57 lb loss in a year! My secret...

Thanks everyone for all of the kind words! You guys brought up some great points and I want to address them.

I really appreciate that you think I look good at 240 lbs. I'm 5'10" and will say that I wear my weight well. For some reason (actually I'm proud of it) my arms have always been small. If I had huge arms, I would definitely look my weight. In the first picture, I'm wearing a size 24 and now I wear a size 18 tall. So believe me, I'm every bit of that 240 lbs.

As far as working outside of the home....YES, I do. I'm a manager at a college and I work 50 hours a week. I have a husband and two boys aged 6 and 11 years. But the real question is "how do I manage my time". Here's what I do:

I started off with a spiral notebook with about 70 pages (now I use Excel and every tab is a challenge). Every 5-10 pages, I have the name of my challenge at top. Then I keep my stats in the book. I actually work out on average only 30-40 min a day for 5 days. BUT, I work out in the morning and evening. When I wake up, I work out about 15 minutes. In that time I can do 100 punch combos, 100 jumping jacks and 100 lunges. I do them in sets of 50. So I do 50 punch combos, then 50 jj's, etc and keep going until I hit my goal. Then, when I come home and I'm cooking, I may do 50 squats, 50 jumping jacks and maybe 50 situps. Once I'm done, I've hit my daily goals. Now I do have a health club membership but I only go on the weekends or if I work 1/2 a day. When I go there, I do my bike riding for 30-45 mins. Lastly, my "secret weapon of attack" is my Leslie Sansone Walk away the pounds dvd. Each mile is only 12 minutes and I do find the time to do that video 5x a week so that I can get in 5 miles of walking during the week. I don't do 5 miles a day :-))

I hope these details help! Remember, you can do it! Also, I lost 57 lbs in a year which is a little over a lb a week. That is a very healthy and achievable way to lose weight. Anyone can do what I've done.

For 2012, I plan on losing another 57 - 60lbs. It's not a race for me. I just want to be healthy! If it takes me 2-3 years to get the weight off, I'm fine because I know that I can keep it off.

Friend me if you like!