Whoah! I'm halfway there!

Whoah-oh! Living on a prayer! :laugh: Sorry. I songplanted myself and needed to get that out.

I just breezed past my halfway point today, so it's time to man up and get some before & during pics going. Except it's a before-the-before picture. It was taken during the summer when I really have no clue what my actual weight was. I stopped weighing myself, as summer turned to fall, became completely engrossed in preparing for my epic Halloween party. Which meant getting in the "spirit" (Ha-ha! Halloween pun!) by bringing home bags and bags of Halloween candy, taste-testing various alcoholic beverages (Thumbs up to Captain Morgan Tattoo and Wild Turkey American Honey!) and making trial version of my booze-infused Jello Brain and rum balls and cupcakes with white chocolate skulls and black icing... Yummmm.





The party was a huge hit. But we had a TON of leftovers. Oh, drat! You mean I gotta finish off the cupcakes? Twist my arm.

Then tragedy struck. My wonderful Fergus, one of my black kitties and an absolute sweetheart, died. My depression spiraled out of control, and I ate. And ate. And ate. Then a friend's birthday party. Then my brother had a "practice Thanksgiving dinner." Then his real Thanksgiving dinner. Then my high school reunion. Then the two year anniversary of losing my Mom, which gave the depression another hit. Then an early Christmas party... by then, I was starting to come out of my slump and getting disgusted with myself. One of the fellow party guests was talking to my very athletic niece about the Warrior Dash, and my eyes just lit up! It sounded amazing! And I consider myself to be a bit of a badass, and love Vikings, and you get a beer and a turkey drumstick at the end!? I'M IN!

So that's what started my fitness kick. Drunken fantasies of jumping fire and crawling through mud. At first, it wasn't about weight loss, just about getting fit enough to do such a crazy thing. Then after a week of increased activity, I got on the scale. 160. Ugh. I'm ok with 150. That's only 15 pounds above my happy weight of 135. But I didn't want to be 25 pounds above that!

That's when I found the C25K program, MFP, and joined Planet Fitness. The rest, they say, is history.

I'm finally getting into the groove of this. I enjoy working out. I love running. I'm good at eating right and like trying new things. I'm good about getting plenty of water. And best of all, I'm realizing that I need more calories to lose weight properly! Eat more, weigh less?! Fab! When I had my MFP settings at 2 pounds a week, I was given 1200 calories and told I'd lose 1.3 a week. When I set it to 1 pound a week, I got about 1350 and have been losing 1.5 every week. Except this week, when I lost two! And I'm eating real food. Pizza once or twice a week. Pasta... lots of pasta. A little booze now and then. I'm just trying to avoid prepared food that's high in sodium. And getting in more fresh veggies. I'm probably eating MORE now than I did when I was gaining weight, just better. And exercising a lot more. In addition to running 3x a week, I'm doing the EA Sports Active2 9 Week Challenge. Just finished Phase 2. And a bunch of custom and trainer generated workouts, too. I aim for 45 minutes a day. Sometimes more. I alternate between burning about 600 calories on running days and 200-300 on "easy" days.

Today is the first day I've taken off from exercise in about two months. It's my halfway reward to myself: No exercise and no logging for one day! I'm going to make a day off part of my weekly schedule.

So anyway, onto the pictures. I'm shy about doing this, but it's another "comfort zone" thing. It's not a drastic difference, but it's a difference. This summer, at about 152# and today at 144#. I'm noticing a lot in the belly and spare tire region. And I was probably sucking it in with the summer picture, and I definitely wasn't today. And do I detect the beginning of abs?! :laugh: