Stand Up Sunday - Weight Loss Journey - A LINK UP

The weight needs to come off. I started off well a few weeks ago, but it was a mistake to really start around the holidays. At least it was a mistake for me. 
I couldn't control myself. I ate everything that looked good. I might not have eaten a lot of it, but I ate it. I ate out and ate dessert. 
But I'm done eating. At least done eating all the crappy stuff that does the opposite of making me feel good. 
I was so happy when I saw Rebekah post about wanting to start a Link-Up about weight loss. I've seen some others out there, but they seemed to dwindle out. I need the push to keep myself accountable. 
So I'm going to start again. I'm going to try to lose the 20 to 30 pounds that would mean putting in me in the "average" BMI range instead of the overweight or obese ones. 
The link-up will consist of a series of questions (which I answered below to get us started). If you wish to participate in this link-up all you have to do is copy the questions and answer them (you may, of course, pick and choose the ones that you wish to answer for any given week).  Link back to us each Sunday and give us an update.  Feel free to share anything you want and to not share things you'd rather keep to yourself (weight for example). Check out each other blogs to see how we are doing and give some positive feedback to keep us on the right track. 
Let us go first...

1. How many pounds did you gain or lose?

I weighed myself on Tuesday, January 20th and I weighed in at: 163.8. My weigh in procedure is to use the bathroom and weigh myself right before getting dressed for the day. I feel that this is the most accurate measure and generally it has me at the lowest weight of the day.

I weighed myself on Saturday (yesterday) and I weighed in at 161 even.

So that's a difference of 2.8 pounds.

2. How many inches did you gain or lose?

So this is hard for me. At least at the moment because I don't have a measuring tape. Instead I'll stick to my pant size.

I had reached a 4/6 a year or so ago, and am wearing 8/10 right now. The 8 is a bit tight but it fits, the 10 is more comfortable. I will update how comfy each size is since I probably won't change actual pant size for a while.
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3. Your weekly exercise or step goal, and did you meet it?

I haven't decided if I want to have a step goal or not. Mostly because my week nights tend to be crazy and sometimes I get to walk a lot and sometimes I don't. The goal that they say we should reach is 10,000 steps a day, 70,000 a week. I'm hoping to reach half of that to start and see how that goes. Maybe setting a goal for steps will inspire me to go on longer walks with my puppy (and I'll be honest - he is the only reason I go for walks these days). 

I use my phone (Galaxy S5) for my step counting.

Apparently there is no easy way to see how many steps I took in a week so I had to add up my steps for each day. For Sunday, January 18th thru Saturday, January 24th I walked a total of 51,239 steps. I made that goal of half the steps last week when I wrote most of this post. I didn't really try to make the 35,000 step goal - but I reached 51,239 pretty easily. 

4. What was your biggest challenge this week?

This week my biggest challenge was getting back into the hang of things. Besides the holidays I went to my sisters' house last weekend were I indulged in birthday cake and ice cream and eating out for just about every meal. Getting back into a good path of eating within my calories was a struggle. 

5. What is your favorite healthy snack or meal?

Lately my favorite snacks have been clementines (Cuties) and tomatoes. I'll eat them as snacks during the day at work. They are easy to eat and low in calories so I can have 3 or 4 and not feel like I'm ruining my calorie count for the day. 

6. Do you have any advice or tips for the rest of us?

I was able to lose 25 lbs simply by using My Fitness Pal and being an active member of the Reddit /loseit. I kept it of for over a year, but then I got married and went on a honeymoon and all was forgotten. 

My advice is to keep coming back to this link up, commenting on each others post (and we'll comment on yours) and keep each other inspired to come back and show are successes and even our downfalls (because there is no doubt that they will happen at one point or another).

Not all my posts will be this wordy, this is definitely an intro post to the link-up! I hope you will join us! 

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An InLinkz Link-up