And the scale says...

.....200.8!! As of this morning I am 0.9 pounds away from the magical 199 that I have been thinking about since before my surgery. Those of you who have already hit onederland know how good it feels to finally say you are no longer in the 200's!! That is something I have been looking forward to for years! Even though I still have 40 pounds to go, you feel like being in the 100's puts you in a different category or something. I don't know how to explain it but it sure is a good feeling :)

My original goal for 2011 was to be in onederland by my birthday on April 18th but seeing that it shouldn't take me 7 weeks to loss 0.9 pounds, I need to reevaluate my goals. My new goal I set for myself last week was to be under 200 by March 1st which gives me 2 more days! Maybe 190 pounds by my birthday? My ultimate goal is to be 160, my goal weight, by my 2 year bandiversary which is October 23rd of this year...we shall see!

Anyways, thanks for reading my weight loss ramble! My heart is happy!! Hope everyone has a great Sunday! Im off to church with the fam and going tonight with my cousins and my mom on a girls night out to dinner and to see "Never Say Never"...the Justin Bieber movie! Yeah yeah...he is like 16 but we love little Bieb!! Talk to yall soon!!

Weigh-In and Question of the Day!!

Weigh-In:
Yesterday I weighed in at 201.0 pounds!! Onederland, just one more pound and I will be yours forever! :)

So yesterday was a great day. I ate about near perfect, ate right at 1,100 healthy calories and ended my dad with a 45 minute hardcore cardio workout. I feel as if I may have hit the 200 pound mark today but when I got on the scale this morning the battery light was blinking. It is so dead it won't even give me one last weigh-in. I frantically ran around the house trying to find those flat circular batteries and couldn't find any.

Oh well. I will just have to be good today, get some batteries at the store and hope for the best tomorrow. Thank you everyone for your encouraging words! I figured the last time I was in onederland was probably around 10th grade...so about 10 years ago. As of yesterday I have officially lost 59 pounds...hoping for the big 60 tomorrow!!

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QUESTION OF THE DAY:

I decided to start a little thing called "Question of the Day" or "QOTD". Some of you already do this on your own blog but sometimes random questions pop into my head, usually band related or nutrition related, and I wonder how I compare to some of you.

My question for today is....On average, how many calories do you try to eat a day to lose weight or maintain your weight if you have already hit goal? I say "try" because sometimes we overdo it and eat way too much, not on purpose of course :) But on average I try to stay around 1,200 calories. Sometimes it may be a little lower around 1,100 and sometimes I eat up to 1,400 but most of the time I am a stickler for counting every calorie I put in my mouth and I try to keep that around 1,200.

Hope yall have a wonderful Wednesday!!

Calling all New Yorkers and New York lovers!!

I have been meaning to do this post for a few weeks now and I figured some of you will be a tremendous help!

So three of my girlfriends and I are planning a trip to New York City the week before Christmas. We haven't decided whether to go for 5 days, 6 days or a whole week...just depends on what specials we can find. One of my best friends, Kyndal, is graduating from Auburn on December 13th and we have to be back in Alabama on December 23rd. So we are thinking of going the 15th to 20th maybe...something like that.


We have just barely started looking at hotels. I must admit I love planning trips of any kind...from start to finish. I love picking the hotel, finding fun restaurants, shows, shopping...you name it. But I must admit in my quick NYC hotel searches I felt completely overwhelmed. I went to a popular hotel website and narrowed down my search: sleeps 4, between $$ and $$$, this certain area of town....and wouldn't you know 150 hotels pop up. Omgoodness. How in the world are we going to choose?


This is where all my fabulous New Yorkers and New York lovers come into play! I have only been to New York once and I was 14 years old and it was in July. I loved it, every minute of it! But I have always dreamed of going back when I was older around Christmas time. Everything means so much more to me now...the fashion, the architecture, the shows, the sightseeing, the city's history, etc.

I figured with four girls all between the ages of 21 and 25 we need to stay somewhat in the middle of town, a more lively area rather than the outskirts of town even though the outskirts are cheaper. We are definitely willing to pay more to be near the "hot spots".

I have been asking around and some of my friends have suggested a few boutique hotels in the city. I was really excited about one in particular because it was cute and very reasonably priced but they only have rooms that sleeps 2 people. Strange...most hotels have rooms with two double beds but not this hotel. Had to cross that one off the list because we only want one room that sleeps 4.

For those of you who live in New York or for those of you who have been, what are some specific hotels you would recommend in the city and reasonably priced (between $200-$300 a night)? What are the best areas to stay in? Would you recommend right in Times Square? Soho? Upper East Side? Maybe a little Sex and the City? :)

Another question is do you know of any websites where I can find some good deals and specials on hotels, flights/hotel packages or any other NYC deals?
Do you think we will get the best deals the earlier we book or are certain months better for bargains than others?

We figured if we aren't going until mid-December we have a good 9 months to plan everything. We are hoping to find some good deals since we are starting early. Flights for December seem to be around $330 round trip when I looked the other day which isn't bad. We will plan restaurants, shopping and shows much closer to time.

I think that is all for now. I know I will have more NYC questions later but I know you all that live there or visit regularly could make it much easier for me haha. Thank you for your help!! Hope everyone has a fabulous Monday :)

Does it ever feel so close you can taste it?

TGIF!! So I realize it isn't Monday, my normal weigh in day, but I was happy to see the number on my scale and wanted to share the victory!

No, I am not in onederland yet but it sure is close!

My scale this morning read 202.4!! What?! Some days I do not like my scale at all but today we are in love! And if I must tell on myself for a minute...I only worked out once last week even though it was pretty intense and this week I haven't worked out at all. But I have been watching my diet hardcore. Guess that was the contributing factor. Maybe with a workout or two next week I can see the 100's. Finally!! I will keep my fingers crossed!

Have a fabulous Friday!! :)

Picture Post!

Happy Tuesday everyone! Hope everyone had a nice V-day :) Burch surprised me with beautiful roses last night and the biggest box of chocolates I have ever seen. Looks like those are going to go straight to work to share with friends haha. We havent done our Valentines dinner yet because we both have crazy work schedules so we are either going to do it tonight or Saturday night...I am letting him choose.

I figured since I havent done a picture post in what seems like forever it was time for one. I have had fun filled weekend and wanted to share some pictures with yall. Hope everyone has a great day!

My cousin, Leah, was in a pageant this past Saturday night. She was a knockout and even though I am slightly biased, she was the prettiest one by far.

She came in 2nd place :)

Gorgeous!

The fab four...forever and always :)

Lauren, Leah and Lindsay...my cousins/sisters/best friends...all of the above!

Lauren and I!

Love her to pieces!

Burch wanted to get in on some of the camera action haha

Kelsey and I. Kelsey and I go way back. Her older sister is my best friend and Kelsey is now dating my brother Trey...cute huh? She came into town for the weekend to spend Valentines with Trey. My parents took Kelsey, Trey, Burch and I all out to dinner Sunday night before Kelsey had to head back home.

Trey and Kels. Background is typical...my messy room :)

I was waiting on him to take a picture...

Brotha and Sista!

Love them!!

The wild and crazy foursome :)

Last but not least...Kelsey and I getting ready before dinner!

Happy Heart Day!

Happy Valentines Day everyone! Whether you are single, dating or married, hope everyone has a fabulous day!! Let's all try not to eat too much chocolate...Lord, help us.

Love you all!!

Easy come, easy go!

Back in business ladies!

After my 4 pound trip-to-Atlanta weight gain I was a little upset with myself. Darn cheesecake and italian buffet! But like most of you commented on my last blog, pounds that are easily put on are the easiest to take off. I made sure that starting this past Monday I was going to be super strict on myself this week and I am sticking to my plan. Even though I had a long stressful day at work yesterday I made myself go to the gym. My sweet brother met me there and we worked out for an hour....stretched, elliptical, treadmill, lifted weights....the whole nine yards. It felt good, really good.

The scale this morning read 204.0 :)

Only 1 more pound to go before I get back down to my lowest weight!!

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Just wanted to share that exciting piece of information. Doesn't it feel good to know you are doing the right thing...working out, eating healthy, etc....and then it shows that very next day on the scale? Man...nothing better!

I am going to get back to watching "Betty's Kitchen" on youtube. Yall should go check this lady out! She has over like 800 videos of her cooking all different types of food...some healthy, some not healthy at all. Maybe because I am feeling hungry at the moment I am using these videos to virtually feed my stomach haha! Some call it torture but I love watching cooking videos!

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Oh, here is a picture of my brother and I about an hour ago outside in the SNOW!! Down here in Alabama we don't see it that often so we take every opportunity we can to jump in it, play in it, take pictures in it, make snow angels and the list goes on! I look so short because I am standing on a lower step...he is taller than me but not by 2 feet haha! And if you look really closely you can see my new G35 in the background...Feeling so fly like a G35! ;)



Have a good night everyone!!

Sweet dreams :)

*WARNING: Food overload*

Hey Monday everyone!

It's be a week since my last post so I decided to get on and do a quick little post. I also need to do my Monday weigh-in (uh oh) but let me preface that with the story of my business trip last week.

Last Wednesday through Friday I had to go to Atlanta with my boss from work training. It was my first official business trip and we had a great time getting away from the office and meeting new people. I am a sales auditor and it was a training session for all the auditors of the company in the southeast. The king size suite just for myself wasn't so bad either :) We got to Atlanta around dinner time Wednesday night and stayed until Friday afternoon.

This brings me to the main reason for this post....all the food, food and more food they provided for us. Keep in mind the company paid for every penny of this trip and it seemed like every meal was a buffet of terrible (well actually delicious but terrible for you) food options.

Wednesday night we all went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. I decided on a semi-healthy food choice but it went down hill from there. They ordered everyone a piece of their own cheesecake which a piece of cheesecake alone is around 1,400 calories. I ate about half of it but still figured my calorie count for the day was around 2,500. Wow!

Thursday was even worse. I didn't have time to eat breakfast which was my first mistake. For lunch they provided FRIED chicken (ugh), mashed potatoes, salad drenched in ranch dressing, huge butter soaked rolls. I tried to eat only very small amounts but the calories were still more than my normal lunch allotment. Dinner wasn't provided until around 7:30 which is later than I usually eat and it was an italian buffet...literally. They had spaghetti, fettuccine alfredo, chicken parmigiana, lasagna, every kind of pasta you can imagine, caesar salad and huge garlic bread sticks. I made terrible food choices....yes I can admit it....and literally filled my plate with food. After eating almost all of it (I don't know where my band was at this point), I felt sick. I knew I had eaten more than I had eaten in a loooong time and my stomach was cussing at me.

All this to say...I stayed away from the scale until this morning. I was scared to get on and figured it would read something ridiculous like 215 or something! HA! Well I finally got on and keep in mind last Monday I weighed 203.6 pounds. The scale read 207! I had very mixed emotions. I was instantly glad I still weighed less than 210 but then I quickly realized I had gained 3.4 pounds in the last week...mainly thanks to my Atlanta trip! Holy smokes!

I know all too well that this isn't the end of the world. We all have our ups and downs. Our "vacation days" where we slack and eat whatever we want. I am all for rewarding myself once in a blue moon but not for 3 days straight. And it just sucks because I had such an awesome 9-pounds-lost month in January. I have been working out and seeing the weight come off and putting back on 3 pounds is never fun as yall can probably relate. But I am still down 5 pounds from the beginning of the year. Kristen, keep your head up and keep going.

So that brings me to this week. I am not going to eat out at any meal from today to Friday. I am going to pack my lunch like I had been doing for weeks before my Atlanta "Food" Convention haha. I am going to count every last one of my calories because this is what helps me stay on track.

Onederland, you are 8 pounds away but I am coming for you!

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