Big Three Weight - Phase One

I’ve once again found myself sitting down and having to have that serious conversation with myself.  The one that starts off with a “Look you can do this!  You’ve done it before and it wasn’t *that* hard.  It just takes self control, motivation and keeping the big picture in mind.  It just takes passing up what ever fatty bad for you food that sounds good at the moment, for the idea of a smaller waist line.  And when you are down to pulling out the bigger sizes of clothes or wearing pants that stretch all the time, well you know you have to do something.  That is usually my breaking point, and I’m there.  I’ve actually been there since the beginning of the year.  I just have been stalling on the getting started part. 

The back story would be at the beginning of 2006 I weighed 183 lbs, which for some wouldn’t be to heavy, but I am only 5 foot.  I lost about 25 lbs at the beginning of that year and managed to keep most of it off for the next few years.  Gaining a little and losing a little, here and there.  I started the year 2010 at 153ish lbs.  And in March of last year I was at my lowest weight ever in my adult life (and really at any point in my life that I remembered).  I was happy because at 138.4 I was down 15lbs for the year and a total of 45 lbs since I first started my weight loss journey.  Now only that, but I was with in reach of my first goal weight which was 127. 

I don‘t have a good excuse.  I stopped counting calories, stopped weighing my food, stopped caring about portion sizes and now today, I am sitting around 157ish.  Totally frustrated, because have I gained back what I lost plus some.  I have no one to blame but myself, plain and simple!

I also know that no one can do this for me.  It is up to me.  And frankly I’m tired.  I’m tired of having a closet full of clothes that I can’t wear because they are for a 140lb body, not an almost 160lb body.  You can only squeeze 20 extra pounds into some things.  I’m also tired of avoiding the mirror, of not being happy with myself, or being pissed at myself for being stupid and gaining back the weight.  Oh how I can keep going, but I know that the negativity isn’t going to get me anywhere. 

I must refocus my attention back to that serious talk I mentioned earlier.  I have to be positive, rather than beat myself up for past mistakes.  They are in the past and I have to move forward.  This is me moving forward.

First thing I feel strongly about when it comes to weight loss is that I feel doing things healthy is the best way to do it.  I do not agree with fad diets that give you a list of odd items that are okay to eat, and suggest you stay away from other things like veggies and dairy.  I do not believe in taking pills, shots or restricting your calorie intake to an outrageously low number.

I do believe in the good ole food pyramid, as well as moderation and portion control.  I believe what I do today, this week and this month to lose weight is something that I need to be able to still do in six months or a year from now.  Even though my past ups and downs with the scale may not suggest that, that is mainly is because I got lazy and did what felt good at the moment, rather than looking at the big picture.

While I will say that losing weight isn’t as hard as we all make it out to be, it does take work.  It takes mental work.  It takes self control.  It takes saying no when you really want to say yes.  It also takes exercise.  It gets easier the more you do it.  You just have to keep it up and figure out what works best for you.

I sat down and wrote out some things I know I need to do to help me get back on this adventurous journey.  I believe in baby steps.  Meaning I believe in breaking things down to make them seem more manageable.  If I came up with a list of 20 things to do starting tomorrow, I wouldn’t make it through the day before I screwed up and decided to give in.

I’m going to call my first group of baby steps Phase One.  Phase Two may come along at some point, or it may be focused more on the maintaining the weight loss.  I’ll take that step when I get there.  But for now…

Phase One:

1.  Drink more water and tea and limit myself to one diet drink a day.

2.  Start writing in the food journal daily.

3.  Use up foods (that I cooked) in freezer that don’t have calories written on them.

4.  Start measuring and calorie counting everything I cook from this point forward and mark the calories on the package when I freeze.

5.  Continue to menu plan, but to also include calories and add snacks.

6.  Limit fast food for lunch and choose healthier options.

7.  Exercise.

8.  Weigh weekly.

I have learned that rather than be vague, like I was with exercise above, that you should list out how you are going to do things.  Just saying you are going to exercise doesn’t really help you and you aren’t really sitting yourself up with a productive plan.  You should say something like I will exercise for thirty minutes five times a week.  At this moment, I’m still figuring the exercise part.  I will have to dig my elliptical out from the jumble of my living room before I can even use it.  That is why it is low on the list, because I know that as long as I am doing the items above it, and weighing in, I am doing a lot more than I was doing. 

That’s a start, and a start is what Phase one is about to me. 

Let me just add…

If you have stumbled along and landed on this page out there in the blog world, let me tell you, the three things that helped me lose the first 25lbs were simple.  They were something anyone and everyone could realistically do, with out having to give their life an overhaul.  When peopled asked me how I lost the weight I simply said “I gave up cokes, walked, and watched what I ate.”

I lost 3lbs alone when I switched from cokes to water, and that was before I did anything else.  I walked on a treadmill, started off at a mile and was up to 3 miles a day.  And when I said I watched what I ate, it wasn’t anything extreme.  I didn’t cook special foods, didn’t give up everything in the world, I just tried to eat less and make better choices.  I decided I didn’t need so much butter and cheese on veggies.  I ate smaller portions of fried foods and so on.  Which if you cook for others, this is probably where I would start, so you don’t freak everyone out. 

I had gotten more strict with my food and calories in 2010, but that is because to be at the weight I want to be with my height it shouldn’t take a large number of calories to fuel my body.  If you are taller you get to weight more, meaning you get to eat more.  I’d be jealous of you taller people out there, but then I have to remember I never have to worry about having to find pants and skirts long enough for me.