One thing that I started doing Monday morning was wearing a pedometer and as weird as it sounds, I am constantly looking at it to see how many steps are on it and how many more I can get on it. On Monday I had right over 11,000 steps and yesterday I had 14,304!!! I am challenging myself to take at least 10,000 per day - that is 5 miles.

This whole losing weight thing is so mental so I have to find ways to manipulate myself but hey.....whatever works!!!

I have always beat myself up for the way I look....for my body imperfections. I try just joking it off saying that God didn't give me a perfect body because he knew with my personality I could end up dancing on a table somewhere and He had bigger plans for me!!!!

I get angry at myself when I look back at pictures of when I was 30 and only weighed 125 pounds....in a size 4 and I beat myself up then too. Now I can only pray that I could look that good again.....imperfections and all. I suppose what I have to succumb to is that I will never look the way I want. There are certain areas that will never be "right" because now I have the age and gravity thing going against me. Unfortunatley as you get older, skin loses its elasticity and wrinkles will come!! I have hidden my body most of my life but will just feel better hiding it in a size 6 verses a 12!!!!

All we can do is keep trying!!!!

Well the Biggest Loser Competition at my church through my for a loop this past Sunday. It turned out that week one.....I was the Biggest Loser with a 4.77% body weight loss. I was so excited and was called up front to receive a certificate of achievement and a $5.00 gift card from Subway. My husband was in second place with a 4.69% body weight loss! I am trying so hard to do well because I put a team together and as team captain feel like I need to lead by example. I have 7 people on my team and 4 of us seem to be making an effort but I am worried about the other 3 - they haven't even lost an ounce and when I try to motivate them and encourage them they just make comments like.....dieting just really sucks or I am just not good at this. Last night I invited the team to meet up for a good challenging walk, to talk about how things are going and give each other feedback....the one lady that has lost nothing text me back and asked me if we were going to walk inside or outside.....what? Is that really the important thing here? And out of the team, only one person showed up and she brought her 1 year old with her. It wouldn't have been so bad but she brought one of those motororized toys for her daughter to ride along as we walked.....do any of you know how slow those things go? Needless to say, the walk was more of a stroll and the baby screamed most of the way. I was frustrated but at least she showed up at all. I guess I shouldn't allow myself to get frustrated with the others because making changes is hard and we all have to get in the right mind set to really be ready for it....we have to just reach that point, deep down inside, that we just don't want to be overweight anymore....that we don't want to continue feeling bad about the way we look, feeling disgusted with ourselves as each summer passes where we refuse to put on a bathing suit or even a pair of shorts for that matter or feeling like failures or "less than". I have reached that point and though the one person who's opinion really matters to me, my husband, tells me how beautiful I am to him every day, I need to do this for me....I don't want to be skinny, I know that I will never look the way I would love to look and I have accepted that but what I do know is that I CAN look better than I look now and that is what will keep me going!!!!

You hang in there and keep your chin up.....we all have this happen to us. I had been losing and gaining the same 5 pounds for 8 months and I was at my witts end over it. I finally started reading up on the nutritional value of food....more than the usual just looking at calories and I realized that through my "dieting" I was filling up on way too many carbs, especially ones that weren't so good. A couple weeks ago I started watching my carbs, focusing on eating more vegetables (especially green with lower carbs) and poof....the ugly 5 pounds that have haunted me forever dissappeared and have stayed gone. I have lost a total of 11 pounds just in the past couple of weeks. I am feeling a lot better, sleeping a lot better and most of all.....feeling hopeful about my weight loss journey again!!!

I think all our bodies work differently and you just need to really look at what you are eating and drinking and figure out what changes will work for you!!