Introduction

To start off, let me introduce myself. My name is Ally and I am a 20 year old college student from Southern California. I have struggles with my weight since I was about 16 when I quit playing sports and continued to make poor food choices. I managed to lose about 15 pounds at the end of my junior year in high school through Weight Watchers after gaining 40 pounds over the previous year. After winter break of my freshman year in college I decided to lose some more weight to feel more comfortable with my body and those silly love handles that really give me a hard time through calorie counting. I lost about 8 pounds but got so obsessive that it seemed unhealthy. I gained back about 3 of that and maintained until almost a year later when I lost another 5 lbs. Unfortunately the same obsessive calorie counting behavior took over my life and I made myself stop. I went through a sort of depression and ended up gaining 15 more pounds back and was unable to lose more than 5 for months. I spent all of Fall semester studying in Italy and while I enjoyed myself and loved all the food I ate, I gained another 10 pounds and reached my heaviest weight ever, which I am at today.

Now that that is over, I have decided to take a new plan of action. Beginning today I will be eating clean according to the principles of Tosca Reno's Eat Clean Diet. I also plan to keep up this blog, posting at least twice a week, to hold myself accountable and monitor my progress through this weight loss journey. I started monitoring my eating habits two weeks ago with a weight of 171.6 lbs, and my goal weight is 140 lbs, give or take a few. However I know to make this work I have to change my lifestyle forever so when I hit that goal weight I'm not going to just let myself fall back into old habits and gain it all back. Eating clean is a lifestyle I know I can commit to because I love eating fresh, nutritious foods and experimenting with them to create healthy, delicious recipes! (For more check out my other blog, :Healthy Cooking on a Budget)

So here is my plan for the next few months, which I will revise as needed:

• Eat 85-90% clean. Due to my obsessive tendencies, I know that if I start going 100% I'll either end up binging on sugar/overly processed foods, or become obsessive to the point that it's simply not healthy mentally for me. This also means that I can go out to dinner with my friends or have a piece of birthday cake for dessert or grab a Starbucks once in a while if I want to because it's unrealistic to believe I won't ever eat those things again! Also, I understand that if I end up waiting 4 hours between meals rather than the usual 3 the world will not end :)
• Regular exercise. I will do strength training 2-3 days a week, on top of 2 sessions of HIIT cardio and 2-3 additional sessions of regular cardio.
• To kick off my weight loss, I will be following the strict cooler one plan for the first week (starting today!). After this I will weigh myself next Tuesday and assess if I should continue to follow this plan for another week or if I am satisfied with my results. 
• After the Cooler One phase I will switch over to Cooler Two and begin to live my life!

I have taken some before pictures, but I'm not sure I'm ready to post them for the world to see. When I take my next round of photos I will post them to show differences :)
Here are my current measurements:
Weight: 168.6 lbs
Hips: 43 in
Bust: 40 in
Waist: 33 in
Top of Hip Bones: 38 in
Right Thigh: 25 in
Right Bicep: 12 in

Total Lost: 3 lbs, .25 inches.