Catching Up: A really long post

My last "official" day at work was May 30th! This means I finally have time to take a breath, relax a little, and catch up on things that have fallen by the wayside...such as this blog (insert sheepish look here).

March 17, 2012 -- 2nd 5K!

So, let's catch up on everything I've been doing, shall we? :) To start, I finally have a picture to post from when I ran the Blarney Stone 5K on St. Patrick's Day in March:

I've also been working hard on my yoga certification training. I am supposed to be done at the end of June--except I have to miss the very last weekend of training, so I'll probably make up the class sometime in July. Then I'll be a 200-hr certified yoga instructor!!

Yoga has changed my life and my body, and the certification training has been interesting to see myself continue to grow and develop even more strength and flexibility than I imagined I would have. I can now do an occasional arm balance, and am halfway to a headstand (I can balance on head and hands and pull feet off the ground, but have yet to bring my feet all the way up...but I'm working on it!). Here are some yoga snapshots for you, too:

Vrkrasana -- "Tree"

Trikonasana -- "Triangle"

Bakasana -- "Crow"

Also, just to help you see what yoga can do--and to make you cry a little bit--here is an amazing video that has continued to inspire me, even during the particularly difficult or disheartening parts of my training:

If this didn't inspire you or make you cry, then I don't know what will.

Moving onward with my updates...
I made a semi-drastic change to my appearance. Well, drastic for me, anyway. For years, my hair (which used to be so, so long when I was younger) has been my "security blanket." No matter how I felt about my weight and how I looked, I always got lots of compliments on my hair--the length, the color, the texture, the curls...all of it. So I got a little co-dependent on my hair, I think.

Unfortunately, due to the very strict diet and drastic life changes I have made, my hair started to thin out. A lot. It didn't happen quickly, and it actually didn't even start to really happen until I had started on my maintenance phase last summer--but I read that it can take time for hair changes to catch up to stress and/or major life changes, so I'm pretty sure it's diet and lifestyle-related. Anyway, starting toward the end of last summer, my hair really started to thin out.

New, short haircut!

Finally, I couldn't take how very thin the ends were looking; I felt like it made me look older, and made my hair difficult to style. Also, it made me super-self-conscious. So, last month, I asked my hairdresser to cut it off. And it turns out, I LOVE it!

I feel like my hair looks cute, sassy, and professional now. It's like I've finally grown up. :)


Oh... Oh! And the biggest update I've got: I finally hit a total of 100lbs of weight loss. 100. Pounds. Let me repeat that again: I HAVE LOST 100 POUNDS! I started this journey in the fall of 2010 at 263lbs (trust me, I never thought I'd get to a point where I'd be announcing THAT information to ANYONE. I don't think even Ben knew that), and now I'm weighing in at 163 pounds. I went from a size 22/24 to a size 12 (but almost a size 10! Almost! And definitely a 10 in some brands, lol!). This is skinnier than I was even when at my skinniest in high school, y'all. And the best part: I'm in the best physical shape of my life. I'm strong, I'm flexible, and I can run for 30 minutes without walking.

I feel good; I feel like I can keep up with life, finally.

And you know what? I've been on "maintenance" since last summer, and it hasn't been as painful as I thought it would be. Here's a perfect example... I babysat my younger nephew, Joey, today. He wanted Runza for lunch, so I grabbed a protein bar (I wasn't terribly hungry, or I would have gotten a salad there), and he had a kid's meal. Then he wanted frozen yogurt from Orange Leaf, so I took him there. I had about 2 tablespoons each of the raspberry lemonade frozen yogurt and the pistachio frozen yogurt. I thoroughly enjoyed my less-than-1-serving-size treat while watching my nephew attempt to eat his dessert:

What 4-year-olds dream of at night.

And I didn't feel deprived, or sad, or crave more than what I had (and I certainly didn't crave what he was eating. Ick.). I was fine for the rest of the day and then came home to have a healthy dinner.

My world did not end, and I still get to eat pretty much whatever I want. Just a lot less often than and in much smaller portions than what I was eating.


Well, this turned out to be a really long post, and I don't want to start getting all preachy about diet and exercise, so I will end here. I'll definitely be posting tomorrow about the Greek grilled chicken salad that we had for dinner tonight (light, easy, and perfect for summer), and posting more frequently in general, so be sure to check back!

I will leave you with some of the inspirational (and one funny) quotes that have helped keep me going on this journey:

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