My friend Mary wants to lose 150 pounds.



Its a big job, and its so damn hard to do even with the full support of everyone in your life. Its making different choices, staying consistent, and re-training your brain to recognize the difference between unhealthy habits and actual hunger. In a society where fast food is more readily available than fresh food, its so difficult to find a balance between eating well and eating realistically.

Mary is a mother of 3, she shapes her day around her kiddos, her husband, her family, and her close friends. She commits herself to making a happy home, kissing boo-boos, and trying to keep up with mountains of laundry. She's remarkable though because I have honestly never seen this woman not smiling, in the 5+ years I've known her I have never seen her cry, or frown, or mope. She is just a ray of sunshine all the time. Through financial difficulty, through the ups and downs of marriage, child-rearing, exhaustion... she's always got something positive to say.



When I lost my 100 pounds, Mary was a constant force in my life. She was the most encouraging friend I had all. the. time. Now women, none of us want to admit this but we all hate to see our friends get skinnier than us. There's something within all of us that makes us go "wait, she looks better than me! well crap." We're all guilty of it, its just part of having a vagina. None of us can deny that, we've all felt it at some point. Over the years, she has never neglected to tell me how wonderful I looked every time I saw her. She never distanced herself from me or made catty remarks... she was 100% supportive always.

She's been trying to lose 150 pounds for a while now. She's lost and gained, and lost again, but she fights what every person does... its just hard, its even harder when you add a family and a full schedule, and its nearly impossible when you're a mama who dedicates every bit of your life to your family and your kids. If Mary is guilty of anything, its neglecting herself. She wants to be on the Biggest Loser. So far she's been to 2 casting calls and she's trying to garner support on the internet. If anyone deserves an opportunity to focus solely on herself, it is her because I guarantee that if you gave someone so determined and committed the tools to improve her life, she would absolutely soar.



So with that said, support my friend Mary. She absolutely deserves it.


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Good luck, mama! You are wonderful, beautiful, and you deserve this. I'm behind you all the way.

I had gotten down to 154lbs, 155 consistently. I signed up to take part in a local online Biggest Loser challenge in a local playgroup, and I was really psyched about possibly winning, or at least losing a ton of weight in time for Christmas. After all, I really don't have much further to go!

Well this weekend, Husband-pants and I got to go out on our own, as husband and wife, not as parents. We dropped the kidlet off with my mom and headed to Chili's where I treated myself to 2 Coca-Colas (an absolute no-no normally) a half serving of Cajun Chicken Pasta (a whopping 1500 calories and 78 grams of fat) and too many chips & salsa. *sigh* I justified all of this because I have been the picture of willpower for weeks, eating well and refraining from anything high in calories or generally unhealthy. Everyone deserves a splurge every once in a while- right?

Well then today we were out and about, we went hiking around a local tourist attraction. It was nice and we worked up an appetite... we were trying to figure out where to eat as the baby fell asleep. We debated on going to the grocery store and heading home to eat lunch and spend the day lazing around the house, but husband-pants decided against it. He's gotten better at surprises lately and drove us to Tontitown for pasta at our favorite Italian restaurant. Normally I would've protested, but he took a back way (very sneaky) and before I knew where he was taking us, we were nearly there. I got a half serving of spaghetti with meat sauce (and I'm glad I don't know what the calorie/fat content is... sheesh) and ate 1 roll. 2 glasses of water. It was a great lunch and I overate a bit, but I wasn't beating myself up.

On the way home, however, I did beat myself up. I beat myself up in the most ridiculous of ways... and I'm so angry at myself for doing it! Andy's frozen custard is my favorite indulgence in the world... I mean, really. I gained over half of my pregnancy weight because of my late-night Andy's runs. It is HEAVEN. After I abstained from custard earlier this week citing a migraine, Marshall decided I deserved some. I ate a big delicious pumpkin pie frozen custard. Oh yes, I didn't just eat the custard, it had an ENTIRE PIECE of pumpkin pie blended in with it. Jesus.

I just weighed myself and my grand total of weight gained over the weekend is 6 lbs.
I could cry.

Husband-pants totally enables me to eat so bad... I do SO well when I'm by myself during the week but when I'm with him all bets are off. I've got to get better about eating well, and convincing him to do the same.

October brought more weight loss, regardless of my bad behavior, and I weighed in back at 154. I'm officially down to a size 12 and I've lost a total of 4 lbs.

Oh, and Bean made a great skunk for Halloween.