100 Days, down 68 lbs.

Without going into too much detail (I can be wordy), I have make a real commitment to being disciplined. Losing weight isn't a magical mystery. Losing weight is simply a math problem…if you can burn more calories that you put into your body, you will lose weight. I accomplished this by being disciplined about what I was eating, tracking everything that I eat, educating myself about nutrition, getting creative in the kitchen, and being extremely aware of my intake.

After my first month, I started exercising. I walked 45 miles in February, and 100 miles in March. When I walked, I walked as fast as I could for the entire duration. In those two months, I went from walking for just 20 minutes at first, and getting all the way up to walking for up to 90+ minutes at a time.

This month (April), I switched to the elliptical (my knees and feet were hurting a bit too much with walking). I’m doing 60 minutes a day, 6 days a week on the elliptical. Every so often, I blow it with food and go way over my calories, but the next day I get right back on track and don’t give up.

I fully expect my weight loss to slow down. As I lose more weight, it will become increasingly difficult to lose at the same pace as I am now, but I’m about halfway to where I’d like to be.

Most importantly, I’m not thinking of this as a diet. This is a change in my life; how I eat, when I eat, why I eat, and that exercising is now just part of my day. My goal is to get to a healthy weight where I can be physically athletic again, and then be able to exercise through athletics, rather than the mundane work on the elliptical. I’ll get to the point where I can play squash, basketball and softball 5-6 days per week, without worrying about blowing out a knee or twisting an ankle. This form of activity will be something I look forward to and will be fun and social at the same time. I’ll ease up on some of the food restrictions, but I think I’ll always log my food so that I can maintain an awareness of what I’m doing, and I won’t go back to the binge drive-thru eating, buffets, and other things that sent me so far off-track in the first place.

(that’s me NOT being wordy)