My Fitness Update

 Soooo. I decided to do a fitness update. No, I haven't reached my goal but I've made a significant amount of progress! When I first started to get my butt back in gear mid- June, I told myself that the before & after pictures were going to be epic [and they will be :-)] & that I wouldn't post any in between photos. But. I changed my mind. I'm going to post some photos up until the last day of July. 

I've been measuring my progress differently than I have been in the past. I don't weigh myself at home. The only time I see my weight is when my personal trainer weighs me & takes measurements every few weeks. Your weight fluctuates A LOT depending on what time of day it is, what day of the week it is, where you're at in ovulation [obviously doesn't apply if you're a male...] & what foods you've eaten among other things. So, to save myself frustration & lets face it, obsession, I have cut myself off from the scale. This has been extremely hard for me to do because this is the only way I have ever measured how "healthy" I am & you could very well say how I measured my self worth.

I now measure my progress by pictures & how my clothes fit.... and obviously by my weigh-ins & measurement updates with Cali every few weeks. 

I was not in wonderful shape when I found out I was pregnant with John. Nathan & I were married April 18, 2011. By May 2, 2011 I wound up in the ER with a Kidney Infection which landed me in bed for a couple of weeks. When I recovered from that I started feeling sick again & on June 21, 2011 I was in the ER once again & found out I had Mono. I felt like I had all the life sucked right out of me. Seriously, it was bad. I wouldn't wish my Mono experience on anyone. I was in bed for a solid 6 weeks. August 2, 2011 is the day I found out I was pregnant [SURPRISE!!!]. I was horribly sick for basically my whole pregnancy. I took Zofran during the day & Phenergan at night to keep down food. But even then, I could only eat limited foods because the sight or smell of most things sent me running to the bathroom. I also had Pregnancy Induced Hypertension. It got so bad (155/110!) that I was on bed rest for the last half of my pregnancy. Hello fatness. Hello water retention [when your bp is that high extreme water retention sets in which in turn just elevates your bp even more].

Up until this point I had lost weight from being so sick. Then in December 2011 we moved to Germany, where now that I look back, I was depressed slightly. It was hard being away from my family & friends knowing the my husband was going to deploy & I was in a completely different country... pregnant & on bed rest. So, I comforted myself with what food I could eat which was junk food. Chips, Ice Cream, Crackers, etc. Sugar & Starch is what stayed down. Yes, I ate a lot of fruit but when fruit is the only healthy thing that stays down, it doesn't do you a lot of good. So, the weight started packing on in mid January. I gained back the 22lbs I lost, plus another 30. Disgusting.

The picture on the top left, obviously, is right after delivering John. March 17, 2012. The picture on the top right is Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012. I had quite a lot of water weight, about 20 lbs worth that I lost between the day John was born & Easter. The bottom left picture is the beginning of June. Still not much light. Maybe another 10 lbs... maybe. The bottom right picture is July 31, 2012. A couple weeks before that picture I was down a total of 40lbs so I'm not quite sure what I am there. But I am a little smaller now just a couple weeks later. Anyway, I'm proud to say there's no photo editing on this last picture; most of my stretch marks have lightened up dramatically. I have them all of my stomach & sides... even down the entire insides of my thighs :-(  [those showed up the last week that I was pregnant]. 

I've gone down 6 pant sizes. My bra band went from a large [largest/last row of hooks] 40 down to a small [first/tightest row of hooks] 36... I was a 34 before pregnancy. I'm down 3 shirt sizes & am feeling better than I have since April of 2011. 

I still have a ways to go on weight loss & toning obviously, until I'll be completely one hundred percent satisfied with myself but it's awesome for me to see how far I've come, especially since I've never lost weight in a healthy way. I'm not starving myself this time or anything drastic... no supplements, no pills, no powders or shakes for meal replacements. These pictures motivate me to keep truckin' along because some days I still feel just as fat & unattractive as I was in that first picture. 

Can't wait to post more photos in the near future :-)