I did it! 100 lbs Lost!!!

I did it!!!! Friday morning, I hopped on the scale and FINALLY hit my 100 lbs lost mark: 249 lbs! 100 lbs gone in 7 months and 11 days! Here's an AWFUL before pic I found of myself... Don't let the darkness of the background fool you, my butt really was that big!

I put together a few before and after pics to see the difference and thought I'd share them with you here:

At 349 lbs I wore a size 26/28 and now wear a size 18. I decided to be silly and see if I could fit both legs into one of my old pairs of jeans:

I asked one of my friends to take some after pics of me (she is a professional photographer and took the before picture below too). I went on a lil shopping trip and tried on a bunch of dresses until I found my idea of my perfect "after" dress. We took the pics... and then had some pizza (I can't always behave)!

This morning, I met Lindsay, Amy and Michelle for my very first double digit run: 10 miles!! I was dreading it because I was up all night with some stomach issues (TMI). I took some meds and off I went. My stomach was not happy, but I made it! We ran all the way to another city on the bike path (we planned beforehand to have one of our cars there waiting to take us back). I thought I had food poisoning, but as the day goes on, I'm pretty sure it's a stomach bug. It better be gone by race day next Sunday!

Slutty Brownies

Wow, it feels like forever since I have posted... my laptop cord broke so I had to wait to get a new one. Honestly, a week without my computer hasn't been awful, but I do feel very out of touch. My house is SUPER clean, though. ;)

I've had another busy week. Saturday one of Braylon's friends had a birthday party. His family members are firefighters so they were able to bring a firetruck to the party. Braylon hasn't stopped talking about firetrucks since.

Sunday morning, Amy, Michelle and I (Lindsay was home with a sick baby) met at the bike path and completed our 9 mile run. I was a little stiff afterwards for a few hours, but never had any soreness. I'm now 12 days out from my half marathon and VERY excited. The 4 of us girls are trying to think of a cute slogan to put on the back of our matching shirts, but haven't came up with anything yet. We want to incorporate something with pigs (oink, squeal, swine, grunt, wee wee wee, this little pig) since the race we're doing is called The Flying Pig. I would love if anyone had any suggestions :)

I have been very good about my eating... until today. Ugh... I really hate to even admit this. Any of you ever heard of Slutty Brownies? We had a birthday party from work and one of my co-workers brought them in. They are amazing! Layered chocolate chip chookie dough, oreos, fudge and brownies...

I'm 5 lbs away from my 100 lb goal and was hoping to make it by my half marathon, but the weight is coming off very slow right now. I'm not giving up and never having a slutty brownie again! I'm running 5 scheduled miles tonight and I'm going to run them HARD to work off as much of that brownie as possible!

Coach Carly

I signed Braylon up for soccer with a few of my friends (and their 4 year olds). You probably know where this story is going based on my title, but we get to the first practice and I am told that I am the coach. Ugh... what? I played soccer in 1st or 2nd grade and haven't since. These kids are in trouble. Luckily, I have enlisted the help of some friends and even told one of my friends that we are now co-coaches. I figure maybe this is something every parent has to go thru at one time or another so I'm getting it out of the way early. All the kids at practice were calling me "Coach Carly" and Braylon caught on. He's been calling me that off and on for days to be funny. ha ha

I'm 6 freakin' lbs away from 100 lost and it's taking forever. Last week I only lost 1 lb. Boo! Honestly, I'm not surprised. I ran a ton, but I also enjoyed some Easter candy. Stupid candy. 

I missed my 10K run yesterday because I didn't have a sitter and was very busy all weekend. To make up for it, after I dropped Braylon off at school, I decided to run before going to work (due to rain and heavy winds in the forecast for later in the day). I try to make my weekday runs incorporate hills and my long weekend run on a flat surface. Since this should have been a weekend run, I went to the flat bike path and decided to run 3.1 miles away from my car and then back. I had a great first half; it was a perfect sunny day and the temperature felt amazing. Then I turned around. The sky was black. I have no idea where this storm came from because I checked the weather about 70 times before my run. So the second half of my run was super wet, as were my clothes and phone. Luckily, I didn't risk my Garmin getting drenched since it was dead. It wasn't that bad, though. There's something really cool about running in the rain... I felt very dedicated to my training (not that I had much of a choice since I was 3 miles from my car) and that made me feel good.

Amy got married last week so to welcome her home, Linds, Chel and I (these are the girls I'm running the half marathon with) decided to fill her bedroom with balloons (silly Amy thought leaving a key with us to get her mail and feed her cat was a good idea). 3 hrs and a LOT of sore fingers (from tying balloons) later...

 They got home at 2AM and had to sleep in the guest room, but they're still our friends.

The Color Run!

I just registered for the Color Run - Columbus and am so excited! Are any of you planning to do one of these/have done one already? If you've never heard of it, I suggest checking it out. You wear a white T-shirt and basically get this powder/colored substance thrown at you every kilometer of the 5K. You can assemble teams of 4+ runners so if there's anyone near Columbus, OH who is interested in running this with me, send me an email and I will give you our team name and password so that you can join! It's a "fun run" and not timed so I have promised myself that I won't time myself and instead just enjoy it. It's $35 and you get a "free" T-shirt (am I the only one obsessed with getting race shirts?).

I started getting emails last night, and I immediately suspected Katie (at runsforcookies.com) had something to do with it. I checked her page (which I'm addicted to and do daily anyways) and saw that she linked her current post back to my guest post. haha I love when she does this because it's so awesome to hear the stories and try to help people. Once again, all the emails I received blew me away! It is still so very weird for me to hear people tell me I have inspired them. I wish you knew how much their emails/your comments inspire me. It takes some time, but I am determined to reply to every email and answer all questions. 

There is one question I've been getting a lot so I thought I would answer it here in case others are curious: How do you find time to exercise when you work full time and have a young child? It's not really that hard for me, maybe I have it easier than a lot of people. The worst part about it is dealing with the guilt of leaving Braylon in daycare for longer than he should be. After work, I have about an hour to work out before I have to pick him up. This works well for me because it FORCES me to do it in the time allotted. I try to do this 3 times a week and then the other 2 days, I will pick him up right away and do other exercise at home (workout dvd/walks while he rides his bike/hiking/etc). It's harder for me to workout on these nights, once I'm already at home. Now that my weekday runs are getting longer (5 miles), I have to leave work early on those days and then make that time up on my non-running days. My weeknights are pretty crazy. Getting my workout in, keeping up with chores around the house, and making dinner are about all I have time for before bath and bedtime. He is with his dad every other weekend so I work out a lot on those weekends. The weekends that I have him, I have to find sitters for my long runs, but otherwise I try to find creative ways for us to get our workouts in together. I realize everyone's situations are different so that may not have helped at all...


I really hope some of you sign up for the Columbus run because I would LOVE to meet you guys!

8 Miles WHAT!

Today was my scheduled 8 mile run... and I did it! I missed my running buddies, though. It was hard to get us all together on Easter, especially Amy, who is in Antigua getting married! I told her she better get her miles in on the beach this week... she laughed at me. Anyways, I did a flat 8 miles on the bike path by my house and got some sun. I managed to run 4 miles without stopping before I needed a walking break. I'm happy with that!


2 more lbs gone this week (257) for a total of 92 lbs lost. C'MON 100! There is nothing significant about getting to 100 and I plan on continuing after, it just happens to be the first goal I set for myself.

 Later, I went to an Easter gathering with my family and almost lost a fight with a piece of cheesecake. It's not that I don't allow myself treats occasionally, but I had already indulged in some Starburst jellybeans and decided it wasn't worth it. Hope everyone had a great Easter!!

The Final 10!

I worked HARD this week and for the last 2 days my weight has been holding steady at 259! That's down from 267 last week. WoooHooo!!!! 10 lbs to go until I hit my 100 lb mark!

This morning I had a lovely 7 mile run (and a little walking) with 3 of my friends. We are all running the half marathon on May 6th, and this was the first time we've all been able to run together! Amy and Lindsay took off ahead because they are faster than us, but my friend Michelle and I did so great running together. We kept each other motivated and it was a lot of fun. I've never ran that far before so I'm wondering how I'm going to feel tomorrow... haha 

Another super exciting thing that happened this weekend is that I'm able to fit into both pairs of my size 18 jeans! I haven't been in the teens since... I can't even remember.

 I'm sorry for the bad pic and streaky mirror but I've never seen myself like this and I'm sooo happy!