and we walked for probably 4 straight hours. That night I slept soooo good! My legs and feet were tired, but I was glad to have gotten a work out in while on vacation.
I have little baggies that I put my Form and then put them in my pocket. When I order my food (or right when I get there) I pop in a pill with some water and by the time the food is there, the Form is in action!!
I love how convenient the product is! That is my favorite part about it. It's quick and easy and if you're doing everything else right in your eating and exercising, then IT WORKS!!~~> Crabby