My skirt is falling off!

I'm pretty excited about this - a skirt that I bought and very vividly remember being too tight for me, is literally falling off! I keep having to pull it up as I go on with my day. I'm feeling like a bad ass. Look how cute I am (ignore the mess, please. I need to clean my bathroom)!

I also purchased a pair of size 14 jeans this weekend. If they don't fit when they get here next week, I might cry. If they DO fit, I might also cry.

So, my "training" for the half marathon in January is going. Nothing too spectacular, but I definitely need to get my endurance up. I need to be awesome at walking because 13.1 miles isn't a walk in the park! I'm also still working on my running, which I'm still not very good at. Oh well.

Has anyone used the "Nike Training Club" app? I'm kind of loving it! It's like a step by step workout - it made me do lunges. I HATE LUNGES. But, I kind of dig this app! I definitely suggest it if you're just looking for something to change up your workouts. There are workouts where you don't need any equipment at all and others where you need dumbbells, medicine balls, jump ropes, etc. I'm really enjoying throwing it in with my walking/running workouts. SO DOWNLOAD IT! I think it's free. Or it was when I got it. I don't pay for apps - Brian would kick my butt lol.

Speaking of Apps, I love love LOVE my My Fitness Pal App. I know I've said it before, but damn, this thing is great and you can even scar bar codes of the stuff you're eating to make sure you're getting the right nutrition information. Be my friend on MFP! BRenkwell is my username.

Speaking of My Fitness Pal - look at a screen shot I took of my App the other day! Yep! That's me at the top - I've lost 11.6 pounds so far! YAY! I'm excited. I hope it keeps coming off. MFP even moved me from eating 1740 calories a day to 1680 - I'm surprised how much faster I'm reaching 1680 than 1740! But hey, I'm okay with it. I'M LOSING WEIGHT!

I guess that's about all I've got for this update...anyone wanna make me a cool graphic for the top of this thing? My blog is kinda blah compared to all of you fancy bloggers.

I'll love you forever!

Half Marathon!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Blame my friend Chrissy, but yes. In January (as long as she doesn't bail on me) I'll be signed up for the MS Blues (Half) Marathon.

If you're like me and have no idea how long a half marathon is, well, let me tell you:

13.1 Miles!

Sadly, you read that correctly. I will somehow drag myself across the finish line after 13.1 miles in January. Why, yes! I have lost my mind!

This is what I call motivation, kids. If I don't have something to work towards and a set deadline, well, it ain't happening.

Now, as I've said - I plan to walk most of this crazy half marathon thing. I'm not kidding myself into thinking that in 4 months I'll be able to run 13.1 miles without stopping, oh no. But, I do know that my ass isn't going to be huffing and puffing to get to the finish line either - I need to pace myself! Start walking/jogging a lot more.

I CAN DO THIS.

Challenge #1

I, Fry Lady, will be staying clear of fried foods for an entire week - starting today 9/6 at 9:30 AM.  

This week, I will not eat a single fried morsel of deliciousness. BUH BYE FRIED YUMMIES!

Oh God, this is gonna be hard.

I live in Mississippi, y'all. We fry er'rything - and we're fat; just check out this map! We're the fattest state in the Nation! Yeehaw! I can't say that I'm surprised. Seriously, I swear this state has more fried food than I've ever seen. And it's all so good! Have you ever had a fried pickle? No? You're missing out. Don't get the spears, get the pickle chips. Dip that awesomeness in ranch dressing. YOU'RE WELCOME. Trust me on this one.

So yes, this week I'm giving up my love, the food that takes a bath in bubbly hot grease and is oh so delicious. Can I do it? We shall see. Wish me luck!

Weakness: Weekends

I've said it before and I'll say it again - EFF WEEKENDS. I do SO well during the week normally and then Friday night rolls around and it's as if I haven't been working hard to eat healthy food all week. This Friday night, Brian wanted to eat leftover turkey tacos and I wasn't feeling it, so I ate more veggie buffalo wings - I love you Morning Star Farms! - and some french fries, with ranch. I was okay with portions so I didn't blow my diet out of the water, but I definitely should have eaten something a touch healthier. *sigh*

Florida Gator Football - you will NOT make me fat!

Saturday morning I was asleep. We didn't get out of bed until 1:30 and it was amazing. I told myself I was going to eat a healthy lunch and I did, I had a turkey sandwich and it was delicious. I even did okay for dinner Saturday when I made personal meat loaves for us with ground turkey. What I didn't anticipate was that some friends would come over Saturday night for the Florida Gator football game and bring beer.

Beer! You WILL make me fat!

I'm an American, people. Football and free beer? Yes please. I can't say no. I'm sorry. Asking me to say no to football, friends and free beer is like asking me to tell my country to eff off - ain't happening - 'MURRICA!

Anyway, so our friends came over with beer. It was a dangerous time - but hey, like I said, I'm an American and I will drink free beer - who am I to say "Ya know, I appreciate you bringing beer, but I'm just not gonna drink it"? Anyway, since I haven't been drinking as much as I used to, my tolerance is laughable. I had 4 Bud Lights and I was on cloud 9. Here's the kicker, I was already over my calories after beer #1, but Brian said "Let's call my sister and have her take us to Waffle House!" - BAD MOVE...but a delicious move.

Here's the thing, my dad raised me in Waffle House. Some of my earliest memories are singing "Tear in my Beer" - a song I've never heard anywhere but pumping out of a Waffle House juke box. I can't say no to Waffle House when I'm sober, let alone when I'm super excited to be drinking beer.

So, we went to Waffle House. I got what I always get there. A Patty Melt on wheat with extra onions, with hashbrowns scattered, smothered, covered and chunked. For all of you who aren't lucky enough to have the Waffle House hashbrown menu memorized (I'm sorry) that means: scattered on the grill, with onions and ham mixed in and then a piece of cheese melted on top. Why yes, it is heaven! I'm glad you were able to realize that! However, it was no good for my diet. I need Waffle House to come out with some healthy hashbrowns. Please - and thank you.

Weekends are evil. I NEED to change this pattern. Any suggestions? I think keeping up with my MyFitnessPal food diary is imperative. Plus, I need to find a way to get at least a little bit of exercise in one day per weekend. But SOMEHOW I need to figure out how to expect the unexpected on weekends - friends coming over spur of the moment, etc. Maybe I just need to keep some liquor around and some mixers so I can make low calorie drinks and still get buzzed with my pals. *sigh* Something's gotta give, weekends!

It's September 2nd...

Aaaand I forgot to post my topless pics for the month yesterday when I took them, whups!

The official monthly tally is showing that I've lost 9 lbs. I can't really tell in my topless pic (it'll be below the break, I don't want people just popping up and seeing this scary stuff, at least if I make people click to see them, they'll know THEY DID IT TO THEMSELVES. But before we get to me all half nekkid and stuff, let's have an update, shall we?

I'm feeling a bit better, after my friend Katie recommended the Neti Pot. This blue sucker has had me breathing free and clear about 75% of the time. YAY Neti Pot! It was a little strange at first, yes, but it was so cool to feel all rinsed out. I don't know much about these things, so I'm not sure exactly where the water with the saline mixture went while it was on it's way from one nostril to another, but my allergies have been better already. I'm pretty sure I owe my breathing to Kate - so thanks, yo! Everyone needs a Neti Pot. No joke. This thing is amazing.

I still haven't been to the gym all week. Something about sinus pressure and physical exertion doesn't seem very appealing, but I definitely need to get back on it. I hate that I messed up my habit forming process because of ALLERGIES. I feel like a wuss. I really need to bust tail next week at the gym - excuses be damned.

My boss has decided that I HAVE to leave the office every day when I go on lunch. I think this is bullshit, but hey, what can ya do?  It's been difficult not to get fast food every day - extremely difficult. I don't want to just sit in my car with the a/c running (which is a must in this heat) and driving home and then making lunch and driving back gives me a total of about 20 minutes at home, which is just a waste. THERE WAS A REASON I ATE AT MY DESK EVERYDAY. Rawr. Anyway, I was bad and went to Wendy's the other day for lunch, but I really didn't do very bad at all. I got a grilled chicken sandwich (I really should have taken off half of the bun - oh well) and APPLES instead of fries! I was proud of myself and the apples were only 40 calories, instead of the 320 in a SMALL Wendy's natural cut french fry! That's a 280 calorie difference. Holy crap.

It's little things like that - swapping one healthy option for an unhealthy option - that I really feel has been a big thing for me when it comes to this whole weight loss/get healthy journey. Such a simple swap, I was just as full...and I didn't have salt all over my hands afterwards. One of the first pieces of advice I can give to someone who wants to make a change is START SMALL. Swap those fries for some apples!

Okay, I guess I've delayed this long enough. WARNING: Do NOT click the "Read More" link if you don't want to see me with my gut all out.

Allergies can bite the big one.

There is literally so much snot coming out of my nose I should change my name to Kleenex. I've been taking Kroger's version of Claritin, but I think I need something else. I'm dying and I don't like it. I rarely get sick. It's driving me crazy.

The worst part about these allergies is that they're knocking me on my ass. I haven't been to the gym since Tuesday the 23rd. I've tried to get going, but when I run, my nose kinda chronically drips anyway (does anyone else have this problem?!) and my sinuses have so much pressure building up in them that I can't imagine I would really be comfortable working out for a long period of time. I'm honestly kinda stuck.

I don't feel sick necessarily, just clogged up? Whatever. Either way, I don't like it. Add my stress from work this past week and a half and you have a pretty blah feeling Me...unfortunately, many times that means I don't make the best food or lifestyle choices.

I definitely had (veggie) buffalo chicken nuggets and french fries Monday night for dinner. It was delicious! I definitely recommend them! They're by Morningstar  Farms and, while they're not the greatest things ever to be eating, I mean, at least I baked them right? But I didn't bake the french fries - whups! Oh well, it was good.

However, I do have to say, I noticed that eating the junk food didn't really make me "feel better." Sure, I enjoyed eating the crap I was eating, but I didn't feel the happy "WOO HOO! I ATE FRENCH FRIES!" feeling that I've gotten before. It was more of a "I shouldn't be doing this...but whatever, I 'm mad at the world" feeling. I have to admit, I actually was a little ashamed to add it to my MyFitnessPal diary.

I guess it all boils down to the fact that food doesn't make you feel better, food doesn't help when you're depressed and it's never nice to feel fat because you're eating too much.

I do have happy news though! I've officially lost 8lbs and yesterday I bought a dress in a size 14 because the 16 was too big (we'll ignore the fact that the size 14 pants I tried on were still a touch too tight).  Look how cute I am! (My work bathroom is kinda hot, right?)

I guess tonight I need to take some more topless pics so you can see the dwindling gut after just over a month of eating well and attempting to exercise. It hasn't gotten too much smaller, but hey, maybe we can make a cool flipbook of these things one day and it'll be like "Honey I Shrunk the French Fry Lover!"

Wanna be my friend on My Fitness Pal? I know I have recently been in need of some serious motivation, but I've been bad about reaching out for it. If you're my MFP friend and I see you do something awesome, I promise to tell you so! My My Fitness Pal username is BRenkwell and I'll be your friend. Just tell me who you are somehow and how you found me! 

Oh and another random factoid: I love eating cucumbers. I think they might be my new favorite veggie.

Apparently I suck at updating...

Or at least that what Mandy says. But trust me, there's a good reason for it! What's that reason? Well, I guess there's a few reasons. 1) I'm boring. 2) I've been working out! 3) The scale isn't moving much and it's starting to piss me off.

I guess everyone hits the point where the scale stays put...I just didn't expect it would be this soon. I guess I need to change up my work out routine. I'm trying to talk Brian into letting me get a trainer once a week or something. Just to set me up with a workout plan instead of me going into the gym and saying "Oh I'll do this today!" I mean, I've been doing okay, actually, but still. I think I need to be doing more lunges or something (b/c I will never do them willingly), or maybe more weights or something? I really don't know.

I had a trainer for a while before we got married (BTW - we've been married 10 months! That's so insane to me) and I wasn't doing my part outside of our sessions to really make any strides to make the most of it. I think Brian was annoyed that I was spending so much moolah and I wasn't losing any weight. I'll have to suck up majorly to him to get him to agree to this.

Anyhoo - on to the important shizz going on. I'm doing MUCH better on my diet than I was this weekend. I'm still not doing great, but thanks to the support of friends that I can call at 7:50am and ask what I should get for breakfast from McDonalds because I'm running late, I'm pretty sure I can continue on this track. I just need to stop myself from eating the delicious chips and dip I stupidly bought at Kroger this weekend and I think I'll be okay.

I finished week 1 of "5K Runner" it wasn't SO bad, but week 2 day 1? Yeah, it kicked my ass. Hard. I'm pretty sure it's bruised. I didn't enjoy it. I think I want to do week 1 again and when that gets easy, move on to week 2. I'm really scared of pushing myself to the point where I literally can't do it anymore and then giving up. I can't wait til November when it might actually be cool enough to run outside at night.

Oh and in case you were wondering, my morning workouts that I was planning on doing back in my first post? Yeah, that didn't happen. What can I say? I love sleep.

THERE. I UPDATED. You happy now?!