With approximately 9 months to go before our wedding, I decided that March was going to be a "power month" for me, and that I would get really serious about getting in shape for the wedding. March would be a great month . . . Daylight Saving Time began (daylight is very important - I can exercise outside!), my company's conference was finished, and the weather was a little warmer.
About six years ago I was a bit heavy and managed to lose about 40 lbs using Weight Watchers. I have kept that weight off all this time, but haven't managed to lose very much more. My overall hope is to lose about 15 pounds, or 10% of my total weight. I'm within a healthy weight range for my height, but at the "higher end", and would like to be in the "middle to lower end".
Santa Claus brought me an elliptical machine, so that has been a huge help. I alternate between using the elliptical and walking outside. When the weather is nice, I love to go outside with the iPhone and listen to music, and on other days, I throw the Young and the Restless on DVR and do the elliptical.
I'm keeping a health and fitness diary in a password-protected WordPress blog, which has been really cool. I can access the blog from anywhere - home, work, and iPhone - to add information like the food I eat, the activity I do, and stuff like migraines.
The program has been working well, although I had a really nasty allergy attack after my first outdoor walk - go figure! So there were about 10 days in March where I was pretty sick and not able to get much exercise. But all I wanted to eat was soup, so it kind of balanced out.
My hope for the month of March was to lose 4 pounds. I purposefully don't use the word "goal", when I talk about how much weight I would like to lose in a given period of time because we can't directly control what the scale says from one day to the next - we can only "influence" the scale by what we eat and the exercise we do.
I'm happy to report that, despite a little illness, March was a success! I journaled in WordPress every day, and exercised every day that I was able. From March 1 to April 1, I lost 6.6 pounds, and an inch off my waist measurement . . . woo hoo!
It's a great start, and great motivation to keep it going through April! My hope for April is to lose 4 more pounds. I'm going to continue the cardio routine, and start introducing some resistance training, upper-body in particular. And, of course, I will continue to keep my diet as healthy as possible.
8 months to go! Next update . . . early May!