So, I'd like to blame my sister's wedding for failing the month of September. Good news: I fit into my dress for the wedding. Bad news: that means I weigh the same as I did two months ago when I got the dress. Better luck next month.

One thing I forgot to mention in my last post is that I lost a filling in my tooth over the weekend and my appointment to get it fixed isn't until tomorrow morning. This has made eating and drinking things rather difficult yet it hasn't stopped me. I did eat a lot less than normal though so I know I stayed within my calories yesterday.

The reason I bring this up is that the scale read 213.6 this morning. Given what I've just said, I know for a fact i did not gain 1.8 pounds in one day. I post this to remind myself that the scale is not always the most accurate and best interpretation of my success. I know what I ate and how I feel and that's the most important thing.

Something else that has become a result of this ordeal is that I care much more about my teeth. It has been too painful to brush my teeth or use mouthwash for the past few days. I'm not very good at maintaining oral health to begin with but I hope this will serve as a wake up call because my mouth and teeth have never felt so gross. I actually want to brush my teeth! Lol.

Setbacks

Setbacks are a natural occurrence of life. Two weeks ago, I lost my aunt to a heart attack. Though there is a family history, this came as a shock. That whole week became a blur of family visits, organizing pictures, and finally attending the wake and funeral.

Knowing my family has a history of heart problems as well as obesity should be one of the motivating factors for my weight loss. I don't want to have a heart attack and die at 48 years old if I can prevent it by eating healthy, exercising, and losing this extra weight I've been carrying around for far too long now.

Today I weigh 211.8lbs. My goal weight is 135-140, and I would like to be there no later than this time next year.

A for effort!

This week has actually been fairly decent for me. This surprises me because I started a new job recently and I have been overwhelmed by the amount of trainings I have gone to in the past few weeks. This new job also happens to be 3rd shift which means my sleeping pattern is all sorts of messed up.

Part of me also fears that with working nights(thankfully only part time) and sleeping during the day, I will actually become even less active than I am now. It's not really a far fetched fear because the job doesn't require much movement.

All of this said, I go back to my comment that this week has been fairly decent. I went to the gym twice! 33 minute program on the elliptical both times. Also I did a few minutes of weights at home as well as my silly little jog in the house for a few minutes. The best thing about all of this was I actually wanted to do it. None of it was forced, I had the desire to be more active this week so that's a pretty big baby step for me!

This weekend is a family vacation for me so now we have to hope that I don't destroy my little victories for the week.

Barely

So far my attempts at exercise have been mediocre at best. Yesterday I ran from my kitchen to my front door several times for about 5 minutes. Since I'm no runner, I'll take it. Lol.

Today I finally put my Just Dance 2 DVD in and did 3 songs. Also not that great, but it's something.

I hate how hot my house is too. For someone who hates heat, it is very hard to motivate to exercise when it's 86 degrees in my house and the slightest movement causes sweat.

Just Dance

This blog has been many things for me since I started it, but today it's going to revert back to its original purpose. This will once again be my accountability and my documention of my struggle to lose weight through exercise and mindful eating.

I say mindful eating because I never was good with a diet. For me, I am going to focus most of my energy on exercising at first to negate my bad food choices. Once I establish an exercise routine that I actually stick to, I will really focus on what I'm eating. For me, I know I cannot do too many things at once. Every time I have tried to lose weight in the past, I have tried to change every aspect of my life instantly. I force myself to eat few calories and all healthy ones at that, tell myself I need to go to the gym 6 days a week, need to start meditating, need to change my sleeping schedule, etc. etc. etc. I always fail within a week because I simply can't handle that many changes at once(even though they do all need to be changed, eventually).

This leads me to the title of my blog post. I recently had a birthday and used some money to purchase Just Dance 2 for the Wii. Now, I have other exercise games/videos for the Wii but I never did them because they weren't fun. I rented Just Dance 2 as a trial and actually had fun, sweating out to about 5 songs. To me, this seems like a great transition because I can enjoy it. Sure, it's no elliptical or cardio boot camp, but it gets me moving and at this point in my life that's a pretty big step.

Here goes.. Just Dance!

Opinion Outpost

Out of all of the survey sites I signed up for a month ago, Opinion Outpost is the only one that I feel comfortable writing an actual review. It has only been three weeks since I signed up for this site, but already I have received a handful of survey requests in my e-mail and have qualified for enough of them to get my first $5 Amazon.com gift code.

In the past three weeks, I have gotten just about 10 survey requests from them so while they don't flood your inbox, they are consistent enough to be worthwhile. I certainly did not qualify for every one of those but I was impressed at the value placed on their surveys. Most of those 10 surveys were valued at 20 points or more. 20 points equals $2, so as I said reaching the required $5 to cash out was no problem.

I had no problems at all in requesting my first payout, and received the code within minutes of requesting it which is very nice for those of us familiar with the 10-14 day waiting period of Swag bucks. I also wanted to note a nice feature of their payout process. The minimum required to cash out is $5, but you can cash out whatever amount you want. For instance, I currently have $8.80 in my account. Instead of having to wait to reach the $10 mark, I could go ahead and cash out right now and transfer all $8.80 to my Amazon account.

I will let you know if anything changes, but for now, Opinion Outpost has got my stamp of approval.