How I Did NOT Lose 98 pounds

JeanneTops

Yes, I've lost 98 pounds. I started on my birthday in December 2009. A year ago, I'd lost 88 pounds and reached a healthy BMI. Since then I have lost an additional 10 pounds. This past week I observed my one year anniversary of being at a healthy BMI.

Last year I wrote a long post about how I did it which you can read here:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/314505-success-before-sixty

From Day One, my goal has been to not gain the weight back. I've yo-yo'd all my life and I just didn't want to go through all this effort to gain all the weight back yet again.

So, I didn't do a lot of things that you commonly see here on MFP. I think of these as the mistakes I made in the past.

1. Lose weight quickly.

The stress of restricting eating, exercising like crazy and worrying about my weight would be too much to bear long-term. Something always happened and I'd ease off, gain weight and give up.

2. Set short term weight goals.

Inevitably I'd miss them and then feel like I was failing. Probably it was just my natural weight fluctuation. But regularly feeling like I was failing left me, at the end, not feeling like the success I was. Without feeling like a success, I had no self-confidence about dealing with the natural difficulties of life and I would start over-eating again.

3. Focus on how much weight I'd lost.

All that did was keep reinforcing my self-image as a fat person. I was a fat person who'd lost weight. This time, I focused on how much I weighed and how good I looked. I threw away my larger clothing and bought new stuff all along the way and really worked at feeling happy with how I looked and felt. I refuse to answer questions about how much I've lost - I just say "a lot."

4. Dream about how happy I'd be when I reached my goal weight.

It's weird but you have to learn how to be happy. Just being at your goal weight doesn't automatically make you feel happy - at least not for long. The compliments stop, the thrill of losing weight stops, the ordinary trials and tribulations of life continue and sooner or later something goes wrong in your life. If you haven't learned how to be happy through all those, then you won't be. This time, I focused on being happy at whatever weight I was because I focused on enjoying my food, enjoying my exercise and enjoying how I looked and felt each and every day. Now I have the habit of being happy and I know how to get through the lows of life.

To sum it all up, my motto is: Work on Today, Let Tomorrow Worry About Itself.

Everybody loves Before-and-After pictures so I'm going to post mine. You can see my previous weight losses on this blog post: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/JeanneTops/view/official-135794

All I'm going to say is that the way I look now (on the right) is EXACTLY how I wanted to look when the picture on the left was taken. (Note the same style and color scheme!)

Best of wishes to all of you.

prov31jd

Great post! Thank you for sharing your story, and big congratulations to you on getting healthy, and STAYING healthy!

minuet42

Congratulations! This was exactly what I needed to see this morning, so thank you!

Christi6604

Great posting. I totally agree with all your points, and it's very refreshing to see.

Congratulations.

Marla64

vacherin

You look fantastic. And what a well-written post. WELL DONE!

jess7386

4. Dream about how happy I'd be when I reached my goal weight.

It's weird but you have to learn how to be happy. Just being at your goal weight doesn't automatically make you feel happy - at least not for long. The compliments stop, the thrill of losing weight stops, the ordinary trials and tribulations of life continue and sooner or later something goes wrong in your life. If you haven't learned how to be happy through all those, then you won't be. This time, I focused on being happy at whatever weight I was because I focused on enjoying my food, enjoying my exercise and enjoying how I looked and felt each and every day. Now I have the habit of being happy and I know how to get through the lows of life.

To sum it all up, my motto is: Work on Today, Let Tomorrow Worry About Itself.

As someone who frequently eats when I'm stressed or things don't go my way, this is very helpful for me. I will try to remember your words next time life catches up with me.

Great job!!!! I know you'll keep it up!

rhymeswithfox

You look beautiful! Thanks for the great advice, you are so right

Casey2844

Love this post!

And, you look AMAZING!! :-)

NCchar130

Thank you so much for posting this. I really needed to read this today. I'm a yo-yo dieter too.

Congratulations on your weight loss, you look wonderful!

pudgyfriend

What a great example! You are an inspiration!

vtmoon

First you look amazing. Secondly, that is some solid advice there, I tend to dream of that smaller weight but mine is normally for the extra stuff I will be able to do while being a lighter person.

girish_ph

Wov - you look gooood!

Yet that advice that you gave us - its solid - real solid. Thanks dear

00Melyanna00

This was a great post!
Thank you so much for sharing and congratulations on your success

Anna800

Congratulations you did a fantastic job! Love the new hair color as well!

LoraF83

Congrats on your success! A common sense approach pays off :drinker: :bigsmile:

obrendao

Beautiful and amazing. I am taking your advice to heart. Thanks for sharing this, you just made my morning!

Fani2003

I love all of your points but one really hit me:

3. Focus on how much weight I'd lost.

All that did was keep reinforcing my self-image as a fat person. I was a fat person who'd lost weight. This time, I focused on how much I weighed and how good I looked. I threw away my larger clothing and bought new stuff all along the way and really worked at feeling happy with how I looked and felt. I refuse to answer questions about how much I've lost - I just say "a lot."

I am struggling with this now. The person I was but never felt like, the person in the mirror right now, and the person I want to be. This is good guidance.

VanessaGS

I agree. I'm taking it Day by Day also.

shannon0876

You looked beautiful before and amazing after!!!! Congrats, and thanks for the inspiration!

ksarkarati

I absolutely love this post! Thank you so much for your wisdom!

ChitownFoodie

Awesome post. You look great!

lesleypajles

WTG!! Congrats on your success.

angeljamin

Congratulations and thank you for sharing.

vkruithof

Thank you for helping us understand and hopefully helping us heal with your words!

alarae

Love your post! I think I should copy it and put it up on my mirror for a reminder.

andiimarie

Best advice I have read in a long time! Thanks for posting and congrats on your success!

MsDivineM

Thank you for this post! Its awesome, especially to those of us who think of this as a chore everyday. I have only been "working" at losing weight for 3 months and I feel I have been successful, 35 pounds! You have done an amazing jib at How You Did Not Lose 98 Pounds! Thank you again! You look wonderful!

treehugger215

Good work!! And great post, I totally agree

ps you look AMAZING

almamiranda

You look amazing! Thank you for the great advice.

erintheinfj

4. Dream about how happy I'd be when I reached my goal weight.

It's weird but you have to learn how to be happy. Just being at your goal weight doesn't automatically make you feel happy - at least not for long. The compliments stop, the thrill of losing weight stops, the ordinary trials and tribulations of life continue and sooner or later something goes wrong in your life. If you haven't learned how to be happy through all those, then you won't be. This time, I focused on being happy at whatever weight I was because I focused on enjoying my food, enjoying my exercise and enjoying how I looked and felt each and every day. Now I have the habit of being happy and I know how to get through the lows of life.

To sum it all up, my motto is: Work on Today, Let Tomorrow Worry About Itself.

As someone who frequently eats when I'm stressed or things don't go my way, this is very helpful for me. I will try to remember your words next time life catches up with me.

Great job!!!! I know you'll keep it up!

This really struck home for me. I often find myself thinking about all the things I'll do when I get "there". I know, deep down, that I've missed out on a lot of good things in my life because I was too busy being focused on thinking about how I'm going to look in the future. I am definitely not as happy as I could be.

I'm bi-polar and there are days when everything just seems so incredibly hopeless and I either get depressed, anxious, or panicky. And then I eat. I'm also going to try to remember your words the next time this happens to me. I feel like they'll be able to help me push through.