30's and losing again

(this will be pinned and updated daily)

4 weeks maintenance

Here comes the hard part!

The part that isnt satisfying because you don't see the scale change. The part where you have to stick with it and NOT going in a surplus. Where you have to expect the scale to go up just a bit because of the amount of food in your digestive track.

Recap- May 2025- 214. I just completed 12 weeks straight of being consistent and mindful of my health goals.

4 weeks as a metabolism reset

August 10th- September 6th

🥅 🍴 calories- 1400-1800 calories (way different than the 1245-1445 previous calorie goal)

But to be honest, since I have been consistent and still have 60lbs to lose... maintaince is not as a big deal for me so if I eat lower oh well. So more like 1245-1800 days?

🥅💧 64 oz of water- actually prioritize this! Water is where I struggle! (Use my pink straw Tumblr, have the ice machine on consistently, it is ..... idk how many oz since the tag rubbed off.. why do I want to say 40 when I dont think it can be??)

🥅🚶‍♀️ Steps- 8,000 minimum

🥅🧘‍♀️ Do PT every day- stretch everyday, exercise shoulder every other.

🥅💪 Do some type of program 3 days a week (I will pick the program closer to when this starts, I still can not decide). If I am able to do weight training- this is the best time to do it.

🥅 ⚖️ still weigh in everyday BUT expect the sacle to slightly go up or stay the same.

💣 I know I will be going back to work and school so I will be in New territory and will have to learn new skills to support this time of my life.

❗️Remember!- Exercise gives you energy and meal prepping is the queen.

Starting weight- 183.8

🗓 Week one-

🪨 Starting work (only 2 days this week)

1. ⚖️- 184Lbs 🍴- dirty tracked 1177 not quite enough- Protien 61.6 g, Carbs- 101.9 g Fat- 49.6 g Fiber- 39.7g 💧- At least 2x water bottle🚶‍♀️- 9,896 steps (2 walks)🧘‍♀️- ❌️ 💪-❌️

🔊 solidly at size 14 pants instead of size 16s now. All my size 16s were falling off of me and I only owned one pair of 14s. I bought 4 pairs of pants today. They all fit great at my waist :) Even better that they were all $3-$4 a piece at the thrift store.

I got Kevin to go on a walk with me :)

Then I went on a walk with my bestie

Also a lot of mental work

2. ⚖️- 182 lbs 🍴- ? But I THINK around 1800 (which is my top)💧- 40/42 oz?🚶‍♀️-9,678 steps, 20 min on treadmill 🧘‍♀️-4 stretches in the AM💪-lifted up 2 lb weights a few times during the day.

🪇

3. ⚖️- 183.8 lbs 🍴- 1,404 cal, 82 g protien, 126 g carbs, 46 g fat, 45 g fiber💧- probably about 40oz regular water and one sparkling water🚶‍♀️- 12,081 steps🧘‍♀️-7 PT exercises 💪- ❌️

✨️ I actually used 4 different times of the day for intentional movement, I did 2 post on my Instagram

4. ⚖️- 182.4 🍴- 2,108 cal, 76 g protien, 224g carbs, 86 g fat (give or take- dirty tracked work lunch), 45 g fiber💧- one tumbler and a sprakling water🚶‍♀️-9,761 steps (20 min treadmill, walk around block with son)🧘‍♀️- ❌️💪-❌️

✨️ son said I looked like I am loosing weight

5. ⚖️- 182.4🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

6. ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

7. ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

🗓 Week 2-

8. ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

9. ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

10. ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

11.⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

12. ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

13. ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

14. ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

🗓 week 3

15. ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

16. ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

17. ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

18. ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

19. ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

20. ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

21. ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

🗓 Week 4

22. ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

23. ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

24 ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

25. ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

26 ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

27 ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

28. ⚖️- 🍴- 💧-🚶‍♀️-🧘‍♀️-💪

August 6ths 'before' photo (AKA 12 week challenges after photo...)

Week 1, Day 5

Maintance 4 week challenge

⚖️- 182.4

When you ate over calories but still woke up the same weight as yesterday

🍴-

Coffee with powdered creamer.

I do NOT know what to bring to work or make for dinner tonight 😫

2 eggs, spinach, baby tomatoes, Dave's bagel, vegan pesto

Week 1, Day 4

Maintance 4 Week Challenge

⚖️- 182.4

🍴-

Coffee with powdered creamer

Ok food today is an ❌️

Work had lunch so I had 2 slices of pizza, a kale/grain/ raisin salad, a cookie and brownie at work.

I came home starving!

I had an apple, pecans, pretzals

Dinner-

Yeah over calories today boo

But you can see when I am at home I make healthy choices! Tomorrow I will bring lunch as my job is not catering.

💧- 1 of my Tumbler and a sparkling water. I felt dehydrated though.

🚶‍♀️-

🧘‍♀️- ❌️

Week 1, Day 3

Maintance Challenge

⚖️- 183.8 lbs- Salt retention and undigested junk food. Not a real 'fat' gain, but a reminder that those types of food can and will cause weight gain if you eat them often.

For now, no guilt, completely enjoyed yesterday's junk food movie night spread, and also we had a good amount of fresh vegetables that some people would have never considered to add :)

🍴-

Coffee with powdered creamer, scoop on both were big today

Korean style breakfast :)

Scoop of chia seed apple sauce inside a greek yougurt

Dirty tracked my quinoa stew thing as a cup of quinoa

I was still hungry after that so I made a snack plate

Mid day coffee because I am so sleepy! Idk if I am going to regret this decision later bc I go back to work early tomorrow.

I blended up tofu into the pasta sauce <3

💧-

🚶‍♀️- went on a quick walk around the block with son before his first day of school

After my coffee did NOTHING to give me energy, I remembered that the tread mill IS my energy. I did 30 min on treadmill

So much more energy than Coffee!!

My son and I did one more walk before bed - very small- not even a block

12,081 steps

🧘‍♀️- I did 3 shoulder stretches and 4 shoulder exercises with my 2lb weights by the last exercise, right arm was giving out

💪- ❌️ Honestly I don't know what I can do for strength training that I would actually consider an exercise yet 🤷‍♀️

🧼

Week 1, Day 2

4 Week Maintenance Challenge

Tuesday August 11 2026

Last day of our summer. (Weather is summer but kiddo goes back to school)

⚖️- 182 lbs as I got down to 181.6 on day 61 I do believe that is closer to my real weight and the other weight in I have undigested food. This was before poop too.

🍴-

Coffee with powdered creamer

Front loading energy like I typically do, but didnt do the last 2 days. Yesterday I didnt have real energy until after dinner. This should help me actually exercise today. :)

Cottage cheese and figs from my besties tree

I made this quinoa for the next few days. I didnt eat any. I think I will freeze some too for quick meals.

A peach and a plum

And then a junk food feast for dinner (planned) it is the last day of summer. We had spring rolls, quorn meatless sausage puffs, veggie tray, tofu, cheese, nuts, dried fruit, olives, hummus, candy, popcorn

💧- probably 40/42 oz

🚶‍♀️- I did a 20 min walk on the treadmill

🧘‍♀️- right after breakfast I did 4 shoulder exercises

Progress not perfection! Giving myself permission to do a few stretches not the whole program made me get up and do it :)

💪- My goal is not to strength train and get toned- YET

My goal is to get COMFORTABLE with training. To add a piece to my identity that I am a person who strength trains.

I seriously have been scared to pick up weights? Why? I dont really know. I have been intimidated by the thought if doing a work out video. I thought about it for HOURS today. I think it might be my perfectionism get to me. SO I beat my brain! I did a 2 minute arm workout with 2lb weights. Will it give me muscles? No. But it got me over my fear!! Now I have walked past those weights and did a few other arm exercises with them! All movement even fidgeting can burn calories to burn fat so in a way it is helping. But over all it was helping me get over the mental barrier I have!

One of my new pairs of pants, two size smaller than what I was wearing (size 14 from size 16)

😬So something either good or really bad just happened with my school money...

I just logged in to my my 2nd college that I am only taking one class at for a cheaper price to see if I got the BOG waiver or if I owed the 160 still. It said I got Pell and I am going to get $400 back. So YAY. BUT you can only use pell grant at one school per semester SO that might mean I will owe College #1, my main college thousands of dollars 0.0

😬 I dont even know who to contact for this. I dont know if I should let it play out. Idk if this is a blessing or a curse 😱.

Day 1 thoughts-

- Have I every stepped on the scale during a time anticipating the scale to go Up or stay the same?

- Do I actually have as healthy of a mindset with the scale or only in the aspect of overall weight loss?

-Is this why I do not weigh myself in times of my life where I know I am actively not being mindful of my habits/gaining weight?

-Is it because I have 'skills' to help me handle the scale during an 'up' of an over all trend down and not the skills for the other direction?

For example an up on a downward trend could be explained with questions I can ask myself such as-

Did I eat salt/packaged foods?

Did I track everything?

What part of my cycle am I in?

Did I drink my water?

Did I do a heavy work out (can retain water!).

Fiber?

Pooping?

Heavy carbs (can retain water)?

What is the overall trend?

But what questions can I ask to keep me on track ?

- I Think this challenge will give me a deeper level, understanding, and peace with the number on the scale.

- Things I am learning-

Body recomposition-

It takes a long time- This can sound scary. So this is when I have to remind myself several things. 1) I dont have an end date of doing these habits- they are for LIFE 2.) I am only telling myself to try this for 4 weeks- so this isnt going to take a 'long time'

However that last statement makes it a little scarier because what it means that body recomposition takes LONGER to show results, so that means when we move on to the next phase- the hard work will not show.

Remember- 1. We are doing healthy habits EVEN if it doesnt change a thing physically. 2. I can decide to go longer/shorter. Maybe I get to the end of recomposition and think- I dont want to stop. 3. Do not believe everything you read on line. I have done 21 day fix before and I DID see a body recomposition in a month! 4. This will be more of a mental mind fuck but will look better in the long run.

In reality the true breakdown of what this mission is more simple than the goals set.

It is-

Adding a new goal of weight training 2-3 x a week. (Which ACTUALLY was part of the ORIGINAL 12 weeks challenge, I just didnt add it to my habits.

Also chill out about the exercise program- I have been beating myself up for a while now about what exercise program do I want to follow? I was being influenced by online saying you see the results once you stick to the same work out

Fears like- what if I pick the wrong one? What if I get bored? What if I dont like it? What if I get off track?

Remember ANY movement/Strength training is good for the body! Go with my loose style. It hasn't steered me wrong, but my over thinking and perfectionist tendencies have.

During the first 12 weeks I learned-

To be consistent, eat breakfast/vegetables/fruit each day, start tracking my calories and weighing food (I still have growth in this to go), Moving my body/walking.

This next 4 weeks is to KEEP 12 week challenges skills and work to gain new ones.

(Day 88)

Week 1, Day 1

4 week maintance challenge

Monday August 10th 2026

I only have 3 days until I start work.

My friend wants to take the kids to the mall and then paint today, tomorrow go to the drive in, and on Wednesday I will sit in my sons room during his first day of virtual school even though we will be tired and then go to the doctors.

I want to attempt to give my son and I protien at every meal- that might not last long as I did not properly meal prep/plan for the month ahead of me and I am already low on funds. But this will be a learning experiment and I do have cheap protien sources like beans and tofu right now.

I will need to figure out what time of the day will be best for me to work out. I also might try for 2 or 3 days of strength training, not every day. So I could do Monday (I will have Mondays off of work) and Saturdays. I might be able to also work out of Thursdays.

I want to find a program I could do the whole time. You know fitness online will say stuff like you have to do the same exercises over again to progress at all. Maybe that will be where I will be further along my fitness journey. Right now I am reminding myself that ANY movement, ANY weight resistance training is GOOD!

PROGRESS OVER PERFECTION!

Slept almost 13 hours last night 0.0 for NO reason- AND I am still tired!

⚖️- 184 (That UP 😱!) (Also before poop..)

🍴-

Breakfast- Pecans just grabbed hand fulls of the stove so idk how much. Instant coffee with powdered creamer

Lunch/snack- peach, chobani yogurt blueberries bottom, apple sauce, chia seeds

Snack- cauliflower, cucumber, grapes hummus

1 slice of turkey bacon and a diet coke

I FINALLY felt satisfied after dinner. I made another soup because the one last night was Hella good. I also made a BLT with turkey bacon, keto bread, and 1/2 a serving of Sriracha tofu.

That is also probably why I felt blah on energy today and didnt do my work out. I have energy now. I need to front load my day with that kind of energy though. Fingers crossed I am better with it tomorrow.

Fruit cup for dessert because I stayed up doing art with my friend and got hungry

💧- I think 2 of my water bottles (which is my goal)

🚶‍♀️- 9,896 went on a walk with hubby and then a second walk with bestie

Steps it is taking me FOREVER to get active today.. it is 3pm right now and I am sitting at 1700 steps 0.0

🧘‍♀️- ❌️

💪- ❌️- which may be for the best since I didnt hit my calorie/protien goal

💡I had a lot of insight about the next 4 weeks but I posted it on a separate post

🧼 I am trying to not forget who I was before the weight loss challenge- someone who was focused on cleaning goals. Because I am ADDING to who I am- Not subtracting-

Focusing on my flylady goal helps in multiple ways-

1) My house slowly gets cleaner (that one is a no brainer)

2) It keeps me away from my phone for a few mintues that I have been spending HOURS on.

3) It gives me more natural steps in my day :)

This will probably last like a month BUT it kept me away from my phone and Flylady hits kitchen one week out of every month

🪨 I didnt have a full breakfast like I normally do, which sets the day. I also spent WAY too much money front loading the freezer and pantry this month without meal plans. I will be working so I wont be able to go to the food bank for awhile. Definitely have to be better with my budgeting/meal plan next month. If we have to go shopping again we do still have like $90 a week left.

Here are ideas-

Overnight oats with Greek yogurt, fruit, chia seeds

Eggs with veggies and I can put them in/on- tortillas, bread, english muffins, or potatos

Cottage cheese- sweet or savory and could be over toast

Eggs with vegetables and beans

May 17th 2026- August 9th 2026

🕙Recap

*May 2025- 214lbs

Unofficial 12 week challenge start weight- 198

Official 12 week change start weight- 196.6

Week one- 193.2

Week two- 190.4

Week three- did not weigh

Week four- 191.2

💪Month one- 12 days of exercise

Week five- did not weigh

Week six- 190

Week 7- did not weigh

Week 8- 190

💪Month two- 21 days of exercise

Week 9- 190.4

Week 10- 185.8

Week 11- 186.8

Week 12- Dream- 183.8 Real weight- 🥁 183.8 on the dot with Kara's scale!

💪 Month 3- days of exercise-15

Total exercise days- 48 out of 87 days

Last 4 weeks of weight loss-

3 month weight loss graph-

July's steps screan shot-

Before picture versus now picture.

Total weight loss- 12.8 lbs in 12 weeks and 4 days (87 days)! Right on track!

Total weight loss from the very start- 30.2 LBs :) :)

Things I learned this month-

💡 I like novelty-but consistency is where results happen at.

💡 Goals can snowball! One healthy habit can follow another. What started as counting calories trying to be in a deficit. Try to walk. No water goal could turn into someone crushing the limits with out the goals.

💪 step counters can add dopamine for my ADHD brain! I beat my personal record of steps this month! Over 22,000!!

🪨 The heat! Omg 100 degree days are not my friend. I became a SLOTH!

🪨 I got a bit of the toxic hunger AFTER my period ended?? (Watch out for toxic hunger- it can spiral out of control fast).

🪨 After awhile of posting my exercises on Instagram- I became a scrolling time waster on there. I do need to remind myself that being chronically online has been a challenge for me since I was 16 and a dangerous path to go on.

💡 Remember for next time! I prepped banana egg 'pancakes', stewed apples, chia seed pudding. Make HEALTHY sweets next time too. Work smarter, not harder!

🪶 I know that this way is the most substanable way to keep going because I got to live and still lose weight. I went camping and ate all the snacks/smores (with a lot of walking and sweating in the heat). I had birthday cake. I had a good bye donut. Restricting leads to missed opportunities that do not come every day. (I can still focus on portions next time around but I regret nothing).

🪶 I did a lot of reflecting on my previous eating habits.

It has been a LONG time since I have been consistent 3 months in a row. If I look back it shows that the last time I went 3 months focused I was also calorie counting 😂)