Weight Struggles Are Real

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Ok, let’s get serious about our weight, health, and fitness level. I am supposed to get on a plane in just over 18 weeks and I do NOT want to be this heavy when I do that! I’m here to tell you that weight struggles are real! It doesn’t get any more real than I am about to. Grab something to drink and get comfortable, this will be a long one, but it can’t be helped.

I am hoping some of you will be motivated by similar reasons (shorts, tank tops, swimsuit season, etc.) to tag along on this journey with me. So, let’s go!

STEP 1: Find out how many calories you must be eating to maintain your current weight. That will give you an idea where you need to start. You can plug in all your info to find out that number at http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html

 

 

STEP 2: Have you always told yourself you were large boned but had nothing to base that on? Well, you can find out for sure at http://www.superskinnyme.com/body_type_calculator.html

 

STEP 3: Be honest with yourself. Track your life for a couple of weeks just to figure out what is going on. Track whatever foods and beverages are going in your mouth. Are you getting enough water? Do you get enough sleep? Are you getting enough fiber in your diet? (Don’t snicker, it’s important!) What about the other nutrients? How many calories are you actually consuming each day? Don’t do anything different, just keep track of everything for a week or two so you have a starting point and can see what needs to be worked on most.

Be honest with yourself. Track your life for a couple of weeks just to figure out what is going on. Track whatever foods and beverages are going in your mouth. Click To Tweet

MY HISTORY: I have had PCOS for years decades. I have high blood pressure and sleep apnea too. I was diagnosed with diabetes in October 2005 and at that time I weighed 305 pounds. The doctor turned me lose after announcing that diagnosis and told me to eat meats and veggies, no carbs, no fruits, just meats and veggies. She said if I had any questions, I could find the answers online at Web MD. I was terrified that if I ate the wrong thing I would end up in a diabetic coma. I lost weight pretty fast because I was afraid to eat. I had gotten down to 252, but it has crept back up a bit and stayed there going up and down but always within the same 5 or 10-pound range. I held my weight there wearing the same size clothes for six or seven years.

MY WEIGHT RECORD ( in numbers and photos):

My bridal shower. FYI: I made that shirt!

16 Aug 1989 – 228.8
1st child born in 1991
05 Jun 1992 – 250
2nd child born 1993
06 Aug 1994 – 264
27 Mar 1995 – 273
22 Jun 1998 – 269.8

04 Jun 2003 – 304
11 Oct 2005 – 305 (highest ever)

October 11, 2005, Heaviest weight ever at 305 pounds and diagnosed with type 2 diabetes

01 Jan 2006 – 276.4
03 Sep 2006 – 252.0 (lowest in years)
01 Jan 2007 – 259.0

September 16, 2007, joined SparkPeople.com

If you want to join SparkPeople, use my Referal Link, please.

I will add in actual quotes from my SparkPeople blog posts and profile in italics.

September 18, 2007 “I know I can lose weight, after all, I did lose about 50 pounds just a couple of years ago and have only gained about 15 of that back and can still wear the clothes I bought that actually fit when I was at my lowest weight. They don’t fit quite as nice mind you, but they fit and I refuse to let myself buy any clothes of a bigger size.

I just have not been motivated to eat great or do much movement at all lately. Been feeling kind of blah, not really bad or sick or anything just not great and energetic or anything. Kind of a slug, a blah slug. I am hoping to change that. Taking my measurements today gives me a starting point. Posting my old fat pictures made me a bit sad because I realized I could have done so much more fun stuff with my kids when they were little if I hadn’t been carrying enough extra weight to equal another person with me. I found the file I recorded some of my weights in over the years and was thrilled to see that I weigh less now than I have since way back in 1995 unless you count those pounds I lost and gained back in the past couple of years. It feels kind of good to know that I can and have lost weight, feels kind of like taking an eraser and getting rid of the weight I wish I hadn’t gained and getting to have a do-over. Well, this is my fresh start. This is my do-over. We don’t always get that chance and I want to take this chance and do better.”

01 Jan 2008 – 273.2 (I got too comfy I guess)
20 Jun 2008 – 262 (making progress)

June 20, 2008, taken at an appreciation lunch at work.

August 5, 2008, on vacation in Washington, DC (at the Crime and Punishment Museum if I am not mistaken)

09 Aug 2008 – 260.8 (after vacation)
19 Oct 2008 – 256.6
11 Jan 2009 – 269.2 (Oh No! We need to stop this trend NOW!)
I weigh myself every day so it never sneaks up on me again!

June 13, 2009 (Unloading the van for a family reunion.)

October 1, 2009, at my 25th class reunion

December 31, 2009 “I was recently recording my average weights in the spreadsheet I designed for just that purpose and realized that while I didn’t really lose any weight this year, I didn’t really gain any either. I noticed that my weight has consistently stayed between 263 and 268 all year and I consider that a big deal. Not gaining is always good.
I have been plagued with foot problems and it seems every time I get my pedometer to 10,000 steps a day my foot gets badly blistered and I am out for the count.”

August 24, 2010 (I’m playing corn hole as an activity during a road rally.)

March 9, 2012 (This is why I don’t often take selfies, YIKES!)

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Began using MyFitnessPal app Labor Day, September 3, 2012, at 264.9 pounds

Using the MyFitnessPal app to track food intake and exercise.
“Got a FitBit One for Christmas 2012 and still using that to track steps, sleep, etc. Love it! Still use it daily even after over 5 years! I have replaced the clip/carrier and the night-time wristbands a couple of times, but the unit itself is still working great!”

“The absolute best thing for my weight loss journey has been having my hubby (and 20 yr old daughter) doing this with me. Together, we are changing old, bad eating habits and making new, better habits instead.”

21 Jan 2013 – 233.4 (trend reversed Thank God!)
2 Mar 2013 – 223.8 (guess I finally lost the baby weight 21.5 years later!)

 

 

The absolute best thing for my weight loss journey has been having my hubby doing this with me. Together, we are changing old, bad eating habits and making new, better habits instead. Click To Tweet

April 4, 2013, at about 219 pounds

April 24, 2013, at 216 pounds – Showing off my new haircut.

25 May 2013 – 207.8 (So close to getting into ONEderland)
8 Jul 2013 – 203.2 (officially over 100 pounds lighter than my heaviest ever of 305)

September 14, 2013, at 196 pounds (I was trying on some of my daughter cast offs to show her I could now wear her old clothes. Yes, it freaked her out but she had lost weight and they were too big on her so I kept the green fleece and got rid of the black one as I was too old to wear that style/design)

20 Sep 2013 – 194 (under 200 and planning to stay that way!)

October 12, 2013 reached my initial goal of 190 pounds! (I wasn’t sure I’d ever get there!)

19 Oct 2013 – 193

November 11, 2013, at 194 pounds
These were taken during a family cabin weekend. I tried riding a motorized stand-up scooter and managed to flip it backward. Showing off my skinned elbow and knee. Lesson learned!

It was a huge struggle to keep my weight at or below 190 and by mid-December, it was going back up. On December 31, 2013, I weighed 195.6 pounds.

In January 2014, “I discovered SimpleGreenSmoothies.com. Hubby and I have been enjoying regular green smoothies ever since. I am eating a lot more variety of fruits than ever before because most of my hangups with fruit are about texture not taste.”

In February 2014, my doctor took me completely off my diabetes meds and said she wouldn’t consider me diabetic anymore, except one you are you will always be diabetic. She said it was now considered under control with diet and exercise.

On July 8, 2014, “I discovered the Healthy Women Get Fit Challenge and jumped into that on day 2 of the program. I completed the challenge that lasted thru Labor Day, and have continued to do those workouts along with walking with Leslie Sansone for over 150 days in a row now. Coach Jonathan and Coach Erik are great and so positive and motivational.”

06 Sep 2014 – 196.6 (fighting to keep it off!)

On December 31, 2014, I weighed 205 pounds.

June 1, 2015, taken at work (still wearing the fleece I swiped from my daughter!)

The photo below was taken the first night we were in London. On September 19, 2015, I weighed 228.2 before going to London, then on September 27, 2015, after we got back I weighed 228.4 because we walked some serious steps while there, and I messed my feet up pretty bad walking over 18,000 steps one day. It took a long time to recover from that and my podiatrist basically told me I needed to stop walking like that. Oddly enough, my feet don’t blister up when I walk in place with Leslie Sansone, just when I walk out and about, which is usually for longer times and distances and if I am walking with hubby at a much faster pace than I am comfortable walking.

On December 31, 2015, I weighed 243 pounds.

On December 30, 2016, I weighed 262.8 pounds.

In September 2017, my new doctor put me back on the diabetes medication.

October 16, 2017, taken on our trip to South Lake Tahoe, California.

I am just not good at taking selfies!

On the other hand, considering I never wear any makeup, my skin doesn’t look half bad for a member of the over 50 club!

 

On December 30, 2017, I weighed 273.2 pounds.

14 Jan 2018 – 276.0 (I lost the fight to keep it off)
08 Apr 2018 – 280.0 (This has got to stop!)

So, now that we are back from our time travels, here I am trying to decide if I dare post this. Part of me says it won’t matter, nobody reads my long-winded blog posts anyway. The other part of me says that with my luck, THIS is the one blog post that will go viral and everyone will know how much I weigh and about all my struggles. Even my hubby doesn’t know these numbers! My sisters might, but that is about it.  I am a fairly private person. I only share what I am comfortable with the world knowing and the rest I hide and suffer over in silence. I have been puttering around with this post for several weeks. I AM tracking my weight almost daily (a habit I can’t seem to stop) on MyFitnessPal. I recently started logging ALL my food and drinks in the app again. I KNOW it works, I’ve done it before and lost about 75 pounds. I just have to keep doing it every day for the rest of my life and staying under the calorie suggestion. I currently have it set to lose 2 pounds a week. I also have my diary unhidden so anyone on my friend list can check to see what I am eating on any given day. I like checking in to see what my friends are eating to reach their goals and have tried many new products and foods this way. Think of it as another way you might inspire someone to do better but also a way to hold yourself accountable.

Here are the charts from MyFitnessPal with all these weights enter and another with my weights from the last 6 months. I am being accountable and showing you some of the cool ways you can see your progress with the app.

I obsessively track most things in my bullet journal anyway but never gathered it together with the weight. I was scared. What can I say? I LOVE creating spreadsheets and tracking stuff in Excel!

As you can see, I finally got down slightly lower than I started the year, and am not quite to where I should be to meet my 2 pounds a week goal, but I’m still losing so that really means I am winning, right?

So, you want to know how I am doing it? I have subbed sugary breakfast cereals with Green Smoothies. I make them for Hubby and I the night before and put in the refrigerator in our cool Tupperware Cups with lids and straw ports. I find the recipes for these yummy smoothies in these books: Simple Green Smoothies, 10-Day Green Smoothie Cleanse, and Lose Weight By Eating Detox Week. These smoothies are the only way most fruits or kale make it into my body. Most of my hangups with eating fruits and some veggies are completely texture issues, so “smoothie-fying” them is the best way for me. Now don’t get squeamish, you really don’t taste the greens. They are more like healthier milkshakes to me.

I am also trying to eat less in general. I heard author, Kristen Martin, say on her podcast, that she tells herself “Food is fuel and workouts are energy”. Every time I want to eat something I shouldn’t I repeat this to myself. It is helping me retrain my brain.

So, anyway, now that you know all my secrets, you can follow along and help hold me accountable and keep me motivated to not only lose the weight but to keep it off for good this time. I have created a Secret Facebook Group where we can share our progress and what works or doesn’t with the members and we can all support each other. If you want to join, please friend me on one of the weight loss platforms I already use (SparkPeople, FitBit, or MyFitnessPal) or Facebook and ask me to add you. You can also ask me in person. Inside the group, we can post photos of what we are eating, share recipes, post screenshots of our workouts or whatever would be useful to you. I really need your help if I am to succeed in getting and keeping the weight off.

 

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