Back to Bloggin': Weight Loss Update Part 1

Hey all!

I'm back.

Sorry for the departure, but life has been a whirl of diapers, feedings, traveling, cleaning, and so much more. I won't bore you with all the details. I KNOW we are all super busy, and my life can't compare to how busy some of you are, but I feel like this has been the busiest I've been in my life. Let me give you a brief update:

This year so far, I had my fourth child in February and continued to work part time. My husband finished law school (whew! it was about time for us to be done with school), studied like crazy day and night for the BAR exam, and then took said BAR exam last week. Meanwhile, we put our house on the market to sell, had it up for sale for a month, then our plans changed and we took it off the market (much to my relief, now is the WORST time to sell a house, blasted foreclosures!). While hubby is off gallivanting with the legal stuff (definitely not as glamorous as it sounds--he was holed up on a typical day for 12-14 hours studying some pretty dull law books), I held down the fort--you know, just basic clothing, feeding, teaching, four young children, nothing big. My fourth child, our baby, turns out, is nothing like the others. Well, she is a little like her brothers, but nothing like her sister who was content as a clam about 99% of the time and actually made our lives easier. This little whipper snapper, Salem, gives us a run for our money. At 5 months, she is constantly moving (not crawling yet, but she never stops kicking and waving her arms, unless she is sleeping) and has an insatiable desire to be talked to, played with, and entertained. Add that to the mix of an already busy home, and I've got a recipe for non-stop action.

Good news though. Life has chilled out a bit since J took the BAR and has an extended period of downtime until he begins JAG-AF next year. So I hope to be back to my regular blogging--I've been itching to show you some of my favorite summer recipes AND tell you about my weight loss journey.

For those of you who have been following my weight loss, I'll bring you up to speed.

Here's a brief synopsis:

My pre-pregnancy weight: 140-145 (my weight always fluctuates within this 5 lb. range)

Weight gained during pregnancy: 40-45 lbs. (I can attribute about 20 lbs. of this to the 1st trimester alone, when I hardly moved and ate all things refined), tipping the scales at 183 right before I had the baby.

Starting weight & BMI at March 17: 169/25

Weight & BMI as of July 17: 141/20

Weight lost in 4 months: 28

Average weekly weight loss: 1.5

Starting jean size: 12+

Ending jean size: 4, woohoo!

How I did it: Tune in, and I'll tell you!

I hope to have before and after pictures up by the end of the week, and look for my favorite weight loss recipes, tips and tricks that worked for me, coming up in bits and pieces throughout the month of August.