As a lifelong FFF (Full Figured Female) you can bet your bottom dollar, and thousands of mine, that I have tried just about every single diet out there; Atkins, Southbeach, Weight Watchers, Body Type Diet, Eat Right For Your Blood Type, Paleo and I've even been Vegetarian and Wheat/Gluten Free. Whew, I got tired just writing that.
The point here is, I am 27 years old and have spent the majority of my life, I would say a good 22 years, focused on my body size. Focused on hating my size, shape, weight, height, features; basically hating everything about myself. There has not been a day in my life that I can remember not being concious of the way that I look. It is quite sad to say that one of my first distinct memories as a kindergardener, at the age of 5, is being made fun of for being "as big as a thrid grader". And so my body issues began. A five year old should NOT be body concious. Period.
Fast Forward 2 decades or so and that 5 year old body concious little girl is all gown up and still has all the same issues. Having tried everything I knew to try and completely out of hope for any sort of lasting result I gave up. I decided that I was not going to try to change anything anymore. I decided that it was time to try and learn self love. This led me to begin writing my very first blog, Learning To Love What's Good For Me.
During the process of writing that blog I decided that I would begin working out because it was a healthy thing to do. So I joined the local YMCA and began to work out 5 days a week with a friend of mine at 5:45am. We did Spin Classes, Bootcamp Classes and a Couch To 5k Program. I did this for 6 months faithfully and the results were ASTOUNDING!!! I lost a total of 7lbs.
WHAT??????????
I thought I was over this whole thing before, but that was the absolute last straw. I completely gave up on working out and went the other direction. I refused to do anything at all and as a result gained about 20 lbs. Well that's just fantastic! NOT!!! I mean, come on what's a girl gotta do to get some results around here!!! I found myself in the middle of that cliche 'darned if you do, darned if you don't'.
Well, that wouldn't last long. I heard through the grapevine about an iPhone app called 'My Fitness Pal', I checked it out, downloaded it and began to track everything I ate. I mean EVERYTHING! It turns out that over 60 percent of the foods I thought were healthy or good choices for me were actually horible and sabatoging my weightloss. For instance, I never would have thought that Chicken Fajitas with all the fixin's was lower in calories and fat by more than half of that of a Dinner Salad. I mean salad is the healthy choice! NOT! Take for instance a Buffalo Chicken Salad at a local restaraunt chain is over 1000 Calories, add chips and salsa, and a drink and you have consumed just about 2000 calories in 1 meal! That's a whole day's worth of food in 1 meal!!
I had a lot to learn, but I was excited about it and for the first time had a glimmer of hope about having success in this area of my life!
In the course of 5 months I lost about 40 lbs simply by cutting my daily caloric intake down to 1200 calories and tracking everything I ate using My Fitness Pal. I took a handful of vitamins every day that helped me with my food cravings and stay hydrated. I did not do any work out regemin other than going to a local dance/zumba studio 1-3 times a week for their KrunK class (Hip Hop Fitness). I weighed myself once a week early in the morning and took my measurements. Overall, I was stoked because I finally had success!
The end right? Happily ever after to me? Well, not exactly.
I grew tired of contstantly focusing on my diet and what I could or could not eat. I stopped logging my food into My Fitness Pal altogether and told myself that I was able to control my diet without it. I told myself that I didn't need it anymore. I was good! I was wrong!! I went 4 months without doing this and during that time gained 10 lbs back!
So, back on the bandwagon I went! But this time I had another weapon in my arsenal. A newly released book titled The Skinny Rules written by Bob Harper from The Biggest Looser. I began reading this book and within the first week dropped 4.6 lbs! YES!!! So, I decided that I would begin to write a blog chronicleing my experience as I read through this book. I hope you enjoy reading about my journey and actually encourage you to buckle up and hold on tight, I have a feeling it is going to be a bumpy ride.
No comments:
Post a Comment