bluebuckeye
New member
About two years ago, a bet was made between my boss, me, and another coworker of mine to see who could give up soda the longest. We were all huge soda drinkers. We're talking 5-6 cans a day. The winner was supposed to get some sort of prize. Maybe lunch or something like that. Though that never panned out. At the start it was obvious how badly all that soda was affecting me. I had terrible heartburn, headaches, restless leg syndrome. So I figured, what could it hurt? The first week was horrendous. I didn't even count how many aleve I took to battle the headaches I got. And I drank probably three gallons of orange juice as a substitute for my Coke. It took me a while to realize that me drinking soda was much more of a habit than anything else. And once I got in the habit of drinking something else, I was fine. Since that day, January 4, 2009 I've had a single sip of diet soda. I have yet to lose my cravings, and I still have dreams about it. But I did it.
After giving up soda I thought I would lose a few pounds. People always talk about those "easy" things you can do to lose weight. Stop drinking soda, drink more water, walk more, whatever. But I didn't lose any weight. By March I had given up the OJ too and drank water almost exclusively. So I was definitely taking in about a thousand calories less per day, but my body had decided it liked the weight I was at, 196. And we were going to stay there.
My fiancé had just proposed, and we were planning our December 2010 wedding, and I thought a year and a half would be the perfect amount of time to lose the weight so I wouldn't be a fat bride. So I joined the gym at my work in April 2009. I averaged 4-5 days a week, mixing up cardio and weight training. I was getting stronger, and I could run faster. A trip to the doctor showed I had really good vitals. My only problem was my weight. Which had stubbornly stuck at 196.
So I decided to eat healthier. I love to cook, so I started making all of our meals from scratch. On Sundays I would put together lunch and breakfast foods for the week (soups, sandwiches, muffins, breakfast burritos), so that I wouldn't have to worry about them the day of. I started meal planning, making dinners out of whole foods instead of processed ones. I started eating more vegetables and more fruits. I didn't deny myself the occasional treat, as I thought that the working out would be enough. And I didn't count calories or weigh myself often, as I was bulimic for a long time in college, and counting calories often led to binging for me. But after six months of that, I still weighed 196.
In January of 2010 a very good friend of mine told me she was going to A good friend of her's is slowly dying of cancer, and this ride helps raise funds for the James Cancer Hospital at the Ohio State University; the same hospital where her friend was being treated. I jumped at the chance to ride with her and started training with gusto. My workouts were bumped up to six days a week, two days spinning, two days weight training, and two days doing other cardio (usually running). We were so hooked on racing (and we hadn't even ran a single race yet!) that we signed up to walk in April, and to run 5k in May. I also went out and signed up for in June. A bike ride to raise money to fight diabetes, which both my fiancé and my mother have. And which I am at high risk for.
All of the races went extremely well. I was feeling good about myself, and my body. Though I was still fat, I was strong. My body could take me 26 miles by foot and 65 miles by bike. That is amazing! And I have found that races are an extremely good motivator to work out because the races are so much more fun if you are prepared. The fear of being last really pushed me to work out even harder. Another checkup at the doctor proved that the exercise was really helping, as all of my vitals had moved into the "excellent" range. But my weight was even higher. The highest it's ever been, at 204. While I was at the doctors office I cried. I told him I felt like I was doing everything I was supposed to do. But I was still fat. And my doctor, who is one of the best I have ever had, said I should not worry much at all about my weight. I'm only at 32% body fat, which is in the normal range. And since I'm exercising and eating well, that the weight will not be a big deal. But, he said if I did want to lose the weight, that Weight Watchers would be the way to go. He said given my meal planning, water drinking, fruit eating, exercising ways make me the perfect candidate for something like Weight Watchers and he felt I would do extremely well on it. He said given all the hard work I've already put in, and the fact that I'm not losing weight, the most logical reason for me not losing weight is simply eating portions that are too large. And Weight Watchers is an easy way to control portion size.
I think just having my doctor tell me that really put it into my head that I COULD do it. Before I had used the excuse of worrying that tracking what I'm eating would lead to binging as an excuse to eat whatever I wanted. But I can't afford to do that anymore. So three weeks ago I started my own meal plan. I decided not to go with Weight Watchers, as I'm cheap and refuse to pay to join, but my own 500-500-500 diet. The idea was to plan all of my meals around 500 calories. A lot of restaurants have meals around that number, and I had found that once I ate the correct portion sizes of my favorite foods, they came out to around 500 calories too. So that has been my plan. I eat foods that I love, just less of them.
It's become sort of a game to figure out how I can eat the largest amount of food without going over 500 calories. I always make sure to leave room for snacks and dessert (snack pack pudding, and Pumpkin Hershey Kisses are my current favorites) so I'm not deprived.
So far I'm down six pounds.
I feel like this has been too easy. I still get hungry. I still want to binge. I feel guilty when I slip and have a cheat day. But I don't feel deprived. It is in my head now that I can do this. Just like when I gave up soda. There was sort of a switch in my brain that got turned on and I just kind of KNOW that this is going to happen.
But I'm still at the beginning. 6 pounds out of 69 that I would like to lose is not much. But I'm going to keep going and see where it leads me.
Start - 204 - 9/14
10 lb - 194 - 9/23
20lb - 184 - 10/25
10% - 183.6 - 11/5
Officially "overweight" BMI - 174 - 12/14
30lb - 174 - 12/14
15% - 173.4 - 12/27
40 lb - 164 - 3/13
20 % - 163.2 - 3/14
50 lb - 154
25% - 153
60 lb - 144
30% - 142.8
Officially "normal" BMI = 142
Goal - 135
After giving up soda I thought I would lose a few pounds. People always talk about those "easy" things you can do to lose weight. Stop drinking soda, drink more water, walk more, whatever. But I didn't lose any weight. By March I had given up the OJ too and drank water almost exclusively. So I was definitely taking in about a thousand calories less per day, but my body had decided it liked the weight I was at, 196. And we were going to stay there.
My fiancé had just proposed, and we were planning our December 2010 wedding, and I thought a year and a half would be the perfect amount of time to lose the weight so I wouldn't be a fat bride. So I joined the gym at my work in April 2009. I averaged 4-5 days a week, mixing up cardio and weight training. I was getting stronger, and I could run faster. A trip to the doctor showed I had really good vitals. My only problem was my weight. Which had stubbornly stuck at 196.
So I decided to eat healthier. I love to cook, so I started making all of our meals from scratch. On Sundays I would put together lunch and breakfast foods for the week (soups, sandwiches, muffins, breakfast burritos), so that I wouldn't have to worry about them the day of. I started meal planning, making dinners out of whole foods instead of processed ones. I started eating more vegetables and more fruits. I didn't deny myself the occasional treat, as I thought that the working out would be enough. And I didn't count calories or weigh myself often, as I was bulimic for a long time in college, and counting calories often led to binging for me. But after six months of that, I still weighed 196.
In January of 2010 a very good friend of mine told me she was going to A good friend of her's is slowly dying of cancer, and this ride helps raise funds for the James Cancer Hospital at the Ohio State University; the same hospital where her friend was being treated. I jumped at the chance to ride with her and started training with gusto. My workouts were bumped up to six days a week, two days spinning, two days weight training, and two days doing other cardio (usually running). We were so hooked on racing (and we hadn't even ran a single race yet!) that we signed up to walk in April, and to run 5k in May. I also went out and signed up for in June. A bike ride to raise money to fight diabetes, which both my fiancé and my mother have. And which I am at high risk for.
All of the races went extremely well. I was feeling good about myself, and my body. Though I was still fat, I was strong. My body could take me 26 miles by foot and 65 miles by bike. That is amazing! And I have found that races are an extremely good motivator to work out because the races are so much more fun if you are prepared. The fear of being last really pushed me to work out even harder. Another checkup at the doctor proved that the exercise was really helping, as all of my vitals had moved into the "excellent" range. But my weight was even higher. The highest it's ever been, at 204. While I was at the doctors office I cried. I told him I felt like I was doing everything I was supposed to do. But I was still fat. And my doctor, who is one of the best I have ever had, said I should not worry much at all about my weight. I'm only at 32% body fat, which is in the normal range. And since I'm exercising and eating well, that the weight will not be a big deal. But, he said if I did want to lose the weight, that Weight Watchers would be the way to go. He said given my meal planning, water drinking, fruit eating, exercising ways make me the perfect candidate for something like Weight Watchers and he felt I would do extremely well on it. He said given all the hard work I've already put in, and the fact that I'm not losing weight, the most logical reason for me not losing weight is simply eating portions that are too large. And Weight Watchers is an easy way to control portion size.
I think just having my doctor tell me that really put it into my head that I COULD do it. Before I had used the excuse of worrying that tracking what I'm eating would lead to binging as an excuse to eat whatever I wanted. But I can't afford to do that anymore. So three weeks ago I started my own meal plan. I decided not to go with Weight Watchers, as I'm cheap and refuse to pay to join, but my own 500-500-500 diet. The idea was to plan all of my meals around 500 calories. A lot of restaurants have meals around that number, and I had found that once I ate the correct portion sizes of my favorite foods, they came out to around 500 calories too. So that has been my plan. I eat foods that I love, just less of them.
It's become sort of a game to figure out how I can eat the largest amount of food without going over 500 calories. I always make sure to leave room for snacks and dessert (snack pack pudding, and Pumpkin Hershey Kisses are my current favorites) so I'm not deprived.
So far I'm down six pounds.
I feel like this has been too easy. I still get hungry. I still want to binge. I feel guilty when I slip and have a cheat day. But I don't feel deprived. It is in my head now that I can do this. Just like when I gave up soda. There was sort of a switch in my brain that got turned on and I just kind of KNOW that this is going to happen.
But I'm still at the beginning. 6 pounds out of 69 that I would like to lose is not much. But I'm going to keep going and see where it leads me.
Start - 204 - 9/14
10 lb - 194 - 9/23
20lb - 184 - 10/25
10% - 183.6 - 11/5
Officially "overweight" BMI - 174 - 12/14
30lb - 174 - 12/14
15% - 173.4 - 12/27
40 lb - 164 - 3/13
20 % - 163.2 - 3/14
50 lb - 154
25% - 153
60 lb - 144
30% - 142.8
Officially "normal" BMI = 142
Goal - 135
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