It's been a year!

It's been a year! A few weeks ago I celebrated a year after I began my weight loss journey, as with every journey it has not been easy. I've had my ups and downs -more downs for sure {as in lowering my weight} ;-) something I am very proud of. Last year in June I joined a team of 50 bloggers working our way to lose weight, get healthier and drop inches all with the help of Shaklee Corporation.

I was ecstatic and surprised when I was chosen and I worked hard towards getting back on track. As we worked on changing our lifestyle we also supported each other something I am very grateful for. We made friendships that are still there and we celebrated each loss be it in weight or in inches or defeating daily challenges.

Last time I updated you on my weight loss was in Spring, I talked about how someone was trying to tell me something and I was certainly listening. I even managed to get my lowest weight since 2002! I was motivated and documenting my meals, counting calories and staying active. I rode my bike, danced at home with the help of my workout DVDs and even used Pinterest to help me stay focused. I was so inspired I shared with you my new playlist.

I know I shouldn't focus so much on my weight, but this also meant that I was shrinking a little in my measurements. I was watching my portions, drinking lots of water, making time to exercise for at least 30 minutes a day and my confidence level was at its highest in a longest time. 

Determination, you decide you want to achieve a goal and you begin making changes in your life to reach it. You map out all the resources you'll need to succeed and get to work on it. You set your mind to it and each and every day you take little or big steps towards achieving it. The mind, is quite powerful. It guides us towards what we want. 

You set your goals, you work on it by exercising and watching what you eat a few weeks later you begin to notice differences sometimes within a day or two you start to notice that your clothes fit differently, that you sleep better, you are in a better mood. 

For the past 2 months I have been focusing on our move, no this is not an excuse but this is me being responsible about my actions. About my choices, the last 3 months have been extremely busy. We first traveled to visit family in Southern California and Mexico then began packing up our home and preparing for our big move. It took over our daily activities and some days I felt frustrated because I wasn't making time or taking out time out of my day to workout, to prepare a home cooked meal or watch my portions. 

What makes it worst is that on some days I barely drank any water. I don't consider this a failure in my weight loss journey,  in fact I consider it a test of what I learned over the course of 10 months. 

My clothes still fit, but I know and feel I've gone up a little. This is about to change. Because this week, I'm ready to take back my health. I'm ready to make better choices. I'm ready to drink water. This week I've been watching my portions, I've been increasing my water intake and I'm already up to 48 ounces a day. I'm slowly but surely getting back up.

Although I ate my emotions, I managed to not gain too much 5 pounds total. I am not a robot who can program her mind, I am a human being and this is definitely a journey with  its own set of challenges, curved roads, detours and such.

But I am not giving up! I will not give up, it is a learning process and although I may have the occasional drive-thru meal it does not mean I am stopping. :-) This number will soon change to a smaller one and with working out regularly, eating balanced meals, controlling my portions and drinking much more water I will soon reach my lowest weight in the past year. I'm confident because I know I can do this.

We now have steps to climb to get to the bedrooms which means I am moving more than before at home. I climb those steps up and down roughly 20 times on any given day. I'm going for short walks as I get more and more comfortable on doing so here {there aren't any sidewalks! yikes! and there is a river nearby with many trees which equals to wildlife something I'm not very comfortable with -God forbid a snake falls on me! EEEEEKS!}.

I am also preparing our meals at home, we didn't have a kitchen to cook in for a couple of weeks so eating out was the only option... Now I can prepare and cook meals at home and it is making it easier in fact my family is very happy about eating homemade meals :D

Each day represents new challenges and of course I try to find new inspiration and motivation everywhere. The key is to keep going, keep moving forward and learn from yesterday. I do keep reminding myself that I've come a long way from last year and yes I am still a work in progress. :-)

Still going!

I know it's been two months since last I shared an update on my weight loss journey, I have been receiving emails asking me to continue to share and well I have to admit sharing my weight loss was therapeutic for me and helped keep me focused.

It has been great feeling this energetic, wearing my new size in jeans :D and eating healthier. I have had my ups and downs just like everyone when they are turning around their lifestyle. However I feel great and whenever I lose my focus I go back to reading about my journey and find my inspiration and motivation. 

The Holiday season is behind  us and yes I have had some rough patches here and there, like getting sick with the flu or caring for little ones with the flu with sleepless nights and feeling beyond exhaustion I chose to go with the flow and if I didn't feel up to it I did not exercise. 

One of the ways I am also keeping myself motivated with a Pinterest board I created called "I'm a work in progress" this board has my weight loss journey story and my favorite routines in addition to inspirational quotes or stories of others to keep reminding myself that I have, I can and I will continue on this. 

There are days that I don't feel like exercising and on those days I have managed to push myself and my will to doing at least two routines from my board or 25 ab crunches + 30 jumping jacks + 30 squats. After that I feel a little more motivated and end up doing more. That is quite an improvement from last June when I could barely do a jumping jack without gasping for air!

I have also been doing walks on the treadmill {whenever possible} and am proud to share that after the 8 months since my journey began I can now run a full minute easily on speed setting 6. :D Yes I feel so proud about that! My dream is to run for 20 minutes non-stop! I'm a minute closer.

If you are following me on Instagram you have noticed that I am enjoying cheese omelets for breakfast along with some chipotle chiles on top it is delicious and keeps me satisfied until noon. I use just one egg and a hand full of shredded cheese in it. 

For lunch I have a new found love: One can of drained tuna in water with a bowl of lettuce, some kalamata olives and some days I will add dressing others I will eat it as is others I will add some rosemary crackers just 3 to add more texture. 

Dinners are a bit of the same, my recipes and on weekends we usually do take out. But one thing is for sure I am not eating 4 slices of pizza! Only 1 - 2 and they are usually the ones with less bread in it, we have found one that also has less fat and 2 slices equal to 1 of the regular pizzas. We have also found a new love for Thai food and it is now brown rice and less on the amounts :D

Working on getting healthier and making better choices is now easier, there are still times when I crave the other foods and I will allow myself to try them. Portions are key and drinking water is key. 

Although I have not measured myself recently, I did weigh myself and here is what numbers I'm currently on:

Which means I am 24.2 lbs lighter. 

Oh and I finally got a new pair of jeans in my present size! Goodbye size 18!

Also cleared out my closet of clothes that were up to 4 sizes too big!

 I hope you enjoyed my update and keep supporting me, your comments encourage me and help keep me inspired :D

Wear It Again Wednesday {week 4}

It's been two weeks since I last shared a "Wear It Again Wednesday" post, I've lost 20 lbs total since my birthday last June and am still continuing to lose weight and inches. 

This past weekend I was at Bloggy Boot Camp my first ever blogging conference, for it I shopped in my closet and found these black dressy pants. Would you believe I hadn't worn them in 9 years?? Last time I wore them they were to tight to zip up, this past weekend not only did they zip up but also they were comfortable. :D

This picture was taken a few days before. 

Well, what do you think? Am I rocking it? 

After this picture was taken I decided I didn't like the top that much as it was too loose... So I paired it with another top. Yay me! and Yay you for supporting and cheering me on! :D

Say it LOUD... Say it PROUD!

It had been three weeks since I last exercised, I had promised myself that I would do it tomorrow but it was already TODAY! I didn't have anymore excuses, even though we had just driven in from a looong road trip over the weekend and were sitting in the car for over 10 hours with two kids. My eyes suddenly opened and as I saw a little bit of light I thought if everyone is asleep why not change into my workout clothes and JUST DO IT! 

I changed quickly without making a sound, I did not want to wake the kids up. I did not want to wake up my husband. I walked towards the door.... iPhone? check, keys? check, water? check, earphones? check, jacket? check... LET'S GO! 

As I walked down the steps onto the courtyard I noticed it was still dark, there was some a crispness in the air that was not there the week before. Could it be it will start to cool down -I thought. Then a few seconds later I'm at the gym! As I programmed the treadmill I couldn't stop feeling accomplished, proud of myself and I felt a winner. 

It's barely 6:30 and I'm already 5 minutes into my workout! I pumped up the volume and enjoyed working out to some music. Nothing gets me more pumped up to workout than some great music. On this particular morning I was craving some "reggaeton" and just like that I was well on my way.

That early Monday morning I remember tweeting, instagraming and posting on facebook how proud I was of myself, me at the gym before anyone woke up! On the way back home I was all smiles and ready to start the day, ready for whatever our week had in store for us. During the next couple of days I had my ups and downs, specially with weather changing so drastically my sinus' acted up... Yet I managed to get in at least 30 minutes of physical activity. I would put on some videos of people dancing on you tube and rock to them, other days I would just do some squats, jumping jacks and knee highs. On a rare occasion I did some burpees... never heard of a burpee? Oh my you are in for a workout surprise! it's a combination of a squat, push up and jumping jack, or something like it. Very challenging. 

I had agreed to be parteners with Stacie and I wasn't going to let her down. So all week we would tweet each other: "Water!" "run" "jog" "pushups" "what's for dinner?" and motivating eachother really put everything into perspective! I joined this team to get healthy. To lose weight. To wear a much smaller size of clothes and I am not going to give up now! 

As I watched what I ate, drank more water than I was drinking the weeks before and kept myself active on Saturday morning I decided it was time for a weigh in. Had all my work paid off? Had all that water instead of soda and all those low fat meals paid off? 

And then... the moment of truth, I was on the scale and I looked down. What I saw was beyond achievement. It was beyond what I had expected.... 

I thought to myself: Say it LOUD! say it PROUD! 

5 lbs down! 

I kept getting on and off the scale, I could not believe it! and then it hit me... I was dancing and jumping from joy. I had reached one of my goals, I was now officially 20 lbs lighter!  It took me 4 months but I had done many changes, I had stuck to it and it was certainly paying off. 

Whenever we lose weight we say it loud and proud, but when we gain we are always shy about it. This time I was loud, proud and confident. I had lost weight and it was certainly going to show.

My updated measurements are:

Neck: 15"  before 16"

Chest: 41 3/4" before 45"

Arm: 14.5"  before 16.5"

Waist: 41 3/4" before 46.5"

Hip: 49" before 53.5"

Thigh: 28" before 32"

As you can see I'm losing my most noticeable weight/inch loss is on my waist and thighs. 

Have you ever felt this way? 

A very special feeling that means we have been hard at work. 

At my stance

I'm ready to Cinch it! 

I'm ready to start my weight loss program and lose weight naturally. I'm ready at the start line, ready to reach my very personal goals. Ready to wear my 'trophy' dress or pants. 

Are you ready???

Here is what I look like now.

I wanted to share with you the 'real' me, 'real' as in what I hide beneath those loose tops. Believe me this was not as easy as it looks. 

At my stance, at this very moment I weigh:

231.0 lbs

My measurements today are:

ARM: 16.5 INCHES

BUST: 45 INCHES

THIGH: 32 INCHES

HIPS: 53.5 INCHES

WAIST: 46.5 INCHES

Current BMI {Body Mass Index} = 43.6

This is a sponsored post as part of the Shaklee Corporation’s Team #Cinchspiration Campaign. I have received free products, online support and incentives for participating. All opinions and images are my own. Results and experiences are unique for each person, so results may vary. People following the weight loss portion of Shaklee 180 can expect to lose 1-2 pounds a week.