Summer = Salad Time!

Despite my not so great picture taking skills, I promise you I've been enjoying this delicious salad all week long- yum! When the weather gets warmer (not that it's really all that warm yet here in Pittsburgh- it was 39 degrees this morning at the bus stop! grrr) salad becomes my go-to meal. This is one of my favorite salad concauctions & includes:

• Romain & Spring Mix
• Strawberries
• Aged parmesan & asiago cheese (from Trader Joe's)
• Caesar flavored almonds
• Raspberr Gorgonzola Dress (from Trader Joe's aka TJ's)
• Grilled Chicken Strips (TJ's) 

= 299 Calories!

I intend to maintain having salads for at least one of my meals each day up through the wedding, next week's salad creation will be something I've never tried before- a mediterranean type salad, I'll be sure to share my recipe & how it turns out next week.

Weigh In:

May Goal: Be at 190lbs by May 31st
Last Week's Weigh In: 195lbs
This Week's Weigh In: 191lbs (-4lbs!!!)
A Total Weightloss of: 161lbs!

I attribute this great loss to being meticulous about what I've been eating; I've been tracking daily using myfitnesspal & have been staying at or under a net of 1300 calories daily. I have had zero time to work out lately and when that happens I know that I've got to pay even that much more attention to my nutrition.

Now I'm a Believer:

I had always heard that if you aren't eating enough calories that you won't lose weight. I never really thought there was much validity to that but I now officially believe that to be true. Earlier this month I was working out like a fiend & eating around 1200 calories a day and wasn't seeing the scale budge at all, if anything it was going up and I just didn't understand what was going on- it was discouraging. What I wasn't paying attention to was that if I'm only eating 1200 calories a day and then burning 600 calories working out each day that I'm really only netting 600 which simply isn't enough to keep my body happy, functioning & continuing to give up the excess pounds. I was shooting myself in the foot basically.

In the last week or so I have upped my calorie intake on the days that I'm working out and kept it low on the days I'm not and so far it seems to be working great- only 1lb away from achieving my goal for the month of May! Whoo hoo!

This weekend I'm in the wedding of two of my best friends and I am so excited- I'll be sure to share pics & stuff next week!

Until then, let's keep doing the "impossible!"

New Blog Additions!

I figured after 2+ years & 150ish pounds that it was finally time for a blog facelift, hence the new look!

I decided to add the new pages above because it's what I think it most important. I realize that not everyone who is currently reading this blog has been reading since the beginning so chances are you may have missed some stuff. So for anyone interested in reading more about where I've come from, how I am doing it & where I'm headed- check. it. out!

I spent the last week in NYC for work with D (aka: the love of my life :) It was my first time in the city & it truly was a B.L.A.S.T.

Not sure where this Sunday's weekly weigh in will have me at but regardless of what it says, I'm keeping my chin up & a smile on my face because life is simply too short & God is too good to do anything else.



He Must Have Liked it Because...

So after typing & re-typing a million different semi-clever ways to say it, I figured it would be best to just come out and fill you all in on a rather major occurence that happened a bit ago...

I'm Getting Married!!!

I met "D" almost 2 years ago now and for almost that entire time we were just friends and would chat occasionally when we bumped into each other at church; however, a while back we were a part of a group that traveled to Israel together & shortly thereafter we began dating. He's an absolutely AMAZING man & I love him to pieces. He propoed this past St. Patricks Day and the wedding is happening this September (only 4 months to go- yikes!). So as you can imagine I've been super busy with planning a wedding and still juggling all of life's other responsibilities. But, needless to say, I'm one happy & very blessed girl!

Now onto weightloss talk!

Currently, I'm at 195lbs (ish- the scale was a little wacko today but I'm sure some of the things that was causing it to be that way will be gone for my "real" weigh in on Sunday). My goal for the wedding is to be 175lbs so a loss of 20lbs in 4 months (or 5lbs a month).

A year ago I would have looked at this goal and thought, "Really, Tiffany!?! Only 20lbs in 4 months?? You can do so much better than that!." But what I've learned is that the reality is that I'm not where I was a year ago, it has proven to be a bit more of a challenge for me to see steady weight loss these days so losing 5lbs a month consistantly is a doable but still very challenging goal at this stage in the game.

Another great thing that the wedding has brought on is that I feel like it brought back the old fighter in me that got me to where I am today; truthfully, I've felt that for the past 6 months or so that I've just been a tamed version of myself and that I just couldn't seem to flip that switch in my mind again that allows me really give this my all. But thankfully, that switch has finally been flipped thanks to the wedding and I'm working my bum off because truthfully, I'm just ready to be at my goal weight (for now) of 175lbs and I'm gonna do whatever it takes to get there.

Ta- Ta for Now!