60 Before 30- Six months down.

In 15 days I will be 29 years old. When I was 27 I told myself I was not going to spend the rest of my 20's overweight. For a woman who is 5'3 overweight is anything over 130 pounds. So after all, I will likely be overweight for the rest of my 20's. However, I have a chance to make a change and be in the best shape of my life when I reach 30 years of age. I've been blessed with three beautiful, healthy children. After three births, and the beginning of this year, I weighed 195 pounds. Yikes! This set my goal weight loss at 65 pounds. Not as catchy so I'm calling it my 60 before 30. Get it?

So here I am, one-third of the way through it. The first two months were great, as the weight fell off. After that, motivation and good eating habits became a struggle to maintain. I was fairly consistent with my exercise, at the very least I was walking to reach 10,000 steps almost every day. However, exercise is nothing without healthy eating habits. Some months, I lost only about a pound. It was discouraging at times but it was forward progress and although there were times that I slacked off, I never gave up.

I'd like to share a little about the tools I used for the first six months. In January, I accidentally stumbled upon www.skinnymom.com and the Skinny Mom 21 Day Shred. I liked this meal plan because it included grocery lists, every recipe, and even dinners for at least four to feed an entire family. The food was delicious and there was no work counting calories or coming up with meals to make. I did three rounds of this, and they weren't all perfect but it worked well. I also used the great FREE workouts from the Skinny Mom YouTube channel. The creator of Skinny Mom, Brooke Griffin, also released this fantastic cookbook this year, skinny suppers. I'm telling you, the food is amazing and healthy! You can check out the 21 Day Shred here.

I've also been getting in shape by running on a regular basis. When my family moved in 2013 I stopped running. Oh how I missed it! I'm so glad to be back into it, and I'm currently training to run a 10k sometime in the fall. I consistently run 3 miles 2-3 times a week. I wake up at 5am before the kids get up and before my husband goes to bed. It's not always fun, I don't always want to do it. However, I found that if I want to get myself into shape, I find the time, and sacrifice an extra hour of sleep for the health of my body. It's so worth it!

I'm trying something new for the next phase of my journey. My very dear friend Bethany sent me a 21 Day Fix system in the mail last week. Today marks a new place and a new plan. I enjoyed the 21 Day Shred, however, trying different plans keeps me interested and vastly increases my knowledge of healthy eating as well as introduces me to an even larger variety of healthy foods and recipes. I'm excited for this new plan and ready for today, which is day one.

Now, onto my six month results which I am so excited about! I'm continuing to track my progress on a chart on my refrigerator every month. When I stepped on the scale this morning I could have cried....

That's a total weight loss of 27.9 pounds in six months. And yes, that .1 pound drives me crazy, I would have loved an even 28 pounds but I'm completely thrilled with the progress I made. I've also been tracking my measurements I won't type them all out this time, but I'm happy to say my total inches lost is 19.5! Below are some progress photos. January, March, and July. Also it's summer so I have the bonus of a tan now!

I've thoroughly been enjoying this time in my life so far, and I encourage anyone to jump on the wagon with me. I'd love to have friends and family share this with me. If you're inspired but struggling to feel motivated or encouraged talk to me and I'll do my best to help how I can!