Ally - Day 2

I am coming into this challenge myself after having finished the Gold's Gym Challenge three weeks ago. The program was twelve weeks long and emphasized body transformation, although it was a little difficult participating in a competition where I couldn't really see my competitors and be able to compare my progress to someone else's. The kind of motivation that I like the most and that has been effective for me is competition, that is why I am very excited for this. I even spent part of last night making this poster calendar for us to record our weights daily so its a visible reminder to keep us accountable and see our progress.

My weight loss journey actually began when I moved back home in August 2010. I joined Golds Gym and started at a weight of 176.4. I've worked out with a couple of personal trainers, I started running and racing, I take classes at the gym, hike, and changed the way I view food. Since then up until the end of the Golds Gym challenge on April 9 for me, I got down to my lowest ever: 124.4. 



My heaviest: This picture was taken at our mom's graduation from getting her master's degree at CSU Long Beach in May 2010

Unfortunately though what started out as a few post-challenge rewards of foods I had been keeping away from turned into some binging and into more of an addict's relapse. I love food so much, but eating so much has become different now, I can feel the difference physically and it does not feel good to consume so much needlessly. I have learned from my weakness and I am not proud of undoing my hard work and going back up to 137 pounds in just three short weeks.

 I have yet to feel like I'm done losing weight and acheiving the body that I want for myself, and that is my goal for the next 9 weeks. It is hard to know exactly what the number will be on the scale where I will be happy, because I have never been this small and don't know what I would look like. I am going to try for 117, but more important to me is my body fat percentage. When I started I had a body fat percentage of 35%, and then at the beginning of 2012 it was 25%, and at the end of the Golds Gym Challenge I had brought it down to 20%. My goal is to reduce it to 15% body fat. Then I might also be able to see some ab definition, which is what I've been dying to see.

I'm going to keep my calories per day at around 1100-1200, run at least 20 miles per week, keep going to Golds Gym as much as I can, and record my food, sleep, water intake, exercise, and steps. I want to improve my times for 5k, 10k, mile, and compete in my first triathalon. I also want to be able to do things I've never been able to do before, like chin-ups and rock-wall climbing.

Today:

It is unusual for me but I did pull an all-nighter last night and had my last bit of snacking, so I didn't weigh myself in the morning. I started recording my calorie intake for the day after I began getting ready for school, although I didn't eat anything more until around noon.

I left the house at 5:45am to walk to the bus to get to my 8am class, stayed around for tap dancing at 1pm, then came back on the bus and walked back home. Around 6:30pm my Dad and I went for a 6.6 mile run in 1:11:49. It was my first time running in over a week, and the first half of the run was great, an awesome pace and felt fine, but the last two miles I started hurting and I needed to pee, so it ended up being more difficult than I anticipated. I had an apple and a ham and cheese sandwich while at school, snacked on kiwi and Kashi cereal at home, had some peanut butter post run, and made a delicious smoothie with frozen bluberries, oats, greek yogurt, milk, and whey protein to enjoy while I caught up on Biggest Loser. I need to make sure I finish the rest of the episodes now because I've got an amazing opportunity tomorrow night to be a seatfiller in the audience of the finale. So my mom and I will be going to that tomorrow, and I am super excited!

Calories: 956.5 Carbs: 145.5g Protein: 53.5g Fat: 22.5g Water: 126 oz Steps: 30,783