God is mighty! And Photos I Love *FOOD WARNING*

First things first...

Alabama is in a state of shock right now after all the devastating tornadoes have ripped through our state. Countless homes destroyed, many lives have been lost and cities torn apart. I thank God for keeping my family and I safe from these disasters but other people are not so fortunate. One tornado ripped through the city of Bessemer and was only about 5 miles from my house but we didn't have any damage thank goodness...just really strong winds. Pleasant Grove, a city where I basically grew up because my grandparents are from there, is torn to shreds. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the pictures on the news today. But God is merciful and mighty and will not be shaken. Please continue to pray for the families who have lost loved ones and who have lost everything they own. I can't imagine. Thank you for those of you who checked on me!

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On a happier note...

I weighed 190.4 pounds this morning. Now if you recall I weighed the exact same last Thursday. This may not seem like a victory but considering all the food I ate on Easter and my weight of 194 pounds on the scale Monday morning (3 days ago), this is good news. 190.4 pounds is my lowest weight to date since my surgery so I was at least hoping the scale would read 190.2 pounds...but it will have to do. I am trying my best to stay away from all the candy that was in my easter back haha. Regardless, I am wondering when I will see the 180's?

I have been trying to figure it out...

And to stay on track to be 160 pounds by October 23rd (my 2 year bandiversary), I must be at 189 by the beginning of May...2 days away...and consistently lose 5 pounds a month. This is a hefty goal but we will see what happens.

My mom and I are joining Snap Fitness next week and this is motivation for me. Do any of yall go to Snap Fitness? I have never been there but it's pretty inexpensive to join, it is open 24 hours AND it is only 3 minutes (literally) from my house....so I'm doing it. Maybe I will make myself go more than once a week :)

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So for this picture post I wasn't sure whether I wanted to share with you pictures from Easter or a "Photo's I Love" post. I decided to do some pictures I love and I hope you enjoy them. We will do Easter pictures later!


*WARNING*

These pictures are of deserts such as cupcakes, cakes and donuts so here is your warning. There are beautiful and delicious and fabulous.

Out of these 12 pictures, which are your favorite 3? Do you like donuts, cupcakes, cake or candy the most?!

Enjoy!!

Birthday Extravaganza!

Well hello again friends!! My life has been so crazy busy I am just now getting around to doing my birthday weigh-in post! First of all, thank you so much to all my fabulous friends who told me happy birthday on facebook! I have the best friends in the world :)

So let me just say...I had such an amazing birthday weekend this past weekend! It was jam packed with fun, family and friends!

Friday my brother, Trey, graduated from Fire College Rookie School in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and the ceremony just happened to be right in the middle of a tornado. During the middle of the ceremony, they were like "EVERYBODY GET OUT IN THE HALL...THE TORNADO IS ON ITS WAY!" We all ran out in the hall and had to stay there for about an hour until the tornado passed. It literally went right over the building where we were. I was saying my prayers! After it was all over we all went outside and the metal roof had been peeled off, trees were all snapped in half, tree limbs were covering the parking lot...it was scary. So that was interesting to say the least. But Trey graduated and my whole family was there...and we had a good time together. Afterward we all went to dinner and Friday night my friends came from Auburn to spend my birthday weekend with me....along with my cousins, Lauren and Leah.

Saturday we spent the day shopping at some of my favorite stores, came home and changed, grilled out with my parents and went to see Insidious. That was a scary/weird movie!

I had been wanting to go to Six Flags for months and decided that is what I wanted to do for my birthday! So Sunday we all went to Six Flags...six of us and had the best time!! We literally left my house at 8 in the morning and didn't get home until 10 that night! All my friends spent the night and left early Monday morning!

Monday, my actual birthday, I had to work from 9-6 (bummer) but then my parents took me out to one of my favorite italian restaurants and it was delicious!

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Now let me tell you how up and down my weight has been. First things first, I didn't hit my weight loss goal on my actual birthday. Here is a list of my weight since Friday, April 15th.

4/15: 191.2

4/16: 190.6

4/17: 192.0

4/18: 193.8 (Birthday...thank you Six Flags food!)

4/19: 192.8

4/20: 191.4

4/21: 190.4...Today!!

As you can see I had originally hit 190.6 last Saturday and was super happy about it but after this past weekend it slowly went up. But the past few days after my birthday I have been working hard to get that weight back off and boom! This morning my lowest yet....190.4 pounds!

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Hope everyone is having a great week! Thank you again to all your support and encouragement! Yall are the best! Here are some pictures from the weekend...hope you enjoy :)

Photos I Love: Pink edition!! And low, lower, lowest...

I am excited to report my lowest weight yet. Although I feel a little obnoxious reporting my weight every few days this is something I am working my butt off for and it makes me happy. It is nice to work towards a goal and see your hard work pay off. My revised birthday goal was to be at 190 pounds by my birthday, April 18th. This is 4 days away.

This morning I weighed in at 191.8 pounds. I have lost about 69 pounds total and about 21 pounds since the beginning of this year. I have 31 pounds to go until goal weight!! Will that day ever come?

I have managed to keep my calorie count around 1,000 a day and in the past 3 weeks I have probably only eaten out at restaurants 2 or 3 times total and absolutely zero fast food. This has saved me some money that's for sure! I have been making sandwiches, salads and eating lean cuisines pretty much every day.

This weekend I have to be super strict on myself. Weekends always seem the hardest for me. I tend to snack more and eat more calories on the weekends. This weekend is going to be busy. Friday my brother is graduating from fire college rookie school...I am so proud of him! We are going to dinner after with our whole family. Saturday I have to work from 9-12 and then some of my girlfriends are coming over to spend the night...that night a bunch of us are all going to dinner for my birthday...Sunday we are all waking up early and driving to Atlanta to go to Six Flags for my "birthday party"!! I haven't been in years and I can't wait!! Then Monday night, my actually birthday, my family and Burch are all going to dinner (again! haha) for my birthday dinner!

All that to say....will I see 190 on the scale Monday? We shall see!

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And now....for my Photos I Love: Pink edition! Pink is my favorite. Do you have a favorite picture? Enjoy :)

Two more pounds and I will be overweight...

I couldn't fall asleep so I will do a quick little post. I figured it is better for me to get on the blog rather than heading over to the MAC website to spend goodness knows how much money on things of which I have way too much.


So I haven't calculated my BMI in what seems like months so I decided to do that earlier tonight. I believe right before my surgery my BMI was around 39.8. I remember it being just a hair shy of 40 before my surgery.

I guess I should preface this with telling you my weight from this morning. I am happy to announce this morning my scale read 192.4 pounds! What in the world?! To be completely honest, the numbers are going down faster than I thought they would! Who knows...maybe my scale is pulling a fast one on me but after getting on and off about 10 times, 192.4 is what it read each time.

This is good news considering my original goal by my birthday, which is one week away, was to be below 200 pounds. My revised goal was to be at 190 pounds by my birthday. That may or may not happen but regardless, 192.4 pounds is good news for me :)

So back to my BMI....I refigured it tonight and my exact BMI is 30.1. Someone with a BMI of 25-29.9 (an average of course) is considered to be overweight and no longer obese. According to the charts, I have been obese since early high school so it actually feels great to be considered overweight. I believe I need to weigh exactly 190 pounds to have a BMI of 29.9. Maybe I can hit 190 and hit this milestone on my birthday, next Monday. We will see!

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Lastly, seems like yall like my "Photos I Love" posts so I will keep those coming! And I have plenty of pictures to share with you!! You are going to love them!!


Hope everyone has a great week! Watch the video below...I saw it tonight and it makes my heart smile :)

Photo's I Love: Fashion edition

For this edition of Photos I Love I decided to do fashion photos...clothes, shoes, etc. As you can imagine I have hundreds of pictures similar to these on my computer but decided I probably shouldn't post all of them. That would be one loooong post! Here are a few....enjoy :)

Which one is your favorite picture....#1-9?

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P.S. Happy Friday...weight this morning was 194.4 pounds. Getting there slowly but surely. I have 10 days until my birthday!! I am hoping for 192! Everyone have a wonderful day!

Countdown: 13 days!! And Photos I Love..Rooms edition :)

I was excited to see my weight on the scale this morning so I figured I will do another quick weigh-in.

And the number of the day....

194.8 pounds! What?!

How do you lose 2 pounds in one day?! Maybe I was bloated yesterday? Who knows!

Total pounds lost: 66 pounds

Pounds lost since beginning of the year: 18 pounds

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I have my lunch and dinner for today packed and ready to go. I made a vow to myself that I am not going to eat out at all this week...maybe the weekend....but not during the week. Yesterday I ate around 1,300 calories including all meals and snacks. Today I have packed around 1,050 calories with meals and snacks. Unfortunately this week I work until 9 pm so I won't have enough time to get to the gym and get in a workout before it closes. I guess I could go walking in my neighborhood when I get home but I don't prefer to go walking at 10 pm in the dark haha. So it looks like it is all about the diet this week.

Thank you for your encouraging and sweet words. We all know how good it feels to set a goal and hit it...hopefully that will happen :)

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Some of you asked me where I got my white lace top I posted in my pictures a few posts ago and it is from Target. I got in about 6 weeks ago and I love it. If only it came in more colors I would have them all!

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I will leave you with some photos I looooove! A few months ago I started doing "Photos I Love" posts. I love the concept, I did a few, then for some reason I stopped. But I have albums on my computer with literally hundreds and hundreds of pictures I love. I should start doing those posts again :) So to start things back up....here are some Rooms I Love! Which one is your favorite? Mine would have to be room #1! Enjoy!

Slowly but surely...

...The weight it coming off. This morning the scale read 196.8 pounds. That would be a one pound loss since Friday (3 days ago). I will take that any day. And that was with not one ounce of working out haha!

I went to the grocery store last night and I have all the ammo I need to lose some weight before my birthday, officially 2 weeks away! I stocked up on about 20 healthy choice, lean cuisines, smart ones, kashi meals, etc. I know some people are against eating these meals because they are high in sodium, blah, blah ,blah....but I love to eat them for lunch at work. They are quick, 300 calories or less and a lot more healthy than what I used to get in the drive thru back in the day. I also stocked up on my favorite greek yogurt, tons of lettuce for salads, turkey burgers, tons of turkey deli meat, bottled water, etc. I am ready. I have no excuse now :)

I was laughing at my dad yesterday because he is doing this weight loss thing at his work and his whole office is participating. There are like 5 teams and 4 people on each team. For 10 weeks they try to lose as much weight as a team as possible and whoever loses the most wins something....Im not sure what. But he is a total procrastinator! Haha they only have 2 weeks left until the challenge is over and he said he has only lost like 2 pounds and the rest of his team has lost like 10 or 15 each! He is average size and can't possibly need to lose more than 10 more pounds. He works out like crazy but he doesnt eat so healthy...I guess those balance each other out.

But last night he was like "Hey Kristen, at the grocery store will you buy me some of those cardboard-tasting healthy meals in a box? My goal is to lose 10 pounds in the next 2 weeks." Haha and he was dead serious. Men make me sick because he will probably lose those 10 pounds while I will be kicking my butt trying to lose 4! I knew he meant he wanted lean cuisine, healthy choice, etc so I bought him some. Dad, you crack me up :)

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Anyways, here's to losing 4 more pounds in the next 2 weeks! Stay strong, Kristen, stay strong :)

Birthday countdown: 14 days!!
Have a good Monday everyone!!

Rough week for weight loss! Plus a picture post!

Hey friends!! TGIF, right?! I know I'm excited! Sorry I have been a little MIA...

I actually dread doing posts like this when I know my weight loss has been going in the wrong direction for the past week.

Since the beginning of the year I have lost 16 pounds and yes, I am proud of that. But this past week I have gained...slightly. Slightly as in 1.6 pounds. This is sad news considering I have been kicking butt and doing so good. This is the first time this year I have seen a true gain on the scale.

The only thing I can contribute this to is my poor eating choices and eating way too late, later than I ever eat. I have been working from 11-8 everyday. I eat lunch around 2 at work and I don't get hungry until around 8 when I get off. It's not that I have been been eating terrible food, just not as healthy as I have been eating and at like 9 pm! This has got to stop. Seriously.

As of this morning I weighed: 197.8 pounds

Gain of 1.6 pounds from my last week weigh in. I realize this could be worse and in the scheme of things 1.6 pounds isn't terrible but you don't want to see your hard work go out the door.

I have 18 days until my birthday! I realize 190 pounds is out of the question haha but maybe 193 is possible. We will see :) Back to business!

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On a happier note...I have some new pictures to share with you. Enjoy and have a fabulous Friday!!

My family :) Trey, Mom, Dad, Me

Family plus the girlfriend/boyfriend :)

Friends! Trey, Kelsey, Kyndal, Me, Burch, Tyler and Karly :)

Burchfield and me at dinner!

Kelsey, Trey and Me!

Dad with me and Kels! Love him!

Kels and I at church :)

Brother and sister duo :)

White girl at the Red Box! Ha!