What I did in 2014

After a bit of courage from my FL I decided to share my success story with you all. Especially for the mothers that are out there.

I started here in January of 2014. I was roughly 80kilos (177lbs). I had a baby in 2011 and one again in 2012. I am the wife of a serving military member and so often I would find myself on my own with the kids while my husband was away for exercises or a deployment or what have you. I also live no where near any family so I am often on my own for long periods of time.

In January, I chose to lose the post baby weight gain and get back to being strong and healthy. I started by lowering my calories and logging my food. I went too low at first with a 1200 cal/ day plan but I stuck with it well enough. After I made some great friends here I was convinced to bump up my calories to 1450 a day and pretty much stayed at that level until recently. I also ate back my calories that I burned from exercise so many days I'd end at a deficit at 1700 or so calories.

Every day I got out and did something for exercise. It started with just brisk walking, and because my husband was often not home to watch the kids, that meant I brought them with me. I'd put them in a double stroller and walk fast for an hour. I got a heart rate monitor to more closely see how hard I was working, and if I was in my target heart rate zone and what my caloric burn was for that time (I know there is debate over the accuracy of HRM but it worked for me). So that's what I did for the year. When my husband was home I could go out on my own and go running , and I started to go for regular hill climbs and stair climbs and running up hills. Sometimes I'd put one kid in a back kid carrier and another in a stroller and push them up the big hill. Whatever it took to bring them with me and still work out.. I did it. I also started doing at home body weight exercises if the weather was bad.

So here I am. From January 2014 at about 80kilos (size 14+ clothes) to end of December 2014 at 58 kilos (Australian size 8 clothes which is American size 6).



I'm not done either. I plan on regularly lifting and making changes to how I exercise. I'll move to maintenance soon too.