I've been contemplating fitness and weight loss my entire life.
Things were rocky junior year in high school and I ate. Gained 20 pounds. Worked a few off after I resolved issues from junior year- or rather, got back to normal.
I had a taste of freedom freshman year in college- drank and ate my face off. Eating and drinking carelessly begets eating and drinking carelessly. (Playing two collegiate sports OBVIOUSLY didn't help.) Gained 20 pounds.
Junior year of college I tore my medial meniscus after I tried to slide tackle a player during a game early in the field hockey season (I'm a reformed goal keeper ;-) I didn't prepare for the season at all and I got to watch someone try to steal my spot.
Got on the HerbaLife bandwagon winter of junior year to drop some lbs and saw success. Was it the HerbaLife or that I lost 20 pounds? I DIDN'T CARE! I was running better, fitting into smaller sizes- the whole deal.
First year post college (basically freshman year of life) another taste of freedom led me to eating and drinking my face off- and I gained another 20 pounds. I've been working ever since to do anything for some stability.
And then I got pregnant.
I've gotten so many wonderful comments post baby about how much weight I've lost, or how great I look- and believe me, I relish it- because when there I'm not tracking it, or I have too much freedom- my health and numbers used to measure such things- it all runs a muck. I have NO self control when there aren't rules when it comes to food and drink.
Post baby I dropped weight asap- you know how I did it? I wasn't eating for 1.5 anymore, I was breastfeeding exclusively for five months, AND most notably I wasn't drinking case of beer that I used to drink pre-pregnancy each week (the beer I enjoyed ranged from various crafts to coors light so let's use Blue Moon as a point of reference. One, 12 ounce bottle of Blue Moon = 171 calories. x 24= 4104 each WEEK. That's an extra two entire days of food.)
This Christmas, I read the Four Hour Body dropped another 15lbs after following the slow carb diet. With hardly any exercise- only the eating plan. I do yoga (pretty vigorous- I'm in teacher training!) twice a week but nothing other than using my shake weight or grabbing 70 kettle bell swings once a week. I also measured body parts once a week, upped the water intake and stayed honest to the plan until I reached my goal of 15 pounds.
The upside is the obvious effects on the scale.
The downside- I'm scared to not follow it. Seriously. Scared.
How many of us don't trust ourselves to be off of a strict plan? I go hard...or I go home and eat on the couch. I know I can't be trusted without rigorous restrictions because I'll sit on the couch and eat 80% of the left overs from this tray. I did it this weekend. I'll eat and entire container of spinach dip and the bread that's needed to get it into my mouth. I can go on serious binges. And as I mentioned earlier, snacking begets snacking.
Here's a good little article talking about it.
So, there's no silver bullet to weight loss- but from my experience, it really starts and ends with food. I was convinced when I was in college that since I was playing two sports I could eat as much as I wanted. Now I see (at least for myself) that exercise and fitness should be about fun- doing something we enjoy. I enjoy yoga so that makes it easy for me to do. I like the way it makes me feel and think. But running? I HATE running. It's boring, tiresome and I get hurt every time...so NO THANKS, I say!
I'm working on my relationship with food with this plan. What are you dudes doing? What works and doesn't work for you?
Comments
so if you find out the way to lose weight when you're not concentrating 24 hours a day on food please let me know!
1. Drop twenty pounds by being too depressed to eat.
2. Be too poor to afford food for the next couple of years.
3. When you start to gain weight, replace meals with a diet coke and a cigarette.
Voila! I hope I live to see 40.