Dipping My Toe In The Weight Loss Waters

tanyaheartsfrogs
tanyaheartsfrogs Posts: 49 Member
in Motivation and Support
Here I go again. I've started this journey many times with some success but I've never reached the goal.

My story is like many others...never really a heavy person but not skinny either. 8 years ago I realized I had gained 30 lbs without even noticing. I joined WW and started running and within a few months I had dropped 20 lbs. Then got lazy and went back up 10, then got my ish together and lost the 10 and the cycle has repeated itself over and over but never getting back to my heaviest or ever getting down to the goal. Just cruising in the middle.

So here's my plan: I plan to love myself and not be too hard on my body. I will start off slow. This week the goal is to increase my water intake to 8 cups per day. I had really been lacking and I can see how it has affected my skin. Every week I'll add another aspect of weight loss to the mix.

Goals: This week's goal is to drink 8 cups of water a day.
Long term goal is to drop 8 lbs by the last week of March (baby's 2nd birthday)
Longer term goal is to be down 14 lbs by the first week of May (when I'm running a half marathon)
Longest term goal is to be down 20 lbs by my birthday in September.

Wish me luck, health, and motivation!

Replies

  • Stella3838
    Stella3838 Posts: 439 Member
    Come on in! The water's perfect. It'll take work, but I think you have some good goals. Wishing you the best!
  • aflane
    aflane Posts: 625 Member
    You have some great goals. However, may I recommend an additional long term goal? Log all your food using a digital scale to measure quantities.
  • tanyaheartsfrogs
    tanyaheartsfrogs Posts: 49 Member
    aflane wrote: »
    You have some great goals. However, may I recommend an additional long term goal? Log all your food using a digital scale to measure quantities.

    I will! Thank you!
  • tanyaheartsfrogs
    tanyaheartsfrogs Posts: 49 Member
    Stella3838 wrote: »
    Come on in! The water's perfect. It'll take work, but I think you have some good goals. Wishing you the best!

    Thank you! I know I can, I know I can, I know I can.
  • tanyaheartsfrogs
    tanyaheartsfrogs Posts: 49 Member
    This week I'm incorporating a workout. I'm going to do the 30 day shred and continue to drink 8 glasses of water per day.

    Yesterday I had a really bad day. I felt so bad about my body. I can't hide the weight gain and I feel like it has consumed me. I have to get my ish together!!!
  • julie2038
    julie2038 Posts: 142 Member
    Remember you said in your original post that you are going to love yourself and not be too hard on your body??? So you had a bad day, but overall a better week, right? I truly believe loving yourself right where you are at has to come first before big changes happen. That is what happened for me. Slowly, each day when faced with a food choice, I would ask myself, how am I going to feel tomorrow about eating this today? If the answer was I'm going to be sad, disappointed, disgusted with myself, then I didn't eat it. If I could say yes I will go over my calories for the day, but I just want this and I am just plain going to enjoy this, but most important I will not be beating myself up over it tomorrow, then I ate it. Each day I found myself making choices that were best for my mental and physical well being. Hope you have a great day!
  • lilawolf
    lilawolf Posts: 1,690 Member
    I'd like to point out that your goals, while reasonable, don't qualify for "slow". You don't have that much to lose, so 8 pounds in 7 weeks, and your LAST (which are always the slowest) 20lbs in 27 weeks is not an overly easy goal.

    If you really want to do it slowly, which I think is a great plan, you might need to change your dates just a bit. Don't get discouraged! You'll get there!

    I gained back 14lbs myself over the last year so I understand.
  • tanyaheartsfrogs
    tanyaheartsfrogs Posts: 49 Member
    julie2038 wrote: »
    Remember you said in your original post that you are going to love yourself and not be too hard on your body??? So you had a bad day, but overall a better week, right? I truly believe loving yourself right where you are at has to come first before big changes happen. That is what happened for me. Slowly, each day when faced with a food choice, I would ask myself, how am I going to feel tomorrow about eating this today? If the answer was I'm going to be sad, disappointed, disgusted with myself, then I didn't eat it. If I could say yes I will go over my calories for the day, but I just want this and I am just plain going to enjoy this, but most important I will not be beating myself up over it tomorrow, then I ate it. Each day I found myself making choices that were best for my mental and physical well being. Hope you have a great day!

    You are so right! Thank you for reminding me. I really did feel so disappointed in myself but I'm on the mend. I crushed both of yesterday's goals.
  • tanyaheartsfrogs
    tanyaheartsfrogs Posts: 49 Member
    lilawolf wrote: »
    I'd like to point out that your goals, while reasonable, don't qualify for "slow". You don't have that much to lose, so 8 pounds in 7 weeks, and your LAST (which are always the slowest) 20lbs in 27 weeks is not an overly easy goal.

    If you really want to do it slowly, which I think is a great plan, you might need to change your dates just a bit. Don't get discouraged! You'll get there!

    I gained back 14lbs myself over the last year so I understand.

    Thank you for your feedback! You are right to point out that I may need to re-evaluate my goals. When I said slowly try to lose weight I think I really meant that I would slowly incorporate changes that will lead to weight loss. In the past I have tried to make drastic changes from one day to the next and they would inevitably be too hard to do and I would give up completely. This way, I have time to get used to one thing (drinking enough water) before I jump to the next (working out) and so on and so forth.

    I plan to re-evaluate my goals every four weeks or so to make sure I'm not setting myself up for disappointment. The goal is to not give up this time!

  • nightengale7
    nightengale7 Posts: 563 Member
    lilawolf wrote: »
    I'd like to point out that your goals, while reasonable, don't qualify for "slow". You don't have that much to lose, so 8 pounds in 7 weeks, and your LAST (which are always the slowest) 20lbs in 27 weeks is not an overly easy goal.

    If you really want to do it slowly, which I think is a great plan, you might need to change your dates just a bit. Don't get discouraged! You'll get there!

    I gained back 14lbs myself over the last year so I understand.

    This. First thing I thought when I saw your goals was, "Wow that's fast!" Pretty much everyone on here says the last 10-20 lbs are the hardest to lose and take the longest. I've seen people on here that have mentioned it took them a year or more to lose the last little bit.
    Please don't think I'm discouraging you, in fact I think it's great you want to really get healthy and in shape! I just don't want you to give up like you have before because you didn't give yourself a realistic amount of time to lose the weight.
    You can do this, one day at a time!
  • Lizzy622
    Lizzy622 Posts: 3,705 Member
    Just a hint. I try to focus my goals on things I can do and control. When my body finally decides to drop the weight is not completely under my control. I do control how much water I drink and how often I workout as well as what I eat.
    Right now I am trying to build up to a one hour workout. I also do not look at getting to a certain weight as my final destination. I can always go farther by becoming stronger or faster or more flexible. Never stop trying to better yourself.

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