I lost 50 pounds!

I just lost 50 pounds...50 pounds! I never had a moment in my life when I even thought that I had 50 pounds to loose. Actually I have lost 51 pounds and 9% body fat. I am in shock.

January 19th, 2008, I weighed myself. The number was 204 ( i am 5' 7'', athletic build). It was the day I said something had to change. I never thought that something was 50 pounds.

I am a personal trainer and fitness instructor by trade. I spend my days helping others achieve their goals: weight loss, overall health, stress relief... I had a burnout in 2003 followed by a major depression and a diagnosis of Bi-Polar Disorder, accompanied by anxiety. It took me 12 hospitalizations over 4 years to get back on track. Why did I burnout? I was teaching to many fitness classes.

So I stopped and got an office job. My mind continued to be challenged but my body sat down for four years, with some downhill skiing interspersed. I continued to eat like I did when I taught 15 hours of fitness classes in 5 days.

The day after I weighed myself in January 2008, I found out I was pregnant with my first child. I started to change things from that day. I consulted a nutritionist and got some practical advice about adapting what I eat. It's not that I make bad food choices, it's that my portions were to big and the proportions of the food groups on my plate were not balanced.

I had done the full tour of the antidepressants and the anti psychotics, all of whom list weight gain as a possible side effect. So it was normal that i was gaining weight. Right?

I eat because it feels good. Because I like mac and cheese on a rainy day, because Nanny's casserole is yummy, because it's a waste to throw out food, because what would happen if I was out of the house and got really hungry and had no healthy food choices, so I better eat now, because I hate the feeling of being really hungry (and irritable, and a having a headache), I eat because I have control over so few things in my life but I do have control over what goes in my mouth.

I started to swim. Four times a week for an hour. I started to walk. As much as I could with a growing belly. Twenty minutes on a lunch break, from the back of the parking lot to the store.

I gained 2 pounds during my pregnancy. When my son was almost a year, I went back to work which included teaching 6 fitness classes a week. Slowly my body started to change. The day before I delivered my daughter, 2 years and 10 days after my son was born, I weighed 178 pounds, down 26 pounds from my weigh-in that shocked me into taking action.

After my daughter was born, I started gaining weight again. I am blessed to have the privilege of carrying my children and feeling them dance in my belly. However I throw up every day from the moment the test is positive to the moment I arrive in the delivery room. Eating during pregnancy is a necessity, not a joy. Eating after pregnancy is catch up time.

I went back to work teaching two classes a week two weeks after my daughter was born. At the 6 week mark in my daughter's life I started to log on MFP. I downloaded the app to my phone. I just wrote down everything I put in my mouth and every calorie of exercise. Then the numbers started to drop.

What changed that made it work? I like results, numbers, concrete things, black and white, yes and no. Being able to see how many calories are in a cup of Nanny's casserole or a glass of milk has made me aware of my caloric intake. Seeing how many calories I burn in 2 hours of downhill skiing has made me aware of what it takes to shed a pound of fat from my body (and it has rekindled my inner ski bum).

Now i have a concrete goal (6 pounds, 16% body fat to go) and i am motivate by that little line that keeps going down on the graph.

Do I have bad days? Do I slip? I am I perfect? Yes, yes and far from it. I was hiding the Easter eggs for the kids and helped myself to 2 Cadbury cream eggs and about 12 mini caramel eggs. I was at my sister in law's baby shower and ate constantly for about 4 hours.

I take a spoon full of my own medicine. I often say to my clients 'don't worry if you miss a class or eat junk food. Tomorrow is another day. You can start fresh'. That's what I do. When I eat way too much or don't get in a workout, I don't get hung up about it. I just start fresh tomorrow.

The math of weight loss is pretty straight forward, it's the psychology of the endeavour that is the challenge for me.

This morning i got in the scales. 153 pounds, 35% body fat. Wow. That's 51 pounds and 15% body fat from the day 3years, 3 months and 12 days ago when I decided I needed to change.

Wow.