Confusing the words loose and lose is a very common mistake. I don’t want to offend anyone, but this has become a pet peeve of mine. The idea of “loose weight” brings horrible images to my mind. I imagine fat getting all lumpy and muscles hanging loose. Not a pretty picture, is it?

The dictionary defines the verb to loose as “to make less tight; slacken or relax.” That’s the last thing you want to do when you want to reduce your weight. I think what we really want to do is to lose weight so we end up with loose clothes.

Often when people cut their calories but don’t work out, they lose muscle as well as fat. Their bodies end up looking very loose and even gaunt. The right kind of exercise can counteract that and make you look firmer and slimmer.

Tighten Up, Not Loosen Up

You should have the three following components in your plan to get to a healthier, fitter you:

• Cardiovascular exercise, such as jogging or aerobics, is important for burning fat and losing weight. Most people seem to know that.
• Strength training is also very important, but it seems to be more controversial, especially among women. Strength training builds lean muscle tissue, which is much more active than fat. Muscle burns extra calories even while you sleep. Women don’t have enough of the hormone called testosterone to get bulky (unless they take steroids), so you don’t need to worry about that. Instead, it will give you a tighter, more defined look, especially once you’ve gotten the extra fat off your body. Michelle Obama is a good example.
• Proper nutrition is the third leg of this stool. As I’ve stated in other articles, you need to eat a well-balanced, calorie-controlled diet, too.

In summary, you need all three of these components–cardiovascular exercise, strength training, and proper nutrition–in the proper amounts to lose fat, get stronger, and improve your health.

So, please watch what you wish for and watch your language. Don’t say you want to “loose weight” when you really want to “lose it.” In fact, you should actually say you want to “lose fat.” You don’t want your weight loss to include muscle loss. In fact, gaining muscle is a good thing. However, realize that you’re probably not going to gain a lot of muscle, so don’t use that as an excuse if the scale doesn’t budge.

What language do you use when talking about this? What do you think about strength training? Please let me know in a comment bleow.

Robyn

photo by ste3ve

Last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced publication of a study about
trends in obesity among US adults between 1999 and 2008. The study states that the prevalence of obesity was fairly stable from 1960 to 1980, but it showed striking increases in the 1980s and 1990s. This current study indicates that we may have entered another period of relative stability, perhaps with small increases in obesity, although future large changes are still possible.

The study uses a common measure called body mass index (BMI) to classify people as normal weight (BMI 18.5-24.9), overweight (BMI 25-29.9), or obese (BMI 30 or more). BMI is a calculation based on a person’s height and weight.

The obesity rate for women has remained fairly level over the last 10 years. For men, it has been steady for about the last 5 years. Another study showed that the incidence of high-weight children and teens has also stabilized, with one exception. The data showed a still-increasing rate among boys ages 6 to 19 at the very heaviest weight levels.

Even though this is good news for most U.S. adults and children, it doesn’t mean we can relax. The rate needs to go down significantly.

“We’re at the corner with obesity, but we haven’t turned the corner,” said Dr. William Dietz, director of the CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity. He said the data may reflect increased awareness of the problems caused by obesity. As a result, people may be adopting healthier habits. On the other hand, he also said, “I don’t think we have in place the kind of policy or environmental changes needed to reverse this epidemic yet.”

As I mentioned in a previous post, like most studies, this one has some limitations. The data was obtained through surveys, which could be subject to errors. However, this analysis is based on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which is considered the gold standard for evaluating the obesity problem in the U.S. It is an extensive survey of people whose weight and height are actually measured rather than being self-reported.

For me, I’m willing to be cautiously optimistic based on this information. But there are still a lot of really heavy people out there. I know it’s just a TV show that’s designed for ratings, but if NBC’s Biggest Loser is any indication, this country has a lot of work to do.

What do you think? Is this good news, or not-so-good news? Please leave a comment with your thoughts.

Robyn

photo credit: Lars Plougmann

In the previous post in this series, Learning What Works, I talked about sorting through all the conflicting advice to figure out what works for you. This post discusses the last of the five phases I went through. It’s the phase I still consider myself to be in–a new way of living. As a quick recap, here are the 5 phases I’ve identified:

1. Gain the weight.
2. Understand the impacts.
3. Get on the path to weight loss.
4. Learn what works in losing weight.
5. Find a new way of living.

You May Not Want to Lose Weight Quickly

You can find a lot of people selling you ways to “lose weight quickly,” but you’re probably wasting your money. As frustrating as it may seem, the real key to a more permanent weight loss is to lose weight slowly and consistently. Many studies have shown that slower weight loss is more likely to be lasting weight loss. Rapid weight loss often leads to rapid weight gain shortly afterward.

You can’t maintain your loss if you can’t integrate the changes into your normal lifestyle. Both your body and your mind need to get used to a new way of living.

Studies say you should aim to lose 1 to 2 pounds per week, on average. Some weeks may be a little more; some a little less. When I was losing weight, I consistently averaged 1.5 pounds per week. That seemed very reasonable, and I looked forward to getting it off safely but fairly quickly. In hindsight, however, I wonder if that was still too fast, even though it fell within the “recommended rate.” In some ways, I might have been better off losing it even more slowly.

Get It and Forget It?

Getting to your goal weight isn’t the end of the line. Losing weight isn’t a one-time thing. You can’t just assume that once you lose it, you can go back to your old habits and be fine. It doesn’t work that way. It really doesn’t. You have to remain aware of what you’re doing every day.

It’s like decluttering your house. You can go through a big effort and get rid of all the excess junk in your house that has accumulated over time. However, if you’re not careful about stopping clutter from piling up again, you’ll soon find yourself in the same mess. Yo-yo decluttering in your house is bad enough, but yo-yo dieting is much worse. It puts a real strain on your body and makes it harder to lose weight in the future. It can really mess up your metabolism.

Change Your Likes. Change Your Life.

Changing my likes and dislikes is one of the major secrets to my success at losing weight and keeping it off. I didn’t just “go on a diet.” That phrase implies a temporary change that you put up with for a while. To most people, the very notion of a diet conjures up images of deprivation and pain. It’s not fun. No wonder we “go off our diet” so often. Then we wonder why it’s not working.

Instead, work on changing your lifestyle. Develop new likes and dislikes for food and physical activity. That way, you don’t need to think so much about being “on a diet.” For example, I made the following changes in my life:

• I used to eat snack chips and white bread. Now, I eat fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains instead, because they make me feel better and they’re more satisfying.
• I used to drink a lot of Coke and Diet Coke. (I hesitate to admit how much I loved Cherry Coke. I would drink one every morning instead of coffee.) Now, I drink water instead of soda because I prefer it. I can’t even touch a Coke now because it tastes awful to me.
• I used to sit on the couch and watch TV. I couldn’t even walk around the block. Now, I exercise because I love it and I can. I’m even a triathlete and runner.

You definitely need to eat better and exercise more in order to lose weight. However, when I say diet and exercise are important, I really mean improving your nutrition and the amount you eat on a regular basis. I found the following two dictionary definitions of the word “diet” as it relates to food:

1. what a person or animal usually eats and drinks; daily fare
2. a special or limited selection of food and drink, chosen or prescribed to promote health or a gain or loss of weight

The second definition of diet is what helps you learn discipline and how to eat a new way. However, it ultimately comes down to changing your diet as defined in the first entry. It just becomes the way you like to eat.

What are you doing to develop a new lifestyle you love? Please let us know by leaving a comment.

Robyn

photo credit: E. E. Piphanies

Articles in the Series:
Losing 100 Pounds – The 5 Phases
Losing 100 Pounds – Gain It First
Losing 100 Pounds – Waking Up to Weight Gain
Losing 100 Pounds – On the Path to Weight Loss
Losing 100 Pounds – Learning What Works
Losing 100 Pounds – Finding a New Way of Living

This post discusses the fourth of the five phases I went through. As a quick recap, here are the 5 phases I’ve identified:

1. Gain the weight.
2. Understand the impacts.
3. Get on the path to weight loss.
4. Learn what works in losing weight.
5. Find a new way of living.

Conflicting Advice

How do we learn what works? Unfortunately, when it comes to losing weight and getting fit, there must be a million or more suggestions. You need to sort through it and figure out what works for you.

Have you ever thought, “Why can’t the scientists ever make up their minds? Why are there so many diet plans out there? How can I know what will work for me?”

It can be very tough to know. You often see advice on diets, fitness, and health that is completely contradictory. You can read one article that says one thing. Five minutes later, you read another article that says the complete opposite. This is true whether it comes from the popular media or from so-called “diet experts.”

For example, I’ve seen some articles that say what you eat is the most important for weight loss, and exercise doesn’t really matter. Others say exercise is more important. How do you choose between the two? Personally, I believe in a third choice, you need both nutrition and exercise together.

The Harvard School of Public Health has some great tips for cutting through the confusion about various studies reported in the news. In Nutrition Research and Mass Media: An Introduction, they describe how and why researchers often come up with different conclusions when studying a particular issue. The media often makes matters worse by reporting on a single study, usually one that runs counter to current recommendations. Controversy sells, and the media knows it. They give advice to help you decide how important an article is for you. For example, are they reporting on only a single study? How does it fit into the bigger picture of recommendations about the topic?

Weight loss science is very complicated, and researchers discover new information every day. They have looked at questions about how genetics, medications, types of food eaten, blood types, and even viruses can impact your ability to lose weight. I caution you not to get too bogged down in all of this confusing information, especially when you’re just starting out. You’ll make yourself crazy. Keep it simple.

Try Different Things

My best advice is to keep trying different things out until you find what works for you. Just be sure you’re trying out reasonable ideas, not crazy off-the-wall ones. For example, decreasing the amount of sugar you eat is a good idea; eating only cabbage soup is not.

There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of diet plans out there. The same with exercise plans. Each one has probably worked for somebody, and now some self-proclaimed expert thinks they can make money by selling it to you.

It may not matter what the diet plan is. You could pick one of several that would work. In fact, it could work for reasons that have nothing to do with what it claims. Have you seen how many expensive machines, pills, and powders you can buy that promise amazing results with little or no effort? Have you looked at the fine print that says “when combined with a good diet and exercise plan”?

Why don’t you just eat better and exercise more, and save your money for new clothes in a smaller size instead?

Some Common Recommendations

Even though you can find people who will argue about anything, a lot of sources do agree on some common recommendations:

1. Combine changes in eating habits with exercise. Exercise, including both cardio and strength training, is critical when trying to lose weight. Cardio helps burn calories and improve your blood circulation. Adding muscle raises your metabolism and reduces “jiggle.”
2. Reduce the number of calories you eat, but not by too much. (see below)
3. Choose a diet you can live with. Most people who lose weight will gain it back, especially if they lose it by following a diet they can’t live with in the long run. Eventually, they will break down and slip back into old habits. Can you imagine living the rest of your life without any ice cream or chocolate at all? Learn to allow some in moderation, so you don’t go on a binge someday.
4. Avoid crash diets. The recommended rate of weight loss is 1 to 2 pounds per week. This rate is the most likely to result in sustained weight loss. If you lose more than this, chances are you aren’t making sustainable lifestyle changes. Don’t get too anxious.
5. Work on your mindset. Thoughts and emotions surrounding food have a huge impact on your weight loss efforts. For example:
   • get support from other people who understand
   • identify “food triggers” and emotional eating situations
   • focus on the positive aspects of improving your health, not on the restrictions and deprivations

Your Calorie Deficit

To lose weight, you should reduce the number of calories you eat and increase the calories you burn. The total is called your “calorie deficit.” If your deficit is 500 calories per day, you should lose approximately 1 pound per week. A pound of body fat equates to 3500 calories. Don’t attempt to lose more than 2 pounds per week (a 1000 calorie-per-day deficit).

The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends that you never drop below 1200 calories per day for women or 1800 calories per day for men. In fact, these could be too low based upon how active you are. Therefore, cutting down to 1000 calories per day is probably counter-productive. Reducing calories by 15 to 20% below your daily calorie maintenance needs is a useful starting point. Use these as very general guidelines. You will need to experiment to determine what calorie level works best for you. Also, realize that they will change over time as you lose weight and get stronger.

Determine how many calories you are eating now, by checking your intake on a few typical days. You can get information about the calories in your food from nutrition labels (watch the serving size!) and several websites. You can also get information about calories burned based on the amount and type of exercise you plan to do from websites.

To Summarize

The bottom line is use some common sense. Don’t get caught up in the latest fad, figure out what works for you as an individual, and make a series of small changes in your lifestyle that you can sustain over time. You should do fine.

Please remember that I am not a doctor and not a source for medical advice. Check with your own doctor before starting or changing any diet or exercise plan.

Robyn
photo credit: alancleaver_2000

Articles in the Series:
Losing 100 Pounds – The 5 Phases
Losing 100 Pounds – Gain It First
Losing 100 Pounds – Waking Up to Weight Gain
Losing 100 Pounds – On the Path to Weight Loss
Losing 100 Pounds – Learning What Works
Losing 100 Pounds – Finding a New Way of Living

I don’t suggest, expect, or want anyone to completely deny themselves the pleasures of this season. Obviously that includes eating and spending time with family and friends. Just try to stay aware of what you’re eating; stay in the present moment and really enjoy what you’re putting in your mouth. You don’t want to feel sorry in the long run for overindulging. Likewise, you don’t want to feel sorry in the long run for what you’ve given up.

I want to share three articles with you. I think they give some useful advice for getting through, and more importantly, enjoying the holidays. Holidays are meant to be enjoyed. No one wants to feel like Mr. Scrooge (from Charles Dickens’ classic story, A Christmas Carol), who hated Christmas.

One article provides some reasonable alternatives to high-fat, calorie-laden foods you might eat at a holiday party and still enjoy yourself. The second provides a quick 12- to 15-minute exercise routine you can use to burn off several of those calories and give you a head start into the New Year. The third one busts some myths about holiday eating that are often quoted as absolute truths.

I like these articles because they recognize you have choices. You don’t have to be a “victim” of the holidays, unable to withstand the onslaught. Likewise, you don’t have to be a “hero” either. Just be reasonably sensible.

1. Usable Eating Tips for Holiday Parties

I just read a good article about how to cut 1500 calories and a lot of fat from your Christmas meal. I saw it in a newsletter from eDiets.com. It was written by Susan Burke, a frequent eDiets Contributor and someone I know and trust. She starts off this article by asking:

How can you stay healthy throughout the holidays? It’s easy, when you’re a little creative, and a little disciplined too.
– Susan Burke, MS, RD, LD/N, CDE

Susan says a few simple substitutions can save you hundreds of calories and many grams of fat. She then goes on to offer examples of how to do that throughout a meal, from appetizers to dessert.

2. Quick Workouts for Busy Times

For some good advice about how to fit in some exercise in a quick timeframe, I suggest you read Simple Workouts for Busy Women. It’s targeted to women, but men can use it too. This was written by Raphael Calzadilla, who is the eDiets Chief Fitness Pro. He is an amazing source of inspiration and advice for anyone trying to lose weight and/or improve their fitness. I have been a member of the eDiets.com community for several years, and I met Raphael in person a couple of times.

Raphael has written many similar articles, but I particularly like this one for the holidays, when we are often very time-crunched. Here’s how he describes this series of five exercises:

No hour-long sessions in the gym or long bouts of cardio and no living with the guilt of dreading the thought of exercise. Just a realistic alternative to all the “noise” in the world of fitness that makes us hate exercising. No anatomy lessons today, simply something you can do in your living room. The only weight you’ll need is your own body.

This series of movements will take about 12 to 15 minutes. Yep, you are reading correctly. You can do them three to five times per week, and your entire body will be stimulated, and you’ll feel rejuvenated.
– Raphael Calzadilla, BA, CPT, ACE, RTS1

Raphael describes several variations you can do to make each if the exercises both easier and harder, depending on your fitness level. I think he explains how to do the exercises more clearly than many other articles I have seen written by others. If none of these sound doable for you, he gives you some other alternatives as well.

3. Busting 3 Myths

Finally, I found a good article from Cooking Light magazine’s website. It discusses three of the most common myths, describes the reality of them, and suggests “eat-smart” strategies to fight them.

Myth #1: Most people put on five to seven pounds during the holidays.
Myth #2: Eat a lot of turkey, and you’ll be snoozing shortly.
Myth #3: Great cooks and festive parties place our willpower at risk.

I hope you have a joyous and healthy holiday and a happy New Year!

For disclosure purposes:
I have been a member of eDiets.com for several years. It’s a member site that provides excellent advice on both nutrition and fitness. I’m just a member; I don’t have an affilation with them that would make me any money from writing this–at least not as of the time of writing.

cat photo credit: Per Ola Wiberg (Powi) newspaper photo credit: alancleaver_2000

This is the fourth post in my Losing 100 Pounds series, and it discusses the third of the five phases I went through. As a quick recap, here are the 5 phases I’ve identified:

1. Gain the weight.
2. Understand the impacts.
3. Get on the path to weight loss.
4. Learn what works in losing weight.
5. Find a new way of living.

Before I go any further, I should give you a warning. Many of the methods I used may fly in the face of some popular thinking about diets and weight loss. However, I don’t think I ever did anything that might be considered particularly extreme or weird.

I’m not here to sell you a magic milkshake or “fool-proof” diet plan. If you want something like that, you’ll need to look somewhere else. I’m sure you can find lots of places to take your money.

Instead of looking for a miracle answer, I just used my own common sense, feeling my way along one step at a time. At first, I didn’t even follow a specific diet plan. I didn’t think I would be able to stick to a plan in which someone told me exactly what to eat. Besides, I had enough bad habits that changing some of those would have a big impact.

To start my weight loss journey, I made three changes. Each was fairly simple to understand and remember. And because they were simple, cheating was pretty obvious. My new determination, and my fear for my health, made it easy to stick with them. Here are my first three changes:

• walking
• changing drinks
• logging my food and exercise

Walking is an easy exercise for most people to start with. All I had to do was get a pair of walking shoes and head out the door.

At first, I could barely walk a quarter-mile. At that time, I worked in downtown Washington, DC. It seemed like everyone, including both young and old tourists, passed me. But I kept remembering what my nurse practitioner had told me about diabetes and stroke, and I kept going. I walked during lunch at work, and I walked up and down my street at home on the weekends. I kept increasing the time, distance, and speed. After a few weeks, I was able to walk a whole mile without stopping. I remember how thrilled how I was.

Changing drinks had a big impact on my calorie counts. It meant changing ingrained habits, but it wasn’t really all that difficult once I thought about it. I don’t like coffee, but I did like some caffeine in the morning. So, every morning when I got to work, I drank a full can of Coke–usually Cherry Coke. Of course, I’d then have some at lunch or other times during the day as well. I didn’t drink as much Coke as some people I knew, so I figured I was fine–but I wasn’t. That habit cost me hundreds of extra calories each day. I switched from soft drinks to water and tea. Surprisingly, that soft drink habit was easier to break than I thought. Soon I didn’t miss it at all. After being off Coke for a couple of months, I tried one again as a test. I couldn’t believe how awful it tasted to me.

Logging my food and exercise helped to cement the other two changes. I made up a chart with blocks on it for each day of the week. I had blocks for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and exercise. I started writing down everything I ate or drank and all my walking. At first, I just wrote it down. Later, I started adding in calorie information, but I didn’t do that until I was more comfortable with the idea. Remember, one step at a time. Just knowing that I had to write it down made me much more mindful of what I was eating. I found it naturally much easier to avoid chomping on a cookie or munching on potato chips, because it made me stop and think first. Writing down my exercise also encouraged me to do more of that. I could see the progress I was making.

Many people find writing down food and exercise like this really difficult. However, it helped me so much that I kept it up. It was and still is a huge contributor to my effectiveness at weight loss. I kept it very simple. For a long time, I just used pencil and paper because it’s very portable. You can write down things immediately and not have to rely on memory.

You can also use computer programs and online services for tracking your food,. They can provide more information but can also be more difficult to use. I use one of those now, but I just carried around a piece of paper for a long time. I tracked food (and eventually calories), but I didn’t worry about things such as grams of carbohydrates or the ratios of protein, carbs, and fats.

Over time, I added a lot of other techniques and learned a lot of other things. But these three are what really got me started on the path back to good health. Once I got them down, I never looked back. Having that “alarm clock” moment that made my problem become all too real to me is what gave me the courage to do something. Starting with some relatively simple steps made it easier for me to find that something to do.

Does any of this make sense to you? What simple steps can you think of to take? Let us know in the comments.

Robyn

photo credit: prakhar

Articles in the Series:
Losing 100 Pounds – The 5 Phases
Losing 100 Pounds – Gain It First
Losing 100 Pounds – Waking Up to Weight Gain
Losing 100 Pounds – On the Path to Weight Loss
Losing 100 Pounds – Learning What Works
Losing 100 Pounds – Finding a New Way of Living

This is the third post in my Losing 100 Pounds series, and it discusses the second of the five phases I went through. As a quick recap, here are the 5 phases I’ve identified:

1. Gain the weight.
2. Understand the impacts.
3. Get on the path to weight loss.
4. Learn what works in losing weight.
5. Find a new way of living.

As I said in my earlier post about gaining the weight, I ended up at over 240 pounds and wearing size 20 clothes. Of course, I knew that, and I wasn’t really happy about it. But it was always something I thought I could worry about tomorrow. It was too much trouble today.

I would get out of breath and have to stop while climbing up a one-block-long hill across from my office. I had a hard time walking around the block. My knees hurt in the morning when I went downstairs.

I knew this wasn’t good, but I didn’t really know what to do about it or where to start. The whole idea of “dieting” just didn’t sound very possible to me. So I didn’t really do anything.

Who’s Obese? I’m Just a Bit Chubby

By this time, I was well beyond overweight; I was really obese. I plan to tell you more about a measure called the Body-Mass Index (BMI) in a future article, but for now I’ll say this. It’s a measure that considers your weight and your height together. Even though it has its drawbacks, it’s more useful than looking at weight alone. In very general terms, the theory is that taller people are expected to be heavier than shorter people. Scientists use BMI to classify people as underweight, healthy weight, overweight, and obese.

In my case, I was well into the zone of obesity. I had to lose at least 50 pounds just to be considered overweight. It would take another 30 more to get down to the top of my healthy weight range.

The very sound of the word obese makes me cringe. Maybe because it rhymes with grease. It’s a bit like fingernails on a chalkboard. The meaning and its implications are even worse. It means a higher risk of severe illness and death. In more practical, immediate terms, it meant I felt lousy and couldn’t do a lot of the things I wanted to do.

The Last Straw

I have always been pretty good about getting annual physical exams. Doctors had said I should lose weight and get in better shape. I would agree, but it never had that much impact on me. They never really gave me much practical advice, or at least not anything I thought was useful to me.

In early 2004, I saw a nurse practitioner for my annual exam, who I hadn’t seen before. Unlike many of the doctors I had seen before, Mylene was willing to spend some time with me. She finally got through to me and helped me see the error of my ways. Frankly, she scared the absolute heck out of me.

We ran the usual blood tests. She said my bad cholesterol was a bit high, and my good cholesterol was low. But the thing that really did the trick for me was how high my blood glucose (also called blood sugar) was getting. It had been steadily creeping up, and I was now in the “pre-diabetic” stage. That meant I was clearly on the way to getting type 2 diabetes. I was also at increased risk for stroke, heart attack, and other nasty things.

Right then and there, I decided I was not going any farther down that path. I refused poke needles in myself to inject insulin several times a day. I knew several people who had to do it, and it definitely wasn’t something I wanted to do.

The American Diabetes Association provides a lot of good information about pre-diabetes on their website. According to them, if you have pre-diabetes, you can and should do something about it. Studies have shown that people with pre-diabetes can prevent or delay the development of type 2 diabetes by up to 58 percent through changes to their lifestyle that include modest weight loss and regular exercise. The expert panel recommends that people with pre-diabetes reduce their weight by 5-10 percent and participate in some type of modest physical activity for 30 minutes daily. For some people with pre-diabetes, intervening early can actually turn back the clock and return elevated blood glucose levels to the normal range.

The Next Steps

Now that I knew how bad things could really get for me, I had to figure out what to do. As I said before, I knew I should do something, but I didn’t really know how. Mylene, my new nurse practitioner (and savior) gave me three bits of advice and told me to come back in 6 weeks. She said:

• Start walking, even if it’s just for a few minutes to start. Keep trying to walk a little more each time.
• Start a food and exercise log. Write down everything I eat and everything I do for exercise.
• Follow a diet plan. She gave me sample plans for 1200, 1400, and 1600 calories per day.

I started walking that day. It wasn’t far, but it was a start. I had tried this before, but now I had extra incentive.

I also started logging all my food in a journal. I had never tried this before, and it ended up being some of her best advice for me. I still do this. It really helps me keep on track, and it made me much more aware of what I was doing.

I couldn’t really handle following a strict diet regimen at that point. So I put that off, but I did start trying to adjust my diet somewhat. The very fact that I had to write it all down helped make me more aware of what I was eating.

As they say, two out of three ain’t bad. I actually started feeling better within a few days. I was finally on my way to feeling better. In my next post in this series, I’ll describe more about the first few weeks of this new project to get on the path to regaining my health.

Have you reached the tipping point yet? If so, what was your last straw? If not, what do you think it might be? What would it take to wake you up to your situation? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Robyn

Articles in the Series:
Losing 100 Pounds – The 5 Phases
Losing 100 Pounds – Gain It First
Losing 100 Pounds – Waking Up to Weight Gain
Losing 100 Pounds – On the Path to Weight Loss
Losing 100 Pounds – Learning What Works
Losing 100 Pounds – Finding a New Way of Living

As a quick recap, here are the phases again:

1. Gain the weight.
2. Understand the impacts.
3. Get on the path to weight loss.
4. Learn what works in losing weight.
5. Find a new way of living.

I certainly succeeded with the first phase, gaining the weight. As I said in my last post, to lose 100 pounds, you have to gain it first. That’s the bad news. It’s a lot harder to get it off than it is to put it on.

I was thin when I was a child. But when I went to college, I gained the dreaded “freshman 15“. I continued to gain weight year by year after that. The weight gain never seemed truly alarming, but it was steady.

On occasion, I halfheartedly attempted a diet. Once or twice, I even tried to start an exercise routine. I never got very far with either approach. At each point, I thought it’s not really all that critical yet. After all, it was only a few pounds, wasn’t it?

I was in complete denial. Clueless.

A Boyfriend in Great Shape

When I was in my late 20’s, I had a boyfriend who was in great shape. (I’ll call him Charles.) He was fit and ran several miles every morning. Charles described me as zaftig, which Dictionary.com defines as slang for full-bodied; well-proportioned; having a pleasantly plump figure. I thought that actually sounded pretty good. And it was.

But then I kept putting on weight, and it wasn’t so good any more. At one point, Charles told me that he couldn’t imagine staying with someone who got too fat and out of shape. I wasn’t at that point, but I could see the “writing on the wall.” So what did I do?

I left him before he could leave me. I didn’t have enough confidence in myself to say I couldn’t get that heavy.

A Boyfriend Not in Great Shape

I found another boyfriend who was seriously overweight himself. (I’ll call him Len.) I figured I wouldn’t have to worry about getting too fat for him. So I was free to continue getting heavier. (That would show Charles! Was I stupid or what?)

I did get one good thing out of my relationship with Len; he reintroduced me to snow skiing. I even became a Certified Amateur Ski Instructor and taught classes for the local ski club. Skiing helped improve my fitness. It also kept some of the pounds off, but not enough.

After Len and I broke up, I started taking ballroom dancing lessons. Soon, I was dancing 5 or 6 nights a week. I even won a few trophies in local competitions. Although I was still overweight and could never have made it onto Dancing With the Stars, I got into pretty good shape as a result. For once, my weight gain seemed reasonably under control as well.

Then I Got Married

A couple of years later, I met and married Doug. My roommate and I had started doing sports car rallies. Those are contests in which you drive on back roads, following instructions exactly, and get timed at checkpoints along the way to measure your accuracy. We thought it might be a good way to meet some nice guys. It worked. I met Doug, who was president of the local rally club at the time.

Doug never liked the idea of skiing, so we didn’t do that. I was still dancing, and he agreed to take lessons for our first dance at our wedding. I thought he would continue after we got married; however, like a lot of guys, he decided he really wasn’t interested in that either.

Now that I was a wife, I didn’t want to do things like go away on a ski vacation or dance with other men. Instead, we did things that Doug liked, which were sports car rallies and going to baseball games. Unfortunately, both of those involve not much more than sitting on your butt. Neither one burns many calories, but I kept eating the same way.

The pounds really started to pile on. Eventually, I reached a size 20 dress size and XL shirt size. I bought a fancy, new, digital bathroom scale. I thought it might somehow magically help the weight go away. Amazingly, it did help a little, just because it made me a bit more conscious of it, but it couldn’t work miracles by itself.

Hitting the Peak

The highest number I ever saw on my scale was 244, but that was the day after Thanksgiving, so I figure I don’t have count it. Instead, I generally use about 240 pounds as my “highest” weight. (It’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. Hah.) In addition to weight, my new scale measured body fat percentage. Bathroom scales are notoriously inaccurate with that, but mine showed that over 50% of my body weight was fat. More than half! No matter how inaccurate the scale might be, I couldn’t ignore that number. What a disgusting thought!

I managed to lose a couple of pounds over the next few months. At least I wasn’t gaining, but I was struggling. I kept hoping to get a cold or the flu, because I could usually lose about 5 pounds when I got sick. However, that wasn’t a very effective weight loss method. I usually regained it.

It wasn’t until I saw my doctor and got the bad news about my health that I really managed to turn things around. But I’ll talk about that in my next post in this series.

Were you as clueless as I was about your weight? What made you realize it was really a problem?

Robyn

photo credit: db*photography

Articles in the Series:
Losing 100 Pounds – The 5 Phases
Losing 100 Pounds – Gain It First
Losing 100 Pounds – Waking Up to Weight Gain
Losing 100 Pounds – On the Path to Weight Loss
Losing 100 Pounds – Learning What Works
Losing 100 Pounds – Finding a New Way of Living

In early 2004, I carried over 240 pounds on my 5-foot 7-inch frame. I freely admit now that I was a couch potato. I was in lousy shape and poor health, and I was getting more unhappy and unhealthy as time went by. However, I really had no idea what to do about it.

Sixteen months later, I had become a 140-pound, healthy, fit woman, and I have stayed that way.

Losing that 100 pounds transformed me in many ways I never expected. I have become much healthier, happier, and more confident. I’ve even become an athlete, something I never imagined could happen. I’ve run a dozen triathlons, three half-marathons, and many shorter running and swimming races.

I feel quite proud of this. It took a lot of determination and perseverance. People often congratulate me. At the same time, I can’t help feeling ashamed and angry at myself. Why did I ever let myself get that way to begin with? If I hadn’t gained all that weight, I wouldn’t have needed to lose it.

Here are the 5 major phases that I went through in this whole process:

1. I had to gain all that weight. This was the easy part, just as it is for most people.
2. I had to recognize and fully understand the impact all that excess weight was having on me.
3. I had to get on the path to regaining my health. I had to figure out which path to take.
4. I had to learn what worked for me as I went along.
5. I had to learn a new way of living. Once I had gone through all that effort to lose those pounds, I wanted to make sure I can keep them off.

How Did I Do It? The Short Answer

I know you want an easy answer. Unfortunately, there isn’t one, despite what all the weight loss commercials say. As I said in my first post, there isn’t a magic pill or formula to make it easy.

I lost all of that weight, all 100 pounds and more, using the tried-and-true method of diet and exercise. Although I was probably heavy enough for gastric bypass surgery, I really didn’t want to go through that.

I did it all through a series of small steps, learning more and more as I went along. One of the big keys to it is a good motivation. For me, it was my health. For others, it might be wanting to be there in the future for their children.

What’s the reason for you? If you’re overweight, can you identify a good reason that will move you to lose some pounds? If you’re not overweight now, can you think of a reason to stay that way? If you’re underweight (I don’t want to ignore the very real problems of anorexia and bulimia), can you think of a reason to heal your body image? In all cases, what is a good reason for you to get more fit and strong? Please share your thoughts.

Robyn

Articles in the Series:
Losing 100 Pounds – The 5 Phases
Losing 100 Pounds – Gain It First
Losing 100 Pounds – Waking Up to Weight Gain
Losing 100 Pounds – On the Path to Weight Loss
Losing 100 Pounds – Learning What Works
Losing 100 Pounds – Finding a New Way of Living

Have you figured out how to handle this feast without paying for it in pounds? I’m not going to kid you. It’s tough, but it can be done.

How I’ve Done It

I used to weigh 240 pounds, until one day I finally realized it was going to kill me and how much it hurt. I’ll tell you more about that in future posts. For now, let’s just try to get through Thanksgiving. These techniques and others helped me lose 100 pounds in 16 months, and they continue to help get me through the holiday season each year. When I was working on losing the weight, I managed to stay exactly the same weight the day after Thanksgiving and continued to lose.

We’ve probably all seen lots of tips on how to avoid overeating on Thanksgiving. I’m not going to repeat them all here. Besides, trying to remember a whole lot of rules, much less actually follow them, can be a recipe for disaster (pardon the pun).

So here are my top 5 tips, along with some warnings:

1. Plan ahead and eat a variety of foods. Don’t deny yourself all your favorites, but make sure you eat appropriate amounts. Eat more of foods that will fill you up with fewer calories.

Warning: Salads and soups can be good for you, but not all of them are. High-fat salad dressings and creamy soups can go right to your waistline.

2. Eat only the foods you really love when eating high-calorie items. I use this same rule when I go on cruises. Make sure you do eat the more healthful foods, such as white-meat turkey and steamed vegetables. Eat a tiny sliver of pumpkin pie for dessert, if you need one. Savor the taste of every bite.

Warning: Don’t use this as an excuse to fill up only on the high-calorie items like chips and pecan pie.

3. Follow the “one-plate rule.” This one has been the most important tip for me. It’s also the easiest tip to follow, because it’s really simple. I take a medium-sized dinner plate (not a small one, like some people say) and fill it with food following the guidelines above. Then I don’t go back again. That’s it.

I find that I get in the most trouble when I say I’ll just get one more bite of this or that. The next thing I know, I’ve filled my plate up again, usually with things I don’t really want all that much.

Warning: Fill your plate, but don’t put a huge pile on it. That’s defeating the whole purpose.

4. Drink as much water as you can. Turkey and other Thanksgiving foods tend to be high in sodium. Water helps flush that out, so you can cut down on that bloated, puffy feeling you can get. It also has the added benefits of keeping your hands and mouth occupied. Some say it helps fill you up, too. To be honest, I’m not so sure of that, but it certainly can’t hurt.

Warning: I can’t really think of any warnings needed for this. Drinking water is always a good thing.

5. Get some exercise. Go for a walk or run. Enjoy the outdoors. If you’re up for a bit more of a challenge, try a “turkey trot” in the morning. These are low-key, friendly races. Although you can find some longer ones, most of them are 5 kilometers long (3.1 miles), and you can walk or run. Many of them also have 1-mile “fun walks” with no competition pressure at all. Many of my friends have had a great time doing these with their kids.

After eating, consider playing football instead of watching it. Record the game and watch it later if you must. Besides the health benefits, you can skip all the annoying commercials.

Warning: Don’t assume that you can eat as much as you want, just because you got a little exercise. Check out the calorie calculator I mentioned above to see how much exercise you might really need.

Helpful Calculators

This fun and simple Thanksgiving calorie calculator will estimate total calories for you and tell you how far you would have to walk to burn the same number of calories. It can be very eye-opening.

The calculators for food calories and calories burned at CaloriesPerHour.com are my favorites for helping me plan and track what I’m eating and doing.

Closing Thoughts

In summary, embrace Thanksgiving and don’t be afraid of it. Just remember these simple rules, enjoy your family and friends, and keep everything in moderation. You’ll feel better both physically and emotionally.

You can also follow these tips in other situations, such as parties and vacations. I’ve even gotten through those notorious food-laden cruises without too much damage to my waistline, by following these simple rules.

Let me know how you do. Do you have any other tips that have worked particularly well for you?

Robyn

photo by LarimdaME on flickr