Week 5 Journals & Calorie Deficit!

Since I had birthday parties and Easter this week, I had some major weight fluctuations, but it is okay because Week 6 is a new week, and I will jump right back into my workouts and eating right!

Black Bottoms - yummy!

These cupcakes were super delicious, and the cream cheese, chocolate chip, chocolate cupcake mixture blended so well together!  They were a little harder to make than normal cupcakes (especially since I did not have an electric handheld mixer to mix the cream cheese topping together with)!  Other than that, I give these two thumbs up for taste, calorie count, and cuteness!

The recipe can be found here, on the Woman's Day website!  The original recipe called for mini cupcakes, but I made normal size ones, so I only made 2.5 dozen cupcakes instead of 5 dozen, and all the nutritional information doubled for my recipe, so they were 150 calories per cupcake, but well worth it!

If I could make one suggestion, it would be to almost double the cream cheese topping portion of the recipe, because I did run out of it before I ran out of the chocolate cupcake mix, and I was not using as much as the recipe called for.

Easter Sunday! - Christ is risen from the dead!

Easter is of course about Jesus Christ rising from the grave, after dying to pay for our sins!  Well, Easter, to me, is also about family, friends, and love.  Since we spent Saturday with the girls, we went on and gave them their Easter baskets, filled with simple pleasures!

Cazzie & Shayna's Baskets

Stormi's Easter Basket

Momma & I after Easter services & lunch :)

Just me <3

Birthday Party for the Nieces!

Saturday was Cazzie's birthday, and Tuesday is Shayna's birthday, so they had their party together on Saturday.  They had a blast and got plenty of presents.  It was an overall fun day, filled with cake, ice cream, cupcakes, presents, and love!

 Shayna (left) & Cazzie (right)

Cazzie's Cake (Spongebob Square Pants)

Shayna's Cake (Princess Dora the Explorer)

 Although it was not Stormi's birthday, she got presents too, because on Friday, she turned 11 months old!  She is spoiled rotten, and she loved opening her presents.  I cannot wait until it is her birthday, so that I can see her rip into all her presents.

Cazzie & Shayna opening presents! 

I love her laugh & smile!

Week 4 Journals & Measurements!

So, for week 4, I had a calorie deficit of 7,907, even though I went over my 1800 calorie limit on Saturday. 



For this past week, my weight has fluctuated quite a bit.  In fact, it is still fluctuating, and probably will continue to do so for the next week or so, until I finish my antibiotics.  I recently had to go onto antibiotics for an infection in my right hand (which is healing tremendously - Thank you Lord!), but antibiotics can cause some weight gain and fluctuations in weight because it can destroy the good and bad bacteria in our body, slow metabolism, and cause retention of fat cells.  So, for now I will have to deal with these weight fluctuations and just get back on the grind when I come off my antibiotics.

So, I have lost a total of 10 inches from my body in 4 weeks.  All of my measurements are decreasing (which is awesome!), and my BMI is slowly going down, too!

I have learned a lot over the past 4 weeks of my life.  I found out that I can eat what I want and still lose weight.  I have eaten everything from pizza, to cheese, to ice cream, to cookies & muffins.  In addition, I allow myself to cheat on one day out of the week, so that I never feel like I am missing out on my favorite foods.  I also found out that I do not have to kill myself in the gym to burn calories or lose weight.

For now, I am very happy with my progress.  I am steadily losing weight and inches, I do not feel starved or hungry, and I have a ton of energy now that I did not have when I started!

Week 3 Journals & More Weight Loss! :)

Calorie deficit for week 3.  I had a calorie deficit of over 7,000, which averages to about 2 pounds.  This is great - and, I had my cheat day, still on Sunday, in which I ate over 2,000 calories that day!

I had four rest days this past week because of the pain in my legs, which I am trying to work through and heal, but nothing seems to be working.  I did walk/jog 13.6 miles this week, even though it was only 3 days, so that is great.  In addition, I lost a total of 1.8 lbs this past week, so I am in a good position with my exercise, eating, and weight loss!

Now, after realizing I ate over 2,000 calories yesterday, I was a little worried about weighing myself this morning because I was thinking that I would have gained some weight because of my lack of exercise and extra calorie intake, but when I stepped on the scale this morning, I weighed 191.4 lbs, which is a total weight loss of 7.4 lbs.  This is amazing!

Next week, I will have updated pictures and measurements, but I did take a picture yesterday, so I will go on and post it beside an old picture of me!

Overcoming Struggles & Facing My Fears!

Yesterday morning, my cousin, Ashley, and I decided we were going to walk a trail that we normally walk (the greenway/YMCA trail), but this time we were going to walk it twice.  Now this was fine, but then we decided we were going to jog some intervals.

Well, it felt great when we finished.  And, it felt even better when we finished and beat our first time.  So, my best time for 3.4 miles (after gaining all the weight), is 40 mins flat!  This is amazing for me!  I am so proud of myself, and I plan to continue pushing forward and getting stronger and faster.  I am also planning to build my endurance, so that I can run for longer periods of time.

In addition, I stepped on the scale this morning, and I have lost a total of 5.8 lbs so far.  I cannot believe the progress I have made so far, but I am super stoked about it, and I do plan to continue on my journey!

Exercise Journal, Calorie Deficit, and Weight Loss

So, for this past week, I walked a total of 11.2 miles.  This is .4 more miles than the week before, which is great.  In addition, I did lose some weight, although it seems that I gained a little bit of it back, but I do believe that is normal fluctuations.  So, my weight loss for this week is 1.2 lbs, and my weight loss total is 3.8 lbs.  I hope that I can continue to drop at least 1 to 2 lbs a week, if not more.

This spreadsheet shows my calorie deficit for my 2nd week into my journey.  I burned a total of 2,000 calories, and I only consumed a total of 11,408.5 calories for the week.  This created a deficit of 7,055.5 calories, which should be about 2 lbs lost, when in all actuality, I only lost 1.2 lbs.  But, this is okay because I know the results will show in how much better my clothes fit, how much better I feel, and how I look.

So, I have some before pictures that I am going to post.  I created this collage to show my weight gain over the course of a couple of months.  Halloween 2010 I weighed around 185 lbs, November 2010 I weighed around 190 lbs, while I got up to around 200 lbs in February of 2011.  I am only posting these pictures to show my readers exactly what I used to look like, so that when I lose the weight and post new pics, you will be able to see the difference.  I am also posting these pics to hold myself accountable to my goals!