I wore this dress!

Thank you for all your congratulations on my engagement. I am still buzzing!

Once upon a time, there lived a girl without any dresses in her wardrobe. She wouldn't be caught dead showing off her legs and just could never find any dresses that would fit.

Then as confidence grew as weight stated to come off, dresses started to appear and now this girl had a choice of dresses to wear!

Never, ever did I think I would be that girl.

I took both dresses pictured here away on holidays with me as I could not decide and when I asked all of you, it seemed pretty even so I thought, I will see what I feel like wearing on the day.

Well I decided and you can see for yourself what it looked like on the day. I felt so good and got lots of compliments on the colour and how good it looked on me. Can't wait for it to get warmer in Sydney so that I can wear it again!

In the garden before the wedding we went to

 Having a dance at the wedding reception with Miss Twinkle Toes!

My little family just after sunset.

Which one? Help! PLEASE! Wedding Outfit!

Do I have a post for you tonight!!
I have been so busy getting prepared for our Fiji holiday (that is now 9 days away)!

There are so many things to do but here are a few important ones that I have marked off my list this week:

1. Get passports DONE (they came today WOOHOO!)!
2. Get some smokin' hot hair to compliment my new shape DONE!!!!
3. Buy some new $20 sunglasses seeming my other $20 ones are in pieces (handbag, sat on, oops). DONE!

And here are some photos of the smokin' hot hair and the new shades!

So that is all fabulous

but....

I need your help in deciding which outfit I should wear to the wedding that we are going to while we are over there.

I originally had this dress which I had taken in from a size 16 to a size 12 (Australian).

Here is a picture of me in it tonight with my hair and makeup done

And here is another dress that is new that I bought in a shop that I never used to be able to find anything that would be my size. Now I am in a size 12 (Australian)!!!!

Arrrhhh!

Decisions!

I hate making them so I am throwing this one to all of my gorgeous blogging friends who have been so incredibly supportive to get me to where I am am today and into these gorgeous dresses!

So which one do you think I should wear?

Missing but MIA

Yep, you may have noticed I haven't been blogging as much as I used to, or need to or would like to for that matter!
But I am still here and have been reading what I can of everyone's blogs.

Life is going by at a million miles.
It has been going so quickly that I actually forgot to put my passport application in!!!!!!!!!!
Who forgets that???
Oh well, hopefully get them back this week otherwise on Friday I am going to be paying an extra $300 to get them expressed.

On the weekend I went on a hen's night for my friend who is getting married in Fiji. It was at this fantastic restaurant in Sydney's King Cross called Tharens. Saw some interesting things whle we were out and about but had the best night out in ages! This is me outside the restaurant we started at. It was fantastic

And  let my hair down and had a few too many champagnes but I didnt care! 

I needed a night out and all the walking, dancing and partying would have helped me burn off the extra calories.

The scales on Sunday morning pulled up a littel bit better than me considering I rocked up at home at 4:30am and moved 500grams down so I am not sitting at 79kg.

Lots of hard work these next two weeks!!!!

Back to the future!

Without my little blogging world community I am not sure where I would be. Actually I am pretty sure my hand would still be in that bag of chips! Thank you to every one of my supporters. I have noticed a few new followers as well and I am goign to try and catch up and visit your blogs as I know all of you will be able to inspire me as I follow your journeys.

I have taken some massive risks lately. risks I wouldnt ordinarily take. It's funny that  in days gone by I would not have shown anyone photos of me and now I feel so good showing people how far I have come. The support, encouragement and inspiration that you have given me in my Swimsuit post and easing my fears about it and then picking me up when I had lost my way, encouraging and inspiring me to get back on track have been invaluable.

Well I am back on track. I weighed in this morning and am back to 79.5kg so that means last weeks half kilogram gain is now a 1kg loss and I am back on the path to achieving my goals and it is great to now be heading in the right direction. I cant believe that your help has helped me to tur myself around and get a loss with 4 days of hard work. Not only that Ihave broken through the 80's (just) so now I am a 70's girl! It has been a long time!

I have been so busy lately but need to keep reminding myself that I need and deserve my time as well. I feel like I am time poor (hence catching up on all of yout blogs at 1am on a Saturday night and then being so tired this morning but things just seem to be so busy!

Today marks only 3 weeks to go until our holiday to Fiji. Putting the dress in to be altered this week. Cant wait to show you what it looks like.

Right now though I have added a couple of photos from this weekend of my gorgeous girl and I!

 

One year since the beginning

Tomorrow will be mark one year since I started in this journey (properly).

One year ago I decided that I had enough of hiding beneath all the layers of fat.

A beautiful friend who I met through mother's group had been going to Weight Watchers after having her gorgeous son and I had noticed all of her baby weight coming off. I asked her about what she had been doing and decided I would go along to WW with her. It was time to face the scales and see what they said.

104.2kg

WTF! This was bad. I never really saw what was really in the mirror but it was made crystal clear at that moment.

Yes I had a baby 5 months earlier but I had lost the baby weight within 2 weeks of giving birth (I was quite healthy during pregnancy and only gained 8 kilos). What I had to lose now was the chocolate, junk food and couch weight that I had put on whilst on maternity leave. 10kilograms had been gained in 5months! That's shocking! But I suppose that is what eating at all hours, eating high sugar/fat foods just to get that quick energy fix, no exercise due to being so tired and just eating a lot of processed convenience foods will do to your body.

So I began the journey with WeightWatchers and had my good and bad weeks (mainly good) and kept this up until December when I had lost a total of 11kg. The program worked for me. It taught me a lot and I loved that I never ever felt like I was on a diet. It was little changes that bought results on the scale. I think it was also the first year in ages that I didnt gain weight over Christmas. I kept my eating during the festive season under control. It was after Christmas that I quit WW as i jsut felt liek I was wasting money just to go there and only lose a few hundred grams so I stopped going (when I stopped going to WW that things started to go pear shaped again and I gained some weight).

After a massive momentary lapse of concentration,

I  had renewed motivation when talk of going to Fiji came up as some friends are getting married there!

YAY!!!! A holiday!!!

Oh F*%K!!!!! Swimmers!!!!

The thought of wearing swimmers terrified me!!! Most Summer's I would just hide away inside in the air con but this was not an option on this holiday.

Time to get to it again!

I started to really make use of the treadmill sitting in my lounge room, spend less time on the couch and now have a toddler to chase after. At times it has been hard work...really hard work, but I am making progress.

From then until now has been pretty well documented over this blog.

I thought seeming it has been one year on my journey I should include my progress. You have probably seen some of these pictures of my progress on my blog but here are some photos of me in the last year anyway.

October 2009 - 97kg

February 2010 - 97kg (after regaining some of the weight I had lost)

May 2010 - 96kg

June 2010 - 88kg

July 2010 - 85kg

July 2010 - 84kg

August 2010 - 80kg

August 2010 - 80kg

I am feeling so much lighter. I have lost almost 24.2kilograms which is 53.2pounds and I can live life.

I hope that in the next year I can reach my goal of 70kg.

Then bypass it by at least 5kg taking me to 65kg and hold that weight for the duration of the year.

Courage

The state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, fear, or vicissitudes with self-possession, confidence, and resolution; bravery.

This post takes GREAT courage (although jsut between you and me...I have no idea what vicissitudes means).

And I feel like the cat that is walking in front of all those dogs right now. This little cat sure does have some courage.

Did I mention I love dogs?

Yesterday I told you that I bought some new swimmers for my holiday and promised that I would put some pictures up of me in them so I could see what you thought.

So after a long day I took some photos. I have to say the vibrant blue colour doesnt seem to come out as well in the photos as it is in reality but it is definitely like the colour shown in the flower here.

While I was looking at the photos, I realised how white my legs were. They don't get out very much ever and it is Winter so they are like two white ghosts. Some tanning (spray, bottle, sun) will hopefully fix that.

Anyway here they are.

(Ali secretly crawls off and hides)

Still have a bit of work to do to turn the gluteus maximus into a gluteus minimus!

And it can also be made strapless.

My other half likes this option LOL!

I also tried on a bikini that I bought 3.5 years ago and only wore half a dozen times.

The picture on the left was when I tried it on 1month ago. The picture on the right is from today.

I can really see a difference here.

Not enough to make me wear it as my mummy tummy with stretchmarks on it is still there.

 Okay so that's me. Not sure how long I will leave these pics up. I think I have embarrassed myself enough and I have not even pressed publish post yet!

4 weeks to go!

Unlocking the most important tool to weightloss.

No, this post is not going to tell you to eat less and exercise more. Yes that is important but there is something that is far more important to get to wherer you want to go. Keep reading if you want to find out what that is.

I have been on the path to becoming a hot mumma since August 2009. Since that time I have lost 20kg (44pounds).

There have been times where I have become distracted on the path to my destination, times when I have been off smelling the roses just a little too much (and managed to add a little bit more junk in the trunk while I was at it), but it was never long until I found my way back to being on that path again and continued to make the load I was carrying even lighter.

So how do I stay on the path???

First of all, it took a lot of searching to find someone to guide me onto the right path. I had a lot of encouragement from lots of different sources but the one person who helped me get on the path to where I am now was me. I was staring myself in the mirror. There were so many clues along the way that it had to be me ie. photos of me I would just delete so I couldnt see myself, occasions I would avoid going to, clothes that I just wouldnt wear.

I was the key to making the decision to lose weight, get healthy and feel fantastic and since I became my biggest supporter, I am finding myself staying on the path more and more. Until you find you, the longer you will stray off the path.

I still ocasionally stop and smell the roses, treat myself, celebrate different things....and that is so important to do....but the most important thing is to remember that there are the most amazing smelling roses at the end of the very end of the path and you wil only get to smell them if you keep on travelling.

So many times I would say to people...

"I eat healthy foods, I exercise and I cant lose weight".

But reading between the lines, what was really happening was I would eat right for a little while, maybe exercise a few times and then not lose much and give up. It was teh giving up and the lack of "I am going to do this" mindset that was preventing me from losing weight. Now I see that very clearly.

So make sure you are your biggest support by unlocking your mind as that is what will make up a success. But I am always here to try and support you as well, just in case you do wonder off the path to smell those roses!

How it's time to go and blog hop. Click on the button bellow that says "Fat to Fit" and check out Diminishing Lucy's blog for the details. It's lots of fun and some great reads in the links attached.

Hoping your week is going well!