Thursday is the new Wednesday (Weigh in)

I bet you were thinking I was avoiding posting because it was bad news. Well then you would be WRONG. I was just busy and the day slipped away from me.

So here I am a day late, but still have to stay accountable, right?

OFFICIAL WEIGH IN #3
Down 4 lbs since my birthday!!!!

Another modest loss this week, but a loss none the less. I had vegetables EVERYDAY last week and I chose water over booze several times. Even watching Penn State get murdered by Ohio State, I somehow managed to only have a couple beers instead of drowning my sorrows in the Honker's Ale we currently have on tap at the house. I did, however, bake two batches of cookies and then ate as many as I could. I felt sick on Tuesday after too many white chocolate chip pumpkin cookies.

So with 43 weeks left, I have 26lbs to go. I think I can. I think I can.

And in honor of today, Sid would like to say "Happy HOWL o ween", while Wilbur prefers the cliche "Weiner Dog in a Hot Dog Costume"

Because who doesn't love FREE MONEY????

I know I shared this a while ago, but I wanted to throw it out there again since I just got $72.82 in FREE MONEY from Ebates.

You get paid for shopping online! It can't get any easier than that.

How it works:
You sign up for an Ebates account then before you make any online purchases, go to Ebates.com find your store name and just navigate to the website through there.

Ebates creates a tracking ticket and after you make your purchase, you get a percentage back.

You get paid every couple of months, so if you start using it now, you can really rack up some cash with all of your holiday purchases.

The biggest percentage of my last check came from buying curtains from JcPenny. I could have bought them in the store, but my purchase qualified for free delivery AND I got 8% cash back. Who doesn't like that?

Other ways I've used Ebates to my advantage, I've purchased things from Best Buy or Home Depot online and just selected "Pick up in store". Go into customer service and BAM, get your purchase that day AND the cash back!

Also, all of the GAP brands are on Ebates. I've found that sometimes one brand will have more cash back than others, so I pick that brand's page to start from, then use the links at the top of the Brand's page to navigate to the other brand I want to shop from and just make my purchase. Example: Athleta was having double cash back, but I wanted to buy some things from Old Navy. I went to Ebates, selected Athleta, then just navigated to Old Navy to make my purchase. My order said "Athleta", but all of the items were from other GAP brands and I got the double cash back.

Also, you get $5 just for making your first purchase. Again, FREE MONEY.

Full disclosure: I also get $5 after you make your first purchase for referring you to the site.

Use my referral link to start your account and start getting free cash back!!!

Wednesday Weigh In

I lost again this week! Just 0.2, but hey, it's something.

Total: down 3.2lbs since my birthday.

44 weeks to lose 26.8lbs. Totally doable.

In thinking back to why it wasn't a more substantial loss, I skipped one day at the gym, not too awful since I had been 6 times already that week. The reason I skipped though, hungover, too much wine. So that means too many empty calories.

Also thinking back to my diet this past week, I went three whole days where I did not eat a single fruit or vegetable. THREE DAYS WITH NO VEGGIES. That is awful. This is why I start most days with my green monster smoothie, so at least I'm getting that in and will most likely continue the good habits throughout the day.

So game plan for this week: Choose water over wine. Eat my veggies!!!!

Wednesday Weigh In

I've read in about a billion places recently that tweeting about your weight loss on a regular basis helps you to lose more weight and keeps you motivated. Instead of inundating my twitter and instagram with pictures of my meals and checking in every time I hit the gym, I'll just post here weekly to stay accountable.

Confession: When I made my goal to lose 30lbs while 30, I planned on doing Wednesday Weigh Ins from the beginning. I just couldn't bear to post until now since I hadn't lost anything. WHOOPS. So, on that note, if I miss a week (or three), it's not because I forgot, it's because I wasn't happy with the weigh in. So bug me. Keep me accountable. It might get painful in the next couple months coming up on the binge eating/drinking time of year, aka the holiday season, but time to buckle down, not give up.

So enough skirting around the issue.

The Official Weigh In

I'm down 3lbs since my birthday.


That's 10% of my goal!! Woohoo!!! I won't lament that we're 12% into the year, so if I'm going by percentages, I'm behind. Let's instead focus on I have just over 45 weeks left and 27lbs to go. Totally do able, right? RIGHT?

Last year I worked my butt off the first half of the year and then pretty much gave up during the summer and wrote the fall off as "football season and holidays" and ended up 3lbs HIGHER on January 1, 2013 than I had been the year before. Now is the time to buckle down and power through to keep LOSING throughout football season and holidays.

I've made it through my birthday month, a vacation across the pond, a wedding and the first half of football season down 3lbs. I'm pretty excited about that and with nothing else big coming up on the calendar, I think I can get this number dropping a bit quicker.

Anyone else finding motivation to keep going before the holidays or have you already written off the last few months of the year?