Off we go!

Hi Friends!  My name is Mandy, I know several of you and am excited to get to "know" the rest of you!!  I love having support to be healthy and lose weight!  I lost a bunch of weight last year then have just maintained for a long time...I would love to lose 25-30 more pounds and need to kick it into gear to make it happen!  I currently get a lot of cardio/toning (mostly through Zumba and weights, about 8 hrs per week) and have finally admitted that to reach my goal weight I need to really change my eating habits.  

My main struggle is that I LOVE food....I love eating it, cooking it, talking about it, thinking about it, shopping for it, looking at it!  And not really junk food, I just love beautiful, well-prepared food!  Is that crazy?!  We don't necessarily eat a lot of "bad" food in our house but we eat A LOT.  I am also blessed with a husband who eats like a pig but is 6'2" and thin.  In his defense, he does about 10 hours of hard cardio a week. :)

 I find cooking relaxing so I need to work on ways I can control my eating (nibbling!) while still enjoying cooking and feeding family/friends.  So, that is my main goal over this journey together.

If you love to dance, please come Zumba with me!  I love it!!  An hour flies by and I find myself happy, sweaty, and not even aware that I just burned a motherload of calories!  After I lost my first 30 lbs I got certified to teach Zumba (as a personal goal).  I don't teach regular classes but I do sub for friends on occasion.  I choreograph a lot for teachers in town as well.  Some of my favorite teachers in town are changing up their class schedules for summer so I will post those for you all once they're finalized.  I'll also let you know when I'm subbing so we can shake it together!

My goal this week is unofficially to survive moving (when did we get so much junk??!), officially to keep to my calorie budget 6 out of 7 days this week.

PS If you're looking for a good free Android app that lets you count calories easily, I love Simple Calorie Count.   You don't have to sign up, it keeps track of what you eat most often so you can pull it up easily, etc..