On Weight Loss

I lost quite a bit of weight prior to the wedding, though I should really caveat this and say that I did not lose weight BECAUSE of the wedding. Rather, I lost weight and being skinnier at the wedding was a fringe benefit. I realized last summer that I had let myself go a little bit and cringed whenever I saw pictures of myself, and really, I am too young to be feeling that way. I'm also far too cheap to buy myself new clothes (smaller or bigger) so I had to do something.

I definitely don't advocate losing weight "for your wedding." Really, there is already so much stress on people who are getting married, that adding food depravity in there is just horrible. If you are going to lose weight, do it because you want to, and in a healthy manner, and not because you have to fit into a dress. Buy a dress that already fits you.

I did it, I don't know how much weight I lost because I don't trust scales, but my clothes are a lot looser and people at work definitely commented - considering they see me every day, that was big. So I decided to share how I did it.

Note: This post is about how I personally got myself on some kind of fitness/weight loss plan. I am not an expert and what works for me might not work for you.

I didn't really do a whole lot different. I didn't join Weight Watchers, I didn't go on Jenny Craig for a month like someone said I should ("Because it's easy!"), and I didn't crash diet. I didn't buy Lean Cuisines. I did try the one hundred push up challenge but I stopped after 3 weeks because I think I was doing them wrong and my shoulder hurt. I also didn't want to be on any kind of plan where I couldn't have something. I know myself, and if I can't have something I will want it more. I also don't think that depriving yourself of treats is particularly healthy, physically or emotionally.

The only thing that worked for me was keeping a food diary.

This was absolutely necessary for me, because prior to keeping the diary, I was already dancing 4-6 hours a week. That's a lot! And yet somehow I was still chubby. So I went online and surveyed a few sites and determined I needed to stick to about X calories per day. The weight loss was probably half a pound per week, which was very comfortable, I rarely felt hungry. A lot of sites say that 1 pound a week is good, but the caloric intake for that amount of weight loss was just too small for me.

Let me tell you, keeping a food diary is the most depressing thing. It forces you to be honest. Every little thing has to go in there, from "just a couple" of m&ms, to really estimating your meals (there is no way that serving of spaghetti is only 500 calories!), to the little bit of sugar I put in my coffee. It's tedious and it's a pain and some days it's so depressing when you're hungry at 6pm but you've already eaten your caloric maximum for the day. It also doesn't have to be complicated - just a small notebook would suffice. Or, in my case, Google Calendar, where I can see exactly the days I stuck to it and the days I cheated.

Oh yeah - plan for a cheat day every week. Keep yourself sane, you can't be perfect all the time! For me, I needed to have a weekend day to have brunch and maybe a cheeseburger for dinner and not feel bad about it.

I'd also like to say, that I kept this food diary for a good 3 months before I noticed any results. If some plans say you can see results in a few weeks, it's a lie - well, at least for me.

So there you have it. Simple, but not easy.