My Inspirations

Hello all,

I have been inspired by my wonderful sister, Caradon, to write this blog. She has taken a highly courageous step on her blog. She has posted pictures of herself, her weight, her measurements and everything as a starting point for a year-long journey she is going to take. She is going to try to lose 104 pounds in a year. That is a huge deal! I am so proud of her. Can I also take a moment to tell you, Caradon, that being your sister has always made me feel like I was on top of the world? I can remember many times throughout my school years bragging that I was your sister to my teachers or friends. In college, I loved being able to walk over to your apartment to hang out with my cool sister and her cool friends! When I met Mike, you were the first person I wanted to tell. When I got pregnant with my children, you were the first person I told (after Mike of course). I want you to know that I KNOW YOU CAN DO THIS!! Don't ever tell yourself you can't. I never would have thought a year ago that I would be able to run a half marathon without stopping to walk even once. Yet, I did it. I am so excited that you are possibly going to do it with me this year. It will be the best day of my life. I will have my husband, my beautiful sister, my awesome brother, my wonderful sister-in-law, and one of my dearest friends, Becky, join me.

So, to continue this blog after that tearful little interlude, I want to tell everyone that Caradon, along with countless other friends and family, have inspired me to get to where I am now. But, I have so much more to go. I will take your initiative, Caradon, and I will post my own weight, meaurements and story for the world to see. So, here it goes.

At my highest weight (excluding having just given birth, or being a nursing mother) I weighed 246 pounds, not much less than Caradon does now. Sadly, though, I don't have the lucky height that Caradon has, so I was quite a bit more portly. I will show you what I mean. This is me in December of 2005. Since this time, I have lost 50 pounds, which puts me at 196. Yay for me that I am under 200 pounds finally, but I do have a lot longer to go. I still want to lose 46 more pounds. So, I am using Caradon as my inspiration, as I have countless other times in my life, and I am going to take on this challenge for myself that she has made for herself! Except, I have a bit of a shorter time frame. I would like to lose my 46 pounds before August 14th, 2011. That is the day Mike and I will (hopefully) leave for a cruise to the Caribbean! We never had a honeymoon and we are celebrating 12 years of marriage on January 15th, so we figure it's about time we do something nice for ourselves.

Now, anyone who knows me at all, knows that I am a math and numbers girl. So, if you do the math, you will see that this gives me 31 weeks to fulfill my goal. 46 divided by 31 is 1.48 pounds per week. Even numbers are a good thing, so the goal will be to lose 1.5 pounds per week and I WILL be at my goal by August 14th. My measurements are as follows: Chest 43", Waist 39", Hips 45", Thighs 24", Arms 12". Here is a recent picture of me:

Some might think these pictures aren't too bad, and compared to the picture up above, they really aren't too bad. But, I am excited to see what I look like as I progress. I will post a written blog every week to keep everyone up on my progress, and I will post more pictures every two months. I know we can do this, Caradon!! We WILL be successful and we will be triumphant! I love you. Wish me luck, everyone!!
P.S. Anyone know how to delete pictures after I have posted them on my blog? If you can let me know, that'd be awesome!! ;)