I didn't start a diet in January, I started a new lifestyle, and it feels good. It's been hard work, but it hasn't been torture. I know that having success has probably made it easier to stay on track, and that the coming months are going to bring changes to life that will make it a little more challenging, but I have the confidence that I can maintain this life. I have to.
When I reached my all time highest weight at the end of 2011, I bought a gym membership and I went to the gym 5 days a week. I started watching what I ate, food journaled, and used Sparkpeople to give me helpful info and motivation. I started a fitness challenge at work with a group of co-workers and everyone had varying levels of success. I lost about 20ish pounds and got back to the weight I had been holding pretty steady at for most of my adult life. I was able to start wearing my wedding rings again after not being able to for months, because they were too tight.
But I wasn't doing it right. Or at least not right in the sense that it was going to be something that I could do forever. I hated it. I didn't look forward to going to the gym, I hated food journalling and I felt deprived. I also felt extremely daunted by the number of pounds that I had to lose.
I wasn't doing the exercise part of it right either. I went to the gym 5 days a week, sometimes 6, but all I did was cardio. I would sweat my butt off on the elliptical for an hour at a time. Cardio is hard, and it makes sense to people just starting a health and fitness change, like I was, that if its hard and makes you sweat, that it is the best way to lose weight. The weight machines were intimidating and I didn't want to look like an idiot, so I stayed on my elliptical. My gym had great staff and I could have had help but I figured that cardio was the way to go. Hindsight is 20/20 though, and I know now that I could have run on that elliptical from now until eternity and never lost the weight that I wanted to lose.
In February of 2012 I found out that I was pregnant again. I have terrible
Cut to the fall of 2012. Baby #2, H, was born at the end of September. I'm one of the lucky ladies that doesn't gain much weight while pregnant (maybe the only upside to puking multiple times a day for months) and by 6 weeks after he was born I was at pretty much the lowest weight I had ever been as an adult. I went and got measured for a bridesmaid dress for the wedding of two of my best friends, and ordered the dress to those measurements. I was close to the next size down and the man that owned the bridal store suggested I order that smaller size...his logic was that I had just had a baby and would probably lose some more weight. I told him that I was a light as I was probably going to get and that I didn't want to have the stress of fitting into a smaller dress. I also knew that I probably wasn't only not going to lose weight but that I would likely gain some and didn't want to end up with a dress that really didn't fit.
And gain I did. Between mid November and mid January I gained about 13 lbs. I was adapting to having 2 children to take care of, so I was busy, but I was also bored and I am definitely a bored eater. I was nursing, so I rationalized it in my brain that I needed extra calories to produce enough to feed H. The general theory was correct. A nursing mother should eat a few more calories. But a mother that is obese probably doesn't really need that many more, and they should probably come in the form of extra fruit and grains and protein. Not in the form of cookies and other junk food that I was getting them in.
In mid January I measured my waist, the most fitted part of the bridesmaid dress that I needed to wear, and my waist was 4 inches bigger than when I had been measured for said dress. Uh oh. I had eaten myself into a dress that was too small and needed to lose weight before the wedding.
So I got a gym membership again. Same gym, now in a new location. (My gym is awesome. 24/7 swipe card access. Staffed hours are pretty good too, but the fact that I can go any time I want is a big plus, especially when I go back to work this fall. And the staff and other members rock too!) I only got a 3 month membership because I wasn't sure how often I was actually going to get there. It was fairly convenient when I was working because I would be in that city anyway, but we live 20 minutes out of the city and I wasn't sure if it was going to fit with life to actually get there. I went on my own for awhile, doing the same thing I had done before, sweating on the elliptical. My next door neighbour and her husband both had memberships that they really weren't making full use of, so she started going with me, which was great because it was that little bit of extra motivation to get me there. It's harder to cancel plans on someone else than is it to just lazy out on yourself!
Neighbour J and I also braved some of the classes offered at the gym. I had seen one of the trainers (Trainer Awesome) doing parts of her classes at the gym when I had gone before I got pregnant, and to be honest, she kind of scared me! That seems so silly to say now, because she is one of the most friendly, motivating and supportive people I've ever met, and an awesome trainer. Her classes got me off of the elliptical and are currently kicking my butt 6 days a week! But at the time we first started, both Neighbour J and I were scared! But we did it. We walked in to a packed room of people who ALL looked like they were in better shape than me, and also looked like they knew what they were doing, and we didn't have a clue. But it only took one class for me to be hooked!
The classes were tough (and still are) but in a good way. My body rebelled at first and for days after a class I could barely make my muscles do anything I wanted them to without agony. We used to see some of the regulars (and Trainer Awesome has lots of regulars) come to classes almost every day of the week, sometimes more than one a day, or doing a class friday evening then another one Saturday morning, and wonder how on God's green earth they could do that?!? I didn't think my body would ever be able to do that! Slowly but surely though, we started to be able to get to more classes each week, not needing days and days to recover.
And now? My body can totally do that! I go to class at least 5 days a week, and usually get there on my own at least one more, if not 2 more....so 6-7 days a week. And I LOVE it! The gym has become my addiction. And I am reaping the benefits.
One of the best benefits to date....I bought workout shorts today that are a size medium. All of my life I've had to buy 2xl, if they were even big enough. Medium feels awesome!
