A Big Milestone!

It has been a long time since I posted an update. So long, in fact, that my last post was The Amazing Grace 10k that I ran last year. (I just ran this year's 5k this morning!) Oops! It's funny how time gets away from you, even with the best intentions! I had to post an update anyway because I hit a huge milestone this week!

For those of you who haven't read my previous posts, I started this weight loss journey in September, 2013. In the last 18 months, my life has changed significantly. Check out these photos.
I was so excited to post this, that I didn't get a new picture taken, but you get the gist.

Thanksgiving, 2013

January, 2015

Back to that milestone...
As of December, I had lost 92 lbs! Up until that point, I had lost pretty regularly, with only a few gains throughout that whole process. Then it got hard.  Like really hard. From December to the end of March, I lost less than 5 lbs.  It became incredibly frustrating that I felt like I was doing everything right and wasn't getting anywhere.

Finally, I went to a consignment sale where someone was sampling Advocare Spark. I had heard about it through Mama Laughlin's blog and it actually tasted pretty good so I decided to give it a try to help boost my energy level. Then I really started thinking about it and remembered Mama L had mentioned a cleanse, so I did a little research and decided to do the 10 day cleanse to help clean up my diet and break through this plateau. Well...it worked! I will tell you more about Advocare later. You can certainly ask me about my progress since starting it, but this post isn't an ad for Advocare. I just wanted to mention that that has been part of my process for the last couple of weeks.

So here it is...the moment we have all been waiting for...me more than anyone!

See that?!? As of Thursday, I have lost 101 pounds!!! Cue the Hallelujah Chorus! I could not be more excited to have finally passed that milestone! 

I found this cool app, that shows you the equivalent what you lost. Unfortunately, it doesn't go as high as 101 pounds so I had to settle on 100. 

I can't even imagine walking around with an extra hundred pounds hanging on me. And I certainly never plan on going back to where I was. When I look at that 'before' picture, I don't even recognize myself. (Then again when I look at the current pictures, I hardly recognize those either!)

The moral of the story is, and you've heard it before, this is a process.  It's one step, one meal, one habit change at a time. If you're not getting the results you want, keep going, but make a change. Your body may just be getting used to what you have been doing. It would have been really easy to give up when I wasn't seeing the results I wanted. Or in the beginning, when I looked at that scale at 275 and realized that this process would take me years. But if you give up, you'll only go back to where you were.  Last week's meeting topic at Weight Watchers was "No Going Back".  The thought was that when you are on a 100 mile journey and miss a turn at mile 98, you don't give up and go back to the beginning.

That's all for now. I do plan on a Race Report for this year's Amazing Grace 5k. There's a celebration involved in that one, too!

What milestones have you reached lately? Brag about them in the comments! I can't wait to celebrate with you!
                                                                                                                 -Jamie