Q & A: Losing Weight
I had a few questions around losing weight on my question and answer post, and I want to address those today.
Em asked me: How did you get the motivation to initially lose weight?
First, I’m going to point everyone back to my old blog where I wrote a five-part series on how I changed my lifestlye in 2008. You can find Part one, Part two, Part three, Part four and Part five here. I actually just re-read through these and I made A LOT of great points in them. So if you want to read a detailed account of how I finally bucked up and changed my lifestyle in 2008, which resulted in me losing 25 pounds, read that five-part mini-series.
I will sum it up here, though, for those who don’t have time to read all those posts. Basically, I made the same New Years Resolution I’d made every. single. year for as long as I could remember; to lose weight. So I got a little notebook and started writing all my food in it. After about a month I discovered the Body By Glamour program and started tracking my food, and calories, online.
Now, I should mention that before this I was kind of a naive idiot when it came to calories. I had NO idea how many calories were in some things, and through all of my previous diet escapades I had never tried calorie-counting. Some people might disagree with me, but I think calorie-counting is the best way to initially lose weight. You just can’t be too obsessed with it. Since I had no idea the MASSIVE amount of calories I was consuming, I was able to cut my calories down by a significant amount rather easily and the weight kind of fell off.
Since losing that initial 25 pounds I’ve went back and forth with calorie-counting and recording my food, but, the fact is, I need to do it. I’m not saying everyone does, but I do. When I don’t, I eat more than I realize and I gain weight. It’s as simple as that. At the beginning of July I did a post about needing some inspiration to lose weight since I gained back 11 pounds. I started tracking my food again using Spark People and I’ve lost 6 pounds, and hope to lose 5-10 more. If you don’t know where to get the motivation to lose weight, my advice is quit looking/waiting for it. Just do it – write down what you eat, exercise for at least 30 minutes a day (don’t tell me you don’t have time, everyone has 30 minutes), be patient – it will happen, but you have to stick with it.
Nora asked me: What is your #1 diet tip (besides writing down the food that you eat?
Well, as I stressed above, my number ONE diet tip is writing down EVERYTHING that you eat. EVERY DAY. I used to give myself “free days” where I didn’t write anything down – not a good idea. Now, even though I do still let myself have a free meal a week, I still track it! More often than not I realize that 1,200 calories for a hamburger and fries is NOT worth the “free meal” when I see the nutritional values right in front of me.
My next biggest tip; don’t quit. I gained back 11 pounds, I could have said screw it and kept eating whatever I wanted and then I might have gained back all 25 pounds, or even more than that BUT I didn’t. Losing weight is like life; it’s not a destination, it’s a journey. Keep going, keep working at it, don’t give up and it will become a habit. I have always, always referred to my eating habits as a lifestyle, not a diet.
I write about this concept in more detail in Part four.
One more important tip I have is this; you have to make YOU and YOUR HEALTH a priority. If you have to, schedule in exercise (I DO IT!) I have my exercise and the time written into my planner. Same with eating healthy; if friends want to go for dinner, I’ll go, but I’ll try to order a healthier meal. Make living healthy and exercising a priority in your life!
Wow, long post! I didn’t mean for it to be this long but this is a topic I’m really passionate about! We all have the ability to live a long, healthy life. We just need to DO IT!
Have you recently, or ever, gone through a major body transformation? How did you do it? And what is your number 1 lifestyle tip (r.e. diet OR exercise)?
today i’m restarting up my training for my half marathon in baltimore in october.
one of the girls i work with is actually getting married in october, and she’s gone on like 3 or 4 different diets. and all of them she’s quit in a week. I’m like… look… you can eat out – she loves eating out. but have this mentality — you will have another meal, so she doesn’t have to scarf the whole thing down, cuz almost always she feels OVER stuffed after she eats.
i think too many people eat like it’s their last meal. i think once i adapted the new mentality, i just feel so much better about myself. and I also actually tried the 5 to 6 meals a day, and it doesn’t work for me. 3 meals works best for me. now i just need to stop nibbling while i’m making dinner — i tend to “taste” all the time.
Congrats on the weight loss – and how did your race go this weekend? I started doing Weight Watchers last year and have lost over 25 pounds as well. A lot of what you were saying holds true with WW as well – you track your food, so you can see what you’re eating, how much you’re eating, etc. It’s not about dieting, it’s about changing your lifestyle. I can eat whatever I want, I just have to look at portion sizes and know to have everything in moderation. Diets fail because they’re temporary – if you want to be healthier it’s about making a lifestyle change.
Thanks for the flash back on your weight loss story! Congrats girl, you did great! You’ll loose the rest faster than you think, you are kicking butt! I totally agree with you on counting calories, once you realize just how much you actually eat, it’s so easy to cut away the unneccessary items. Keep it up!
Great post, Amber! I agree with all that you have said. I’ve lost 29 pounds since joining WW last October. The weight hasn’t come off as quickly as I thought it would, but I know what I am doing is sustainable. I think that is my tip – find something that is SUSTAINABLE. You don’t need to do any sort of crazy diet, like eating only grapefruit, or completely cutting out carbs, or whatever. I think tracking your calories is important, as you’ve said, as it’s very eye opening. That and exercising has been the key to my success.
Also, I think it’s good to look at something besides the number on the scale. I think it’s good to take measurements of your hips/waist/thighs/etc, and track that in addition to your weight. Because some weeks, you might gain muscle, so you won’t lose any pounds, and might gain some. So it’s good to have another measurement that tells you what is going on!
Keep it up, girl! You are doing so well!
Thanks for answering the questions =)
I went through a huge transformation last year; lost about 10 pounds? Hit the gym 6 times a week. Ate lean protein, counted calories all the time and it worked really well. I go through phases of gym/healthful eating now. I only have about five pounds to lose (meaning I gained about 5 back in the last year, which isn’t good). I am working on it!
Amber, I think this was a really thoughtful and helpful post for many. It’s also refreshing to see people be so honest about their weight struggles/journey/etc.
I think it is an ONGOING battle that we can never just say “hey, today I’m not gonna care about what I put in my mouth” because really, the way we treat our bodies nutritionally is a sign of how we value ourselves, much like the way we emotionally think of ourselves. If we think we’re stupid and fat, we start to believe it and behave as such. Therefore, I think it’s totally fine to indulge once in a while, but keep in mind that overall, eating this way regularly would be bad for our bods, physically and mentally.
My number one weight management tool is like you said, MAKING EXERCISE (and my health) a PRIORITY. So, if friends want to do an early dinner, I’ll try to push it a bit later so I can workout. OR, I’ll get up early that morning to get my run in, or even fit one in on the lunch hour. Because if I don’t I know that my body and my mind aren’t as happy. Plus, I like the challenge of figuring out how I’m going to fit it all in and actually achieving it all!
I recently lost a few pounds bc I’ve been really good about keeping healthy snacks and produce I like on hand for the work day and weekends. It has really helped. And it was a great reward when I was trying on dresses this weekend and thought whoa, I just fit into that and it looks good.
i actually lost about 40 lbs when i stopped smoking and started training. That was right around the time when kelley was starting weight watchers, so she lost 85 lbs. it works if you work it!
I went through a body transformation in high school. I wouldn’t call it a major transformation really, though I did lose about 30 lbs. But I did it the unhealthy way. I stopped eating. Not completely, but I did eat much less than is healthy. And I think that is part of my problem now– I can’t just “stop eating” anymore, which is kind of the easy way out, and gets fast results… but I am unmotivated to put in the real work necessary to “transform” my body and lifestyle. not good, not good. for these reasons, I really don’t have any tips!! but I know that in order for me to make a real change I have to commit myself to exercise, which is something I have never really done, at least not for the long term. And until I do that, no matter how much I watch what I eat, I will never see big or lasting results… but that’s why I look at you as such an inspiration because you really did make exercise a part of your daily life, your regular routine and somehow I need to do that for myself. cut the bullshit, stop the excuses and just do it, like nike says, right?
right.
That’s awesome Amber. Thanks for your advice. I’ve found that tracking food really does help. I have a program on my phone that is great go if I don’t have another way to track. I like it. I’m gunna go back and read your mini series. Thanks for the great post!