In honor of the Reshaping It All Challenge I thought I would share a little of my weight loss journey. It’s a kind of a long story but I’ll try to keep it short although I am often too long-winded! Since September 2005, 5 ½ yrs ago, I have lost almost 50 lbs (48 to be exact!). In the first 9mths of that journey till June 2006 I lost 30-35lbs & since then have lost 15-20 lbs more. For me weight loss has been a process of being aware of what I eat, how it affects my weight and then actually having the discipline to do what it takes.
In my life I’ve always been a pretty self-disciplined person. In high school, I graduated a year early and got both my bachelor’s & master’s degrees in only 5 years, graduating summa cum laude with each degree. When it comes to finances I’m also very type A-I almost never deviate from my budget, splurging on clothes or shoes is just not something I do, I’ve never bought anything (including my cars) that I don’t have the cash to buy it with and I have never been in debt. I don’t say these things to pat myself of the back but just to paint the picture that discipline, hard work and telling myself no is not usually a struggle for me but with food it was a completely different story. Food has always been so much more than fuel for my body. Food was my reward. I felt entitled to indulge in it especially if things in my life weren’t going the way I wanted. Certainly I wasn’t like that all the time but it’s a clue that my view towards food had an emotional element. My whole childhood was spent going up and down from underweight to average to very overweight. My emotional eating & weight struggles all came to a peak in 2003. My parents got divorced in January of that year and I started seeing a therapist to share the natural sadness I was feeling over the event. It was also within that year that my fibromyalgia went from the occasional pains & problems I had in childhood to an everyday, unmanageable pain. My doctor recommended I try antidepressants to get me thru the valley of my parent’s divorce. Within 6 months I gained 40lbs. I had no idea the medicine could cause weight gain & that combined with negative, emotional eating habits was a recipe for disaster. I went off the medicine quickly but the damage had been done and I walked around for the next few years in a haze of self-hatred over how I looked.
In January 2005 I decided to get serious about losing the weight. I joined a gym, very seriously worked out for 9mths & didn’t lose a pound! That’s when I quit the gym, decided to change how I ate & the pounds literally started falling off and stayed off for over 5 yrs!
I have lost almost 50lbs and never exercised. And I share this not because I don’t think exercise is important. I think exercise is hugely important to be healthy physically, have less stress, manage pain (in some cases), and stay toned but I share this because I want people to realize you can lose weight, even a lots of weight without it. I know many of you that read my blog have chronic pain or illnesses that may prevent you from vigorously working out and that may discourage you from ever thinking you can lose weight. While exercise can sometimes improve pain levels, in my case any vigorous exercise makes my pain significantly worse. And the type of exercise that is recommended to me & many others with chronic pain is light exercise such as short walks or swimming. So unless I plan to walk non-stop till the day I die I was never going to burn enough calories to lose the amount of weight I needed to lose. Plus I found it really disappointing to work my butt off on the treadmill only to burn a few hundred calories when I realized how easy it would be to eat healthier and modify my diet to cut out those calories instead.
And that is where calorie counting has worked great for me. There are so many different paths to weight loss and while calorie counting might drive lots of people crazy it’s been the right tool for me to lose so much weight and keep it off. So here’s what I did:
In the 1st 9mths of my weight loss journey I followed a very strict routine that I made up myself (I am not a doctor & didn’t consult one so I’m not telling anyone to do what I did!).
5-6 days/wk I ate 100-200 calories for breakfast (usually a granola bar)
No more than 300-400 calories for lunch (usually a frozen lean cuisine meal)
A 100 calorie afternoon snack
Then a small portion of a healthy dinner (meat, fish, veggies, couple bites of a dessert)
I learned to read labels for everything-to always know the serving size & calorie count. If I ever went out to eat I either went online to look at the nutritional info or asked for it at the restaurant. It was a very hard, disciplined way of eating to maintain for 9mths but it paid off hugely. After that time frame I knew I could no longer eat that strict but I have continued to use parts of that method to keep the weight off and even lose 20lbs more.
Now I’m in the maintenance zone. I still weigh myself every week and if my weight goes up even a few pounds I go back to strict eating for a few days. I have also changed and gotten myself away from processed foods. They were helpful in my weight loss because I could tell exactly how many calories I was eating but in the long run they are not a healthy or tasty way to eat! Even now it is still second nature for me to think about how many calories I’m eating and make easy changes to cut calories when I can like getting skim milk & no whip cream in my favorite Starbucks drink-that’s 200 calories right there! It’s easy changes that have added up big time for me but that’s not to say it was easy but definitely worth it. It takes discipline to delay gratification. I now feel I have a better perspective on my weight and I hope and pray God will help me to continue to make wise choices and keep my weight in check. He has given me this body and I don’t want to treat it poorly. While I may have figured out the weight loss aspect on my own, it has been through the book Reshaping It All that I can see how my walk with God has a role to play in healthy living & I am more than eager to take those lessons and apply them to my life!
So have you lost lots of weight? What method has worked best for you? Are you doing the Reshaping It All Challenge? I would love to hear your comments!
