The Family Fitness Plan

If you have followed me in the past you know that I started Running in Faith, to journal my running, fitness and weight loss journey. It was a great ride for about three years and then something happened. Through my love for running has not faded, the love for spending my most of my free time training has. I realized as I attempted to train for a full marathon that I did not want to spend every free moment and sometimes not so free moments away from my family. I found myself stressing to keep up with one thing and longing to be a part of another – so I threw in the towel and I fell back on just running the half marathon. I walked away from the 2016 Aramco Houston Half Marathon with a different mindset.

For the past few months I’ve back off from the running schedule and I’ve spent time doing other things I love. DIY projects, cooking, baking, family and traveling near and far have consumed my weekends. I’ve loved it, my waist line not so much! In January I mentioned to a friend that I was afraid that backing off running (my weight loss hero) that I would gain back the pounds and I was right! So what to do?!

Thankfully my church started up a series called #NotMyOwn based on the following scripture:

¹⁹ “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” -1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NIV)

The series, although my pastor is encouraging us to be more active, is not solely about working out. More so it focuses on being a healthier person inside and out, yes spiritually but also eating better and knowing your body and its needs. Going to the doctor and listening to what you doctor advises, do you have high cholesterol? High sugar? Blood pressure? How is your mental health? Do we chug along and ignore those flashing lights and subtle hints that your body gives you when changes need to be made?

The Family Plan: Along with this series we are signing up to do a 5K in May the 12^th Annual Pear Run and we have started to go out every night for a walk/run as a family. During our evening outing the Little Bear rides her bike as we try to keep up with her – hence the running.  I want to check pace and distance all the time!! Hey we went 1.75 miles! We were a whole minute faster tonight that we were last night!! Truth is - no one cares. We are just out there reaping the healthy benefits of being active together as a family every night. My hubby is cutting back on junk food, the Bear is learning how to ride her bike, the fur babies are loving every walk and I get to cook on the lighter side helping me stay on track.  Not to mention the connection that we are making with each other as father and daughter and as husband and wife, I’d call that a healthy choice too.

Daily walk/run training plan & scripture @ New Hope FB

I’ll keep you posted as the Family Fitness Plan moves on, yes I am hoping for weight loss but it is so much more than that. I am hoping for a lifestyle that sticks around for the long run, for Little Bear, for my hubs, for myself and for my family.  

Hello Sunrise

Have you ever noticed my obsession with the sunrise pictures

 I take when I run in the mornings?

Morning run in Dallas

Taken during my morning runs at work.

Maybe because I don’t post allllll of them.

The sunrise is just such a beautiful thing to me, I guess it represents a new start, a fresh beautiful new beginning.

Coming from me – a runner and battling the weight loss thing, new beginnings are important to me. After a whole week of not stepping foot in the gym or not being able to go for one run and being emotionally and mentally exhausted at the end of the day a sunrise is promising to me.

This one reminds me of cotton candy which reminds me of my little bear... 

The morning of my friends breast cancer benefit - I love the hues of pink that filled the sky.

When I  go out early enough the neighborhood "lakes" are still. 

I know that at the next sunrise I will have to chance to lace up and get out there again.

I know that at the next sunrise everything is just new again and I am back on track again. 

The Bandwagon

I have been on the brink of posting this blog a few times in the past couple of weeks. I’ve deleted it revised it and started from scratch. Mostly because it’s a controversial topic, that has been on my mind lately. I was going to title this one “Mission at Hand” or even “Forward Motion” but even as I am typing this I am not sure what I want to title it.

As I sit here right now I just finished nibbling on a piece of chocolate, I am about to eat my grapefruit and I just refilled my water cup. All of this sums me up in a nutshell. If you know me you understand right off the back…

Two years ago I was on medication for being a border lined Diabetic, when I started the mission to change that, I stopped drinking sugary drinks, actually I only drink water now. Occasionally I might have a coke- as in I’ve had one coke so far this year. The grapefruit it’s my breakfast these days, as I’ve started to “watch” my calorie intake because I am on the mission to lose a few more lbs. (I’ll cover more on that later) and my little piece of chocolate because I can’t say no to chocolate. :) There is something in my being that is just enamored with chocolate it runs in my family and if you had any sense you would never say no to a good piece of chocolate, real thick frothy hot chocolate on a cold day, a good piece of chocolate cake or an amazing chocolate chip cookie. I know what you are thinking; the chocolate just threw a wrench in the whole healthy thing. To me it didn't, it’s just part of my daily struggle and some days it’s a walk in the park others the struggle is real and other days when the clean eating and healthy wagon gets in the cross roads with really good food that was baked or fried and makes you lick your fingers… I’ll push you off the wagon right along with me.

I'd have to think that chocolate still taste better.

About a year ago I was having a conversation with a beautiful thin good looking woman and somehow the word “brownie” was mentioned and she said “oh brownie…I haven’t had one of those in like five years”. I walked away a bit shocked. I went to my best friend’s house that night and I said “why would anyone ever do that to themselves? And my bestie answered “Girl, I don’t know – that’s just crazy!”

Alllllllll of this because of blogs or articles or even meme’s that are fighting the “being fat is greatness” or “being skinny is the bomb.com” I hate seeing both of these and even more I dislike people getting behind one bandwagon or the other like it’s a blanket for every fat person or every thin person.  Every person out there is different - NOT one of us has the same health issues, self-esteem, emotions of anxiety, confidence, etc...  – Not all of us love our selves like we should.  

I feel like I have always loved my self even at my heaviest – I may not have been happy with my self at my heaviest but I loved my self, none the less. Does that make sense? This is why at my heaviest when I looked at the picture that made my jaw drop and something click – A picture that we took on our trip to Angle Fire New Mexico where my size 16 (almost size 18) self was bundled up in layers of warm clothes and jackets smiling alongside my friends and I didn’t recognized who that was staring back at me… the inside me didn’t match the outside me.

I am happy right now being a size 10(ish), I have found a happy place running and exercising, the friends that surround me right now and my family are great and encouraging. I am in love with something else now too (other than chocolate) my body. I am strong! I can run! I can do stuff I never thought I could do! I am training to do a pull up right now - don’t laugh! I just happen to have most of my weight on my bottom half and it makes for a complicated pull-up!! BUT I want to do more!! Here are two bucket list items for you – I want to go rock climbing and I want to go paddle boarding.  Have you ever done either of those?? Teach me!

Where was I going with this… if being overweight is standing in your way from being, happy, healthy and able – well don’t stand behind the “fat is awesome” front runner. Is being skinny causing you to be unhealthy (eating disorders), obsessive and unhappy – get out of that line too! Find your happy place!! One blogger wrote “Happiness does not require thinness. Fatness does not presume sadness.” But what does it do for you?

So why do I want to lose a few more lbs, because I want to. Really because I’d like to run a marathon at least one in my “Running in Faith” life time and after running the half back in January I know for certain that I need to lose a few more pounds – it will not be etched in stone that when I lose that weight, that it won’t find its way back (LOL) but I know I’ll run a better and stronger marathon by doing this. I am okay with that. I am a girl, I still look in the mirror and don’t like the lumps and bulge I see sometimes but you know what I’m okay with that too. As a girl I am prone to seeing imperfections in myself all the time but I refuse to obsess over them and by God I will not let that keep me from eating a brownie!! Especially the cheese cake brownie one of my co-workers shared with me yesterday. 

A dose of Good News...

Have you enjoyed my journey so far? These past 10 months have been a time to rediscover my life as it could be and should be. I still see myself from time to time in a light that is not so much flattering but that’s okay. I still look in the mirror some days and point out what is wrong instead of realizing everything that is right. I am okay with this, don’t worry I’ll explain, we live in a world where the idea of perfection and beautiful are skewed and twisted out of whack entirely. The truth is that ~I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. ~ See I have always felt “okay with myself” running never came from disliking my appearance, it came from wanting to make a change, a change that would have a direct correlation with my family, my children and my health.

Yes, I will do a little dance when I drop in weight and when I fit in a smaller size, I am (after all) woman hear me ROAR, NAG, COMPLAIN, GRIPE, NAG, ECT.! Even more so I am HUMAN. I also have worked hard to get where I am and I will celebrate when I see all that hard work making a change in a tangible way.

At one point or another I have mentioned that I have health concerns with my weight, I’ve said I would elaborate and I never did. Truth is I am scared of an eight letter word that is closely associated with my family, more so my mother’s side of the family. Diabetes(Type 2). About 5 years ago I was diagnosed as being a pre-diabetic; I know that to many people it may not be a very scary word but to me it is. I know and have family and friends that have been majorly affected by this, and it blows my mind. My mother was diagnosed with diabetes about ten years ago, she vowed to beat it somehow, she went to classes and quickly understood that she could change her diet and life style and possibly one day no longer be a diabetic. Now I don’t know the ends and outs of diabetes BUT I will say that once you are a diabetic I don’t believe it’s easy to overcome it. I have seen my mother make changes, I have seen her take care of herself more than ever  by staying physically active and making better decisions when eating, she watches her weight and has brought her sugar level way down, so much so that her doctor has mentioned she maybe could be taken off her medication.

Family History. When my mother was diagnosed I quickly realized that not only was she a diabetic but so were almost all of her siblings! Some of them taking huge doses of medication and insulin shots...hum I'm not fond of shots. Many stories of people who have lost their sight or had issues with their feet, toes and legs. So about five years ago when I first thought to myself that I might be headed that way, all kinds of flashing lights and sirens went off! There I was 29 years old and there was a chance that maybe my own health was keeping me from getting pregnant… I remember that sinking feeling that I was headed the wrong way. There was no doctor at this point just me and my gut feeling, that moment a set of events took place that I will forever look back on as an affirmation that I have some control over this and what I do will have a direct effect on my health and my children. I started to exercise again without instruction from anyone but as a form of my own experiment! I ate better and worked out and lost some weight, about three months later I was pregnant.

PHEW!? No, not quite, at my checkup I spoke the words I was afraid to say, I told the doctor I thought my sugar might be high. At this time the results came back elevated but not so high that I would be have gestational diabetes, but oh boy did they watch my sugar like a hawk. AND I got to moving and eating better, throughout my 9 month pregnancy I lost weight, my little boo was healthy and so was I. I read books about pregnancy because I wanted a natural birth, and with many mid-wives (insurance) not willing to take on a patient with diabetes I realized there was a lot to be done on my part. I read once that preparing yourself for a natural birth is a lot like training to run a marathon, you don’t just get up one day and say you’re going to run a marathon, you train and prepare. Mega WOW, for me now as I prepare to run my first half marathon.  My pregnancy went great and my delivery was just as perfect as anything I could have asked for, I wish I could tell you that was the end of it… but it wasn't, by the time my next checkup came along I was diagnosed as a pre-diabetic. The past four years has been a constant up and down of weight and numbers. Two years ago I lost weight, I was in the 170’s and my “numbers” were still high, I must have been discouraged because slowly the weight came back on last year I went in and my cholesterol was high too at that time I weighed in the 180’s by January I was 196, I had a lot to lose and more to gain than ever – so I started to run- really I started to walk, slowly I started to run.

My checkup was about two weeks ago, I was nervous to say the least, then I had to wait for results to come in and last Friday I had a sit down talk with my doctor. My results? GREAT. All numbers are down, I am NO longer pre-diabetic {happy dance inserted here} I am off my medication and my cholesterol and my lipids are normal. Again I don't know everything there is to know about diabetes  I don't know that I've beat it forever but I know now that I've have delayed it - hopefully for many many years. How about that running... for me personally it means so much - but I will save that for another day ;)

Blog what Blog?

Oh yes this blog! Sorry about that … I have been MIA going on week three! There really is no excuse although I might be throwing a few out there anyway.  Really and truly I have just been having a hard time lately, ever since coming back from vacation I have not been able to get back on track like I should be, regardless I have not stopped running – mind you it’s been really hard to run. Sometimes just getting out the door is hard and other times getting through my run is hard. Either way I’m in the slumps.

I don’t know if it’s just summer time laziness that has not just crept up on me but it seems to have come up to me and covered me in a huge lazy blanket. Poop. I should be training for my half marathon but I can only get half way there and I have been eating crazy too. I am not eating a lot just not the right foods... bread has been really friendly as has been ice cream – oh a chips especially if there is homemade salsa close by (yum!).  So now I am going to stop focusing on the bad and ugly and I’m going to fill you in on the good stuff that has happen despite my ill efforts to be good.

First and foremost I hit the 30lbs mark! Woo-hoo!!! No lie this time LOL! I feel kinda bad though because I feel like I don’t deserve it! I’m like yeah, hum how did that happen? The important part is that it did happen and I’m a happy camper :) Oh! And this means I am also no longer considered to be “obese” anymore – go figure. I am though “overweight” (no way? really??) and according to the lovely BMI calculator I need to lose about 25-30 more pounds to be “normal”.  So, I think that answers the ultimate question people ask me all the time “how much more weight do you want to lose?” I guess I’d like to be “normal” or as close to it as I can be.  Now seriously the idea of losing another 30 pounds is overwhelming, I am in a place where I don’t exactly know how possible it its. Although losing the first 30, has not been easy I have been here before and it felt doable. The thought of losing another 30, now that is unchartered territory with the exception of maybe some 18 years ago?!  So how do I tackle this? A little bit at a time. My next goal will be to lose another 10 pounds, then we will see from there what happens!

I also was able to run 6 miles last Saturday! I could not believe it!! The week before I was able to do a repeat of 5 miles,  then on Saturday I started off by telling myself, anything over 5 would be good, and slowly but surely I just kept going until I hit 6 miles – wow for me!  6 months ago I could not run for more than a few minutes without feeling like I was going to die.  I have the map for the Aramco Houston Half Marathon on my wall at work, it has each mile numbered and each time I go a mile further I feel closer to the finish line. I think I will get half way there this weekend! Each time I go for a run I am stretching out the distance by adding a new street or neighborhood to my trail, each time I finish just about half a mile away from my house, this way I can walk and cool down while on my way back home BUT also I challenge myself to run an extra block or from one stop sign to the next, this seems to be working for me so we shall see how far it gets me… on another thought eventually I will be running through each neighborhood in my subdivision. Pretty cool hu?

Run Harder??

     This week in running has been good, some weeks it seems like running is what it is all about, but of course it’s not what it’s all about (not all the time anyway). Yes there are weeks when everything I plan is worked around running, this comes of course when there is a routine established and anything extra is planned around my runs. I suppose this past week was the clam before the storm, it was the week of change for my household. It was the last week of “official” school and the last week for me before my summer hours began. It was also the big OMG week to the realization that our vacation is upon us. Although I did well following my running and toning plan for the week, so good it hurt like crazy when I had to sneeze!! There are times when routine is out of the question and when my mind is engulfed with thoughts of family and planning and getting organized- at this point running is done when it’s done. There are late nights and rushing to get home so we can get ready for the next day. There comes a point when we just have to stop and clean the house and wash the clothes. These are not my favorite times but they ground me, they remind me of why I am getting healthier and why I started running in the first place. For my family <3>

     Monday was my toning day and I thought about what I wanted to do exactly, I thought of all the exercises I’ve ever done over years. I thought about the ones that I felt the most. I thought about the classes I’ve taken and videos I’ve tried out and eventually I picked out a few for each area I wanted to work on. Some for my abs, some for my legs and some for my arms, I came up with a pretty good set of exercises, I am in the process of finding all the correct names for them and then I will give you a list. The one thing I chose to be a part of my workout was the oh-so-fear-full PLANK! I admit many a times at the gym or on the video the instructor asked told you to get in to plank position and I cheated I would set up on my knees, never really trying the PLANK. I knew it was a challenge for me, so I threw it into my workout and hoped it would not be that bad. Day one I could barely hold plank position for 15 seconds tops, day two – I could not sneeze with having to cry a little bit. Day three (my second toning day) I could hold it for a little bit longer not so much pain – YAY! Sunday night was day three and again much better :)


     Running went well, although my Saturday long run was a tough one, I wanted so badly to reach my 5miles goal but after mile 4 I was exhausted!! I ended up doing .8 of my fifth mile and I had to run/walk it. Next Saturday will have to be it no excuses! Ha!

     I also tried running the track at the local school and do a training run (fartlek’s funny name but a real term Swedish for “speed play”) either way I do this in my own way and it has worked for me helping me speed up my time a little bit. Lately adding speed to my time has become hard. Harder. Is it ever easy? I don’t know, running is a very mental thing, it really is mind over physical ability. I find myself having a constant battle with how my body feels vs my brain telling me to keep going.  I am hoping speed is just a mental block, which I have to just get past this wall and keep going but IT IS HARD! I feel like I’m going all out and then when I look at my time and I’m like really??? Dang I could have sworn I was going faster. I know speed isn’t what it’s all about and some days I really wish I could make myself stop worrying so much about it and just run. Less thinking more running… I think I’ll adopt this way of thinking form now on but I’ll still keep my Garmin with me just in case ;)

Oh yes! I almost forgot I did weigh in this past Friday!! Mr. Scale decided to move…a little bit…like a pound. SO I am boycotting Mr. Scale my not featuring him on my blog this week. I know you are bummed… but in lieu of that I put together and even more embarrassing picture!! This way you won’t feel cheated :) A quick sneak peek of what running looks like for me! Mr. Scale is allowed to return in two weeks only is he is kind enough to show me numbers I like better…. Of course I will have to do some serious behaving myself if we are to get along. Wish me luck!!  

Live.Learn. Run. Repeat.

I have not updated my run times for quite some time so it is very much updated here. If you do take a look at it – there is some filling in that I have to do. So we will start with May 8^th – the treadmill.  I will go ahead and tell you now that I’m not sure me and the treadmill are friends.  When I first got it I was super excited, a friend of mine noted how much I was hating on the heat for my run at the Chelsey’s 5K, he then told me he had a treadmill if I was interested in it for hot days (every day from now until Mid-October will more than likely be a hot day) and I said yes! Turns out the only thing I hate more than running in Houston heat is running on the treadmill. HA!

I don’t have a Garmin foot Pod thingy to sink to my watch when I run, so I just went by the numbers on the machine AND according to it, it slowed my time way down! It took my forever to get to three miles and I wanted to kill the treadmill afterward AND even though I was inside with the fan on I was drenched – someone might as well have dumped a bucket of water on me.  I know some of you are thinking – good, sweat is good! BUT it is different than sweating outside.  Having the air flow around you when you are running sort of dries you off as you go and yes there is that feeling of being out in the open and just being free to go anywhere you want.

The aftermath of running on the treadmill, has left me with the other option of running outside in the evenings. Before my husband was running in the evenings and I was running right after work, our solution for avoiding the sun and heat - we are running together! The first time I ran with my hubby was way back in February, before I could run even a mile straight. Then I was still doing the couch25k, we did a run/walk and it was torture! He wanted to hold a full on conversation and I wasn't able to keep up because I would be out of breath! I was hesitant running with him again but its easier than of having one of us going out every evening - I don't know about you but it's hard to work in dinner and cleaning and washing and homework and what ever else might pop up on the daily plus the added bonus of going for a run twice a week (once on the weekend). Any way after much thought and no choice we headed out together.


The turn out was pretty good, first of all he helps me by pushing me to go a little bit faster. Second, Jose had been struggling to run 3miles, he had managed to run 2 1/2 miles but had hit that brick wall when it came to pushing him self further. With me of course he slowed him self down a little bit and by our second run we hit our 5k distance. I remember making it to driveway and I turned and told him "There! 3.1 miles - you did it!!" Funny thing when you first run those daunting 3miles, it opens a door you didn't think could be open... It opens the door to running 4miles :)

Speaking about 4miles, last Sunday I was supposed to run 4miles. I set out on my course around my neighborhood and about half way through I got a funky pain in my side :( and no matter how much I slowed down it just did not work out. I was so bummed out in my third mile I had to throw in the towel and I walked the rest of the way home. I was so upset about my run and disappointed, I really had to talk my self into understanding that, bad runs happen...they just do. Plus I have to be thankful that there is always next weekend :)

This week I was invited to join my friend Cindy to join her for a run on Wednesday at the Sugar Land Memorial Park. I was excited to join her, I had been looking for a way to get out to that park and run its track. There was a 5k there this Saturday but I couldn't join this one, so I took Wednesday as my chance to get out there. We met up and it was pretty awesome! I really liked the park it was nice gravel trail and it has wet lands all around - and it had lots of other runners on the trail, that's one one thing I miss because running in the neighborhood there is rarely other runners out there. It has a pretty cool play ground too, we went as family and Jose and Hailey hung out and played while we ran.

While I missed the 5k today I got up nice and early, with the plan to run my 4miles, once I got out there I decided that I would try and up it to 4.25 because according to my plan that's where I should be and I told my self that even though I didn't have a good run last weekend I wouldn't let it set me back. So I was determined to see if I could make it happen, once I got to 4miles I knew I could push my self the extra quarter and once I reached that point I ran it till the end of the street that I was on at the time, rounding it off at 4.3 miles. I was happy with that!! I am having trouble with getting faster but I'm okay with that for now. I'm making it my goal to push harder this coming week. After all there is that little voice telling me I can do it :)

Things learned - running on the treadmill vs running outside waaaayyy different. Running on gravel vs pavement way different too but I can see how it helps you build stamina. It's getting some serious kind of hot out there and the humidity makes it thick! Also here is a heads up, the mosquitos are making a come back AND keep your eyes peeled because I've come across a couple of snakes too!

Here is my weigh in pick for this week - and me and Mr. Treadmill are trying to make nice, I'm walking on it whenever I have a chance, so far things are going ok :)



25lbs Down!! Here I come 30lbs ready or not!!



On losing weight...

     I am not an expert on weight loss but I can tell you that I have been dealing with being overweight for most of my life minus a few years till I was about 6years old. Around this time my parents got divorced and although I don't remember binge eating or being overly lazy, I gained weight and from then on I have been "chubby" and that my friends, is putting it nicely. 

    The first time I remember trying to lose weight is when I started High School. When it was about being popular and being invited to parties and having a boyfriend. (Was this just me in high school??) Sad but true, that is what at that time motivated me to do something about it. That was short lived but it started that yoyo for going up and down, sometimes I would care and then for what ever reason I just let things be again. When I was  21 I took a trip to New Mexico and when I got back and my friends developed the pictures and I was shocked. My weight had gone a little crazy - I was about a size 16/18 and I don't even remember what I actually weighed but if I had to guess I think I was about 220-230lbs. Again I managed to lose weight get back to what felt normal and again over the years it has snuck back on I've fought it back off a little here and then back up again. 

    What is different about things this time? I don't know where to start...health, family and because I feel like its possible. It's torture but it is possible. I will have to write about my health issues and family in another blog because each of those are important in too many ways that they would take up there own space. 

    Now I want to talk about that crazy thing called weight. It drives you nuts and it is dependent on so many things. How much water you drink, how much salt you eat, what time of the month it is and is it a full moon out!? You decide to go on a diet and you buy a scale and you jump on it one day - Hurray!! - find out that you lost two pounds! Sweet! The weekend is here you have your free day and then a few days later you get back on the scale and you've gained three pounds! It's a vicious cycle. Some days you want curse your scale and others you want to clean it and make it look new again because its so super awesome. Ever been there? 

    Here is where I'm at today - I've only lost 23 pounds and its been hard. The first place I started losing weight was in my fingers, yes my fingers. I kept telling my friends "I'm going to be the chubby girl with skinny fingers what the heck?!!" I have even lost weight in places no girl ever want to lose weight in. My feet have lost weight, yes the chubby feet you see in the pictures when I weigh in, they were chubbier! But it's ok at least I know, me as a whole is losing the weight somewhere somehow. 

    There weeks that scale does not move, and when I feel fat and like I'm twenty pounds heavier again someone will ask me or say "have you lost weight??" "Wow you look good keep it up!"  Some days I run a few seconds faster or maybe a quarter mile longer. And that's how I'll make it another day.Little by little I stay on track or get back on track because I'm not perfect and there are times when I am waaaaay off track. So far I run three times a week and have not missed one yet. But I can't say that there aren't days when I slow down or cut my three miles short. It sounds like I'm a recovering addict of some sort, right? I just think that to make something into a lifestyle and not just another random diet it takes a lot of work, it took me some 27 years to be overweight - I don't know if there will ever be a time when I'm not. Even more so I don't know if there will ever be a time when I don't feel like I am. 

    You have to take responsibility for how you eat, make changes and find something that works for you. I do better when I count calories others find it easier to follow a plan or eat cleaner. It's amazing to me how many calories are in everyday things I would never bat an eye at. You've heard the term that muscle weighs more than fat and I feel that's true, for a almost a month I didn't see that wonderful scale move but by the end of the month I fit into jeans that didn't fit before. During that same month more people noticed my weight loss than before. Some times you have to ask the scale to forgive you but you just can't visit with it every day. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you really want to make a change then you have to be determined because even when you don't feel like it, when you don't see a change, when you feel fat or when the scale does not move - well you keep at and when you least expect it things change and the scale finally moves - down in the right direction.