I joined a gym.

I also downloaded MyFitnessPal. Spending the last few days chronicling my every calorie and rep has been... revealing. My determination to get back to a manageable, healthy-feeling body is sharply focused. Here are a few shots of my journey so far.

Left to right: May 2010 BSB @225lbs (Before South Beach), Fall 2011 Height of my Success@174lbs, May 2013 Current State of Affairs @209lbs

Here's the current plan: 

• Weekdays 
• early morning workout 30-60min mixing cardio and strength training
• record my workout content and rotate muscle group focus
• record calorie intake and stay under my daily calorie goal
• Weekends
• days off of daily workouts
• 1 yoga or other class
• prepare for the week (menu prep, grocery/foods prep)
• keep calorie counts consistent with workout days (about 1550)
• this may get tweaked but my no-exercise calorie goal of 1200 just makes me hungry all the time and I know that will only lead to binging which defeats the purpose altogether

And that's kind of it for the moment. I'll be on the lookout for great salad combos since I get a lot of eating satisfaction from eating them without a huge whomp to my daily totals. Some days will be more successful than others. I plan to reward myself with clothing and music. Days that I go over or fall off the wagon are just that: days.

I've also made the move to rework my closet and dresser contents. For awhile now I've been slowly migrating my these-don't-fit-right-now items to the corner of my closet. I think it's good to have them out of the daily rotation but I know it will be more exciting to pull them out of their cleanly packed bins and feel the victory of wearing things I love and will fit again.

I got two large bins that now hold everything that falls into the SMALLER category. Under the tape labels of the second bin are a second set of labels that say BIGGER. I'm excited to migrate clothes out of the SMALLER bin and rotate clothes into the BIGGER bin. And rip those SMALLER labels off.

I won't make the mistake I did previously of getting rid of everything. I have been between a rock and a hard place as I have gained weight: I have little that fits and that I enjoy wearing and yet I do not want to buy things that will fit my body now. I don't want to buy things that have such large numbers on the tags. So no, I won't purge my whole wardrobe this time around. I will hold it as a reminder.  Just as the presence of too-small clothing in my closet drives me to feel ashamed, the presence of clothing that is too big will make me feel victorious.

I look forward to writing about the little victories and the big.