TWITLOSS! The Finale: Results Show

Hail! Hail! The gang's all here. Bob, Jillian and Allison from The Biggest Loser stopped by to help me reveal my mid-season stats.

Worth The Weight - The Pay Off!

Workout Wednesday: Read-n-Ride Results
Peddling my A$$ off one book at a time




# of books read 22                       Pages Read 6,650
Time Elapsed 72 freaking hours       Cals Burned 27,851 or 7.95lbs
Distance Travelled 1,325.61 miles  That's like riding from:

For US readers: New York City to Dallas, Texas
For Canada readers: Toronto On to St John's Newfoundland

I've got a few people who I follow on Twitter who deserve a special SHOUT OUT that participate in #Twitloss...@Twimom227, @Pearl_828, @dyromance, @kindlevixen, @mamakitty729, @CaitlynWillows, @TrishB, @Lynette2cents. Your tweets provide support, motivation and inspiration on a daily basis.

And I have a special SHOUT OUT to @shilohwalker for all her tweet-filled moans and groans about running and #twitloss. It was her tweets about her own experiences that gave me the courage to start running at the gym. I'm not sure what it was about her tweets that touched me, but they did and for that I am grateful.


Progress: Am I ever going to make it through this workout?

Elliptical
Day 1 Mar 11, 2010:          32 mins Level 1 373 cals
Present Day:                    65 mins Level 6 1003 cals

Treadmill: The slow man's shuffle
Day 1 April 18, 2010:    21 mins 1.04 miles
Present Day:               64 mins RAN 5 miles *throws confetti*
This is by far my greatest accomplishment to date!


Weighing In: The Pay-off

Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Calorie Counter

Thanks for sharing my #Twitloss trials and tribulations over the past 2 weeks. I've come a long way from six months ago, but there's still a lot of miles to travel in my #Twitloss journey (mmmm...why couldn't my journey have been to the French Riviera?).

For anyone who thinks they can't do it-I'm here to tell you that you can!

6 Month Blogaversary Giveaway: And The Winners Are....

I made Mama pick the 2 lucky numbers today.

And the winners are:

Comment #2  ms bookjunkie said...
Congrats on your six month blogaversary! I enjoy stopping by for your Workout Wednesday posts, though they have yet to guilt me into dragging my butt to the gym more…

Comment #11 nikkibrandyberry said...
Oh yeah, I want to win :) Thanks for a giveaway!

Congratulations to the winners and I'll be in touch to see what you would like ordered from the Book Depository!

TWITLOSS! My Top 5 Reasons to Lose Weight: Reason 1 The A-Ha Moment

I brought in the Big Guns to reveal TWITLOSS Reason #1




Y'all watch Oprah right? Even if you don't watch her show, you'd have to live under a rock if you've never heard anyone talk about having an A-Ha moment.

You can never predict when that moment is going to strike, you know when the light bulb goes off over your head, the stars align and suddenly everything clicks.

TWITLOSS Reason #1: The A-Ha moment

Stardate: 313184.64 (6 months ago)

It was a dark and stormy night.

A lone figure, coat ill-fitting, unbuttoned and flapping in the brisk march wind steps off the driveway and gingerly over a snowbank, attempting a shortcut to reach the cold car parked on the deserted side street.

It's late, the snow is lightly falling and in a split second, one wrong step and the figure tumbles to their knees.

After a few minutes the figure attempts to rise, but unable to gain their footing and with nothing to use as leverage to pull themselves to their feet, resistance the effort is futile.

A puff of warm air expelled in effort from the victim's mouth can been seen mingling with the brisk night air as the struggle to rise continues like a beached whale flopping around in the snow.

Heelp! Heelp! I've Fallen and I'm Too Fat to Get Up!

Finally, after what seem like an eternity, somehow the figure manages to lumber to their feet with the moans and groans of their efforts the only noise disturbing the still, silent night.

For any who haven't figured out yet where this story is going...I am the lone gunman on the grassy knoll figure and yes this event spawned my A-Ha moment. This was my turning point. The light bulb went off and thankfully stayed on.

I am ashamed and embarrassed to admit that #Twitloss reasons 2-5 were not pathetic enough excuses for me to take stock of my life and realize that changes were necessary.

For whatever reason, this was the experience that "broke the camel's back" and turned it around for me.

TWITLOSS REASON #1

Hear Ye Hear Ye: Last Chance to Win a Book of Romance (or whatever you want)

Good people of The Blog

There's a CONTEST I say,

So please don't delay.

For here's a great chance,

Your bookcase to enhance.

To enter is free,

Just post a comment for me to see.

LINK HERE. Go forth and post!

Contest closes Sept 16, 2010

Workout Wednesday: TWITLOSS: The Evolution

No book review this week,

but please enjoy this fAB-ulous treat!

#TWITLOSS: The Evolution

This is how it starts

and this doesn't help

And then one day this

so then you get mad

and you try to do this

so you can stop this

Cuz this doesn't work

And as the days fly by

And you do lots of this

and this

and this

You pray the #'s decrease on this

Good Luck Everyone

On Your Own

TWITLOSS Journey

Successful Travels

TWITLOSS! My Top 5 Reasons To Lose Weight: Reason 2 Stairs, Shoes and Potty Break Blues

David "Bend it Like" Beckham is taking a break from Footie to Ab-nnounce  Reason #2....mmmmmm why thank you Becks *fans self*!



There are lots of simple everyday activities that people take for granted...unless you can't do them.

Stairway to...Hell

Stairs to climb each day,

= a lot of work and no play.

Having a big body's no help,

and if you slip and fall you're sure to yelp.

Sometimes it's just easier to do it this way!

Bend and stretch, reach for your...toes

One, two I'm feeling blue.

Three, four cuz I can't reach the floor.

Five, six I've laces to tie,

Seven, eight but I`m too fat and that's no lie.

In the Water Closet

It's quite easy to see,

that if I need to pee,

Small bathroom stalls,

are not a friend to me.

I've got nothing else,

so I'll just let this graphic

speak for itself.

'Nuf Said

TWITLOSS REASON #2

TWITLOSS! My Top 5 Reasons To Lose Weight: Reason 3 Too Fat to Find Release

He may be travelling ATWFF, but America's favorite Big Brother 11 houseguest Jeff Schroeder (btw he's my reality TV crush) took some time out of his busy schedule to host TWITLOSS Reason #3


Now don’t y’all get excited and let the title of my post scare you away thinking I am going to reveal TMI about my release issues.

I do have issues, but it's not what you are imagining.

Car manufacturer’s today provide drivers with all the comforts and modern conveniences known to man, including a little lever right inside your car to open the gas hatch. Mine just happens to be on the floor between the seat and the door. Just pull up on the lever and voila - the gas cap door pops open.

How convenient is that? A great invention right? Easy Peasy! Well if you can’t reach the lever past your heaving bosoms and over your jelly-belly roll of a stomach then yes it becomes an issue.

Why you ask? Well I am lazy and I patronize the full-service gas station where they pump the gas for you, but I do have some responsibility - TO RELEASE THE HATCH.

If I can’t reach it then a) I have to undo my seat belt, open the car door and struggle to reach that pesky little lever or b) even worse I have to get out of the car…wait if I have to go to all that trouble then I may as well just pump the darn gas myself!

This may seem like a pretty lame and trivial reason to some, but the fact that I chose it as TWITLOSS Reason #3 should tell you just how much the experience aggravated and actually embarrassed me week after week after week.

TWITLOSS Reason #3

TWITLOSS! My Top 5 Reasons To Lose Weight: Reason 4 On The Broken Seat

Twitloss Reason #4 is being "served up" today courtesy of Spanish Tennis Player "Hot Sauce" Fernando "Tabasco" Verdasco fresh off his Round of 16 Finish at the 2010 US Open




When you are fat/overweight/obese (take your pick), a chair can be a fragile thing

Ode To The Chair

There once was an innocent chair,
My weight it was too much to bare.
So when I sat down and it fell to the ground,
It was time to reduce
pound by pound!

Yes I have broken a few chairs over the years and it's not something I am proud of, but it is a fact.

One of my favorite thinks to do in the summer is sit in my backyard and read a book. Backyard+sun+book+lawn chair = a happy bookpimp.

So last summer when I broke my lawn chair and went on the hunt for a new one, I discovered an interesting fact. If you have a large, overweight, fat fanny...it will not fit into most folding lawn chairs. Ohhhh in some cases I managed to barely squeeze my a$$ in between the arm rests (think round peg in square hole), but I did not want to end up looking like this...EEEK!


With this terrifying image in mind, I knew unless I wanted to spend my entire summer reading indoors, drastic action was required. I hereby give you another reason for starting my weight loss journey again.

TWITLOSS REASON #4

TWITLOSS! My Top 5 Reasons To Lose Weight: Reason 5 Button Up Baby

REASON #5 is brought to you today by cutie patootie

Matt Bomer from USA's White Collar

Baby It's Cold Outside - You Better Button Up...If Only You Could

Ode to the Winter Coat

Red coat, green coat, it matters not to me.
But I will get one to button this year,
Just you "weight" and see!!

Brrrrrrrrrr. I live in Canada - the great white north where it's cold, blustery and snowy for approximately 5 months of the year. These weather conditions require that I wear a winter coat - at least if I don't want to freeze my a$$ off while out in public and especially while shovelling snow.

If you have to wear your coat open in the dead of winter because you can't do up the zipper, let alone the buttons...well I think you can see where this might be a problem.

Not one day during the winter of 2009/2010 was I able to button my already oversize winter coat. I am determined not to have a repeat performance during the winter of 2010/2011.

TWITLOSS Reason #5

The Makeover, Not to be Confused with The Hangover - It Was Long Overdue

In honour of my 6 short months in the blogosphere, I decided to take the plunge and give my blog a much needed makeover.  It was time but since I barely know what I am doing, you can understand why I was a little gun shy to make any changes.  Plus I vowed I wouldn't ever mess around with it again after the last time..if it ain't broke...don't fix it (words to live by).  On the flip side...nothing ventured, nothing gained.

 The last time I attempted to make any changes, the results were disastrous, so last night I was quaking in my boots (OK they were actually my slippers), my finger shaking and poised over the save button for about 5 minutes before I actually forced myself to Just DO EEET.

THANK YOU GOD I didn't screw it up.

 Whadda y'all think about my new layout?  How did I do?  Yay or Nay?

Don't forget to enter my Mini Celebration G-I-V-E-A-W-A-Y.  Just leave a comment on this post here for a chance to win FREE books.

Joe Wants to Know

What Are You Waiting For?

An engraved invitation?

So no new episode of True Blood this week? Don't cry, don't despair and no worries because Alcide's here in all his howling, AB-u-lous hawtness, hard at work "pimping" my blog contest for me.

So get your were-wolf loving butt over to my Mini Celebration Post and enter a comment to win. It's free...It's easy...and best of all Alcide says Just Do It (or wait...maybe that was Nike?). Anyhooooo just do what the man tells you to!

Click here and post a comment - How hard is that?

And don't forget to check back this week for my own version of David Letterman's Top 10 5 personal reasons for #TWITLOSS..it'll be good for a few smiles and chuckles...trust me.

The Book Pimp Mid-Season Celebration

Cel-e-brate good times...come on! (sing it Kool and the Gang)

My baby blog is 6 months old...my how time flies when you're having fun! In addition, I've been on my #Twitloss journey for almost 6 months now as I rededicated myself to losing weight and getting healthy.

This Blog started out as a place to post my book reviews. I was already doing it on Goodreads, Amazon and Chapters, but when one of my tweeps Jen @Twimom227 started her own blog (only hers is much bigger and better), it inspired me to start my own as well. It was really slow going at first, since I knew nothing about blogs or how to set one up. I visited a lot of blogs of people I follow on twitter (and thanks to all who helped and inspired @buckeyegirl31 , @bellie7 , @smexybooks , @Pearl_828 , @larissa_sarah , @parajunkee ) to see what they were doing and getting ideas for the things I liked and wanted to have on my own blog. I discovered it's A LOT of work.

I don't blog a lot frankly because I don't have that much time, I'm not that interesting and I can barely read more than 1 book a week and provide a review.

One of the weekly features I started in conjunction with my blog was my Workout Wednesday Challenge, which in conjunction with my #Twitloss journey seemed to be a perfect fit with my love of reading. My goal was to read a book a week at the gym and keep track of calories burned, distance ridden, pages read and time spend peddling.

In the upcoming 2 weeks, I will be posting my Top 5 reasons why I was re-energized for my #Twitloss journey as well as my 6 month weight loss results. Plus some amazing numbers for a mid-season tally of the Workout Wednesday results.

So in honour of my mini milestone, I'm having a G-I-V-E-A-W-A-Y and there will be 2 prizes and 2 lucky winners! Double the pleasure, double the fun!

Each prize will consist of a $10.00 maximum book purchase from The Book Depository. So as long as they ship to the country you live in - go ahead and enter.

The rules are simple. You don't have to follow this blog or follow me on twitter or even read this blog. All you have to do is post a comment below and leave a way for me to contact you if you're the lucky winner.

The contest is open until midnight Thursday Sept 16, 2010. The winners will be chosen at random (hello mom? can you pick 2 numbers for me between 1 and ????? - I know it's not very scientific, but it's easy and I'm lazy).

So you have lots of time to enter - go forth and post a comment.