Whooooooo are you? Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.

So I'm still working on building a team. :) Two people have expressed interest, yay!, but there's still plenty of spots. Also, I don't really think it matters how many pounds you have left to lose. We all need to eat right and exercise, no matter how far along we are. So if you're interested, please let me know! :)


Here's a little "getting to know you" meme that I created to give you some of the basics about me and so I can learn more about you~ Leave me a comment if you do it and I'll come on over and visit! :)


1. What's your name? Or at least something we can call you that's less of a mouthful than the name of your blog. :) My name is Brittany, but you can call me Briy (it rhymes with "tree," not "try." :)

2. Give us a paragraph (as much or as little as you'd like) about your weight loss story, including at least your goal. (You don't have to give actual numbers if that's not your style. :) We'll try to read back through your blog as much as possible, but just get us started.
Let's see... I've never felt very comfortable with my body. I developed early, and a lot, so my chest was a D cup by my junior year of high school, and a double or triple D by the time I graduated. I was a size 12 when I graduated high school, and when I look back at pictures of myself, I think I looked great... but I didn't see it at the time. I gained weight steadily the whole four years I was in college, because I ate out all the time, and never healthily, and didn't exercise at all. I had two brief interludes of crash dieting and getting close to that size 12 again. In January of 2007 I moved to Ireland, and that was when I started exercising fairly regularly, though I still wasn't eating healthily. I lost about 15 pounds in the 5 months I lived there. Then


I moved to South Korea in July of 2007, and really started to change my life. The Korean diet is naturally really healthy, despite a big bowl of white rice at each meal, and I've slowly expanded my palate and learned to appreciate some of it. I used to be a really picky eater, which made it hard for me and led me to eat a lot of snacks and fast food, but now that I've adjusted to the diet, it's a lot easier not to get sucked in as often. I wish I could calorie count, but it's just impossible, considering I eat mostly my host mom's cooking and at my school cafeteria. Nowadays I just try to divide my plate healthily--protein, veggies, and less carbs, and to snack healthily.

3. What kind of exercise do you do? What works best for you? What doesn't work for you?
I credit running, and specifically the C25k program, with my first 60 pounds of weight loss. I started walking outside and on the treadmill when I was in Ireland, but I started alternating jogging with walking last summer. I'd do it religiously for a few weeks, then stop completely for a week or two. I wasn't eating very healthily at that time though, so it must have been that that helped me to lose weight. But I never managed to build up much endurance, beyond about 3 minutes, until I started the Couch to 5k program in... March of this year. I doubted I could ever become a "long-distance" runner... I doubted I could ever even run ONE mile without stopping, but I trusted the program and it didn't let me down. I used the podcasts for the first few weeks, then starting making my own, and in just 6 short weeks, I was jogging 30 minutes straight, with about 11 minute miles. I ran my first 5k this spring too, and it was the culmination of a year's efforts to become a runner, and one of the proudest moments of my life so far. When I started, the 1 minute jogging intervals were hard for me, and then I ran for 34 minutes straight.


Nowadays I try to do cardio 6 times a week--a long run (30 minutes), a shorter run (15 minutes interspersed with 15 minutes of walking), treadmill intervals twice a week, and two long walks. Plus, I lift weights 45 minutes 4 mornings a week.


What absolutely doesn't work for me? I hate the stationary bike. Hate, hate, hate it. Then again, in fairness, I used to hate running and lifting weights too, so... :)

4. What are your biggest struggles?
My biggest struggle is night-time snacking. I've got a good routine going lately. Exercising in the morning is usually enough to keep me honest through the end of the work day, plus there's no vending machines in school or too nearby, which helps a lot. But between getting home from school and dinner, and dinner and going to bed, I constantly fight the urge to eat sweets. Cookies, ice cream, pastries. I think a big part of this is that those things are like little pieces of home... Dunkin Donuts in Korea is very similar to Dunkin Donuts in America. So they're comforting to me. Sweets weren't my problem before--big, multiple meals were, but now snacking is the big struggle. I'm trying to combat this by eating sweet fruits and tasty yogurt instead, but sometimes I still break down. And once I break down, the temptation to throw in the towel for the day and eat something ELSE bad for me is always there. This sweet tooth is, I think, what's making it hard for me to lose these last twenty pounds. I exercise a lot, push my intensity, but I invalidate it with all those empty calories. Grrr.

5. What are three of your hobbies that aren't weight loss-related? We probably have far more in common than just a desire to be "hot for the holidays." :)
#1 I love, love, love reading. I was a Creative Writing and history major in college. John Irving is my favorite author, and I also really like Chuck Palahniuk (author of Fight Club). These days I'm a lot less discerning than I used to be with what I read, because I'm limited to what I can borrow from other foreign friends or buy for cheap enough at the bookstore, but I devour books. One of my new year's resolutions for this year was to read 50 books, reading roughly 50 pages a day on weekdays and 100 on weekends, and I'm well on my way. I've finished 41--here's the list if you're curious. :) I love reading, because it's my time for myself. I realized recently that part of the reason I ate so much in college was that I didn't have a lot of other things that brought me joy besides spending time with friends (usually over dinner), so reading has become a thing that brings me joy with 0 calories. Gotta love it. I also read the Bible every day. :)


#2 The only job I've ever wanted is to be a teacher, but I also want to be a novelist. Unfortunately, I haven't done much writing outside of blogging for the past year and a half since I graduated, so now I'm really trying to focus on that. I'm going to do NaNoWriMo this month in November.


#3 I'll put two things here: I'm a huge movie buff, especially horror movies and dramas. I don't tend to enjoy romantic comedies as much. But I'll watch almost anything. I don't watch much TV, with two exceptions: all the Law and Order series and The Office. I LOVE The Office. I love John Krasinski.


7. Tell us one cool, unique thing about you.
Like I've already mentioned, I've lived in South Korea for a year now, and I'll be here until January 2009. I'm on a Fulbright Grant, and I teach English at two rural middle schools and one high school. I'm proud to say that it took a while, but I know all 160 of my students' names. :)


*What ideas do you have for how we can help each other as a team aside from just reading and commenting? We could do little mini-challenges, and have a few weekly activities, but it all depends on what you want, have time for, and think will help.
I've got ideas, but I'd love to hear what you ladies think would help you. :)