If it is, get a cup of coffee and sit a spell. I want to tell you a few things. Some you may not want to hear. Some you'll be glad you heard, and well... take it all for what you will. It's just my own personal experience.
Here goes..
I was skinny growing up. My grandpa called me "spider legs". It wasn't until college, that I started to put on weight. I still managed it fairly well though, even after Addie, my youngest was born. In fact, I was probably as thin as I'd ever been after she was born. I was a size 2. I've always joked that she ran it off of me. Having two children under the age of four, and teaching Ag full time really did take it off of me. It wasn't like managing my weight was effortless, but it really wasn't that difficult. I say this because most women seem to gain weight when having babies. I didn't. Mine really became a problem after I was finished having babies.
I don't know why that was the case for me but it was. I do know that one day I saw myself in a picture and I was fat. Fat. A place I never thought I'd be. But here I was. I was at the stage in my life though, where vanity wasn't really an issue anymore and I told myself I was "comfortable". Pete NEVER made comments about my weight. EVER. Looking back, I know I was lying to myself, but at the time I believed that lie. I perpetuated that lie until I had a doctor's appointment and got a call back from her telling me we needed to discuss my bloodwork. My cholesterol was borderline high and so was my blood pressure. I was really shocked. My blood pressure had always been on the very bottom of the normal range. Almost low at times. Now I'm sure there were some environmental factors like job stress that contributed to the numbers, but there really was no denying that the source of the problem was my weight. My mother had joined Weight Watchers and so I sort of followed her lead. My friend, Beth (of science lab fire fame..) also joined at that time so I gave it a whirl. Having a friend in the beginning was very helpful. This time I had a goal other than the scale though. I wanted my bloodwork numbers to be better. I wanted to chase my children and not be winded. I wanted to run, to hike, to do my job and still have energy for my family in the afternoons and evenings. Sizes and scale numbers were secondary. And I mean that. I started the last week of March in 2011. By the time school was out in May, I'd lost 12 pounds. When school started BACK in August I'd lost 20. By Christmas of 2012, I'd lost 30 and a little over a year after starting, I'd lost the 50 pounds I needed to lose. Truthfully, I was back in a healthy range after losing 30 pounds, but I felt better at 50. I've kept it off for almost a year now. I started at my heaviest weight ever. I weighed more at that time than I weighed at 9 months pregnant.
Now I weigh what I weighed my senior year of high school. 'Tis true.
Here are a few things that worked for me:
1) After losing the first 10 pounds, I took V3, an herbal supplement that helped boost my energy and curb my appetite. I didn't take it very long, but it helped rewire my brain into understanding portion control. I look back at the amount of food I used to eat and I'm honestly shocked. I don't eat fast food often but when I do, a cheeseburger will do. It does not have to be a double cheeseburger.
2) I eat what everyone else eats at home. I think the kiss of death with any weight loss plan is fixing one meal for yourself and another for your family. Who lives like that? I eat what everyone eats. I just don't eat as much. That goes for everything.. Fried chicken, pizza, pork chops, steak, etc.. I eat it all. Now I eat half a steak, one slice of pizza, one piece of chicken, etc. I know some people would suggest removing the fat laden skin from chicken, using low cal cheese on pizza, etc. I don't. If I am going to eat pizza, it's going to be a real piece of pizza. I'd rather have one piece of regular pizza than 2 or 3 pieces of Lean Cuisine pizza or reduced fat whatever yuckiness. I'd rather eat one piece of fried chicken with the skin than 3 pieces without the skin. I'd rather have a salad with full fat ranch dressing once a week than a salad with low cal dressing every day. I'm not saying one's any better than the other- just my own personal preference.
3) Fat and Fiber are my best friends. For awhile I stayed away from nuts because they are very high in calories and in fat, but now I don't. I eat almonds all day long really. Seriously. All day. When I do that, I don't eat much at meal time because I'm just not hungry. So while I probably easily consume 5 or 600 calories a day in almonds, that sure isn't much when you consider I don't eat much else because well.. .I'm just not hungry. For breakfast, I eat a high fiber granola bar and an orange or some sort of fruit. I eat my almonds throughout the morning. By lunch I'm not starving and if everyone else wasn't eating lunch at that time I probably wouldn't eat at all. I usually bring a Greek yogurt and a granola bar.. maybe some fruit. But, like I said before in #2, if we're having something good in the lunchroom, I eat it. I just account for it with extra exercise or I take that into account when eating dinner at night. At dinner, I eat whatever everyone else around here is eating. I'm not starving, so I'm not tempted to over eat. I also took some pointers from a Vegan friend of mine from college. She put something on facebook once about reteaching your taste buds to like vegetables. I'd forgotten! Now I truly do love fresh veggies. If they're available, I eat them before I eat anything else on my plate.
4) Be prepared to fend off comments from others. It's going to happen. You'll lose 10 pounds and you can tell. You'll lose 20 and your family can tell. You'll lose 25 and everyone can tell. And they'll ALL have an opinion about it. Trust me. Some will congratulate you and some will make rude comments. It's just the nature of the humans we are. They will say your boobs are flat, you've lost your butt, you've become obsessed, etc. I promise you all the people saying these things will be overweight themselves. Trust me on that. I learned to take the good with the bad. Most all of my friends were quite complimentary and supported me in my efforts. It didn't matter either way. I didn't do it for them. I did it for me, my husband and my children.
5) I weighed everyday and mapped it on myFitnessPal app. Not because I'm obsessed. LOL! But because I know the patterns of my own body now. I know if I'd weighed weekly I would have gotten frustrated. But weighing every day, I learned how my body works. I lose 2 or 3 pounds, then gain one or two back, then lose 2 or three more, etc.. if you look at myFitnessPal over the course of the entire year, it's up and down up and down but there's a gradual downward trend and that's what I paid attention to. Sometimes I'd go 3 weeks without a budge in the scale and then all of a sudden one morning I'd wake up and the scale would drop 3 pounds. It's the weirdest thing really. Now I only weigh once or twice a week, just for accountability's sake. This is a screenshot from last year: You can see ups and downs but the trend line is downward.
6) When I started losing weight, the thing that frustrated me the most was the fact that I hadn't dropped a clothing size. That's a weird little phenomenon I tell ya. I lost 20 pounds and still couldn't wear a smaller size. Strangely enough though, I lost 10 more and dropped 2 sizes. Dropped 20 more and was down from a 14 to a 4. Again, you just can't gauge your success on your clothing size or on the scale numbers. That's not to say I didn't toss out every single thing I owned in a size 12/14! Oh honey I did! I enjoyed buying new clothes in a smaller size. I still enjoy doing that. I had a friend come by and tuck my tag back in my shirt for me. Another friend said "honey if I could fit into a size small I'd wear my shirt wrong side out so E'EER BODY could see my tag!" I still laugh about that when I think about it. I am VERY small boned so while other women my age look thin in a size 10, I look like a balloon. A size 4/6 is good for me.
7) Probably the thing I STILL struggle the most with is beating down that little inner voice that ALL women have.. Y'all know the one. She whispers "you don't have time for yourself." "You're not worth it", "You're neglecting your family if you insist on time to yourself." We ALL hear that voice from time to time. Finding the time to exercise is tough. But it has to be part of the equation. Time for ME is okay. I have to keep saying that to myself. :) Don't use your family as an excuse to be sedentary. Even if you don't have time to lace up a pair of tennis shoes, there are little things you can do that add up over time. I always park in the farthest parking spot at work. Rain sleet snow or shine. I park in the same spot. When I'm at work and I need something at the pharmacy or at the grocery store I walk there. It's not a long way at all, but every little bit helps.
And that's it. I've heard people say "it's not a diet, it's a new lifestyle". It's really neither for me. Rather, it's a renewed focus on what's really important in this life. My husband, my children... being an active part in their lives not just a sideline spectator. It's a realization that I am worth it and that the girls need a healthy Mama. They need a good role model. They need to see me eating veggies, exercising, enjoying the outdoors, and taking care of myself. If you're just starting on this journey, good luck. Hit me up if you need a word of encouragement!
We're putting away Christmas decorations and watching a little football today. Here's a pic I forgot to post before. Each year, the girls take turns putting the star on top of the tall foyer tree. This was Ali's year.
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