Introduction

Okay. Here we go with this. I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Kristi. I am a 33-year old woman in Idaho. I decided to do this blog for a number of reasons:

1. I wanted a place and way to journal my weight loss experience. I don't want to record everything as my Facebook statuses. No one wants to read all that there. I didn't want to record everything in my regular journal. How boring would that be. So, a blog it is.
2. I figured if I put everything out on the web for everyone to see, it would be a little more motivating for me to keep going and succeed. I mean, good heavens, I am going to have my measurements and everything for the world to see. That would be terrible for everyone to know my measurements when I'm pretty big and stop there. No, that would never do.
3. Okay, so there are really only two reasons.
   

So, that's why I'm doing the blog. It would probably be good to give a little background on me. Like a lot of people, I've been overweight pretty much all my life. I remember when I hit 100 pounds. At the time it seemed pretty cool. However, as I look at it now, that's pretty sad. I was probably in 4th grade or something. Sad. The next weight I remember was 180. I think I pretty much skipped everything in between.

Growing up, I would often have spurts of motivation for losing weight. I remember doing sit ups in my room, doing early-morning workout videos with my next-door-neighbor and good friend, Anna, or going for walks to get ready for girls' camp hiking. None of these attempts produced much success; nor did they last very long.

Despite my overweight status in life, I'm actually pretty happy. I don't mean I put up a happy front, but I truly am happy! I've attributed a number of reasons for this:

1. I know who I am as a child of God. I have been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints my entire life. I've been taught that I am a daughter of God and I actually know it to be true. It is amazing what a difference this knowledge can make in someone's life.
2. Amazingly enough, aside from knowing who I really am, the thing that has helped the most to feel good about myself is the internet - specifically chat rooms. I have always loved to get to know people. When I was in college, I discovered chat rooms are a great way to do just that. So, I became McBliss in the cyber-world (my sister, Holli, used to call me "Kris McBliss" so I thought that would be a good chat room name). On the internet, people can be anyone they want - girls can be boys, old men can be young girls, young girls can be older than they really are (it can be pretty scary). Well, I was me....REALLY me! It was so freeing! I could be myself without worrying about anyone seeing my body and perhaps judging me. What I discovered is that people really liked McBliss (the real me). It was an awesome feeling! So, I learned how to bring McBliss and Kristi together and people still like me! It's great to know!
3. I have a really bad memory. I mean REALLY bad! I do remember watching "Finding Nemo" and thinking how I could relate to Dori. When she started singing "just keep swimming," I found it especially scary! That was me! Yeah. So, where was I going with this? What am I even talking about? Oh, yeah. So, because of my bad memory, I forget that there are things not to be happy about!
   
4. I'm on Prozac. I probably should have been put on it as a child as I was a mess. However, after my chatroom therapy, I was much happier. Several years ago, though, I was diagnosed with Chronic Daily Headaches, and was prescribed prozac for them (did you know prozac was originally a headache medication?). Once my headaches were gone, I tried to go off the prozac a couple times and it was NEVER a good idea. I was a MESS! So, I have come to the conclusion that for my own santity and the safety of those around me, I should just stay on it.
   

Anyway, along with being happy, I am also extremely unmotivated. I once took a Facebook quiz to find out what animal I am. Conclusion: I'm a sloth. And it's true. Yeah. And in regards to weight loss, that just doesn't work so well.

In recent years, my sister, Kathi has been motivated off and on to lose weight and be more healthy and has come up with different motivators. I won't go into the details of the attempts. The outcomes were always the same in the end: failure. I was okay with this, though, because although I went along with it, I was never really motivated. The diet wasn't so bad, but I really didn't like exercising.

A few months ago, I heard about a diet-supplement-drink-thingy, Tai-Slim, from my friend, Anna. It sounded pretty good, so I decided to try it. It's supposed to get your body functioning the way it is supposed to, so you don't have to do much to lose weight (aside from drinking the stuff). I felt a difference in my body, specifically in my food cravings, and I had a little success. Kathi, however, was very skeptical, and said that because I was taking it, I was more focused and that was why I was having success. To prove that it was the Tai-Slim, I conciously ate exactly the same as I had before. And through the holidays, I allowed myself to indulge, but kept taking the Tai-Slim in hopes it would keep things at bay. The result: I didn't gain a single pound. Wahoo. So, I still believe in the stuff.

This year, Kathi came up with a new motivation. We are planning on taking her kids to Hogle Zoo this spring. Kathi's brilliant, motivating idea was for us to do our own little version of "Biggest Loser." Whoever lost the most weight would not have to pay for the hotel...the other one would. I really didn't want to commit, but I reluctantly shook on it anyway. That was last Sunday night (1/3/10). I told her that my initial weigh in was going to be that night and I was going to eat lots and lots and drink lots and lots before I weighed in. She said I could do that. Hehe. So, I weighed in at 231 pounds on the "Biggest Loser" Wii game I had gotten myself for Christmas.

My plan was to get up early on Monday morning to exercise a bit. I set my alarm for 6:00, planning to be up by 6:30. When my alarm rang, I could have gotten up, but I decided to be realistic. There really is no way I would be successful trying to get up early to exercise. I would be much more consistent if I exercised at night. So, I turned of the alarm and went back to sleep. Later that morning, Kathi called me from work. She said that someone else at work, Susan (not her real name), wanted to join us. The new outcome was that at the end of 3 months, whoever lost the most weight would get $75 from the other two (later another friend, Julie (not her real name), also decided to join with us....making the pot $225). Yeah, I could go for that (especially with Tai-Slim on my side).

That money really is motivating! I was putting some leftover cake away on Monday and it looked really good (Better-Than-Sex cake....YUM!). When the thought came to eat some, I just said, "seventy-five bucks" and put it away. Yeah, not worth it.

I decided I want to keep track of my weekly progress not only in pounds but inches as well. So, Monday morning I had Kathi take my initial measurements. I want to weigh and measure on Fridays, so the first results are only after 5 days. My plan for this blog is to:

1. Record my weekly progress - pounds and inches
2. Record my daily progress - food and exercise
3. Report how I'm feeling regularly
4. Post pictures (perhaps every 2 weeks) of myself to see how I'm doing.
   

Sooooo.....here we go:

Date --------------1/4/10---------------1/8/10---------------Total Lost
Neck -------------- 14.5-------------------- 14 ---------------------- 0.5
Right Arm--------- 15 --------------------- 15.5 -------------------- -0.5
Left Arm----------- 16 -------------------- 16 ---------------------- 0
Bust ---------------- 52 -------------------- 48.5 ------------------- 3.5
Midriff ------------- 40 -------------------- 39.5 ------------------- 0.5
Waist -------------- 43 --------------------- 43 --------------------- 0
Belly --------------- 51.5 ------------------- 51 ---------------------- 0.5
Hips --------------- 53.75 ----------------- 52.25 ------------------ 1.5
Right Thigh ------- 28 -------------------- 26.5 ------------------- 1.5
Left Thigh --------- 28 -------------------- 27 --------------------- 1
Right Calf --------- 15.5 ------------------- 15 --------------------- 0.5
Left Calf ----------- 15.5 ------------------- 15.5 ------------------- 0

Total Inches ----- 372.75 ----------------- 363.75
Inches Lost --------------------------------- 9 ----------------------- 9

Weight ------------ 231 -------------------- 224
Weight Lost -------------------------------- 7 ------------------------ 7
Percentage --------------------------------- 3.03% ------------------ 3.03%
Lost

There you go. Wow! That's kind of scary! Don't judge me, people. I know I've got some major numbers there. Let's focus on those small, but amazing results. 7 pounds and 9 inches lost....in FIVE days! Pretty dang cool, don't you think?