Dress Fitting Day (and the moment of truth)

I work fourteen hour days in front of a computer, sitting and blogging and existing seven steps from my refrigerator. When we moved to North Carolina and that became my status quo, I gained a little weight. Nothing crazy, but I just wasn't where I wanted to be.

But I'm one of those people who sit and eat ice cream when I watch The Biggest Loser. And I understand when I see those people binge eat and not do anything active afterwards. I'm not huge like many of them, but I'm just as lazy.

When we got engaged, that didn't change. I didn't have a dress and I knew I had nineteen months before the big day, so I wasn't in any sort of rush.

And then, in August, I went dress shopping. That's a whole different post for a different day, but I went and the dress fit perfectly, so I was told to lose ten pounds.

Ten pounds?

I had never even tried to lose one pound ever in my life, so ten sounded ridiculous.

When I tried the dress on a second time that day, she told me to try and lose five pounds instead. But still, five sounded impossible.

I got home, weighed myself, realized I was more than I had ever been in my life (and ever wanted to be) and that was that. A few times after, I would walk the park or do a little cardio at the gym. My mom told me that once January hit, I would start to get in shape. I thought so ... but January came and went and I had been in the gym maybe four times that month (with three being that first week).

And then Lent came and I gave up chocolate and I thought I was doing much better swapping chocolate bars for butter pecan ice cream (okay, I knew I wasn't doing myself any favors, but I wasn't eating chocolate so that was a step).

But my weight was still not where I wanted because eliminating chocolate and doing nothing else doesn't exactly drop any pounds. So with about two months to go, I started making myself walk two miles every afternoon. It's not much, but it's a start.

That picture is proof that it was still chilly when I started this.

The first week of May, my wedding twin told me about an app called My Fitness Pal. It tracks your calories and was a really conscious way for me to see just how much I was eating. It forced me to measure my food and I realized my serving of butter pecan ice cream was double or triple what the actual serving size is. And the amount of caramel syrup I put on top is quite a few servings.

It also taught me that one delicious Ferrero Rocher chocolate is 73 calories. That's one piece. I eat three at a time. So over 200 calories of chocolate in about a minute. Can't do that when you're only supposed to have 1,200. But this is all stuff I wasn't consciously aware of until I started using the app.

So I'm about four weeks into the app and trying to walk three times a week. So far, so decent. I'm not going to say good because I've definitely skipped more days of walking than I should, but my calories have been on point (even that one cheat day that we went to a concert and one-third of my calories were Cool Ranch Doritos).

Last time I was on the scale, it said I had lost eight pounds. But ... that was coming from a scale with a low battery, so it could be completely inaccurate. I mean, it would give me one weight, and then I would step on again and it would give me a lower weight. I would step on two more times and it would always give me the lower weight, so that's what I went with.

Pete said I look exactly the same, so who knows. What I do know is that my scale told me yesterday I weight 62 pounds ... because the battery is basically dead. And it's not traditional batteries that it takes. Nope. It needs a watch battery. And I don't have one of those lying around.

I'm nervous -- super nervous -- because I'm bringing my dress in for alterations today and it will be the first time I'm putting it on since the day I bought it. I think I am basically the same size (except for, potentially, eight pounds) so it shouldn't need to come in on the sides. I'm hoping it's just the bustle and a belt getting sewn in. It shouldn't need a hem and the sides shouldn't need adjusting. But the consultant was a miracle worker with the corset back and zipped me up like a pro. So who knows if that magic will happen again today. If not, the dress won't fit, it will have to be altered more than I'm expecting, and I have no idea if that's a project that can be done in less than three weeks.

Because, yes, we have less than three weeks to go. Seriously, I'm becoming a Breatharian (okay, not seriously because I love food too much, so my dress really just needs to fit).

BRIDAL BABBLE: Have you tried to diet for your wedding?