Ok…I am wondering if Los was eating too much at re:Create or what, but we haven’t had an official Fat Ragamuffin weigh in for a while. Anyway, here is the latest from Texas…

1/1=162
1/8=159
1/15=158
1/22=156
1/31=154
2/6=152
2/13=150

Still pretty steady. Surprising considered my Friday night binge on Pei Wei and The Nestle Cookie Store. Also, I thought to help hold my lazy butt accountable, I’d post the dates I worked out. Minimum Goal is 3 a week.

Last week:
Tuesday - 35 cardio
Wednesday - 35 cardio
Thursday - 25 cardio, 15 weights
Saturday - 35 cardio

Some of that was actual jogging. As in not walking. And I’m still alive! Woohoo!

The rest of you - speak up! Let the news be heard. How’s it going?

Although I have been trying to lose weight since around the first of the year, I joined the “Fat Ragamuffin” group last week with my first weigh in. Here is the latest posting:

1/1=162
1/8=159
1/15=158
1/22=156
1/31=154
2/6=152

So it looks like consistently a couple pounds a week are falling off. Woohoo! What is really exciting is my mom took me shopping for an early birthday present and I got a pair of size 10 Gap jeans! I haven’t been able to wear a size 10 in Gap since November of 2005. And they weren’t even snug.

Even though I have been fighting a cold and throat infection all weekend, Chris and I pulled our butts out of bed at 5:45 and worked out. Maybe it was the salt from sweating but my sinuses feel a lot better! We are doing cardio 3x/week and strength 2x/week starting this week.

So - the rest of you who commented about the need to get a little fit - how was your last week? Lose any?

Ok, so Los has pimped me. Now I will return the favor, as well as get on board with his “Fat Ragamuffin” club. Los has lost like 30 pounds, probably more…doing Weight Watchers but most importantly, he has gotten healthy. Seeing his before and after pictures and videos, you can see that even a lazy worship leader can lose weight. (I am kidding on the lazy part, the guy is a crazy mad-man).

So I too, join hands with the Fat Ragamuffins. Although I wouldn’t consider myself obese, I am going to publicly display my lowest, wedding day, highest, current, and goal weights here - and what I am doing to get there. As a female - this is scary! But I want to be healthy and FEEL healthy too. I DARE YOU to do the same. Yup, that’s a dare.

• Lowest = 128 in 2002. This was NOT healthy for me. I am almost 5′6″, and athletic (well, was). I was really bony and this was during a stressful time in my life. I was not eating properly at all.
• Wedding Day = 140 in 2003. This was and is my ideal weight. I felt great, looked great. Then we were married and made brownies every week…that led to…
• Highest = 167 in 2006. This was right before Scotland in September. YIKES. I was not feeling good, my gallbladder was acting up, and I certainly was not eating healthy.
• Current = 154
• Healthy & Goal = 140-145. Weight fluctuates you know.

I lost some of the weight after having my gallbladder surgery - not eating very much for a couple of weeks helps. But once my appetite came back, and then the holidays, I gained 8 pounds BACK (thank you stupid snowman cookies), putting me around 162 for New Years.

So, I started this “water diet” - which isn’t much of a diet at all. You drink a full glass of water before, during, and after each meal and supposedly the weight comes off. I have changed my eating habits and have started exercising too, so in the last few weeks I am 8 pounds lighter and back down to 154. I figure a couple pounds a week and in a few months I’ll be back down at 140-145ish. I haven’t seen a number in the 140’s in over a year!

I’ll post updates every Tuesday.
Do you wanna join in?

No, not those kinds of runs. The good kind. I am not a trendy person, but it seems like more and more people I know in real life or virtually are running these days. Danielle is a girl whose blog I’ve been reading for a while, as she has been training for a marathon, our teaching pastor Wes is running his first marathon soon, today was the NY marathon. I’m feeling a little inspired to start running.

In middle & high school, I was actually really athletic. I outran all of the guys in my middle school (there was one other girl who was faster than me), and I played basketball, ran track, played tennis. Now almost 10 years out of high school, my muscles have given in to the real world, and it’s my own fault for not making effort in keeping them up.

I’m still not quite ready to hit the gym hard. My incisions are still sore (the muscle & tissue that was cut through) and my surgeon said that would be the case for a month or so. I figure I’ll take another down week and maybe start jogging a little bit next week. I think I’ll train to do something small first, like a 5 or 10K fun run for charity. But any tips any of you have for getting my formerly athletic butt off the couch and back into my sweet pink and grey New Balances would be appreciated!

The alarm went off at 6am (Chris’ actually went off at 5:58am) and I was not quite ready to drag my lifeless body and big hair (the only time I truly have “Texas hair” is when I awake) off to the gym. Chris rolls over and I feel his breath through aforementioned big hair as he says, “Are we working out today?” to which I crankily reply, “No.”

“Are we working out tomorrow?”

Getting annoyed with these pre-daylight questions, I sigh and say, “I guess.”

I reset my alarm for 6:40am, and shove my face back into my pillow.

Drifting back into REM, I began to dream that I had indeed woken up, late, and rushed off to work, without changing clothes (my mismatched blue Scotland Tshirt and bright pink sleep pants are definitely in for fall.) My hair, still big, a dab of white sulphur face mask still on as I try to keep a pimple at bay. On the way to work, I begin to put my lipstick on (not noticing, I suppose, my state of dishevel) and realize I have 3 big blisters under my left eye. In the car, I turn to Chris and ask if they are noticeable. He says no (he’s probably blinded by my bright sleep pants.) and as we get closer to work, the big blisters begin to burst.

I will stop here and spare you of what that looked like.

Once I get to work, I say I need to go to the doctor to have him look at the blisters, and I end up taking four homeless black children with me.

6:40am didn’t come soon enough.

The moral of the story is this: Stick to your commitments. If you say you’re going to wake up at 6am and work out, do it.