How I changed my ‘lifestyle’ in 2008: Part 1

What do you think the most common New Years resolution is? For millions of people it’s to exercise more, eat better or lose weight. This often results in people spending thousands of dollars on gym memberships and fad diets, and more often than not people fail at those endeavours.

I’ve always had a bit of a complex about my weight. I was a chubby child and I was teased for it. I grew into myself around age 15, 16 but I still ate like crap. I’m talking pizza, pasta and pop galore. I had no idea about portion control or calories. The only thing that saved me from weighing 200 pounds was hockey. I played hockey nine or 10 times a week, sometimes more, the exercise is all that saved me.

Once I moved away to college, I stopped playing hockey and started drinking and cooking for myself. In the first six months of college, I gained 20 pounds and I couldn’t get rid of it for the life of me. I wanted to lose weight and I vowed to workout more or cut out junk food, but nothing ever worked. I’ve worked out pretty regularly since I was 13 years old, but I could never get the eating under control, and sometimes I wouldn’t work out for a few weeks or a month. Needless to say, the scale wouldn’t budge.

I don’t even remember the exact reason why, but last January I started writing down everything I ate in a little notebook. It helped me realize just how much snacking I was doing, especially at night. Then I discovered the BBG (Body by Glamour) program and I started logging my food and exercise and counting my calories in and my calories out. I know, I know counting calories leads to eating disorders, it’s no way to live blah blah. I’ll get into that more tomorrow.

I was shocked to learn that I was often eating over 2500 calories a day, almost 1000 calories more than I need. The only thing that stopped me from gaining 20 more pounds was the fact that I’m young and I exercised lots. I aimed to cut my calories to 2000 or less a day. In three months I lost 15 pounds.

In the past year I’ve learned a lot about my body. I’ve learned that losing weight is 80 per cent nutrition, 10 per cent fitness and 10 per cent mental. If you don’t eat properly, you can workout all you want and you won’t lose a pound, you might even gain a few.

In the past 12 months I’ve lost approximately 20 pounds, give or take a couple of pounds. I haven’t been perfect, not even close. I’ve had binges-nights where I ate so much my stomach hurt and I’ve taken over a week off exercising. What made the difference this time around? I didn’t give up. If I ate a huge brownie, or didn’t workout for three days straight I didn’t throw my hands in the air and go back to my old unhealthy habits. I kept trying, I kept making changes.

I’ve chosen to do a four or five part post on this topic this week because it has been such a huge part of my life the last year. Sometimes I get obsessive about calories and I have to remind myself to enjoy life but overall the changes I’ve made in the past year have been the best thing for me, I don’t regret it at all. I’m proud of myself. I plan on ending this series with a before and after photo of myself so stay tuned.

Please leave me comments telling me about your relationship with food. Do you yo-yo diet or exercise? Is your New Years Resolution for 2009 to be healthier?