it's time.

i've decided that this is the time to lose the baby weight and to take responsibility to reach my goal weight before i get pregnant again.

today is day one. my husband and i are doing it together. my day one weight is 169.8 pounds.

my goal is 127 pounds.

so, i have 42.2 pounds to lose.

i'm employing a few strategies to get this weight off.

1 - since i have never lost more than 10 pounds at once, and i am confident that i can lose 10 pounds (and keep focused for that amount of weight loss), i will be losing this weight 10 pounds at a time. so i will have little rewards for myself every 10-ish pounds (at 159, 148, 137 and 127).

2 - i will try to re-train my brain that food is not a reward. to do that, i'll put a dollar in a jar each time i work out. when i reach one of my mini goal weights, i'll take all the money in the jar and do something nice for myself. i might go shopping, get a manicure, or do something else to treat myself.

3 - speaking of workouts, mark and i have passes to gold's gym express, which has plenty of cardio machines and circuit weights. i will have a lot of focus on quality cardio workouts and use the "calories in, calories out" strategy for losing the weight for as long as that works. after a certain point, i will have to switch it up and start putting more focus on weight lifting to boost my metabolism by increasing muscle mass while still doing lots of cardio.

4 - diet. i have gone on so many diets in my life. if i don't know how to eat right by now, i'm really in trouble. i will be focusing on the foods that give me the biggest nutritional value for the calories and keeping a food journal. right here.

here we go!