If you have been following along you will know that I have over the course of a few years lost a significant amount of weight.
I was thinking some of you might be curious as to how I did it.
Well it wasn't easy it takes a lot of dedication and resolve.
First let me paint this picture for you.
At my peak I was 190lbs (86kg for you metric types) so being only 5'8" inches tall (172cm) that put a lot of extra weight on my frame. I was never very muscular or such to really look good carrying that much extra on my frame.
This was about 2006ish, middle of the year.
Not only was I feeling fat and thinking I was going to have to increase my pants waist size yet again. I just wasn't feeling good.
I was running out of energy and just feeling blah.
It also didn't help that I spent 12 years as a consultant on the road traveling from client to client. There were weeks I could empty five different fast food bags out of my car at the end of the week.
It was at this time I realized I need to change something.
One thing I did was reduce what I was eating. No I didn't starve myself it was really stop eating everything in front of me and stop eating to the point of being overstuffed.
Everyone in my family suffers from this habit, if there is good food in front of us. We keep eating, even if we should stop. As long as there is still something to eat.
I really had to teach myself it was ok to leave something on the plate.
Next I cut out soda and as much excess sugar as I could.
Side note: I am not a coffee drinker. I cannot stand it. So my one vice is a small bottle of regular soda in the morning for that little pick me up. Though I found my local store selling these cute 12oz bottles that work perfect, just enough to get me going without drinking a 20 or 24oz of sugar I don't need.
I keep my desserts small and only a few times a week. As I mention instead of eating a full pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, I break it out of 8 - 10 sittings.
Really the big changes I made was to cut down my calorie intake to a respectable level yet not starve myself.
I eat more fruit and vegetables along with more salads. I have totally cut out fast food. I don't touch it and haven't in several years.
Doesn't mean I won't eat something like a hamburger but I am going to go to a quality place and have a really good one if I am going to splurge like that.
For example, if I go to a steak place I don't get the 22oz porterhouse. I stick with the 8oz fillet and order vegetables on the side.
I also try to snack a lot smarter then I used too.
On top of all that I try to exercise more. Even if it is just getting out and taking a long walk sometimes with the dog. As the weather get warmer I'll try to get some cycling in also.
The key was when I started doing this I had to just let it work. The body is an amazing and mysterious machine. Crashing it doesn't work as well as adjusting and letting it adapt. For the first four or five months I saw little to no return on the what I was doing. Then suddenly the weight just started peeling off over the next few months.
I simply never changed what I was doing. My body adjusted and started processing things differently. Slow and steady works extremely well in this case.
As I mentioned in a comment from another post. I still keep up what I am doing. Which allows me to indulge myself now and again and not see any changes in weight gain or anything like that. Because I don't keep indulging over and over.
It really came down to a dedicated lifestyle change and just letting nature take it's course.
Even if I wasn't Trans and preparing for a transition, I am glad I did this. I feel better, have more energy and my health has been stellar.
Still there is much less of me then there used to be. /wink
I was thinking some of you might be curious as to how I did it.
Well it wasn't easy it takes a lot of dedication and resolve.
First let me paint this picture for you.
At my peak I was 190lbs (86kg for you metric types) so being only 5'8" inches tall (172cm) that put a lot of extra weight on my frame. I was never very muscular or such to really look good carrying that much extra on my frame.
This was about 2006ish, middle of the year.
Not only was I feeling fat and thinking I was going to have to increase my pants waist size yet again. I just wasn't feeling good.
I was running out of energy and just feeling blah.
It also didn't help that I spent 12 years as a consultant on the road traveling from client to client. There were weeks I could empty five different fast food bags out of my car at the end of the week.
It was at this time I realized I need to change something.
One thing I did was reduce what I was eating. No I didn't starve myself it was really stop eating everything in front of me and stop eating to the point of being overstuffed.
Everyone in my family suffers from this habit, if there is good food in front of us. We keep eating, even if we should stop. As long as there is still something to eat.
I really had to teach myself it was ok to leave something on the plate.
Next I cut out soda and as much excess sugar as I could.
Side note: I am not a coffee drinker. I cannot stand it. So my one vice is a small bottle of regular soda in the morning for that little pick me up. Though I found my local store selling these cute 12oz bottles that work perfect, just enough to get me going without drinking a 20 or 24oz of sugar I don't need.
I keep my desserts small and only a few times a week. As I mention instead of eating a full pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, I break it out of 8 - 10 sittings.
Really the big changes I made was to cut down my calorie intake to a respectable level yet not starve myself.
I eat more fruit and vegetables along with more salads. I have totally cut out fast food. I don't touch it and haven't in several years.
Doesn't mean I won't eat something like a hamburger but I am going to go to a quality place and have a really good one if I am going to splurge like that.
For example, if I go to a steak place I don't get the 22oz porterhouse. I stick with the 8oz fillet and order vegetables on the side.
I also try to snack a lot smarter then I used too.
On top of all that I try to exercise more. Even if it is just getting out and taking a long walk sometimes with the dog. As the weather get warmer I'll try to get some cycling in also.
The key was when I started doing this I had to just let it work. The body is an amazing and mysterious machine. Crashing it doesn't work as well as adjusting and letting it adapt. For the first four or five months I saw little to no return on the what I was doing. Then suddenly the weight just started peeling off over the next few months.
I simply never changed what I was doing. My body adjusted and started processing things differently. Slow and steady works extremely well in this case.
As I mentioned in a comment from another post. I still keep up what I am doing. Which allows me to indulge myself now and again and not see any changes in weight gain or anything like that. Because I don't keep indulging over and over.
It really came down to a dedicated lifestyle change and just letting nature take it's course.
Even if I wasn't Trans and preparing for a transition, I am glad I did this. I feel better, have more energy and my health has been stellar.
Still there is much less of me then there used to be. /wink
1 comments:
Thanks for passing this along Kelli. More of us need to hear that a lifestyle change to become healthier is something that is effective in the long term, but only in the long term. It is not a quick fix, but it won't let you down after your weight is where it needs to be.
It took most of us years to get overweight. Why assume you can undo it all of a sudden?
Halle
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