Lose it up!

Well, it seems my life has been revolving around  one. big. number.  

Duh, the one on the scale.

I had Sweet Cheeks in October weighing in at 204.  Yikes!!

I'm not one of those lucky women that lose weight after they give birth, breastfeeding or not.  Nope.   I think the most I've ever lost is an ounce.  

Okay, I'll be real, 1-2 lbs.  

The hard part is when I'm pregnant I am sick for the whole time.  

During the 2nd trimester it morphs from you're sick "just because you're knocked up" to "you're sick when you eat certain foods and drinks" only. 

What foods and drinks would those be?  Anything healthy.  I'm not even kidding.  I crave fruits and salads and veggies and orange juice or a smoothie.  I'd eat it and feel okay.  Then sometime later that day my stomach has had it and, of course, it all comes out.  The only things I could keep down were fast foods and hot dogs and ice cream and all the junk in the world.  I think I gained 50+ big ones this last pregnancy.

Then after I have the baby I get these major cravings.  

After I had The Captain I baked and crammed every available chocolate chip cookie I could get my chubby paws on.  

Little Miss, I can't remember what it was: I must've been in a food coma. 

The Animal: drumsticks (the ice cream cones) and fully loaded hot dogs (while watching Matlock)!  

For Sweet Cheeks it was Snickers.  Bags and bags of those stinkers.  Dang, I can still taste them.

Anyway, since about December I cut out all fast food and soda, though I still ate my 

Snickers and other yummy goodies.

From January -- NO, it was not a New Years goal -- until now I have been working my butt off eating clean and working out.  I went from 204 after giving birth to 198.  Then at 198 is when I started to get serious about it. 

Today, I'm 144.0 - almost 143!

(yes that is important, hence the big letters). 

I have 4 lbs left to go and then I'll be at my goal weight (140 if you are math illiterate).  I'm still going to be working out and training to get that fat off and replace it with muscle.  It's a good number for me, I just want to be even more fit and awesome!  Plus, I enjoy working out and eating foods that make me feel great. Bonus!

What did I do?

 I get asked this all the time.  I basically did a hodge podge of stuff.  I'll break it down.

January: I was counting calories - eating about 1250 a day.  I made those calories good calories, so no treats.  I didn't ever say, no sugar, I just said no treats.  I was doing Turbo Fire as well.  

I found bodyrock.tv and did their workouts as well.  Good stuff 

(if you can look past all the boob and butt shots with their camera angles). 

I think around February/March I allowed myself to have a treat on Sunday evenings.

March, I switched to Insanity.  I roped my hubs into doing it with me.  He does not like working out.  It was really sweet of him.  To be honest, I don't know if I could've gotten through Insanity without him being there to push me and make sure I didn't give up.  After the first month he dropped out.  I kept going until the last week of it.  I was getting bored and it was getting harder and harder to fit it in and motivate myself alone.  

I ran my first 5k with my sister-in-law.  I have always hated running, but I really enjoyed myself and we did the whole thing!  In April we ran our second 5k and did better and it was just a lot of fun.  

I was still eating about 1250 - 1400 calories a day.

May, I was 160-something.  I can't remember.  I was doing a mix of bodyrock.tv workouts,and some Insanity.  I tried to go back to TurboFire but bleh, I couldn't anymore.  It was too tame for me.  I did HIIT workouts that I found around the internet.  

I'd make up circuits.

I think I moved up to 1400 - 1500 calories a day.  

My sister-in-law and I started running 3 times a week at a high school track.  That was pretty fun.  We'd walk to warm up, and some days we'd do a longer run and some days we'd do sprints.  I started doing HIIT running (:30 sprint/1:30 jog repeated for 30 minutes).

HIIT anything is sooo much fun!!

At this point I was hitting plateaus and getting irritated.  I reduced calories to 1300 - 1400.  I found Share It Fitness through some Pinterest boards.  I joined their beta group and read their blog everyday.  They have awesome workouts to do.  They have programs, circuits, they have videos on pilates, yoga, barre, strength, HIIT, tabata, anything really.  

My favorite part are the people that work there.  

They are awesome. 

I mentioned I had hit a plateau and Matt told me to message him what was going on.  I did and he got back to me about things I could do.  He suggested a few circuits and eating changes.  It was so nice to know that there was someone out there who cared that I succeeded and would jump at the chance to help me.  I did his  suggested circuits and started seeing a change pretty quickly. 

I had been noticing that grains were really keeping me from losing weight and I usually felt sluggish after eating them.  Oh, they were "healthy" grains but they were grains.  I didn't realize how much I ate until I said one day I wasn't going to eat any that day.  I couldn't figure out what to eat! 

I decided to eat Paleo.  

I really liked it.  I lost 4 pounds immediately.  The only thing I didn't like was that I really didn't want to eat Paleo for the rest of my life.  I wanted to be able to have grains and dairy.  

My brother and mother had done (are doing) Dukan Diet.  I always shied away from diets.  I really don't even feel like it is a diet diet.  It is pretty extreme at the beginning but, what drew me to it was it help reintroduce other foods back into your diet and you just do one day a week of pure protein.  

I've lost 12 pounds on it so far (11 of them in the first 7 days) and have only 4 left to go, and that should be done in a few days to a week.

I'm still running, and HIIT training.  

I'm also training for a triathlon. 

 I have a road bike and indoor trainer.  I'll be starting up swimming here once I can afford to go!  I am really enjoying it.  I'll keep y'all posted on my final weight loss and my triathlon training.

My brother and I are doing a sprint triathlon together at the end of October!!

I couldn't find any good pictures to show my before; I forgot to take some official before pictures.  I really haven't taken official after pictures either, but the ones I snapped pre-workout this morning will have to suffice.  

Oh, disclaimer -- I finally found our camera last week (it's been lost since Christmas) but, now I have no idea where the cord is to charge it (not battery operated).  So, I had to use our video camera to take pictures and well, they're just okay.  I need a good camera and about a million photography lessons to be able to take a decent photo.  

Not a strength of mine.

I'm the big fluffy snowball where you can't tell where my arms begins and my body is.

Just a week or two after Sweet Cheeks was born. She's teeny!

The picture I have up at the top of my blog was taken in May, around 160 lbs.

No, I'm not going to flex for you nor show you my stomach.  Too bad, so sad.

You can also see my new haircut given by - me!

I'm not even trying to hold in my tummy here!  If so, I might've been even skinnier!  

Don't judge though people, I don't have make up on and I finger-combed my hair.  Why would I get ready to workout?  I wouldn't!  And I didn't!  Give me some time and I'll really ham it up for you.  

Okay, I won't do that either.  I don't ham really well for pictures.  I feel pretty ridiculous.  

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.  I can always post or link up to the workouts I loved the most!