Where to begin?
At the beginning I guess :-)
I have always been overweight. I know, everyone says that! It's true! I struggled with my weight all through High School. I was on the Atkins diet (diet, no exercise) and was able to get down to a size 10! The smallest I ever remember being. Not surprising that when I went off the diet I gained everything back! So when I graduated high school I was probably back up to 190 and in a size 14/16. Lane Bryant clothes of course!
I met and married my husband two years after graduating High School and weighed about 205 then. Not TOO big of a gain between HS and college! Still considered obese though :-(
Here comes the scary, sad, and ugly part of the post! My heaviest and the reasons I got there. We all have something that has triggered our weight gain. Depression, stress, loneliness, only you really know. Dale and I have suffered with infertility for years. At 200+ pounds I was very irregular. When I say irregular I mean my cycles would last 8 or so months. We were also living in a situation that wasn't very good for us. The job market sucked but Dale worked hard to I could be a SAHW but that left us with little money. I hadn't started the business yet so what was I doing with my time!? I couldn't tell you! But it got me here:
I know right!? My poor brother! This was at my absolute worst! 230 pounds. I knew how bad it was for me and yet I was so depressed and lost at this point I didn't know how to save myself. We had to move out of where we were living to get on the right path. So we did! We got into our own apartment. I completely cut out soda, we ate out less a little less, and I got the business started not long after. My baby, my reason for living!
I was able to get here:
220 or so. Not that much difference still. But I didn't exercise all that often. This was just from cutting out the preliminary junk from our diets. NO SODA!! I drank drink water constantly. If I do have juice it is an 8oz serving of V8 juice or Sunny D. (Something with vitamins or nutrients)
We moved again (yes we move a lot!!) This time with my family who lives in the beautiful country. Away from the negative of our last place. They may hate me for saying this but my family also suffers from obesity. It absolutely scares me! But this is my journey, I won't force my decisions or lifestyle on anyone else. Now I live closer to a dear friend from High School. We are those people that can go months without talking and be great! Her and I have always dreamt of being pregnant together, literally dreamt it. So the say she called me and told me she was expecting again I broke.
Who would have thought the 15 pounds I did lose wasn't enough to jump start my fertility!? Obviously I didn't! It was a cruel and hard smack in the face. That very night I did about 30 minutes of boxing on the wii. I got sweaty and my arms were sore and I LOVED it!
My whole perspective of weightless and health changed. I started listening to my body! If I went out to eat and ate at a restaurant and felt sick afterwords I didn't eat there again OR I pick the salad. If something makes me feel sick, gassy, or even give me a headache it has been cut from my diet. It's not worth eating anything, even if it tastes good, if you're going to feel sick right after eating it! NOTHING tastes that good! Except maybe a ripe pear, yum!
The house then got some new friends. Mrs. wii fit balance board and an exercise ball (which Yin unfortunately decided to try out last night. She did great until she rolled forward and hit her head. Then the ball was popped) Anyhow! The wii board comes with a great disc that has ALL kinds of exercises! Biking, jogging, hula hooping(my fav!) You name it! It even keeps track of your calories burnt AND you can weigh in on it!
It wasn't enough though. I needed more structure amidst the growing business so we bought
EA Sports Active which sets up a schedule and all your workouts. It along with counting calories through
calorie count on my phone helped me get here:
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| Please forgive the lack of makeup! We were baking cake balls :-) Which I only had one of! |
Great improvement! Finally conquered the 200's got out of the 190's but still battling the 180's. It is still a constant struggle! I had a really hard time actually eating all of my calories for the day. Crazy I know! Who would think a fat girl would have a hard time eating enough! I got into the "If I eat less I'll lose more" IT DOESNT WORK! Your body needs those calories or it will go into hibernation mode.
I continued doing the EA exercises but they got boring and weren't pushing me enough anymore so... I took a leap and signed up for
Jillian Michaels challenge. After watching biggest loser practically daily I knew it would be a push. I will admit I pussed out on the first workout. It was rough!! I hurt for days! Thankfully since then I have been able to work myself through the rough parts and am making it through much more of the workout. It has gotten me OUT of the 180's!! I just hit 179 yesterday!! I'm thrilled!
So now that I've written a novel and you know the big parts of my journey let me add some bullet notes that have helped me(obviously I am not a doctor so please don't think my suggestions are the way to go. I am doing this without a doctor):
- No soda. I can't say it enough! You shouldn't drink your calories. Your body also doesn't receive ANY kind of nutrient from it. If you truly want to be healthy it has to go!
- Water! It's fantastic! Live in the city with yucky water? A Brita pitcher is fantastic! Its cheaper than buying bottled water which is bad for the environment unless you recycle.
- Listen to your body! What I say may sound great but you have to listen to your body. If it says you're craving something healthy, it's likely you need it! Same if you feel sick after something.
- Its true when they say nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. I am not close to being skinny but being able to buy clothes at Target has just been amazing for me! Lame I know but its my happy place!
- Count calories. Read portion sizes. Start to limit and cut down to actual portions. The extra calories add up fast.
- In the beginning slowly start to cut out the sweets. Don't go cold turkey because you will freak! Make a conscious effort to start getting rid of things. It took me a while to cut out ice-cream but I was able to do it.
- DO NOT DIET! Diets DO NOT work!! Cutting certain things from your diet is awful! Your body needs certain things to survive. This is a lifestyle change, not a quick fix!
- Find a buddy! Working out with my brother was great! We were able to motivate each other to exercise and congratulate each other. He is unfortunately no longer my work out buddy. Still love him though!
- Try to find the root of your weight gain. Did something happen? Did you lose someone? It's a scary path facing our darkest issues but it's part of the growing process. We have to face the old us to get to the new us.
- Weight loss is just simple math. To lose 1 pound you need to burn 3500 calories. So 500 more a day than you eat.
I still have 50 more pounds to go. I don't plan on stopping now when I'm half way to my goal. I still struggle everyday but this sin't going to be an overnight process. It is a lifestyle change so I am going to fall off the wagon sometimes. I just have to remind myself to quickly get back on.
Anyone can do this!! You CAN! And if you ever need support please feel free to contact me! I'd love the support just as much as you would :-)
Thank you for listening! I'll leave you with the most recent image of me (I still believe Gavin is hiding my tummy but I'm being told he isn't). I'm now on the path of getting out of the "Obese" range and into the "Overweight" range. 5 pounds to go!
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| Congrats to my dear friend on her second son! |
Love you all! We CAN do this!!
