Weigh-in Day and My Story Updated

Today is the first weigh in day of the Biggest Loser Challenge. I stepped it up a notch this month (in food intake, tracking better, drinking more liquids and exercising) and had such good results. I started the challenge at 265.4 and ended this month at 256.0. A 9.4 pound loss. I can really feel the difference in my clothes. Some of my pants were so tight I felt like I could not breathe and I can breathe now! I could not be happier with that and a lot of it came at the end of the month. I have finally got over that hump that I have been in all year and I know this challenge has had a lot to do with it! I am going to start doing full body pictures each month again and will post mine later today. I encourage anyone to do full body pictures because I have one for each month of the whole first year I started losing weight and it is fun to look at them and see how far I have come.

I also am working on personal goals for my weight loss. I met my 5% and 10% in Weight Watchers and never really set another goal. A reason goals are so important! I like the baby step goals Weight Watchers sets and plan to follow when setting my next goal. My next goal is to reach 241. I was so close before I started gaining back all of that weight. That will make my 20% for Weight Watchers even though they really do not do 20%. I have read just having a 10% weight loss will help you so much in regards to health. I know that 20% will do me even better. I feel so much better having a goal and even if I do not win anything in this challenge, I know that I am working toward that goal of a 20% weight loss.

I am sorry to my fellow Biggest Loser contestants. There are so many blogs I just have not made the time to get to all of them or the time to update my list on my blog, which makes it easier to go visit all of you, but I will try to visit each blog at least 2 times next month.

In case some of you don't know my story, I'd like to share it with you again(or for the fisrt time) with some updates. I started trying to lose weight in January 2008 after I had what I like to call my wake-up call! I think most people who are extremely overweigh have at least one of these in there lives. I cut my finger in the kitchen when some bowls fell out of the cabniet and I tried to catch them and they broke in my hand. I went to the clinic to get some stitches and my blood pressure was so high they would not let me leave the clinic until they got it lowered and I started blood pressure meds that day. I also remember not believing my weight, as I had been scared to get on a scale. I knew it was bad but I never dreamed I was over 300 pounds. I went home knowing I was going to have to do something about it but not really knowing how to start or what to do because there was not a lot of money. I remember seeing Tammy post something about a Biggest Loser Competition and how they were going to start blogs. It hit me that this was my answer. I could get support from people online through a blog and while I did not join that year in the challenge as the fee was much higher then. They let me be a supporter and while I gained no money, I gain a lot of support from the participants and people in blogland struggling too. I noticed several people were doing Weight Watchers and had remembered hearing really good things about it. I even met a woman who had lost 100 pounds doing Weight Watchers and it never hit me then that I should do it. I knew we did not have the money for me to go to Weight Watchers so I went searching for infromation on the webas to how to get started and also some friends told me some about it. I lost 8 pounds the first week and conitnued until I lost about 25 pounds on my own and then felt a need to go check weight watchers out. We used our income tax money to pay for the fees and I have loved the support I have gotten from there. It is my motivation for the week. I lost 80 pounds by October of 2008. I really just yo-yoed until the end of the year but I stayed in the 240's. I remember going to a Christmas party that I had gone to the year before I started losing weight and my husband had taken a picture of me sitting in a chair. I remember that picture and I remember not being able to sit in the chair because I was so big! I have a new picture from the same party in 2008 and I wanted to take a picture and it felt so good that I could sit in the chair. (Here are those pictures if you want to look)In Jan 2009 my blood pressure meds dosage was lowered and while I am not totally off of them I know I will be eventually. I have had success, but I struggle everyday with food and food choices. If I had to list some things that help me with that struggle I'd show you this list: personal prayer, my blog, weight watchers meetings, online supporters, weight watchers tools for living (i think that's book 3) and my family. I don't know if I will ever not have a problem with food but I know I can and will get to the weight I desire. Thanks for listening to my story and all of those who have helped me along the way! Good Luck to all of you in your challenge for weight loss.

Here are some of my weight loss pictures if you want to see how I was doing.