What a way to start the weekend! LONG
What a way to start the weekend! I must confess to you all that I do weigh on a daily basis. Just once every single morning. I know most people would advise against it, but I'm one of the people who really needs to keep my weight in check on a daily basis. When I first started out on this "weight loss journey" on November 25, 2005 the day after Thanksgiving I only weighed once weekly. I don't think it was in my best intrest at the time to weigh daily when I was first starting out. I'm like most everyone else out there, I want the weight off "NOW" and since I am the type of person who gets discouraged very easily the once a week weigh in was enough for me at that time.
But things have changed in the last 6 or 7 months, I now weigh each morning only one time. It helps me know where I am and what I need to be doing. This morning I am at my lowest weight in OVER 14 years. I am 144.6 - I am almost in the "normal weight" catagory on the BMI chart. My BMI use to be 41.8. Today it's 25.6
I have lost a total of 91.4 pounds- it's not been a walk in the park, believe me. I've had days where I just wanted to eat that extra helping of cornbread, or just have a "small bowl" of that dessert, or just eat because I was at a party or whatever. But most of the time I didn't, I'd say 95% of the time I stuck to my guns and stayed "on plan".
I still eat cookies and cakes and all that, I just don't eat them on a regular basis or in large quantities when I do allow myself to have them. Instead of eating 5, 10 or even 20 cookies like I use to, I now eat only 1 or 2. Then I stop. Is it easy to stop? Most of the time it is easy for me now. But it wasn't easy this time last year when I still had so much weight to lose. It was like a punishment if I couldn't eat ALL the cookies I wanted or drink ALL 8 Cokes in the fridge. I felt like I was being deprived, losing out on life because I couldn't eat a ton of food just whenever I want to eat it. I felt like I deserved to eat it just because I wanted it.
I had a bad day, I deserve that chocolate cake! My family member made me mad, I deserve to eat all I can at the buffet tonight. I had a stressful week at home and work, I deserve to open that half gallon of ice cream and eat until I feel "better". I got a promotion, let's celebrate with going out to eat. I'm bored, I think I'll just eat. I'm lonely, what's in the cookie jar? I'm sad, are you gonna eat that pie?
Having that mindset caused me to get to my highest weight of all time of 236 pounds and I was busting out of my size 20 Levis. They were so tight I physically was in pain due to them cutting into my huge stomach. I was too ashamed to go to the store and buy a bigger pair, so I suffered in them for months on end. They were the only pair of jeans I had that I could squeeze into.
It wasn't until my MIL got sick and had to be hospitilized for 7 days did my life change. Her illness lead to my successful weight loss experience. She was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart failure, and high cholesterol- she was in there for 7 days and during that time I stayed with her night and day except for 2 hours a day where I'd come home, shower and change my clothes then I'd go right back to the hospital. I barely ate that week.
Those 7 days changed my life forever. I lost 12 pounds that week, and that was all it took for me to realize that my body wasn't keeping me in my prison of fat that I hated so much, it was ME keeping me in my prison of fat by eating all the time and eating "bad" unhealthy foods ALL the time. It never once dawned on me that it was my fault for being fat and not being able to buy the clothes I wanted to wear.
It was me who kept shoving the food in long after I was physically full. It was me who kept walking to the kitchen and looking in the fridge and pantry to see what else I could eat because I was bored or lonely. It was all my fault. That hurt to really realize that the first time. I could no longer blame my age, or having my son or any other lame excuse I had tried to use to convince myself in the past why the scales "just wouldn't move down".
I could no longer act surprised when I got on the scale and they either stayed the same or went up a few pounds. I couldn't play that game any longer with myself because I knew the truth, I finally faced it, it was me all along keeping myself fat and miserable.
So how'd I change that? It wasn't easy or QUICK, but it was what I needed to do. I first started out by switching to Diet Cokes, I had been drinking up to 8 real Cokes a day. That was the first thing I did. Then I started on the diabetic diet they gave my MIL when she was in the hospital, they had a nutritionist/ dietitian woman come in and talk to her for about 2 hours about how her diet needed to change in order for her to help control her diabetes. She explained how she needed to eat and how that would help her body. I was there and I listened like she was talking to me. Like I was the one with the disease.
I still ate good food, I just started buying the sugar free versions of all the things I already bought. Like I still ate pankcakes, I just bought the version with the lowest possible sugar in them and I also bought sugar free syrup.
And I didn't eat 4 at a time, I ate 1 or 2 depending on how many calories and fat grams it had in them. I switched from real bacon over to turkey bacon, I stopped frying my foods and started baking, broiling and grilling everything. I stopped drowning my vetetables in butter, I stopped eating 3 or 4 rolls with dinner. I stoppoed eating like a crazy person in short. Was I hungry? You bet I was hungry! My stomach thought my throat had been slit.
Was I cranky? Yes, very. But I was cranky because I felt like I couldn't eat with a free pass any longer. Was I tired? Yes, my body was having a hard time adjusting to the lower sugar levels in my body. Plus, I'm sure I was tired because I had cut my portion sizes DRASTICALLY.
But all that passed, I stuck with it and within a couple of months I started seeing results, my clothes were feeling a little bit looser, my fingers didn't look as fat. I was sleeping a little bit better, I wasn't as cranky as I was when I first started out. And the scale was moving down a little bit each time I got on them. I wasn't losing 5 pounds a week when I first started out, I was only losing like a pound or a little more. But I seen each little pound I lost as my "freedom from fat". It seemed to take forever for the scales to really start moving, but each week I was down a little bit more, then the next week I was down a little bit more, and it just kept building week after week until I had lost 50 pounds in about 6 months.
Then my cousin asked me if I wanted to join Weight Watchers with her and her mom (my aunt) and I said yes. It was one of the best things I could have ever done to keep me going on such a long, hard journey. It gave me even more of a reason to stay "on plan". I was now going to be weighing in every week in front of a stranger, they would know if I did well that week or if I lost my mind and ate everything in sight. I'd be accountable for my actions. I couldn't let myself be embarrassed every week because of my actions, so I had to step up to the plate so to speak and make sure I did what I was told to do.
I followed the advice of my leader, she was encouraging, she knew what I was going through because she had to go through it to become a leader herself. She knew the plan worked, she knew it was possible to eat real foods from the grocery store and still lose weight on a weekly basis.
I lost about 30 pounds on WW. Then my cousin and my aunt stopped going and so did I. I didn't gain any weight back, in fact I was still following the Points Plan here at home, and I was still losing for a while, then I hit a plateau and I stayed there for 3 or 4 months. Now the scales are moving once again and I'm about 4 pounds away from being at a "medically normal in weight". To say that it's been easy is a lie. But it is something that can be achieved, not just by me, but by everyone who puts forth the effort. Not half heartily, but really puts their mind and body into working for the goal of a healthy weight. I'm not special, I'm not blessed with a "decent" metabolisim, in fact I thought mine was destroyed when I first started out on this because I wasn't dropping weight left and right like some people can. I went at my own pace and here I am - I'm 24.6 pounds from my goal of 120 pounds and I'm no longer wearing a gut busting size 20 in jeans, now I'm in 8 & 10's depending on the brand of jeans and a medium in shirts, not a 3X like I was in.
I weigh 144.6.
What a way to start the weekend!
Until then-
Wishing you all the very best,
~Tink~