How I Did NOT Lose 98 pounds

audreanna76

AMAZING!!!! And truly inspiring. Congrats on all of your success

DeadMarsha

Awesome post! Great advice, thanks for sharing! And congrats on your progress!!

Bigjayinga

Great job, congrats on your lifestyle change

JWB42

WOW!! Great job and VERY inspirational! Thank you for the advice!

Laura80111

bumpity bump to read later

chunkydunk714

Your success shines through your smile!! Congrats

WeightHacker

freaking awesome and those are the things i do right now. set mini goals and everything so great things to share with people who doesnt know.

ksumme

The Don't(s)

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.

Each point is so right on!! I am really bad about 2 and 3. I also am bad about focusing too much on how much I STILL have to lose, which again keeps me feeling and treating myself as that unworthy fat person - no matter what the other successes I've had.

Thank you so much for the great post, and incredible inspiration.

LikesVeges

Thanks for taking the time to share... and for the links! Your insights are invaluable to me, as I am again starting the journey. Great work!

floridaboater

Wow...you did amazing and should be so proud! Thanks for sharing your story!!!

larnsperger

WOW amazing story! Thanks for taking the time to share. You are so right about maintenance, it is much harder than losing well at least for me. Losing is like a game with a pay off, maintenance is hard when you are no longer losing. I understand eating disorders in a way I never did before. I understand how women can get so caught up in losing they just keep going.

Wishing you continued success!

chezileigh

Cor, you look 10 years younger well done!

Jmstill300

Well done! You hit the nail on the head with the majority of your points as well. I know this struggle all too well myself.

fat214

Wow

wheezybreezy

This was such a great post! Thank you. And you congratulations!

Caligalslim

Great advice you have help me out a lot. Congrat on your goal.

era228

Thanks for sharing your story and your words of wisdom. And congratulations on reaching your goals - you look like you feel great!

essjay76

CONGRATS! You look amazing!!

mocha608

Great post Jeanne!!!!! Thanks for sharing your story. It helps to know that I am not alone trying lose weight. I have lost weight before and gained it all back and then some. My goal is to live a healthy life style along with exercising daily. Hopefully, I will my reach goal on the weight that I want to lose.

Congrats to you and thanks for encouraging me to not to give up on my goal. Have a great day!

mscrholder

Exactly what I needed to read, especially the part about losing weight fast and exercising like crazy. Thank you so much for sharing! You look phenomenal, and your story is even more phenomenal!