The First Day of My Journey!

Get ready, this post is all about embarrassing measurements and humiliating photos. So they always say it's easier to see how far you've come when you look back to where you started. In order to see the progress of my weight-loss journey, I figured I should document a bunch of details about where I'm starting out at.

I'm 5'6'' and officially weigh 172.4 pounds. My first blog post had me at 174, so I guess my initial freak-out was over some bloating, but 172 is still not a very good number to be at. I'm still well overweight by anyone's standards.

 Here are some embarrassing photos I took just moments ago on my Mac's PhotoBooth:

Excuse my extremely pale skin, but I've learned to embrace it. The face shot isn't exactly the prettiest either, but I really wanted to see if I could get my face to thin out just a bit. Anyways, I'm not the heaviest person ever, but you can tell by the photos that I could definitely use some work. Especially with just tightening up the skin in quite a few places. (Lol at my degree lying on the floor in the background. Go Hokies!)

So now for my measurements. I looked up a few sights on weight-loss to see where to measure yourself to track weight-loss. I found a decent description of how to go about it on this site: http://www.ivillage.com/how-do-i-take-my-measurements/4-n-142316 . I really wanted to try out these measurements because people so often say with getting healthy and fit, you can't always notice it on the scale. So these are the numbers:

Bust: 99.5 cm
Chest: 83 cm
Waist: 78.5 cm
Hips: 116 cm
Midway: 108 cm
Thighs: 70.5 cm L, 71.5 cm R
Knees: 47.5 cm L, 47 cm R
Calves: 39.5 cm L, 38.5 cm R
Upperarm: 34.5 cm L, 34.5 cm R
Forearm: 25.5 cm L, 26 cm R

For the most part, I'd really like to see all of the numbers go down a bit, but I'm really more focused on my tummy, butt and thighs above all else. I decided to go with centimeters rather than inches because I thought I'd get a more accurate reading of whether I'm going down in size or not.

I've also officially printed out my Blogilates Beginner's Workout Calendar! Here it is taped to my desk that I use everyday.

I figured it was better to put it on my desk than my wall since I have to sign it everyday. I haven't started my first workout yet today because I'm waiting for my breakfast to settle. Started off the day fairly healthy so far, btw! I ate a fresh orange and 3 slices of thin fried ham. I'm not counting it as my "healthy meal" for the day because the ham is processed deli meat from a container, but the portion size is much smaller than I usually go for. Normally I would make myself 5-6 slices of fried ham with my breakfast in the morning. The slices are pretty thin, but it's still more than a person should be eating. That's my biggest obstacle... getting past my over-sized portions.

But I have a healthy lunch planned which consists of sauteed chopped spinach with onions and garlic (about a cup) and a 3 oz piece of baked salmon with dill and lemon. It's going to be delicious and I'm honestly looking forward to it. And no processed food! Go Lauren!

However, my healthy lunch will be slightly off-set by my unhealthy dinner of Papa John's pizza, but it's game day people! My Virginia Tech Hokies are playing against Duke and we are ranked #14! But I will try to cut some calories by only eating cheese pizza and limiting myself to 3 slices. Three slices doesn't really sound like I'm limiting myself, right? Well, as I've been preaching - baby steps, people. I'm sure I could eat a few more slices than that if I really wanted to.

Now I'm off to kill my very first workout day! Wish me luck!

TTFN



Didn't mean to extend this post but I thought I'd share how my first workout and healthy meal went! From now on I think I'll try to refrain from posting entirely until after I'm done with both. Here's a photo of my healthy lunch!

It was very yummy, but I definitely expect to be hungry an hour from now haha. Got to get used to those pesky smaller portions. I'm definitely an American girl when it comes to my portions!

As for the workout... phew! I didn't really work up a full on sweat, but I definitely struggled a bit. All of the moves were fairly rudimentary, but the amount of reps you had to do was the hard part. Those legs circles and triangles were killer! Especially on the second leg. I normally amp it up a little with my own personal workout plans, but I want to do the first week with only the pre-scheduled workouts to see how my body responds soreness-wise. Plus it looks like she really only goes easy on the first couple of days. We shall see! Until tomorrow...

TTFN