30 by 30

Wow! Yesterday was my birthday, and I am overwhelmed by all of the cards and kind words and nice things that everyone said and did for me. What a great day! I will make another post with more detail about the fun things that we did over the weekend, but for now I wanted to tell you about reaching a personal goal and to thank a friend.
Some of you might know Jennifer Whitty, a friend and former coworker of mine, who wrote to me at the beginning of this year asking questions about starting a blog of her own. She told me that before she turned 40 this year, she wanted to really devote herself to Weight Watchers and working out, and lose at least forty pounds. She was calling her blog "Jen's 40 by 40," and posted a weekly update and photo of herself to document the whole process and to keep her motivated by her reading "audience." I admired her dedication, and jokingly admitted that I should do the same as a "30 by 30" endeavor (even though I had more than 30 pounds to lose), because after Alton turned two years old, it was getting a little silly to call my extra padding "baby weight." Jen responded with support, kind words and commiserations, then hit the ground running (just about literally) for her birthday goal.
A couple of months later in April 2010, Andy and I decided it was time for a change. I have mentioned in a few other posts that we started a little family Weight Watchers group of our own, began working out more regularly, and started incorporating a lot more fresh vegetables and produce into our diet. We had some vague ideas in mind about how much we wanted to lose, but started off tentatively, admiring our five and ten pound weight losses, noticing eagerly how much better our pants were fitting, and looking forward to our vacation in San Diego in July.
After a few months, the "dieting" became easier, the working out came more naturally, and our losses were hitting the 20 and 25 marks while we tore through stored-away old clothes looking for smaller sizes we might have kept around. I proudly shopped for some new vacation togs while my mom and sister were in town, admiring the smaller sizes I took to the dressing room and the way they looked when they were on. We enjoyed our vacation and stuck pretty well to our fitness regime during the trip, then a month after we got home, I hit a big milestone: 30 pounds lost. I could hardly believe it! Hooray! Despite Andy's birthday and some other fun celebrations in September, I persevered and last week, right before my 30th birthday, my weight loss totaled 32.5 pounds. A pound here and there really makes a difference. With trips and travel and vacations from the summer over with, my local friends and I are all now settling into a fall routine of outings and music class and such, and over the past few weeks I've received many compliments from people who hadn't seen me in a while or hadn't noticed the slow, gradual weight loss as dramatically at the beginning of the summer. It feels great! And birthday gifts and gift cards have arrived just in time for getting long-sleeved items in smaller sizes.
So I am jubilantly sharing my big milestone with you--30 pounds lost by my 30th birthday--and also sending a big, fat (slim, actually), personal thank-you to Jennifer Whitty, who was a big catalyst in getting me to see how much I wanted to make changes in my life. I will let her choose whether or not to share her blog, but I will tell you that she is currently only a couple of teeny, tiny pounds away from her end goal and ready to reach it! I will continue with my routine in order to reach a healthy final weight for my height and age, but I don't think that I am brave enough to put a time limit on it. I will be content with my 1-2 pounds lost per week and be sure to share it with you when I'm "all done"!
But, I am going to be brave like Jen and show you a "before" and "after" picture of my experience. It was hard to find a full-length "before" picture to share--I was consciously and subconsciously making all the photos of Alton instead of about me. But here's a family one from last December:

And here I am today, wearing a nice autumn-y shirt that was a birthday gift from my friend Julie.