Week 1: Introduction & Goals

Here goes my first post! I am a 28 year old female living in the Midwest. I have a pretty great life with my husband and two kids. I am a professional, and I like my job (most days). The one thing that is missing is a healthy lifestyle. Growing up, I was never over weight. I did tons of activities outside and participated in all different types of sports (softball, volleyball, cross country, track and cheerleading to name a few). When I went to college, I was even lucky enough to lose weight my freshman year by running several times a week. It all sounds pretty dandy and great. 

Then I met my husband and our unhealthy habits were amplified and shared. He loved sweets, and I usually avoided them. He got me hooked on all sorts of treats. He didn’t drink and I started going to the bars with him, and we both started packing on the pounds. Eating out on dates didn’t help us either. I went to professional school and had late nights of studying and snacks. Just 5 years after my husband and I had met, I had gained a hundred pounds (!). 

I halfheartedly tried to lose the weight. To be honest, I have never tried too hard. Life was busy with graduation, new jobs, moves and two pregnancies.  Now I have realized that my weight has started to affect my quality of life. I don’t get to shop at the stores I used to love, I’m uncomfortable, and I have little energy to run after my toddlers. It’s time for a change. I see the big 3-0 looming ahead of me, and I’m not too excited about leaving my 20’s. I definitely don’t want to leave my 20’s a hundred pounds heavier than when I entered them!

I’m blogging, tweeting, posting and pinning about my journey for two reasons: 1) accountability. It seems backwards to do it anomalously for accountability. You’re thinking it would be easier to fail if no one around me knows, maybe it would be easier to give up. I beg to differ. I think while my friends and family would be supportive, they would also be indifferent, too afraid to hurt feelings. I need some honesty and active encouragement. 2) honesty. I want to give all the dirty details of weight loss and exercise and it’s easier to be honest if I don’t have to worry about someone thinking about it when they look at me.

I have been doing pretty good. I gave birth a couple of months ago. The week of my child’s birth, I weighed in at 290. My baby was only 7 lbs to give you an idea. A couple of months after the birth, I’m now around 248. (I’ll weight myself tonight to make it “official.”) Actually a month after the birth I was already to 250, so really I need to kick it up if you look at the rate I’ve lost at.

My goals this week:

1) Diet. I’m not going to succeed if I just go right in and start depriving myself. I’ll obsess about all the “can’t have” foods and it would be terrible, because I would most definitely obsess until I binged (Snickers anyone?) I need and have found success in the past by focusing on one thing to change. This week it’s sweets. As I mentioned, I used to care less about them. Ever since I met my husband and especially since my last pregnancy, I have, to be honest, found myself bingeing on them.

Everything is good in moderation, so the first thing to moderate is all the sweets I eat. I will try to replace them with better alternatives like fruit (also in moderation).

2) Portions. I am eating super-sized portions of everything! One frozen meal is never enough, and I want to eat two “meals” when we go out to eat. We add on appetizers and desserts. So, now I need to just cut down what I eat. I’m going to do that by 1) cutting out the extras like appetizers, soups (especially cream based), desserts (sweets are out anyways), and 2) eating meals at home on a smaller “lunch” plate rather than a large dinner plate.

Those are my two goals this week! Do you have a fitness or food goal?