I'm female, 27 years old & I live in England in the UK. I thought I'd better mention that as I noticed most of you live in USA.
If there are 3 things I've never had in my life, then it is dedication, motivation & willpower. Especially when it came to losing weight.
Any diet that I had began before, never worked out. It lasted maybe 2 or 3 days at the most. It wasn't until I tipped the scales at 11 stone 5lbs (my heaviest yet), that I decided something must be done and what better way than to make it a new yrs resolution. I have never stuck to any new yrs resolutions but I hoped this year would be different. It was different, but I started 2 months too late lol. But it's better late than never.
Since I was 18, although I have never been overweight, I have always had extra fat on my thighs & always looked like I have been pregnant with 1 kid. But as my weight had crept up to 11 stone 5lbs, it now looked like I was carrying quadruplets. Jumpers didn't hide the bulge and I wanted a flat stomach. So february 2010 I decided to do something about it. I was hoping it would be quite easy for me to lose this extra fat as the rest of me is average sized and my BMI has always been in the healthy weight range, although 11 stone 5lbs had now put me at the higher end of the healthy weight range.
I never had any energy, I always felt sluggish & lethargic like a rattlesnake. I always had constant headaches and migraines and just walking up the stairs wore me out. I was so unfit, it was terrible, and I was only 27.
When I was about 25, I made the silly mistake of thinking that if I just ate one meal a day at night and maybe a packet of crisps or a tin of soup for my lunch, that my stomach would disappear. The thing is, I had never been a breakfast eater my entire life. When I was at school, my parents made me eat breakfast, but since I turned into an adult, I no longer had any appetite in the morning. When I was 25, it looked like I was carrying twins and then these twins turned into quadruplets over the course of 2 years, and that was due to my 1 big meal at night and my tin of soup/bag of crisps for lunch. I realised this was making me worse.
I did a little research through google and came to the conclusion that 5 or 6 meals a day was the best way to go, along with some exercise. I couldn't get how strange this was out of my head. How on earth did eating more, help you lose weight? I was very afraid at first, I was going to have to attempt to eat 4 more meals a day than what I was used to.
Before I started my diet 7 and a half weeks ago, the size of my sweet tooth could have probably made it into the Guiness Book of World Records. I loved sweet stuff eg: cakes, donuts, desserts, icecream, chocolate, biscuits and very naughty sugary sweets.
I also had a big appetite for any sort of junk food eg ready meals, processed foods and crisps. I didn't eat takeaways very often, but I did love fish and chips (if you are in USA, you might not know that fish and chips here is a very delicious but greasy ridden food) that I loved to drown in salt and vinegar and curry sauce.
So 7 and a half weeks ago, lacking completely in motivation, dedication and willpower, I decided to give it a go. I had read up on healthy foods and when we went grocery shopping, the only naughty stuff that made its way into the trolley was hot chocolate and these snack-a-jack snacks. The rest consisted of healthier food and snacks.
We have a dog and we take the dog out for a walk every day, about a mile a day. We also have an exercise bike that I rarely use. I wanted to use these more throughout my diet. I also had something I was looking forward to - a holiday in June. I want to be able to look good in a bikini then, weather in the UK permitting though lol.
I decided to weigh myself and record it onto a sheet of paper on the fridge, my weight every sunday. I realised there was no use weighing myself every day due to your natural body changes.
The 1st week I ate healthier, apart from a packet of snack-a-jacks every day and a hot chocolate before bed. The 2nd week I ate healthier except I ditched the hot chocolate.
In these 2 weeks I lost, maybe a 1lb total of weight. I thought this isn't right, as I had completely cut out naughty foods. Then I realised the snack-a-jacks weren't as healthy as the packet made out to be. I also realised I had still been having large portions of food instead of the smaller ones you should have. But I couldn't help it, I had a large appetite. Or maybe I could have blamed it on my invisible quadruplets having a large appetite.
So the 3rd week I changed my diet completely. I cut out these snack-a-jacks and decreased my meal sizes. When we took the dog out, I tried to walk a bit faster than usual. Little things like this seemed to make a difference, as by the end of the week I was 10stone 12lbs.
WOW I had lost 6lbs this week. How on earth did I manage that, when they say you should lose 1-2lbs a week. Is this because I had completely cut out sugar and other junk food? I was very amazed and this gave me the willpower to keep going.
After my excitement at the end of the 3rd week, I thought the 4th week would be easy. But oh no, it was a completely different story. I had severe sugar withdrawal symptoms. All I fancied and all I craved was sugary stuff and other junk food. I felt like I was being tortured. That week was a nightmare for me and once I had read on google that sugar withdrawals do exist and they can be as bad as coming off ciggarettes or other drugs, I realised I wasn't alone and it helped...a bit. Plus it was understandable too, there I was, 4 weeks ago with the biggest sweet tooth ever, and here I was, 4 weeks later, completely cutting sugar out of my life. At the end of the week my weight had dropped to 10 stone 10lbs and I knew I could keep going as my weight kept dropping off. It looked like I was losing 2lbs a week now it had steadied itself up a bit.
The 5th week was bad with the sugar cravings too but not as bad as week 4. I started to do more exercise. I tried weight training but didn't have the strength, so instead I tried to cycle more. I started off cycling approx 30 mins a day, burning off about 280 calories a day. Then days later, I cycled for approx 1 hr a day. Then I read that you should cycle every other day, so I decided to do that, as I didn't want to end up hurting myself and putting myself back at square one. At the end of the week I weighed 10 stone 5 and 3/4lbs. A very big jump from 10 stone 10lbs to 10 stone 5 and 3/4lbs. Was this because I had introduced more exercise to my schedule?
So all this weight loss had definetly given me the willpower to keep going.
By the 6th week, I was cycling every other day and losing approx 1000 calories on these days. I still kept getting junk food cravings but nowhere near as bad as they were. At the end of the week, I weighed 10 stone 5 and 1/2lbs. I was disappointed as I had done more cycling this week but had only lost 1/4lb. Why was my weight loss slowing down?
By the 7th week, (last week) I started to walk alot faster on the dog walks. More like power walking. Some times on the cycling machine I managed to lose 1000-1500 calories at a time. Other times I lost 2000 calories. I was also starting to notice my shape coming back in my legs and my waist was starting to look a lot trimmer. I noticed my thighs were starting to look a bit slimmer and I could actually fit into a pair of jeans that I couldn't pull up over my thighs before. I still couldn't do the button up though.
My arms were looking more toned and trimmer. It was just my stubborn belly fat that didn't want to move, not even a tiny bit. At the end of the week, I weighed 10 stone 4 and 3/4lbs.
Now this week (7 and a half weeks in to my diet) I am feeling the best I have ever felt. I have loads more energy. I can walk up the stairs without getting tired and I can walk a hell of a lot faster on the dog walks without getting tired. I can do more around the house without wearing myself out. I can now concentrate without headaches. I have started to drink more water rather than cups of tea.
I have also noticed a pattern in my weight loss. I have been weighing myself every morning and every night since the end of week 7 when I weighed 10 stone 4 and 3/4lbs. I am noticing that I am gaining approx 4-5lbs a day from eating and then when I wake up in the morning I am losing about 5lbs a night. Anyone know why this is?
Since sunday (it's now thursday) I have lost a steady weight of 1/4lb every morning and I'm feeling ecstatically happy about it all. I no longer see this diet as a diet. I now see it as a lifestyle change, one that I can maintain for the rest of my life. All cravings seem to have dispersed apart from the odd one here and there and once all my belly & thigh fat has gone, I'm going to start having treats every so often but my daily food routine will always be the same. I feel I have worked too hard at this to stop now.
I may not even like junk food once I'm done, as a couple of weeks ago, I treat myself to a hot chocolate and a custard choux bun that I always used to adore and to tell you the truth...I hated them! They were way too sweet and sickly...and that would be my sugar cravings finally come to a halt.
I'm the happiest I have been in a long long time and all because from each time I weighed myself, it gave me the willpower and motivation to keep going.
So in total since 7 and a half weeks ago, I have lost 1 stone 2 and a 1/4lb. (I started at 11 stone 5lbs and am today at 10 stone 2 and 3/4lbs). I want to get down to a weight of 9 stone by the end of June this year. I think its possible. But once all my excess fat has gone, I don't mind if I weigh 12 stone, because it wont be wobbly fat. It will be muscle.
Thank you for reading
P.S. Does anyone know why I keep losing approx 5lbs overnight?
If there are 3 things I've never had in my life, then it is dedication, motivation & willpower. Especially when it came to losing weight.
Any diet that I had began before, never worked out. It lasted maybe 2 or 3 days at the most. It wasn't until I tipped the scales at 11 stone 5lbs (my heaviest yet), that I decided something must be done and what better way than to make it a new yrs resolution. I have never stuck to any new yrs resolutions but I hoped this year would be different. It was different, but I started 2 months too late lol. But it's better late than never.
Since I was 18, although I have never been overweight, I have always had extra fat on my thighs & always looked like I have been pregnant with 1 kid. But as my weight had crept up to 11 stone 5lbs, it now looked like I was carrying quadruplets. Jumpers didn't hide the bulge and I wanted a flat stomach. So february 2010 I decided to do something about it. I was hoping it would be quite easy for me to lose this extra fat as the rest of me is average sized and my BMI has always been in the healthy weight range, although 11 stone 5lbs had now put me at the higher end of the healthy weight range.
I never had any energy, I always felt sluggish & lethargic like a rattlesnake. I always had constant headaches and migraines and just walking up the stairs wore me out. I was so unfit, it was terrible, and I was only 27.
When I was about 25, I made the silly mistake of thinking that if I just ate one meal a day at night and maybe a packet of crisps or a tin of soup for my lunch, that my stomach would disappear. The thing is, I had never been a breakfast eater my entire life. When I was at school, my parents made me eat breakfast, but since I turned into an adult, I no longer had any appetite in the morning. When I was 25, it looked like I was carrying twins and then these twins turned into quadruplets over the course of 2 years, and that was due to my 1 big meal at night and my tin of soup/bag of crisps for lunch. I realised this was making me worse.
I did a little research through google and came to the conclusion that 5 or 6 meals a day was the best way to go, along with some exercise. I couldn't get how strange this was out of my head. How on earth did eating more, help you lose weight? I was very afraid at first, I was going to have to attempt to eat 4 more meals a day than what I was used to.
Before I started my diet 7 and a half weeks ago, the size of my sweet tooth could have probably made it into the Guiness Book of World Records. I loved sweet stuff eg: cakes, donuts, desserts, icecream, chocolate, biscuits and very naughty sugary sweets.
I also had a big appetite for any sort of junk food eg ready meals, processed foods and crisps. I didn't eat takeaways very often, but I did love fish and chips (if you are in USA, you might not know that fish and chips here is a very delicious but greasy ridden food) that I loved to drown in salt and vinegar and curry sauce.
So 7 and a half weeks ago, lacking completely in motivation, dedication and willpower, I decided to give it a go. I had read up on healthy foods and when we went grocery shopping, the only naughty stuff that made its way into the trolley was hot chocolate and these snack-a-jack snacks. The rest consisted of healthier food and snacks.
We have a dog and we take the dog out for a walk every day, about a mile a day. We also have an exercise bike that I rarely use. I wanted to use these more throughout my diet. I also had something I was looking forward to - a holiday in June. I want to be able to look good in a bikini then, weather in the UK permitting though lol.
I decided to weigh myself and record it onto a sheet of paper on the fridge, my weight every sunday. I realised there was no use weighing myself every day due to your natural body changes.
The 1st week I ate healthier, apart from a packet of snack-a-jacks every day and a hot chocolate before bed. The 2nd week I ate healthier except I ditched the hot chocolate.
In these 2 weeks I lost, maybe a 1lb total of weight. I thought this isn't right, as I had completely cut out naughty foods. Then I realised the snack-a-jacks weren't as healthy as the packet made out to be. I also realised I had still been having large portions of food instead of the smaller ones you should have. But I couldn't help it, I had a large appetite. Or maybe I could have blamed it on my invisible quadruplets having a large appetite.
So the 3rd week I changed my diet completely. I cut out these snack-a-jacks and decreased my meal sizes. When we took the dog out, I tried to walk a bit faster than usual. Little things like this seemed to make a difference, as by the end of the week I was 10stone 12lbs.
WOW I had lost 6lbs this week. How on earth did I manage that, when they say you should lose 1-2lbs a week. Is this because I had completely cut out sugar and other junk food? I was very amazed and this gave me the willpower to keep going.
After my excitement at the end of the 3rd week, I thought the 4th week would be easy. But oh no, it was a completely different story. I had severe sugar withdrawal symptoms. All I fancied and all I craved was sugary stuff and other junk food. I felt like I was being tortured. That week was a nightmare for me and once I had read on google that sugar withdrawals do exist and they can be as bad as coming off ciggarettes or other drugs, I realised I wasn't alone and it helped...a bit. Plus it was understandable too, there I was, 4 weeks ago with the biggest sweet tooth ever, and here I was, 4 weeks later, completely cutting sugar out of my life. At the end of the week my weight had dropped to 10 stone 10lbs and I knew I could keep going as my weight kept dropping off. It looked like I was losing 2lbs a week now it had steadied itself up a bit.
The 5th week was bad with the sugar cravings too but not as bad as week 4. I started to do more exercise. I tried weight training but didn't have the strength, so instead I tried to cycle more. I started off cycling approx 30 mins a day, burning off about 280 calories a day. Then days later, I cycled for approx 1 hr a day. Then I read that you should cycle every other day, so I decided to do that, as I didn't want to end up hurting myself and putting myself back at square one. At the end of the week I weighed 10 stone 5 and 3/4lbs. A very big jump from 10 stone 10lbs to 10 stone 5 and 3/4lbs. Was this because I had introduced more exercise to my schedule?
So all this weight loss had definetly given me the willpower to keep going.
By the 6th week, I was cycling every other day and losing approx 1000 calories on these days. I still kept getting junk food cravings but nowhere near as bad as they were. At the end of the week, I weighed 10 stone 5 and 1/2lbs. I was disappointed as I had done more cycling this week but had only lost 1/4lb. Why was my weight loss slowing down?
By the 7th week, (last week) I started to walk alot faster on the dog walks. More like power walking. Some times on the cycling machine I managed to lose 1000-1500 calories at a time. Other times I lost 2000 calories. I was also starting to notice my shape coming back in my legs and my waist was starting to look a lot trimmer. I noticed my thighs were starting to look a bit slimmer and I could actually fit into a pair of jeans that I couldn't pull up over my thighs before. I still couldn't do the button up though.
My arms were looking more toned and trimmer. It was just my stubborn belly fat that didn't want to move, not even a tiny bit. At the end of the week, I weighed 10 stone 4 and 3/4lbs.
Now this week (7 and a half weeks in to my diet) I am feeling the best I have ever felt. I have loads more energy. I can walk up the stairs without getting tired and I can walk a hell of a lot faster on the dog walks without getting tired. I can do more around the house without wearing myself out. I can now concentrate without headaches. I have started to drink more water rather than cups of tea.
I have also noticed a pattern in my weight loss. I have been weighing myself every morning and every night since the end of week 7 when I weighed 10 stone 4 and 3/4lbs. I am noticing that I am gaining approx 4-5lbs a day from eating and then when I wake up in the morning I am losing about 5lbs a night. Anyone know why this is?
Since sunday (it's now thursday) I have lost a steady weight of 1/4lb every morning and I'm feeling ecstatically happy about it all. I no longer see this diet as a diet. I now see it as a lifestyle change, one that I can maintain for the rest of my life. All cravings seem to have dispersed apart from the odd one here and there and once all my belly & thigh fat has gone, I'm going to start having treats every so often but my daily food routine will always be the same. I feel I have worked too hard at this to stop now.
I may not even like junk food once I'm done, as a couple of weeks ago, I treat myself to a hot chocolate and a custard choux bun that I always used to adore and to tell you the truth...I hated them! They were way too sweet and sickly...and that would be my sugar cravings finally come to a halt.
I'm the happiest I have been in a long long time and all because from each time I weighed myself, it gave me the willpower and motivation to keep going.
So in total since 7 and a half weeks ago, I have lost 1 stone 2 and a 1/4lb. (I started at 11 stone 5lbs and am today at 10 stone 2 and 3/4lbs). I want to get down to a weight of 9 stone by the end of June this year. I think its possible. But once all my excess fat has gone, I don't mind if I weigh 12 stone, because it wont be wobbly fat. It will be muscle.
Thank you for reading
P.S. Does anyone know why I keep losing approx 5lbs overnight?
you are doing great keep up the good work!