Over the past year, I’ve made a conscious effort to change my lifestyle and live healthier. It hasn’t been easy. It’s taken commitment and discipline. But I feel better than I’ve ever felt, and am probably healthier than I’ve ever been.
Here are some things I’ve learned so far:
- Don’t diet. Dieting doesn’t work. To lose weight, you have to make small changes to your overall eating and exercise habits over a long period of time. This will cause your body to slowly adjust to permanent changes and reset your metabolism.
- Do watch your calories. But it’s not just about counting calories. You also need to make sure you are fueling your body with the appropriate ratio of complex carbs, lean protein, and good fats. I used SparkPeople to help me get started. You plug in your information, and they give you the range you need to be in for all of the above. It takes discipline to records EVERY. SINGLE. THING. you eat, but once you get used to it, then you can pretty much estimate your calorie intake and be on target.
- Get off your behind. My biggest excuse to not exercising was that I didn’t have the time. I was too tired after work, didn’t want to be away from the family longer, etc. The truth was, I was too tired to spend any time with the family and just went home and sat on the couch. I started by going to the gym every. single. day. after work. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Initially, I just did the elliptical or walked briskly on a treadmill for 30 minutes. That’s it. 30 minutes. And I was super tired at first. Funny thing is, though, that the more you exercise, the more energy you end up having. Then I joined the Heart and Soul Wellness Bible study that my church offers on Wednesday nights during the school year. This added strength and core training, and as I got stronger, I began adding that to my gym workout. In March, we started a “Couch to 5k” training program, and I slowly began improving my stamina and endurance, which helped to kick-start weight loss again after a plateau of a couple of months. I ran in the Hendersonville Classic 5k (benefiting Cumberland Crisis Pregnancy Center) on Memorial Day, and have been running 2-3 miles a day since.
- Get rid of all the unnecessary stress and negative influences that you can. Stress and negativity literally can suck the life out of you. For me, it lead to depression, weight gain, and loss of interest in pretty much everything. A big step toward me getting healthy involved leaving a highly stressful, very unsupportive job environment and, instead, surrounding myself with supportive coworkers, friends and family. It also involved finding people (like my class at church) with similar goals that could help keep me motivated during times when I would plateau.
A year ago I was in a size 16 pant and XL shirts and had zero energy. I still can’t bring myself to actually type how much I weighed. And my kid was as tall as me.
April 2010
Today my old 12′s are loose. I am in medium shirts. I have lost 30 pounds so far. I completed a 5k over Memorial Day. And I ran 2 miles this morning before work. My kid is now about 4 inches taller than me.
June 2011
Hendersonville Classic 5k - Memorial Day 2011
My overall goal is to lose another 15 – 20 pounds. And now I know that I can do that, and keep it off.
