What a Difference Two Years Can Make

Two years. In some memories, it seems like yesterday. In other memories, it's a lifetime.

When it comes to my health, its a huge milestone.

Two years ago, I was at my heaviest in my entire life. I can stop here and really just start going inward and deep to tell you why. Not sure I want to do that in this forum, so I won't. I will use a phrase I read in a book once that is very true. "Weight loss is between the ears."

Like I think so many of us have said who have this struggle, I did the weekly, "I need to lose weight." And I would make a few choices that may or may not be drastic for a few days, then weigh myself, with little or no results. That turned into a "give up" and continue down failure.

I, like so many people, did this over and over and over and over and over.....for years. I have had some great seasons in my life where I have had great success. I thought I conquered this beast, only to have some impetus bring me back.

 

Me, September 2010
I remember these pictures being taken. And cringing because I had a good idea of what I looked like. Then when I do see the picture, I look worse than I imagined. 

September 2010
During this time, my body was giving me signs. I couldn't walk very far without
getting very painful, burning shin splints.

September 2010
And I was very much in the public eye and knew people snapped pics of me, and I hated it. 

Lots of things have changed, and I get asked almost daily by those who knew me then and know me now, "What did you do?"  

I will tell you what I did, but I want to caution you before you start taking a turn around the path I just described above of the cyclical path of failures in weight loss. I have some philosophies I want to tell you about that I did first, and then made my gazillionth plan on how to conquer this beast. 

1) I started out with a list of things I have done to lose weight that have lead to success and have lead to failure. DO THIS! Do not do what doesn't work, and do what is successful. 

Perfect example. This happens to me all the time. I tell people what I have done, and they pipe up with, "Oh I do a points system, you should try it. It worked for my cousin......" Nope. Stop. Halt. I tried it, cost me a lot of money, and was a failure. Don't do what doesn't work for you. Now, my friend's cousin, yes, she should count it as a success 

The bigger picture here, there are all kinds of ways to be successful at this, do what works for you. Period. 

2) Do not look for results in 72 hours. I know this about myself. I will do a "plan" for two days, weigh myself, give up, and eat ice cream. Failure. I put this on my list of things I do that lead to failure, and decided not to do it. It sounds funny, but many of you know what I am talking about.

3) I had a lot of weight to lose. I did not go into this thinking I could even lose half of it. I just wanted to lose something. I wanted to just lose 20 pounds. I knew I could take a stab at that. That is what I wanted to call success, not lose 20 pounds and know I have a million more to go. Again, I am looking for a way for success here.

Here is my timeline of a journey, and I will give the most details at the beginning because that is where I set out the rules for myself for my journey.

January 2011: Yes, this began as a New Year's Resolution to get this body on a healthy path. Again, lots of personal stuff going on in my head, some of it still is, but my body is healthy. 

Rules:

I have had a lot of success counting calories in my past lifetime of dieting. It works. My doctor says it's a practical way to figure out portion sizes and keep things in check. It's the basic rule of expending the amount of fuel your body takes in, making sure it doesn't store any. My calorie intake, as a sedentary person, was set at 1200 calories a day. That is tough, but I knew I could do it because I have done it before.

Cutting out the white. I have had a lot of success in my lifetime of dieting cutting out all white sugar and flour products. Bummer, I have a family that doesn't follow that regime and it's very difficult to hold to that kind of a diet for very long. I counted the cost of success vs failure. I can't be that strict on myself and hope for success. I chose not to follow this closely. However, if I did eat these things, I must count the calories. If I eat cheesecake, I must count them. I don't recommend that, because I would get to eat one piece of cheesecake all day long, and nothing else, but I could if I wanted to.

I also got a calorie counter app and put it on my electronic device. That could be your smart phone, computer, tablet, iPod, etc. Back in the "old days" before the gadgetry, yes, I had a calorie counting book. It's the size of a paperback book and I looked up my food that way.  

Great example. I was working with a person today, we hit dinner time and went into a fast food place and I had 349 calories left for my day. I punched in my phone the franchise's name along with the word "chicken". I found a sandwich for 310 calories. Done. I am good to go.

Okay, I had my guidelines for calorie counting. Next.

Forgiveness. If I messed up a day, forgiveness. Tomorrow is another day and I must not allow my mess up to continue by messing up again. Tomorrow is a new day, with zero calories on the books when I awake. Fresh slate, no mess ups. Let's do it right. No more of the wallowing in failure and continuing in it by eating poorly two days in a row. Or worse, grabbing a spoon and quart of ice cream and making it an epic failure. 

Don't look for results for six weeks. Again, we have all done it. A diet for two days and then getting into a mental spin out because we gained two pounds after two days of killing ourselves trying to lose weight. I wanted to set myself up for success. That spin out sure wasn't success. Some of you reading this know exactly what this spin out is.

So, no weighing for about 4 to 6 weeks. Find it on the calendar. I started January 1, so I said at the earliest, I could weigh myself on February 1. However, I couldn't do it unless I had done the calorie counting faithfully, daily for a month.

Someone out there just gasped out loud at that. It's pure logic. Here it is. You ready? 

Why in the world would I want to weigh myself after knowingly messing up a diet? I wouldn't. I can assure you of this, unless something is wrong with you and you need to see a doctor, if you have eaten 1200 calories a day for four weeks straight, that is a recipe for successful weight loss. Period. And I knew if I did that, I would want to continue.

Plus it took the focus of my weight loss off the scale and onto my daily habits. Big difference!

First time I weighed in, I lost 22 pounds. Mid February 2011. I could stop there or continue. It was a success no matter what. It felt great. I wanted to do it again. Let's do this again, same simple rules. for six weeks. 

April 2011, I go visit a friend (Hi KB!) and she and I are both on this kind of a journey. Hers has different choices than mine, but the support we have for each other is constant.

This trip was key for me in this journey. You remember how I start dismissing the friend's cousin's advice? I also listen to others. She had talked to a nutritionist about focusing on protein in my diet. Protein builds muscle, helps the circulatory system, and makes you look skinny. Not hard to do. No need to go get crazy protein drinks or anything. She got me turned onto Greek yogurt (yes, it's double the protein grams than regular yogurt), and a protein supplement. No big deal, just something to think about. I mention this because I do think focusing on protein helps, but it isn't crucial. 

 April 2011, the "leaning"effect was beginning to show in my face. 

This is about a month after focusing on protein in my diet. I have lost about 35 pounds total.

At that point, when I visited her, I had lost 30 pounds and people were starting to notice. In the following month after visiting her, focusing on the protein, I hadn't lost much more, but the "noticing" increased. The protein was having it's desired effect. It builds lean muscle mass and had an effect on my appearance. It was making me look thinner although I hadn't changed much in my numbers. This is key, and will come up again later.

Let's stop for a moment here. Had I had bad days in this first four months? Yes, several. Did I lose my starting out rules and throw them all out? No. Did I take a bad day and end it at the end of that day and make the next day a new start? Yes. Did I have success in doing that? Yes. 

Did I still have the nagging underlying, deep rooted problems going on? Yes, still do in fact. 

Oh did I mention exercise? I haven't done any at this point at all. None.

And so it continued for the remainder of the year. I kept on it, bad days lasting no longer than a day. Counting calories. Weighing in about every 4 to 6 weeks. We had a death in our family, we had some catastrophes, we had extremely happy moments. I continued the daily routine and didn't let the stress take away from the routine. 

Christmas 2011. Yes, I splurged a little bit. I allowed myself bites of goodies. Not servings. Bites. Christmas goodies are crazy full of bad stuff that pack on pounds, and if you don't know this by now, then you don't have a weight problem.  I did count my calories but I was relaxed about it. I didn't have any kind of "over the top" crazy overeating days either.

After Christmas I weighed in and found I had gained 3 pounds. You know what? I just about did a happy dance for a day! I should have, I might have lost that 3 pounds. I was excited it wasn't the 15 I would normally gain around the holidays. I could actually still fit into my, then, skinny jeans.

Christmas 2011

Here comes January 1st again. I was feeling good. I had lost, during 2011, a total of 56 pounds. Honestly, if I had stopped there, life would be grand, and I would be happy. I could be at that weight and be happy. I mean it. If I were that weight right now, after losing more, I would be happy. 

I wanted to set a new goal. I knew my history of losing weight also consisted of losing it, then not making a "new goal" that would support this new weight. So let's make a new goal. 

Several of my friends had taking up running. I had tried it years ago, and frankly, hated it. It hurt, it was uncomfortable. But okay, let's try it. 

Around New Year's of 2012, I took the dog out walking (remember that walking alone used to be extremely painful) and decided to take a few shots at running. Let's just see how far I could go before dying? Let's see how much it hurts. Let's see if this is the new goal.

On my first walk/run, I was completely shocked. On a walk of about 2 1/2 miles, I could run about half of it, and it didn't hurt. In fact, it felt great! I was completely and totally shocked. 

Running is the new goal. I wanted to run a half marathon for 2012 and you can look back at a previous blog post to see those specifics. 

Calorie counting is an easy habit after a year. It's like brushing my teeth or combing my hair. I do it.

I am fully able to handle bringing another goal into the mix.

The weirdest thing that happened when I started running was what happened with the weight loss. From January 2012 to the beginning of April 2012, my weight did not budge one bit. Nada. None. Yet I am steadily increasing my runs, my distance and my calorie burns. Huh? 

I had to be very vigilant of my attitude during this time. This kind of "lack of success" can easily cause me to throw my hands up in the air and give up any of this at all. Many times I had to have a conversation with myself that my success is not a number on a piece of plastic on the floor. My success is in my health, my stamina, etc. 

I was able to easily count one huge success during that time. While the numbers on the scale never moved, boy my size sure did. I went down two whole sizes in clothes, yet my weight stayed the same. I compare this 3 month period to my "protein" focus the year before. While the scale didn't change, my appearance sure did. The "noticing" factor jumped again.

What happened at the beginning of April that changed this? I went to visit my friend, KB, again. She took me to a gym and we did a crazy boxing/shred workout that just about killed me. I couldn't move for days afterwards. I went into that experience knowing it would be crazy hard, and was glad to say I did it, I never stopped, I did everything that was asked of me, I wasn't a whiny diva, and I finished what I started. I also lost 4 pounds when I got home and weighed in. Whatever happened that day jump-started something. 

The weight loss continues slowly; 1 to 2 pounds a month. I have lost 80, yes 80 pounds since January of 2011. I never ever thought in a million years that I would be here. I just wanted to lose something when I started.

I am going to be honest, I am not sure if a half marathon is going to happen in 2012. That is okay.

At the time I am writing this, I am up to running three times a week 5 to 6 miles at a time. I am running about 5 mph, about a 10-11 minute mile. I have had some running set backs this summer, especially with side stitches. In the last 3 weeks, those have been under control and I am back to increasing my distance. I am ready to start thinking about entering a half marathon again.

I have my sights set on January 2013. I want to keep running, and I may need to re-up my half marathon goal.  But I do want to continue my success. What goal can I put out there for myself that would continue my healthy lifestyle? That is what I want to do every year from now on. It may not be as huge as 2011 or 2012 were, but I want to keep it up. I am having too much fun.

September 2012

September 2012