V-I-C-T-O-R-Y, That's the Shrinking Battle Cry!

...lol. I dunno, I need to go to bed. So many NSVs lately! Sorry I'm a COMPLETE failure at blogging lately, but I have mostly been succeeding in real life. =) I'll give y'all a quick update and then maybe talk about calorie restrictions.

I've been sticking pretty good with IF, maybe a few days not quite the fast I was looking for. I also recalculated my calorie intake which I will talk about more in depth later. For the last 2 weeks I haven't been losing the 2 lbs/week I was maintaining prior to that. I actually was kinda stuck in a rut, and had been stuck at the same number on the scale for almost 2 weeks. I was gonna give my recalculation a week or 2 to settle so I was about to have to go back to the drawing board. Happy to say when I weighed in a few days ago, I was down FOUR pounds! So, still averaging 2 lbs a week. =D On track to reach a HUGE goal before Labor day! Also hopefully going to be able to finally share my progress pics! I'm 78lbs down now and I was planning on the big reveal at -80 lbs. So hopefully by next week! =D

I'm really excited guys. REALLY, really excited! I've had so many compliments lately, it's really spurring me on to keep going. Some highlights are:
-Will putting his hand on my stomach at the movie theater while I was standing and he was sitting and asking "Are you sucking your stomach in? It's so flat!"
- People at church telling me how great I look
- My old trainer Nichole telling me I'm getting some great curves and complimenting me on my progress.
- A patient today asking me "Have you...How much weight have you lost?" She hasn't been in since March, and we started seeing her in December, so I've lost about 50 lbs since we started seeing her. I looked at her chart "Well, since I saw you last...about 35 lbs?" Her mouth almost fell open she looked so shocked. She was so sweet and supportive it really made my day. It'll be a couple months until she comes back and she said "Well, keep it up!" I told her hopefully the next time I saw her I'd be skinny for real. haha

One of the biggest victories from this past weekend was that I went to Lane Bryant this weekend and pretty much confirmed that I can no longer shop there. The tops/dresses are sized 14/16 and were too big, the underwear sized 14/16 probably could've fit for the next couple weeks but I didn't want to waste money on that. And I couldn't even find a pair of 14 shorts to try on, and the 16s are way too big. So yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!!!!!!!! Officially out of plus sized stores. This is a HUGE victory for me. Probably one of the biggest so far in this long winding road. I tried on a bunch of clothes from the big bag o' 14s [I got from a friend a while ago] and pretty much everything fits except the Eddie Bauer size 14s. The Levi's size 14s fit perfectly so I'm calling that official. lol.

So, this is a huge benchmark for me, and i'm really stinking excited to have finally made it. This is officially the smallest I have ever been in my adult life. I might have been a 14/16 my freshman year of high school, but nothing near this toned and lean. In another month or 2 I'm gonna have to sit down and really do my research and evaluate where I want to go with this last leg of weight-loss. I've learned so much but feel like I have so much more knowledge I could chase after. In my next post I'm gonna talk about the different things I've considered so far how I've readjusted every few months. Thanks, once again, to EVERYONE on this long crazy journey. I hope y'all have enjoyed reading about it and continue to root me on! =)

Why my pants sag off? I'm working my ass off!

Paraphrasing a Kanye line there that has always made me laugh. Finally took some new pictures today!

Woot!

Went to Old Navy today because they were having a sale and, of course, because none of my clothes really fit. I'm down another 2 lbs this week still going strong on IF so I think this is working for me! haha. If anyone has some size 12s they want to donate to a good cause, I'll be there soon! These are a 12 from Old Navy which really means that I'm probably pretty solidly in a 14 at most stores possibly a 16 where they run small. This is a medium top, too. Today was the first time I've ever experienced the frustration of the average-sized girl. There were no mediums/14-12s left in the colors I wanted!! So, this is what I ended up with, which I do like. I'm gonna wear it to a Rangers game this upcoming week! =)

So in honor of the summer, here is a look at the last 3 summers in comparison to this one. I'm so glad I've discovered lifting heavy and more recently IF. I've made much better progress in the last 6 months than I have in the last 3 years! haha.

Sizes 2x/24, 2x/22, 1x/18 and M/12 respectively 

Maybe over the summer I'll do a monthly progression from where I've been since December, which is when I really started back up again. Luckily between being in a sorority and recently actually trying to document my progress, I've got a LOT of pictures from the past several years. =) I've got some progress pics planned to debut in August that I'm pretty excited to see where they are. =D

Still slightly bummed about all this subcutaneous fat/ "loose skin" on my upper arms and thighs but it's shrinking too just at a much slower rate. I've been doing lots of random stuff to get it to tighten up and I think it's working to some degree. I just want to wear tank tops and be able to flaunt my newly discovered biceps and shoulders and shorts to show off my squat-strengthened legs! *sigh* I'll get there, I know. I dunno why I'm all of a sudden impatient now, I guess because I have been making such substantial progress lately, I feel like I should have more to show for it than bingo arms and saggy inner thigh cellulite. =P

So...what's new? I got back to all of my classes this week! I forgot if I said that last time but I went to my normal Tuesday Zumba and Wednesday yoga. Felt sooooo good! I was actually sore from yoga until yesterday! We did a lot of twists so my obliques were really angry afterwards. haha. I did back/shoulders yesterday and legs today. I would usually do chest/arms today but my shoulders were SO SORE that I had to switch because I didn't think I was gonna be able to do anything. haha. My low back was still a little sore today so my squatting didn't go as well as it normally does. I did get some satisfaction that the skinny guy in the rack next to me was deadlifting less than I can, but by the end he was probably lifting more than I am as far as percentage of body weight so I gave him a break. =) I still felt really strong even with my sore back.

I really love lifting weights. Y'all might be tired of hearing it, sorry. It's hard to explain the sense of accomplishment of lifting something heavier than you did last time if you don't already understand it. It's just such a tangible measure of strength. I had 135lbs across my back, a 45lb bar and two 45lb plates, and thought "This is a lot lighter than I thought it was gonna be". As my warm up/deloading weight. 2 months ago I wasn't near maxing out at that and I wouldn't have DREAMED that would be this easy for me. I've gotten to the point on some lifts where my grip strength or accessory muscle strength is limiting my actual lifts.  I need to get my back stronger so I can squat more, and I need to get my grip stronger so I can dead lift more. And I need to actually focus on form and technique for bench press. I swear it's the red-headed step child of my workouts. haha. I'll get to it soon! I'm sure I will be posting a triumphant blog when I start making big gains in my bench press. =) Sorry about the spotty updates recently, I've been getting back on my normal schedule now that Will is home. I've been keeping my facebook page pretty well updated though, if you're on facebook(ha) and want to follow that. =) As always, thanks for all the sweet words and encouragement! 

IF you give a girl some coffee...

So I'll be double posting this week to make up for missing last week, get excited! Depending on my schedule, Wednesday might be a progress pics post! =) Just got down to a size 14 bermuda short! My legs are all bruised from deadlifts so I'm trying to wait for them to fade before I show off my legs. haha. If you like pictures, I am occasionally posting some here that don't make it to the blog, so you can check that out. As of last week I am down 70lbs from my starting weight and pretty soon I will be ready to announce to the world exactly how fat I used to be. haha. I had to get pretty far away from it before I would even hint at it on Fitocracy but now I'm in a place where I'm happy with my progress and find that hard numbers are more appealing especially when those smaller numbers seem SO impossible when you feel SO fat. So yeah, coming-out-party of sorts TBA. =D

So I said I'd talk about IF [Intermittent Fasting] this post and I will GLADLY tell you about it. I also feel like at this point in my blog since I'm starting to get people reading that I don't actually know in real life, I feel obligated to let y'all know that I share all this information as stuff I have found to be helpful for me in my fitness journey, and do not claim to be any kind of expert in anything. I can only share what I've read and let you know what's working for me. Now, if you're not familiar with the concept, this is a really comprehensive overview of the science behind fasting and intermittent fasting. Basically, if you don't eat for an extended amount of time, your body responds by increasing fat oxidation, i.e. burning fat. And this is the fat that really likes you and wants to stay with you forever, the "stubborn fat". The fat that is currently ruining[read: hiding] my would-be-beautiful arms and legs. *sigh* So the optimal fat burning window I read (I think on leangains) is over 16hrs fasted. Anything over I think 8 hrs is elevated from "normal".

So since June 10th I have been doing a 16/8 split of fasting and eating. That is to say, from (roughly) 7pm to 11am I am fasting. I try to finish eating dinner by 7 and I don't eat again until lunch around 11. It's really been fairly simple. I got kinda hungry the first week, but not exceptionally so because I've never been a huge breakfast person. For a while a few months ago I was forcing myself to eat breakfast mostly because "you should" and not really because I was hungry. I found that it made it harder to stick under my calorie goal not only because I was having an extra 300ish calories first thing in the morning, but also because by lunch time I was SO HUNGRY that it made it harder to be happy with my deficit-sized meal. Now, I got to add back in something that I had cut out for a long while- coffee. It was kind of necessary when I was weening myself of caffeine and Dr. Pepper that I kick coffee as well. My poor body just craved the caffeine and I still had such a sweet tooth that after all the stuff I put in my coffee, it was calorically almost as bad as the full calorie can of DP! Now I can put a tablespoon (25 calories) of fat free flavored creamer in my coffee and It tastes just fine!

The beautiful thing about coffee/caffeine is that it is an appetite suppressant and fat-burning-motivator in one. I don't want to say "fat-burner" because I don't think the caffeine really helps burn the fat as much as it helps kick start the fat burning process. But also, because coffee is a viable substitute for breakfast, it helps you think you've already eaten and you shouldn't be hungry. And also, I just really missed coffee so this is all kinds of win for me. =) Most people who follow some form of IF usually use coffee or tea to get through their fasting periods. Drinking lots of water is also important but as I've stated in the past, that's never been a problem for me so I just keep up my good hydration habits. So, coffee for breakfast, lunch for lunch, dinner for dinner, water alll day. Stop eating after dinner. Simple.

I remember reading people commenting about IF that it was hard to get in their calories and should they be eating more and blah blah blah. I'd had some days where I had been really good- too good, you could argue- and been pretty far under my calorie goal. But I couldn't imagine having to get advice on how to eat more. What? Who are you? What is your life like? Can I have this problem? Well, I kind of did towards the end of the first week. I just wasn't hungry or didn't have enough time to fit everything in during my 8 hours of allotted eating time[the term is "feeding window" but it makes me think of zoo animals or something so I don't like using that term. lol]. I figured out that if I just added a snack that I would be okay. I actually went over my calorie goal a few times and I still managed to lose 4 lbs in the last 2 weeks. I had been losing 2 lbs pretty consistently there for a while, but over the last month or two, it had slowed to about a pound a week. This has kick started my weight loss back to where it was and I think is exactly what I needed to get me back on track to getting to where I want to be by the end of this calendar year.

Another thing to note about why IF works in a strictly calorie restriction vein- I think a lot of people experience this "falling of the wagon" happening at night. Having a sweet craving an hr or 2 after dinner, wanting to munch on something while watching a movie or being on your computer. The kind of mindless eating that can really inhibit weight loss seems to happen the most at night. So if you cut out the munchies, which you should do anyway, and then happen not to eat breakfast the next day (hello, 8am classes- we used to always skip breakfast) you've probably already done your 16 hour fast without any real effort or elaborate planning. Now you have your whole days worth of calories to eat in the time you'd usually eat 2 meals. See how much "extra" food banking those calories bought you. You've earned yourself a cookie.