I am constantly asked the question "how did you do it?" Sometimes I'm not sure of the answer to that question myself. There is no magic solution, no easy way, no right way. I really do think it's a different journey and process for everyone. If you think about it, we all gain the weight for different reasons, so losing it is just the same. Some people are emotional eaters, some people just don't understand food and nutrition, some don't have any self-control, some have medical conditions that cause them to eat more. It's about getting to the root cause of why you eat and starting from there.
For me, it was a combination of a few things. For one, I had no concept of nutrition. Growing up, my parents basically gave us whatever we wanted. We were the house where kids always knew they would get soda, Doritos, ding dongs, Twinkies, candy galore, donuts, and the list goes on and on. I never ate because I was hungry, I ate because it was there. My typical day when I was in grade school was to get up in the morning and scarf down an insane amount of sugary cereal (fruity pebbles, captain crunch, apple jacks, etc.). Then I would go off to school with a HUGE lunch my mom had packed for me, which usually consisted of a sandwich slathered in a ton of meat and topped off with an inch thick piece of cheese. To compliment the sandwich there would always be a bag of chips, and ALWAYS a dessert or two. Most notably were the Twinkies, hostess pies, and the ding dongs. As I got older there were chunkies, big hunks, and other varieties of candies. To quench my thirst was a soda (we were a coke family). When I would get home, I would come straight into the kitchen, grab the Doritos and a coke and sometimes a sweet treat. I would plop down right in front of the TV and I would watch whatever was on or play Atari. I didn't go outside, I wasn't really encouraged to. I didn't play. I just ate and watched TV. Dinner wasn't much better. My mom learned how to cook by making a handful of really large quantity meals. So she would make a giant pot of spaghetti sauce and we would eat that for days, or it was an enormous meatloaf and trough of mashed potatoes...and let's not forget the entire tray of pork chops coated in shake n' bake usually served with a giant bowl of Kraft macaroni and cheese. Very rarely were there vegetables on the table, and if there were, they were the frozen kind and she would cook them up and then smother them in butter.
Now, don't get me wrong, my mom didn't know any better. She didn't learn nutrition from her parents, that's for sure! She only knew what she was raised on. It's not like they teach nutrition in school, which I think really needs to change! I was smart, I could have at any time realized I was getting fatter and fatter and fatter. I could see my parents were overweight, I could see what other kids ate, I had dinner at other people's houses and I saw there were better ways to eat. I just didn't know how to change that relationship I had with food at that young age.
It wasn't just my poor knowledge of nutrition that was the source of my problem either. I was an emotional eater in college. I went through a lot, and the stress of college and all the things that happened just pushed me into a state of emotional eating. That's when things truly got out of control and I hit my max weight.
I had wanted to lose weight most of my life. I knew it wasn't good for me to be the size I was, especially when I was a kid. I couldn't do any of the things other kids did. I was always tired and would run out of breath. I had to shop in the women's section of the stores to buy clothes and I was just a kid! It was truly sad and I knew that. The thing is, you have to have something that truly motivates you to change. If you only want to change so other people will like you, or so that someone will find you attractive, or so you can wear nicer clothes...that's not good enough. That's all superficial. That's not reason enough for meaningful change. When that is your driving motivation, you may succeed at losing something, but you'll never have permanent and lasting change.
So, you ask me how did I do it. It was a slow and evolving process with me. First of all, I found my motivation. I've blogged about it before, but it was my health and my mom's health. I saw my future in front of me and it was bleak. I have such a sense of adventure and I love to do so many things...most of which I couldn't do because of my weight. It was only going to get worse and harder as I got older. In 2006 my back when out bad. I was completely disabled. It was my wake-up call. I needed to lose weight or I would never have any kind of a life.
Once I had the motivation, I had no clue what I really needed to do to lose weight. I understood the basic principle of losing weight. I am a smart girl, I get the logic behind it. Calories in and calories out. You need to burn more than you take in. Ok, well, how hard can that be? When I first started the journey in Jan 2007, my idea of improving my nutrition was eliminating full calorie soda and moving to diet. I thought that was a huge change! It did have results initially. I saw a 10 pound loss almost immediately. I thought I was on the right track. I had read in a lot of journals that the people that have had the most success with weight loss kept a food journal and documented everything they ate. So, I decided this was a good idea for me. The first day I tracked what I was eating, I was disgusted with myself. I was eating over 4000 calories a day (after the elimination of the soda!). I had no idea how much food I was eating. I already thought I was cutting way back. I was so discouraged at how I would possibly get that number to 2000 or below.
My tactic wasn't to jump directly into the deep end of the pool, but to start out wading in the shallow end with a life preserver :) I cut back initially to 3000 calories and I kept eating all the same things I always ate, but just in smaller quantities. I never ate vegetables, I always ate meat and potatoes, and sweets were always readily available. I knew exercise would have to factor in at some point, so I bought a treadmill. I set very small goals for myself in the beginning. I would get on for 10 minutes at about 2mph and I would want to die at the end of that (crazy to think about that now!). Once I would get comfortable at that time and speed I would make a small change. Either I would bump up the speed a tad and go the same amount of time or I would go longer at the lower speed. I tried to do this every day, so it would become normal or routine, and it did! I started to see some results. I had lost about 25 pounds in a couple of months of making these changes.
The problem was I still didn't understand food and its impact on my body. I didn't understand how my body reacted to the food or how it was being processed. I REALLY didn't understand the awful things I was putting in my body. I ate a ton of processed food. The next phase for me with my nutrition was reducing myself to 2000 calories. Not understanding nutrition, my easy answer to this was frozen dinners. I became addicted to Marie Callender's and a variety of other frozen meals. They were decently low in calories and that's all I cared about. I didn't even think about all the things that were in that food, the sodium levels, the cholesterol. I was doing what I was supposed to, I was eating less calories. I continued to see weight loss, but I was still tired a lot, and wasn't feeling those "endorphins" everyone talked about.
I continued on this path for a tad over a year and I did see about a 60 pound weight loss in total. I hit a wall though. When I came out to California I was 245 pounds, down from 305 when I started this change. I went down maybe 10 more pounds in a 6 month period of time, but I was pretty much out of ideas. I had bumped up my treadmill routine to 60 minutes every day at about 3.2 mph and I was down to 1500 calories a day. I didn't know what else to do.
This is when I really started to educate myself on food and learn about its impact on my body and my health. I eliminated soda and flavored beverages all together and went strictly to water (and tea occasionally). I immediately felt better after that. I started to make similar changes and I noted how I felt when I ate certain foods and how my energy levels would change. I started to explore more veggies and found that I felt really good when I added vegetables to my meal. I started to prepare more meals on my own and moved away from the frozen foods. I ate a lot of boneless skinless chicken breasts. I would grill or bake them and I would have veggies or potatoes. Through this process I was really understanding how food could change every aspect of my well being. I slept better, I had more energy, and my mind was sharper. I was still losing weight at a slow pace though. Exercise had become boring for me. The treadmill was uninteresting and not really getting me anywhere. By the end of 2008 I was at about 225 pounds. It was nothing to sneeze at...80 pounds was a lot. That's like a small kid!
In January of 2009 I was introduced to kettlebells. I was a total skeptic of a personal trainer and was pretty self-conscience of my body and feared being made fun of or laughed at. It was, after all, what I was used to. Whenever I went to the gym, I always heard the stupid comments guys would make or get the looks like it was pointless for me to be there. My self-esteem was pretty low. When my roommate told me about his friend Charlie, I really thought it was just going to be another disaster. However, he wanted to buy me three introductory sessions and I was desperate for something new. I liked the idea I didn't have to go to a gym and that the only humiliation I would suffer would be with one other person, and if I didn't want to, I wouldn't have to see him ever again! So, I reluctantly accepted the gift and called to schedule the first session. You have no idea how nervous I was and I had all kinds of visions in my head of what it was going to be like. When I met Charlie, it was almost instant that I liked him and I felt comfortable with him. I still assumed he was probably judging me and thinking I was hopeless, but he was at least being nice to me. I don't think he thought that about me now, but I thought that then. I was intimidated by the kettlebells and thought for sure it wasn't going to be easy for me to learn. I loved it! I was hooked after one session and I continued it for a year and a half. I got over the hump and lost another 65 pounds!
In the last 8 months I've also developed a new relationship with food yet again. I've embraced the vegetarian and now vegan lifestyle. If you had asked me 10 years ago if I would ever be a vegetarian, let alone a vegan, I would have laughed in your face! I have to say it has been one of the best changes I've ever made. In October 2009 I became vegetarian and I found that to be a really easy change, to my surprise. I felt really good! I thought I already had a lot of energy, but I found I had even more after the change to my diet. I educated myself more and more about vegetarianism and veganism and in March of 2010 decided to become a vegan. I don't find it difficult to be a vegan at all. I think there is a lot of magnificent food that is free of animal and animal by-products, that you never run out of choices of what to eat. It's all delicious, I don't have any issues with getting protein, vitamins, and essential nutrients. It's about being smart about what you eat and really developing that intimate relationship with food. When you truly understand how food makes you feel and how your body reacts, that is when you can make a meaningful change to your life. When I eat something "bad" for me, my body is sure to tell me. I love that! It's your bodies own way of telling you "no!!".
So, back to the question how did I do it? I learned how to eat again. I never went on a diet. I never had any surgery. I've never taken any pills or magical diet formulas. I've never done any of the "fads" for losing weight. I had the will and the motivation and the rest was a re-education of food and nutrition. Once I understood food, I just had to find the exercise regimen that was right for me, and that turned out to be kettlebells. It could be different for everyone.
The one thing that is true for anyone wanting to do the same thing, is you have to understand what and why you eat. If you don't do that, it will never last.
In this journey I have never gained any of the weight back. I have hit plateaus, but I never went backwards. I truly believe it's because the change I made was through learning and education and that is permanent and with me forever. I am now 155 pounds and I feel better than I ever have in my life. I would like to lose another 10 pounds, but I am content with myself as I am, and that's a first for me :)
Random Acts of Debbie asks that you take a moment and comment, good or bad, I welcome it all!
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1 comment:
Awesome! Thanks for sharing.
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