Talking about 130+ pound loss, publicly.

Hi there! I was invited to be a guest speaker to a group of people at my gym participating in a Biggest Loser type challenge this Tuesday. This will be my first time publicly speaking about my weight loss and I am hoping to get some feed back. I will be using note cards based off the writing below, so please don't bust me on my grammar. Also, if you want to see progress pics feel free to creep on my profile. Thanks in advance!

I’ve struggled with food issues all my life. Obesity doesn’t run in my family. I don’t have a thyroid issue. I had tried so many diets over the years, losing and gaining but always gaining back more. Then I gave up and quit trying to lose. Ultimately I became morbidly obese. No explanation other than I was lazy and I ate too much. The day before my son was born in April 2009, I had a doctor’s appointment and I weighed 319lbs. I had gained 60lbs during my pregnancy. Miraculously I didn’t develop diabetes or have any complications. I was under the impression any weight I gained during my pregnancy would just melt off after delivery, especially if I breast fed. Believing it would be that easy/lying to myself I ate like I was pregnant with a litter, it was delicious. However, I remember being at the doctors for my 6 week post baby checkup and she looked so disappointed in me that I hadn’t lost more weight. I was still 303lbs. Nothing was melting off. I knew I had to do something but didn’t know where to start.

I had heard on a morning show about how beneficial counting calories were in losing weight and so I searched the internet for a free tool and found myfitnesspal.com to help me count calories. I dusted off my Wii Fit and began to actually use it. In 3 months I had lost over 50lbs. I was doing the yoga and strength training exercises on the Wii and was so excited about the progress I was making. I felt great and I weighed about 25lbs less than my pre-pregnancy weight. The weight seemed to have come off quickly and I felt confident. I took my son on a trip to visit my family and when I returned two weeks later I hit a wall. I stopped counting calories and I stopped moving. Over the next 17 months I regained 35 lbs and was hovering around 280.

I was depressed and I was claiming my unhappiness was caused by everything else I believed to be wrong in my life. I knew I had to start eating better because my unhealthy life style was killing me. I have a culinary degree and up until that point I had been using my knowledge to self-sabotage. I decided to start using my powers for good, not evil.
About 3 weeks in to 2011, I decided I was going to eat healthy. It was kind of an uphill battle at home with this decision. At the time my husband was unemployed and we were living off my small salary. Money was tight and buying special diet foods was not in the budget. My husband has always done all the shopping and meal planning so I really had to push to convince him to let me break away from the norm and to let me do my own thing. After a week passed I was shocked to see that I had actually gained weight. Instead of getting frustrated, I logged back on to myfitnesspal.com and started counting calories again. About a week later I was invited to a family wedding on April 9th. I knew I had nothing in my closet to wear to a spring wedding but I did have a dress in the basement that would work the only problem was it was a size 16. At the time, I was a 20…22 on a bad day. I decided then I was going to wear that dress and I needed to get moving.

Now, In the early 90’s my parents bought a Nordic Track and it had been sitting in their basement collecting dust for over a decade. In 2007 I had decided for a minute I was going to get healthy and I rescued Nordie from their basement to assist in my quest. What actually happened was I just moved it to my basement to collect more dust for another four years. I knew using the machine would burn calories and the first time I used Nordie in Feb of 2011, I was disappointed and stopped after a few minutes because the monitor on it no longer worked and couldn’t see how many calories I was burning. Then I thought about it. Maybe the monitor not working was a good thing. Maybe I shouldn’t look at my work out in the terms of how long it was, how far I went or how many calories the machine said I was burning. All those tools in the past had discouraged me and made me feel like I didn’t do enough, made me feel like I wasn’t good enough and I would give up. I decided at that point I needed to base my work out on how sweaty I got. So I loaded up my iPod with a mix of upbeat music and started using the Nordic Track every day after work and on the weekends. At first I could only do 15 min and I built it up in 5 min increments. By March 30 I was able to do 60 consecutive minutes on the Nordic Track. In two months I had not only quadrupled my endurance but I also lost 35lbs. I didn’t have a trainer in my face telling me I could do it either. I had finally developed that inner voice that told me I was capable, I was strong and I could do anything.

In that time I had also shrunk to a size 14. I hadn’t been that size since my junior year of high school. I had to go and buy a new dress. I was so excited to go to that wedding and show off my shrinking butt but no one said a word to me. At first I was upset and couldn’t wrap my head around why no one commented but I quickly realized it didn’t matter. This wasn’t about them, this was about me.

I remember coming home on the plane and being so nervous that I would hit a wall once I returned just like I did 3 years before and then gain the weight back. I told myself I wasn’t going to let it happen and as soon as I got home, before I even unpacked, I was back on Nordie and continued counting my calories. And I did it the next day and the day after that and continued until it was habitual. Over the next 8 months I stayed on track with eating right and working my butt off and I lost another 60lbs. and shrunk to the size I am today.

I have to say, that in retrospect, I am still shocked I was able to change my life. I was the queen of excuses. I was also the queen of the kitchen, my own worst enemy, I didn’t need to go buy donuts, I would just make them. Also, I am the quintessential emotional eater and once I learned to manage the emotional piece of why I turn to food to cope, weight loss became nothing more than a numbers game. Calories in vs calories out, it’s that simple. I also got real about what I ate and started to connect the dots that food is in fact fuel. I learned to block out the diet food industry hype. I hate to tell you this but surprise, those fiber enriched pseudo brownies are not going to help you lose weight and just because it comes from Whole Foods or is gluten free, sugar free and fat free doesn’t mean it is good for you or will get you to your goals any faster. One of the biggest and most beneficial changes I made to my diet was cutting out sugar, especially processed sugar. The first time I attempted no sugar, day 1 & 2 were hard but on day 3 I had the worst headache and was so grumpy but I stuck with it and like magic, by day 4 all my cravings for chocolate and ice cream had vanished.

Because I had so much weight to lose, there were a couple things I did that I believe helped keep me motivated. First, I tried to focus on losing in 10lb increments. For me it was too overwhelming to look at the big picture and focusing on the smaller number helped. Second, I would go to the store and find a pair of jeans on clearance that were two sizes smaller and I would call them my dream jeans. Every time I felt like the scale wasn’t moving fast enough, I would go to my closet and try them on to see my progress. The same effect can be done with measuring tape but having a tangible piece of clothing I felt made it more exciting. Take the following two statements for example “my hips are finally 38”!” vs “I’m finally a size 10!” The third thing was when I worked out I would visualize what I want to weigh or size I wanted to be or what piece of clothing I wanted to be wearing. Your mind is a powerful tool. Make it an asset and not an obstacle. Fourth get real about food. I constantly ask myself “is this something a healthy person would eat or am I just eating my feelings?” It’s hard to stay focused but life throws curve balls in the form of holidays and birthday parties and sometimes it really helps to tell yourself that cake and ice cream is going to taste like broken dreams and regret.

Also don’t be afraid to let your goals evolve. You might be saying to yourself “I want to lose 50lbs in 5 months.” Which isn’t a bad or unattainable goal but if you get to month 4 and you’ve only lost 20lbs and you are still hell bent on 50, how will you feel when month 5 rolls around and you didn’t meet your goal? My point is set yourself up for success and if a goal isn’t working out to your advantage, don’t be afraid to modify it.

Finally, block out all the noise. Stop listening to your inner noise, you know, that voice that tells you that you can’t do it, it doesn’t know what it’s talking about. You have no idea what you are capable of until you try and trust me you will surprise yourself at what you can accomplish. Stop listening to your coworkers or family members telling you how to lose weight. Everybody seems to have an opinion on weight loss and what you “should” do, pay no attention to that. Noise also comes from comparing yourself to others. That person at the gym who you feel is going faster with ease isn’t doing it in spite of you. You can’t let others get you down. Last week, in a class here, a woman asked about my Heart Rate Monitor and how many calories I had burned. When I told her what my number was she said “I bet I’ve burned more because I’m working harder than you.” I could have easily let that get negative, I felt like I was working really hard but really who cares what her opinion is? I know I was pushing myself and that is all that matters. I also had a puddle of sweat on the floor, which was proof enough for me. Push that negative noise out and replace it with positive. That is the best thing you can do to achieve what you want.

The last piece I want to share is that although I’ve had great success, I’m still not finished. I want to have a healthy BMI and I am about 30lbs away from achieving it. I still struggle with accepting the new me and my goals have now shifted to be more fitness based over weight loss. I get approached a lot by others who want to lose and I always get really annoyed when someone asks me “What app did you buy to lose weight?” I just want to shake them and say the app didn’t make me lose weight, I worked my butt off and counted calories. Most people out there want to do this the easy way and it’s not until you realize there is no such thing as a miracle diet or miracle pill and you don’t need to buy anything to lose weight will you make any true progress. So with all of that being said, my best advice is go out there and forget the past. Live in the present, not yesterday or tomorrow but today. If you focus each day on living a healthy life you will ultimately have one.