Weight Loss - What Is Your Story?

First of all thank you for not asking for a quick fix!.Thats evidence there that you can do it.

Last year at this time i was hovering around 200 lbs and i just got fed up! Ive always been skinny and knew how to manage my weight but something about my 2nd pregnancy and extended breastfeeding made it next to impossible! I decided i would go on a year long fitness journey. I would work out for 30 to 45 minutes or more a day and monitor what i ate. eventually after the year i planned to taper it down to 3 days a week for life to maintain.

I started with the 30 day shred which although effective bored me to tears. Dont get me wrong its not that boring, but after day 15 it gets monotonous. After about 35 to 40 days of that and 15 lbs lighter i started experimenting. I bought a different video, and another one, and another one to mix it up. Then i started in with all the props, kettle balls, ankle weights, stability ball with strength bands, medicine ball, a heavy bag on my porch and gloves, rollerblades and a jogging stroller, biking, jogging. Then i tried trendy types of fitness zumba, yoga (power and slow) i tried doing the tango and salsa dancing, pilates, kickboxing. etc...

about month 5 i discovered i was pregnant (big shocker) Im 6 months pregnant now and still working out everyday (with modifications of course) and my body, other than my belly, is still shrinking and toning. I had gotton down to about 165 or less right before i was pregnant. Now of course im not trying to lose weight. As a matter of fact with all my fitness i still do i have to force myself to eat more calories than i want to.

My best advice is to experiment with different styles of fitness, read all you can on the subject of fitness and nutrition (i call it my "thinspiration") Find routines you LOVE and don't get bored. Im in love with yoga now its my favorite. After the baby is born im going to try hot yoga (in a sauna) and i will be attempting tennis and running. theres also this freaky looking thing in my city where they hang silk scarves on a ceiling railing and you swing around on them like a graceful monkey. (i cant wait).

Im going to continue with my year thats almost over and extend it to 6 months longer (given my curve ball) But i think the most important thing a person can do to lose weight is to find a way to have fun doing it.

I am very different than a lot of these moms on this board because I don't just have 30-50lbs to lose. I have 200. OOF.
Two years ago my husband and I decided to start eating right and working out. I started going to the neighborhood gym and doing water aerobics. I did that every night for 2 months and dropped about 35 pounds. You couldn't even tell. So, I decided to bite the bullet and go out to the main section of the gym. I tried the eliptical and thought I was going to die. Seriously. I had to get off after three minutes and put my head between my legs to try and breath again. THAT'S how out of shape I was. I made that eliptical my goal. I went on that stupid thing every day and bumped up my time little by little. After about 6 months I would do the eliptical for 45 minutes, free weights, and then go up and walk for another 1/2 hour. I added hot yoga after I dropped about 80 lbs and was REALLY feeling great. In total I lost 104lbs.
I was still fat. I was still heavy. I was still in plus size clothes. BUT I FELT AMAZING!!
Then I got pregnant.
Sigh. I gained it all back. I ate horribly. I didn't exercise. I let myself get right back to where I was...minus about 20lbs. The baby is currently 10months old and I am done with excuses. I JUST told my husband today that I was going to go back to the gym and sign up after my daughter's AM nap. She is still sleeping.
I must. My mom, grandma, aunts and brothers all have the tendency to gain a lot of weight. We all have to fight it .... all the time. IT SUCKS!
When I started out at the gym and when I start again I had a saying that I would always says to myself when I was sweating and dying. "I can ALWAYS do something for one more minute." It's just one minute more on the eliptical, the cross trainer, the walk. One more minute can make a difference.
I will be starting again. I am like you. I don't need to know the secret. I know it. But, can someone tell me what the secret is to keeping it off? To not getting frustrated? To keeping your eye on the end goal? For me...that's what makes it hard. Seeing how very far away the end goal is.
L.

Hi CM,

I love to share my husband's story because he has kept his weight off for six years now and does not have a problem with up and down anymore. He was pushing 400 pounds (big guy at 6'7" so he carried it better than most) and got on one of those industrial scales at a grocery store and absolutely freaked out. He came home ready for the next diet. I told him we werent trying anything else until we got him healthy. He was never a couch potatoe and never really someone who overate or who ate sweets but he could never drop the weight. I started him on an absorbable multivitamin. The nutrition was actually getting into his body so .his body started balancing. The weight started dropping off. He lost 60 pounds in six months with no diet changes and no activity changes. When he was light enough to run (he ran track in college), he dropped another 50 pounds over the next three months. His body was hanging onto weight because it wasn't getting the nutrition he needed. I guess after 110 pounds you realize how important food really is. Make sure what you are eating is not processed. Those chemicals will hold weight I don't care how little you eat or how little calories you consume. He feels great now. My sister in law lost 15 pounds and my husband's best friend lost 50 all from the vitamin and ridding the body of toxins. That's all they needed to lose. The body will balance itself if given what it needs!

God bless and good wishes on your quest!
M.

I jokingly say I need to work-out so my husband doesn't make me his "ex-wife" and go looking for a "trophy wife/new mommy" or worse yet he becomes a widower.

Watching my family suffer from weight related issues has REALLY opened my mind. My mom HAD TO HAVE double knee surgery a week before I delivered our son. She barely remembers when he was born and that was only 4.5 years ago. She was highly medicated and didn't even KNOW I had him and my dad brought her to see us. That alone scared me. She still has wicked pain and I really don't want to follow in her footsteps.

I have been successful on WW for most of my life. 8 years ago I lost 37 Ibs but over the years it came back. I now have been working towards it again since last Jan and have lost 23 Ibs. It is amazing the older you get the harder it is to loose the weight. I started out with a support group, but it disappeared and now I am on my own and OK with that. I hike 4 days a week if I can and love the outdoors listening to music. I get excited to shop in the " Average " clothes area and not the plus sizes. I see that I am slowing making the goal. I am so afraid to not be accountable to WW as I will go back to my rut of eating. It will be so hard for me to loose these next 10 lbs, but trying to stay positive even if it takes me all of next year. I want to some day wear a size 12 in my lifetime as an adult and I am a 14 now. I pray each day and ask God for me resist another temptation of food. I do want to grow old and have energy. I thank God for my strength.

I'm on a weight loss journey right now. I've been fairly thin my entire life, but put on a pound or two each year since I've gotten married. Then I got pregnant with twins and didn't lose all the baby weight. So, last summer I realized I was about 35 pounds heavier than I wanted to be. I started going to a Zumba class three times a week, walking with a friend another three times a week, and really focusing on eating healthy. I already knew what I should be eating and what I shouldn't, but I didn't always follow my own rules. In three months, I lost 15 pounds and felt great about it. I was in better shape than I'd ever been thanks to all the exercise.

I kept 10 of those pounds off over the next year, so last month when I decided to get serious again, I had about 25 pounds to go to "perfection" for me. I'm 5'4" and I'd like to weigh 130 pounds. That's much more than when I was in high school or college, but is a healthy and maintainable weight I think. I don't have as much time to work out as I used to, and I was already eating healthy, so I decided to do the homeopathic HCG diet to jump start my weight loss. I've been doing it for two weeks and have lost 9 pounds. I'll do it for another two weeks, and then switch back to eating healthy and trying to exercise whenever I can.

My motivation has been all of my skinny friends. For some reason I happen to have only thin friends. They're all active and fit and eat healthy. A few are vegans, many do yoga, and I was sick of being the chubby one in the crowd. Plus, I have so many great clothes that I'd like to fit back into. Every time I start to reach for a piece of cheese, or take a second helping of something when I'm not really hungry, I ask myself what would Jamie or Lucy or Jen do. I watch them at parties and dinners out and realize that they just simply eat less than I'm used to. Hopefully I'll make it to my goal, but if not, I'm at least on the right path! Good luck to you...

I'm doing it right now!! I'm pretty tall (5'11") and have always been thin/average. My problem is I have had four major spinal surgeries in the past nine years and was very limited on what I could do and was very afraid of re-injury. The weight crept up and I hated how I felt/looked...it wasn't the me who I wanted to still be.

Labor Day this year it just clicked that there were about 15 weeks left in the year and I could do something about it. I deserved to take the time to exercise, I wouldn't because I work so much. I wasn't about to give up eating for a starvation diet, I eat pretty well and happen to like it. I signed up for kick boxing two days a week, pilates on Saturday, walking at night and do random 5Ks. In 65 days I lost 31 pounds...I didn't even think I needed to lose 31 pounds (I usually just go by how my clothes fit). This was just from MOVING!

Best of luck!! I'm feeling awesome, better than ever!!

Good Luck on your weight loss!!

have lost 13 pounds in the last year and have keep off 10 pounds so far. Have gotten a little off the track lately and am getting back on to my exercise routine! The best part for me is having a friend that I walk with each night. It definitely makes me get out there, especially on those nights when I am not as motivated to go, having someone call and say "want to go for a walk" really helps!

I buy lots of fruits and veggies and keep them cut up and ready to go in the fridge, makes it much easier for me and the family to pull out a healthy snack.

I have always had an unhealthy relationship with food. I’ve tried every diet pill out there, been on NutriSystem, and suffered through an eating disorder since my teens. My weight has fluctuated from 135-220. I tried limiting my food intake for most of my life, and it never worked. A couple of years ago, I finally decided (not sure why it took so long!!), that if I couldn’t eat LESS, I was just going to have to exercise MORE. I run 15-25 miles/week. I’m at the gym 4x/week, maintaining 140lbs. At some point, I think that we all have to accept the whole “lifestyle change” concept. It’s all that really works.

And cheers to the woman below who said “you can do anything for one more minute”. Yes, you can!

Also… this past year, a thought came to me that “Food is FUEL.” Simple, but profound, and I live by this daily (sometimes hour by hour when I feel like I can’t control my munchies). If there’s food in front of me that will not FUEL my body, I either pass on it, or acknowledge that I WILL need to burn off those worthless calories at the gym. Food is fuel. It’s made a HUGE difference in how I relate to food, and I’ve been sharing with it everyone around me lately.

Good luck to you in your journey… that’s exactly what it is. Curves and bends, and sometimes a step back. Stay on course. One crappy decision doesn’t mean you’ve lost (bingeing on half gallon of ice cream, skipping a workout, whatever) . It just means that you’ve made a less than ideal decision at that particular moment, and you move on from there! No, “new start next week” – Your new start begins at THIS MOMENT. Hang in there!

I was thin when I was younger, but middle-age metabolism is slow... I do the Atkins diet for 2-3 weeks. However, this causes fatigue, so I make sure I take vitamins with it.

I have been maintaining by eating a salad EVERY day for one meal. Then I take a 30-45 minute walk (with or without hand weights) every day as well. I eat Slimfast or protein bars and/or Olestra chips for snacks. I stay away from white bread. I am able to limit portion size because I look forward to my fat-free frozen yogurt snack @ night!

If I miss my salad lunch and don't have a salad meal for a day, I don't have the yogurt at night (because I do put Hershey's magic shell on it!!)

I also bought the carbohydrate addicts diet books (cheap on www.betterworldbooks.com ) but haven't gotten into that yet.

GL!

I'd recommend checking out www.sparkpeople.com. You can create a free account and be privy to a TON of free information about fitness, nutrition, motivation, etc. You can find a lot of success stories on there. Good luck!

order in style magazine. I look at all the cute clothes, etc and think - I'd look cute in that, I'd look even cuter if toned.
I know it is sick and demented because all the models are airbrushed, etc,b ut in terms of motivation - CLOTHES motivate me to say fit and healthy:)

I don't use a diet plan - per se - but I do use My Fitness Pal ap to help count calories and the exercise I do. I drink a TON of water and stay busy, busy, busy to keep from snacking.
I have lost a net of 13 lbs since last year and am holding steady. Clothes fit well and I even had the strength and courage to clean out my closet of all those "just in case" outfits.
Best of luck to you.

I love myfitnesspal.com too! My husband and I have both been using it for over a year now. He's lost almost 50lbs! I've lost 10-15, but had less to lose.

I really think both of us watching what we eat and logging it is what made it work and has made it stick for us.

Find out what kind of healthy foods you like, look for healthy choices to have for snacks -cause, let's face it, who can go every day with out snacking! I love light yogurt (didn't used to) kashi, granola bars, hummus and assorted veggies make a great wrap for lunch.

Finding a type of exercise you like to do is important-- I've always had trouble with that, but discovered I really like to zumba (with no one around to see).

Getting the whole family in on the healthier food is pretty important, I think.

Good luck finding what you like and what works for you!!!! You can do it! You will do it! You will be there for your grandkids and great grandkids, too!!

MyFitnessPal.com is a great site - lots of tools and support. I still *WISH* there were a magic pill though, LOL!

I've only lost a couple of pounds so far but haven't been as good about it as I need to be. Keeping up with my kids and hubby is what prompted me and motivates me - I'm tired of being tired and not feeling up to being very active for them.

Good luck on this journey!

I have recently lost 14 lbs on Weight Watchers--1 lb away from my goal!! I honestly couldn't have done it without WW. The plan makes so much sense, and it taught me things about my habits I never would have figured out on my own, even though they were right in front of me.
My motivation was this: I grew up with my mom being on the heavy side. Her narative was that since she was on bedrest with my older brother, she gained extra weight. Then she was too busy being a working mom to take it off. Then she got pregnant with me. And she just continued being heavy for the rest of her life.
A year ago I started a full time job, and I started to gain weight. I couldn't resist a treat here and there when someone brought something to share. I always kept snacks in my desk to keep me going throughout the day.
But then, I couldn't stand that I didn't fit into perfectly good work clothes.
And I didn't want to look back in 10 years, or more, and say "I never lost the weight after my second son was born, I guess it's always going to be this way."
Well, now I fit into my clothes--I've even gone down a size. I love how I feel!

A couple of quick tips: WW recommends 5 servings of fresh fruits and veggies each day. I pack my lunch and make sure i've got a cut apple, carrots, orange slices, a banana and usually one more thing. The no-points snacks are crucial.
Also, incorporate exercize into your daily routine. I work in a building attached to a gym, to which I have membership. They have a walking track, and each day on my "lunch" break i walk for 30 minutes (I eat at my desk). I do a much more intense workout Sunday morning. That's what works for me. Find something that works for you, but make sure
it's daily and that it really works for you.

Good luck! It's great that you're starting, great that you are seeking support. Continue to be healthful and mindful on your journey and you will come out on top.

I also did Weight Watchers for awhile and lost close to 20 pounds but for the life of me I couldn't hit my limit. I his a plateau and couldn't lose anymore but you know what? I was okay with that. I realized I could get myself down to 160ish. It took me awhile-a lot of hard work but I enjoyed it. And then I got married and haven't really done it since. But I learned the hard way that just because my husband can eat anything he wants and still be a stick figure-I can't.

It sounds like you already know what to do it's just actually doing it. My advice is find an activity that you like to do and stick with it and push yourself to do it.

A few years back after the time change I would force myself out of bed at 5:30/6:00ish because that was the time I was used to getting up. I know I could have stayed in bed for an hour but instead I got up and started to work out. And I felt great working out in the mornings (not so much when it got colder but I felt great throughout the day). I started taping work outs on FitTV (it goes by another name not, sorry I don't remember it). I really liked working out to Gilad and then the show about belly dancing but I would switch it up. I wouldn't do the same thing every day.

I also had a couple of work out dvds that I would use and I would do work outs on Exercise on Demand. Typically I like to do Kickboxing, pilates and belly dancing (really works the abs) and then Gilad on FitTv. And that was my routine just to switch it up. And I liked to do that and I was happy with that. Then sometimes in the evenings I would go walking. Nothing fast paced or anything (and weather permitting) but it was nice and relaxing and it helped me to sort out all the randomness in my head.

And once again I lost weight that way and felt great. Somewhere along the way I fell off the wagon and started to gain it back, so as long as you push yourself and find ways to motivate yourself and stick with it it will be fine.

I know some people like to work out in the evenings-which is what I have been doing now (well when I'm not sleeping. I'm 37 weeks pregnant). Other people the mornings are best for them. So play around and see what is best for you and do what you like to do.

Don't do something you don't like because the time will drag and honestly you won't really be trying your best. I did that for awhile with yoga and the time just dragged.

I also have a Wii and will do some of the games on there and I enjoy that.

What prompted me to lose weight? I've always been very self conscious of my weight/body type whatever you want to call it since as far back as I can remember. I was a bulimic for several years and even through I'm not now, the same thoughts are still there and I battle with them just about every day. So I wanted to do something that was healthy for me. I also have a metabolic disorder and I knew I needed to get that under control. The best way for it-eating healthy and working out.

Once I have the baby and I've been given the okay to exercise I plan on working out again. I may not have a full hour to myself or even 30 min and that's okay. I can do 10 minutes at a time or something. Take baby steps and work your way up to 30 or 40 or whatever it is.

There are a series of dvds out there that's called 10 minute solutions. I have the prenatal pilates one now and LOVE it. But it's 5 segments 10 minutes each. So you can do all five or you can do how ever many you want and in the order that you want. I've already put the kickboxing one on my Christmas Wish List but that's a great way to get started. Something to look into.