Well, hi.

Hi!  Thanks for checking out my blog.  Wanna know more about who I am?  Here's a brief history of about the last 4-5 years of my life.

 

In 2008, I was newly married to Matt - my husband - and we moved to Ohio.  I weighed around 155.  I decided I wanted to lose weight.  I got down to 141, then got pregnant with my first son, Hendrix.

 

After Hendrix was born, I started working out again, but found the balance of a child, a job, and life in general didn't exactly make that easy.  But I did get back down to about 143.

 

Then, towards the end of 2010 I got pregnant for the second (and LAST, God willing) time with Jameson.  When he was born in the summer of 2011, I weighed around 155 again.

 

I mean no offense to anyone with the statement I'm about to make, but I had always said that I would never become one of those women who got done having her kids and was fat.  By many standards, I wasn't fat.  But by my own, I was overweight and weighed more than I wanted to weigh.

 

In mid-July of 2011 (when Jameson was 3 weeks old), I started the Couch 2 5k program.  I highly recommend this program for anyone who wants to start running or get into shape.  I was doing it to lose weight, bottom line.  In October I ran my first 5k.  The following April I ran my first (and so-far my only) half marathon.

 

I've been running for two years now.  I enjoy it.  But I've also been at a weight plateau for a year.  I've been netting approximately 1200 calories a day (per MyFitnessPal) - that meaning: Calories consumed minus calories burned through exercise.  I'm not going to lie.  There have been many days where I've eaten less than that amount of calories.

 

That being said, here's where I am currently - August of 2013.  I'm tired of the squishy belly and arm flab. I'm tired of the cellulitis on my thighs and butt.  I want firm abs and sexy curves.  I currently weigh around 128 pounds.

 

What I'm NOT doing: taking anything to the extreme.  I'm not training for any kind of figure competition.  I'm not trying to get down to some kind of crazy 6% body fat percentage.  I'd ultimately like to see my body fat somewhere around 16%, but right now I'm just focused on lowering it from the current 20.5%.  I'm not currently taking any supplements other than protein, though I'm looking into some.

 

What I AM doing:  I'm in the gym 6 days a week.  I'm starting to focus more on weight training than I am cardio, though I still try to get 5 cardio sessions in each week.  I'm still tracking my calories, but now am also tracking my macros.  I'm working on consuming more lean protein and less fat.  I'm following a ridiculous number of health and fitness accounts on various social networks.  They're so inspirational to me!  I'm drinking at least a gallon of water every day.  (This has been much less difficult than I anticipated!)

 

This blog is an outlet for me to grumble, brag, ramble, rant, whatever I want to do about fitness and living a healthy lifestyle.

 

I'll be back tomorrow with another installment of "Who is Stephanie?"  Stay tuned. :)