One year anniversary

Thanks for the inspiration! You (and your husband?) look great!!

Thanks everyone!

And, yeh, that's the hubs. He's lost around 90-100 lbs himself. There are so many fewer chins in the newer picture! YAY!

Wow, everyone, thanks!

To share a little of what I've done -

I worked out around 4-5 days a week. For those workouts what I love to do is play racquetball with my husband. Sometimes if we can't I'll do cardio machines, mainly the elliptical and the recumbent bike (20 mins on each). I have fibromyalgia (and a bad knee from a dislocation), so I also try to swim occasionally, as that's really good for all my issues. Even though the pool is indoor I just haven't been able to bring myself to do this lately because of the cold. lol. My typical goal is 40-45 minutes (or more) of cardio 4-5 days a week.

In tandem, I try to open each workout with a good 15-20 minutes going from weight machine to weight machine doing a little of everything. As far as weights go though, I'm mainly focusing on my arms. My legs are pretty solid. The cardio has pretty much gotten them back to how I remember them being when I was a dancer. So they're less of a weight-lifting priority. I do shoulders, bis, tris, and the ab crunch machine.

Occasionally I'll take a class or something like that. I've done a spin/core class, some hip-hop, etc. I never really dedicate to one.

As far as my food goes I eat my three main meals a day Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. Breakfast is usually egg beaters with instant grits or toast (I tend to make veggie omelets with goat cheese), vitatops or waffles. I usually cut it off at around 350 as a max. Lunch is typically frozen. And, while I wish it wasn't, this is pretty much the most practical thing for me. I'll occasionally hit up a local salad bar and use some low-cal low sodium dressing that I love (from Bass Pro of all places) or eat some form of leftovers. Right now me and the hubs are still nursing some of his birthday splurge food (hence the pizza), so you'll have to forgive me for that.

For dinner I usually cook something out of my low-cal cook books - Fix it and Enjoy it, Hungry Girl, the $7 a meal healthy cookbook, cook this not that, a diabetic cookbook I have or cooking light. If I'm pressed for time we'll make Jennie-O turkey burgers. We have a lot of steamed veggies by green giant we eat as well.

I eat snacks in the morning, afternoon and occasionally in the evening.

My morning snack is typically fruit or yogurt. Afternoon is pretty much whatever we have. Fruit, veg, granola bars, 100 cal snack packs. I love these things called Disney Garden Foodles. They're a pre-done pack of apples, grapes and cheese. Yum. I also like Planters NUTrition. I'll try to have something like the NUTrition or have a peanut butter sandwich before the gym to keep me going.

I'm currently looking into protein shakes and bars to fill in some nutrition gaps. The moral of that story, I guess is that it's always a work in progress. Even now, my diet could improve and I'm sure my workout regime as well. As long as you keep working at that improvement and keep your goals in mind you'll make it. Sometimes progress is fast, sometimes slow, but its ALL progress.