But there is positive news, at 38, this is the best I’ve looked and felt in years.

My stats are the following, and I’ll do a from – to, based on the first time I took my measurements:

• Weight: from 128lbs** to 121lbs
• Waist: from 27″ to 26″”
• Hips: from 38″ to 36.5″
• Rt. Thigh: from 22″ to 21″
• Lt. Thigh: from 21.5″ to 20.75″

My starting weight was 135lbs, but I didn’t start recording my measurements until I lost a few. So, I’ve probably lost more inches than what I have recorded.

Thanks for reading!

I’m back from vacation. Luckily, I did not fall off the wagon too much. On the scale this morning, I weighed in at 120lbs. Thank you, thank you Fat Flush! The last time I was at this weight, I was in college. Some people at work have given me the nickname “Skinny” (I’m far from skinny). And I know it’s not about the weight, it’s about how you look and feel, but it sure does feel good to see that number on the scale. I still have that stubborn cellulite – don’t know if I’ll ever get rid of it, but overall I’m happy with the progress I’ve made. I do believe the cellulite has gotten a little better, (I would sure hope so after all of my efforts), but its still very visible. My saddlebags bother me a lot because they are very prominent in a bathing suit, along with some other dimpling in the area. I have a beach vacation coming up in the second week of August and I was hoping to be rid of my cellulite by then. I don’t know if it will happen, but I’m sure going to try. In any case, still having the cellulite is what’s motivating me to keep going. I really want to erase it!

I’ve been alternating Fat Flush Phase 1 days and Phase 2 days. It seems that if I have starchy carbs on alternating days or 2 days and then skip a day, then I continue to see results. I guess I need to keep my body guessing.

I’m also wondering what to do to make this website more interesting. I was reading through some of the posts, and I’m not so sure that the ‘Mid-Week Check-in’s’ or the ‘Week in Review’s’ are all that interesting. I’m thinking that I’ll drop the mid-week check-in and keep the weekend the way it is with a status on weight and measures and them an article based on research that I’ve done on how to get rid of cellulite.

If you have any cellulite-related topics that you’d like me to explore, please let me know.

Thanks

Jill

Since Monday, I’ve been following Phase 1 of the The Fat Flush Plan. Thankfully, I’ve got my motivation back due to changing things up a bit. See prior post for details:

http://mycellulitewar.com/2009/06/21/status/week-in-review-moving-past-a-plateau/

I haven’t been doing a lot of exercise this week for two reasons:

1. I hurt my foot and I need to keep off of it and
2. My daughter has been sick and hasn’t been going to sleep and is also waking up in the middle of the night. So, that means someone else (me!) is also not sleeping and I’ve been hitting  snooze one too many times and missing my workout window. It’s probably a good thing too, since if did wake-up in time, I probably would have worked-out despite my foot and re-injured it.

So, back to the The Fat Flush Plan. The plan’s author has a dedicated website at http://www.annlouise.com/.  I haven’t looked at it in detail, but at first glance, it looks like she’s the author of two other diets, “Gut Flush” and “Fast Track”. I’m intrigued. There’s also a community forum too and success stories. Of course, there’s also stuff to buy.

So, in any case I’ve been pretty much sticking to Phase 1 with hardly any exercise so we’ll see how I measure up this weekend.

Thanks for reading

Unfortuneately though, I injured myself doing aerobics this week. I use a step in the basement and I guess my stepping got a little too vigorous. The next morning I couldn’t put any weight on my right foot. I thought it was broken. I went to the doctor and he said that I pulled a ligament in my right foot, so I need to keep off of it for 7-10 days (yeah right – easier said than done).

In any case, I haven’t done much exercise since Thursday due to my injury and I’m beginning to get antsy, but I don’t want to push it either, because I don’t want to make my foot worse. So, I’ll be patient.

I’ll focus on weights and maybe the bike if it doesn’t aggrevate my foot.

Thanks for reading!

Last week, I was out of steam – mentally and physically. I realized I had reached a plateau and had lost my motivation. I also realized that if I didn’t re-capture that motivation that I wouldn’t be able to make more progress.

So, I read some articles on moving past plateaus and decided to change two things: 1. my diet and 2. my workout.

I re-introduced starchy complex carbs into my diet: brown rice mixed with chickpeas, sweet potato and oatmeal.

I also focused more on lifting weights to build muscle instead of my usual aerobic activity with a little bit of weight lifting.

At the end of the week, I feel great and motivated to continue. I weighed in at 124lb and my thigh measurements were down a bit. Left thigh was about 20.75″ and my right was on the nose at 21″.

I just looked at my stats page and the last time I weighed in at 124lb was on  5/2/09, so I haven’t really made much progress during the past month, but I feel that now that instead of being at the end of my rope, I’m at the beginning and feel fresh, motivated and ready to start again.

So, I’m excited to see what next week’s ‘Week in Review’ will be with my new found motivation.

Thanks for reading!

Based on some things that I’ve been reading, I need to mix things up a bit. I haven’t been eating many starchy carbs for awhile, so maybe it’s time to re-introduce them.  Also, it sounds like I need to change my workout routine too. I’ve been doing about 20 minutes of aerobic exercise 4 to 5 times per week and getting in about 10 minutes of weight lifting about 3 times per week. I think for the next two weeks, I’m going to really hit the weights hard to try to build some more muscle.

So my plan is more carbs and more weights. Let’s see what happens.

Here are two good posts on some simple steps for working through a plateau:

http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2006/02/27/5_ways_to_break_a_weight_loss_plateau.php

http://www.googobits.com/articles/2235-11-ways-to-break-out-of-a-weight-loss-plateau.html

Wish me luck and thanks for reading!

I was about to delete what I wrote above because it’s so negative, but decided to keep it to examine my choice of words.

“I can’t seem to mentally get myself past this point. I don’t have the motivation to exercise or stick to a diet. Even when I do exercise, I can’t focus…”

Interesting. A book that I read a while ago, Mind Over Body: The Key to Lasting Weight Loss Is All in Your Head,described how your sub-conscious mind will believe whatever messages you say to it and it can’t tell the difference between real or imagined. So, if I keep thinking these negative messages, that’s what my mind will believe. If I replace them with positive ones, eventhough that’s not exactly what I feel right now, then eventually they will become true and that’s what I will feel.

So, let’s try it.

• I’m motivated to lose weight.
• I’m motivated to get rid of my cellulite.
• I’m motivated to exercise to reach my goals.
• I’m motivated to stick to my diet to reach my goals.

Hmmm. I feel more empowered already just writing these down. It must work – so much has been written about it. Let’s see what I can find on the internet…

Whoa, check these out. Just what I was looking for:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/14700-self-affirmations/

http://bmindful.com/articles/affirmation-class-questions-and-answers

http://stress.about.com/od/optimismspirituality/a/positiveaffirms.htm

I’m going to cut this post short to work out now. I’m actually motivated to do it for the first time in about 2 weeks. Must be something to it!

Thanks for reading!

I’m back from vacation! And of course I didn’t stick to any diet. So when I weighed myself on Monday 6/1, I was surprised and pleased that I was up to 127lbs from about 124lbs. Not too bad given my indulgence.

I promptly put myself back on The Fat Flush Plan and by Wednesday morning I was back down to 125lbs. I know what you’re thinking, “It’s just water weight”, because that’s what I’m thinking too, but sure feels good to see that number on the scale.

It’s an interesting thing though. I look fatter now at 125lbs than I did about 2 weeks ago at 125lbs. I have a theory about this. Every time I lose weight, as soon as I lose it, I look pretty good. But when I stay at that weight for a few weeks, I morph back into my old shape. My theory is that it has to do with your body’s setpoint. When you first lose weight, you’re body isn’t used to it, so it takes on its new and improved shape. When you stay at that weight for a while, your body resets itself into a smaller version of your old shape. Yes, you look better overall, but if you don’t keep at the diet and exercise, your body gets comfortable with the new weight and starts resorting to your old shape.  So anyway, that’s my theory – don’t know if its right or wrong, it’s just what I observe about myself and my husband.  (He’s trying to lose some weight. He’s lost about 20lbs so far and has remarked about the same phenomenon.)

On a separate note, I just want to say for the record that I’m not in anyway affiliated with The Fat Flush Plan – I just keep writing about it because it’s working for me.

In any case, that’s its for now. Next post is this weekend.

Thanks for reading!

125lbs.

Not bad considering that its far from where I started, so, I guess I really don’t have a whole lot to complain about. I can also fit into my old clothes again, so I’m feeling good about that and I have drastically expanded my wardrobe. But, if I had been consistent, I would have had better progress. It seems like I take 2 steps forward and one step back, and thankfully with that, I’m making progress, although it’s beginning to slow.

I got some good advice on iVillage about curbing overeating in social situations, which is my weakness…Here’s the link:

 http://messageboards.ivillage.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=iv-fbfatflush&msg=29007.2&ctx=0

So, that’s the review for this week. Short and sweet.

I’m currently on my third week of the Phase 1 Fat Flush plan. You’re only supposed to be on it for 2 weeks, but I’m doing an extra week because of my indiscretion on the weekends. I must admit, I’m ready to be off of Phase 1.

Even though I stick to the plan pretty well during the week, I’m beginning to feel that I’m reaching a plateau and that I need to do two things differently:

1. Cut out the overeating and overdrinking on the weekends
2. Increase the amount of time I’m exercising

So far, I’ve been successful at losing 10lbs when I first started in earnest (see my first post and my about page), 15lbs if I count where I first started right after my miscarriage in November 2007 (wow, was it that long ago already).

But now I’m thinking I need to do some things a little differently because I don’t feel like I’m losing any more weight and my cellulite has definitely not gone away (yet).

A word of encouragement though from my husband, he says my butt is looking awesome! It’s definitely tighter, but I wouldn’t use the word awesome.  And what about those saddlebags? Am I too critical?

In any case, I feel like I need to tighten the reins on the eating and increase my exercise time. Specifically, 30 minutes of cardio rather than 20 minutes. The exercise plan that I originally came up with is at the following post:

http://mycellulitewar.com/blog/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=140

Now that I’m reviewing that post again, I see that I had committed to a 30 minute workout most mornings. So, I’ll need to allow myself 40 min to workout rather than 30 and now that I’m being honest with myself, most days I have been skipping the weight training. The minimum that I’m currently doing is 20 minutes of interval cardio almost everyday and sometimes some weight training. Probably not consistent enough for the results that I’m looking for.

 On a totally separate topic, one thing that I re-read in The Fat Flush Planthat caught my attention is that unsweetened cranberry is supposed to be effective in treating cellulite. Specifically, it says it helps  to “target cellulite”. So, not only can cranberry juice detox my liver, it can also target my cellulite. I’ll be drinking cranberry juice forever! I wonder what is in cranberry juice that makes it have that effect? That’s a bit of research for another time.

Thanks for reading!