Motivation: quest for the rings

Today's motivation: Being able to wear my rings again.

This picture was taken March 5, 2014 when I was six months pregnant.
Shortly after this picture was taken my fingers went up two ring sizes.
Even though I've lost 38 pounds, I still haven't been able to wear them.

Lose It! App

I've started to use an app called "Lose it." If you're looking for the app, its icon is an orange bathroom scale.

I've been using it to count my calories since October 27th.  On that day I weighed in at 198 pounds.

I update the app each time I eat and enter the item I'm eating and it adds up my daily calories and tells me when I'm done for the day.

The thing I like about the app the most is that when I am eating an item, such as a prepackaged frozen meal for lunch at work, I can just scan the barcode on the package and it knows exactly what I'm eating and all of the nutrition information...so I don't have to type the name of the item or tell the app how many calories are in it, it just, 'knows.'

My weigh in yesterday was 192.4 pounds.

Thinspiration

My jeans are fitting better, but the pounds are not budging.

Now some inspiration... A year ago, this was me. Keeping this dress until I can get back into it.

Before pictures

198.6 lbs
Official before pictures

Baby Belly & post baby body

The blog that changes along with me......Now...I'm going to use this blog to document my post pregnancy weight loss.

This beautiful belly...

..got me this beautiful baby...and I ONLY gained 70 pounds!!! So now to lose the weight.

Stats:
Pre-pregnancy weight (August 2014) 160
Weight last week of pregnancy (May 2015) 230
Weight, (Aug 13)  12 weeks postpartum 204
Weight, (Sept 10) 16 weeks postpartum 200
Weight,   (Oct 1)  19 weeks postpartum.....

I will be seeing how good I can do in my own before adopting a weight loss program. Right now I'm subbing a protein shake for breakfast most days, taking fruit to work, trying to eat leftovers for lunch and have dinner at home. Drinking Crystal Light with caffeine instead of coffee. Need to work on drinking more water and getting more sleep..ha ha.

I'm starting to read up on cleansing conditioners like WEN and Hair One. As far as I can tell, the idea is to to mostly condition and to cleanse just enough to keep you from getting greasy...but not stripping away too much natural oil.  Check out this post from Katie at Blush & Lace.

http://blushandlace.com/2012/12/06/make-your-own-wen-style-cleansing-conditioner-or-buy-the-drugstore-dupe/

She even makes her own cleansing conditioner with mostly conditioner and just a touch of shampoo!

Loving all of the personal experiments with these products.
Here's a stylists review of WEN after trying it herself.

http://www.thesmallthingsblog.com/2013/04/wen-my-experience-and-thoughts.html

And one comparing Hair One to WEN.

http://relaxedhairhealth.blogspot.com/2011/06/hair-one-vs-wen-battle-of-all-battles.html

I decided to try the make your own cleansing conditioner idea.  I used a dime sized amount of shampoo and a silver dollar sized amount of conditioner, mixed them together in my hand.

I wet my hair and massaged it in...there was no lather.  Then I let it sit on my hair for the rest of my shower and then rinsed it out.  Here is the result:

I'm pretty happy with it....though I'm noticing since I haven't been skipping a day washing, I'm getting more flyaways.  I need to go back to washing every other day...and mix it up a little, between, baking soda, cleansing conditioner, and diluted shampoo.

Addict

I have been craving shampoo.  I wake up thinking about shampooing my hair. I'm fantasizing about having my hair washed by someone else at a salon. When I go into Walmart or Target, I go down the shampoo aisle and smell all of the different shampoo 'flavors.'  I'm not gonna lie, I miss shampoo.

So today, I woke up feeling an oily, itchy mess, I felt like a greaseball. My hair was so dirty on 'no wash' day that I had no choice but to slick it back in a ponytail when I went to work.  And so, my friend shampoo and I had a visit.  I only had a couple tablespoons of baking soda wash in the no-poo bottle, so I squeezed a half teaspoon of amazing smelling shampoo into the no-poo bottle, and filled the bottle with hot water and shook it up.

I figured, if I use very little and dilute it, hopefully it won't have such a harsh detergent effect. Just a little taste couldn't hurt, right? The result, clean, manageable, really ridiculously good smelling hair. I have to say I feel pretty for the first time in several weeks. Now, whether that feeling is directly related to shampoo, or some other contributing factor, I'm not sure.  But I'm thinking that both baking soda wash and shampoo-lite have a place in my life.  Balance.

I gathered up all of my bottles of  hair stuff that were in and around the tub so I won't be tempted to shampoo while in the shower....I placed them under the sink.

There are so many of them,  I don't even know what to do with them.  I started comparing the ingredients to the ingredients listed on my body wash and they are almost identical...so maybe I should use them as body wash/shave gel? I guess it's that or throw them away.  But...if the chemicals are too harsh for my scalp..then aren't the chemicals too harsh for the rest of my body??

Speaking of bottles of lotions and potions, I'm suddenly very aware of all of the bottles on my counter, bathroom cupboard, and a big blue plastic bin. Hmmm.  Someone once said to me, "Oh wow, your bathroom is full of girl stuff." I'm seeing it now.  He was right.  How on earth do women acquire so many bottles of soap, cleanser, salt scrubs, sugar scrubs, toner, moisturizer, body spray, lotion, body butter, etc?

This is out of control.  Something must be done.  I wold like to try to use up a few things at a time and toss the bottles.  I feel bad just tossing it all in the trash, even though I don't use half of it. There may be some spring cleaning in my future.