It's 2011.

It feels like just yesterday that I was 17. It had just become the year 2004 and I was counting down the days until my 18th birthday, then started another countdown until I graduated from high school. Now, I am 24. I am avoiding the countdown until my 25th birthday (although cheaper car insurance does sound nice).

2011 started with Josh and I being able to sleep in a little later than usual. Yeah, 8:45 isn't all that great, but we have kids that are up with the sun. I think I can count on 2 hands the number of times I've slept past 8 (while the kids have been around). It was great.

I have started my diet/exercise back up again, because let's face it. If you are my friend on Facebook and you look through my pictures, you will see that there are very few of me. For the past couple of years, I have been so insecure with myself that I usually refuse to have my picture taken. If you rewind 8 years, you will see me hamming it up in front of the camera. I was happy with the way that I looked then. At that point, I hadn't even had a thought of eating my problems away.

At the end of August, I started a big diet and joined a gym to start getting my exercise in. I was doing really well.. until the holidays rolled around. I gave up on my diet, and quit going to the gym, and have plateaued. Fortunately, the most I gained in the 2 months I slacked were 3 or 4 pounds, so it's not too much to lose again. My goal this time around is to quit with the procrastination. Let's recap how the diet has gone so far..

When I started the diet, I weighed 210 pounds. 8 weeks after Hannah was born (and I had already dropped about 35 baby pounds at that point).
When I quit dieting and exercising in November, I weighed 183. So that was 27 pounds in a little less than 3 months. Awesome, right?

Today, I weighed myself and I weighed in at 185. Let's talk about how I am going to fix this.

Josh and I pooled our Christmas money together and bought an elliptical machine and a set of free weights that we put in our basement. I heard great reviews about a video game for the Wii called Just Dance 2, so I bought that, completely aware of my lack of rhythm.

For the past few days, I have spent 10 minutes each day (sometimes night) on the elliptical machine. I know you're thinking "10 minutes? Big deal!" but this elliptical is not like any other that I have ever used. It is tough. I have gotten a little better at using it each time I have, so here is hoping I will be up to 30 minutes again in no time. I have also started using the 'Just Sweat' portion on Just Dance 2, and meet (if not exceed) the allotted number of sweat points (4.2 sweat points = 1 calorie) that I am expected to reach each day. It is a lot of fun to dance like an idiot and be burning calories. I am fond. =)

So keep up with me while I attempt to lose the 30 pounds that I am pushing myself to lose. My goal is to lose them all (if not more!) by June 1st. I would say that is a realistic goal.