As you can see, I’ve lost 5 pounds so far (well, at the time I wrote this post, hopefully more now!).

About two months ago, I started taking spin classes and exercising three to four times a week. No results.

I was clinging to my diet habits and only exercising a little of the gross calorie overage off.

So, exactly two weeks ago, I pledged to lose 25 pounds (that sounds like a lot but I promise it’s necessary!). No deadline. Just slow, healthy and steady till I reach it. Even if it takes a year.

To do so, I decided to up the ante ….

1) I must work out no less than four times a week: 2 spin classes, 1 muscle sculpting class and 1 at home/recreation type of exercise. Thursdays, I have a lunchtime spin class. On the days I can’t take off work at lunch to make the class, I’ll go to a muscle sculpting class that night instead. So, I’ll rotate in enough toning and cardio to see results.

2) I gave up sodas.

3) I’m not drinking alcohol, for the most part. I’ll drink when social occasions call for it, but even then, I will drastically reduce my intake. (This means I’m cutting out about two glasses of wine every-other-night each week, and the three to four glasses I’d typically consume at a party … and no more high-calorie whipped vodka and diet root beer floats.).

4) I count calories. I don’t like fast food, nor do I eat unhealthy snacks all the time. My problem with food is my food schedule and my portions. I didn’t eat breakfast, I only ate a Healthy Choice for lunch usually, and then I’d eat a really big dinner. While the dinner would’ve been semi-healthy, my portions made it not … and the fact that my metabolism was dead because I didn’t fuel it all day.

To help me in all of this, I looked online to find the best fitness+calorie tracking app I could. I came upon this. Yahoo! Shine, The Today Show: Health and Masable all highly recommend MY FITNESS PAL APP for weight loss. And so far, I am really pleased.

Here’s what motivated me to download it (it’s FREE, by the way):

“Consumer Reports surveyed more than 9,000 of its readers, asking them to share their diet experiences, weight loss results and overall satisfaction with various diet plans. While people lost “significant” weight on all 13 diet plans in the survey, the highest reader score came from do-it-yourself dieters who used a free calorie-counting/calorie-burning smart phone app called MyFitnessPal.”

Now, here are my favorite functions and why they’re so helpful:

1) It’ll find just about any brand of food you want to eat and calculate the calories and nutrients you consumed. It has EVERYTHING in there. Restaurant and grocery store food brands galore. For instance: Trader Joe’s 70% Dark Chocolate Caramel & Sea Salt … I snuck 2 tiny little pieces and it found it and told me my two squares cost me 118 calories for my 1200/day.

2) It tracks your weight- and inch-loss. And has a cute little chart to make you feel good as the pounds fall off.

3) You input your workout and it automatically calculates how many calories you burned AND gives you bonus calories to eat due to needing to fuel your workout.

4) It’s SO easy to use, making it easy to remember to input every single item I ate.

5) I’ve lost weight every single day. Not a lot. Some days it’s 0.2 pounds, other days it’s 0.8. But so far it equals a loss of 5lbs and 3.5 inches across my body. That’s today when I’m writing this. Hopefully, I’ll be down 1 or 2 more by the time this goes live.

It’s been my accountability partner so far … I’ve had ZERO spicy Cheetos (my weakness), no soda, two adult beverages (I event went to a gala and had just one drink per my usual four), and ate only really healthy calories each day. Five pounds is a little low in my opinion for two weeks (plus a month of working out before), but I have a spin teacher who told me that my body is in shock from the DRASTIC – and it has been drastic – lifestyle change/calorie reduction and it’ll soon figure out what’s going on and let go of my fat.

I bought some fun new workout gear to get me fired up too!

We shall see. In the meantime, root me on! 🙂 When I hit my goal (and maintain it for a month) … my hubby is buying me this!