I kind of officially started all this about 11 months ago in mid September after seeing some of the photos of myself from vacation and what not.
As much as I want to make an excuse for myself as to why I was the heaviest I had ever weighed, there still really isn't any good excuse for it. Yes I was going to school full time and yes I was working part time during the week and on the weekends. And because of that, I had allowed myself to eat fairly unhealthy and had pretty much zero exercise. The end result being my gaining an additional 10 pounds my last year of college. Not accounting for the extra I had already gained the previous years of college.
I was really unhappy with where I was. Growing up as a kid, I would say I was always on the border between whatever "normal" was and being overweight. I never considered myself skinny by any means and that's just how it was. I was okay with it. What I was not okay with was how all that weight had crept up on me while I was studying my little behind off at school. I mean, it makes sense now that I look at it. I'd be at school all day, come home and study or do homework the rest of the night, eat junk, do no exercise. Duh, of course I was going to gain weight.
So a couple weeks into September last year, I decided I was going to make a change because I was tired of seeing that number on the scale as well as myself in pictures and in the mirror.
I bought myself some desperately needed new running shoes (my previous shoes were over 4 years old) and probably splurged a little more than normal and got the ones I really wanted in hopes that it would motivate me to do more. I also used some of my birthday money to get myself a polar heart monitor watch that would track my workouts with how many calories I burned, etc.
I also started to change my eating habits. I stopped buying the sugary "little kid" cereals that I loved so much. I stopped buying the stupid amounts of soda that I would drink. I didn't really have a specific diet that I stuck to, but my overall effort was to just to eat less.
I then started using my new shoes and heart monitor to go for short runs. I got started by using a Couch to 5k app on my iPod. For those that don't know how those work, it literally starts you running maybe just a minute at a time and then will have you walk a few minutes, then run another minute, then walk and so on. With every week of progress, it slowly increases your running time to 3 minutes at a time or 5 minutes at a time with the idea being at the end of 8 or 12 weeks (however long your program is), you should be able to run a 5k without stopping (or 3.1 miles).
That was rough getting used to. Being at my heaviest, I'd never gotten so tired so fast. Even a couple weeks down the road, after I could tell my lungs were starting to get used to it because I wasn't breathing so hard, my legs would just hurt and hurt while I was running because they probably weren't used to the extra weight I was carrying around.
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| At my white coat ceremony at the beginning of October I had lost around 7 pounds at this point. |
And that was basically all I did at first. I lost about 11-12 pounds within a couple months. Nothing super drastic, but it was certainly a start.
Then I plateaued. I think part of that was due to Thanksgiving and Christmas. That and winter quarter of school was a lot harder than our fall quarter and I had kind of stopped my exercise routine because I was so stressed out over school.
At the end of February over our spring break, I decided I was going to start again. I fortunately had not gained any of the weight back that I had lost previously, so it was like I was picking back up where I left off. But I picked it back up with a little more intensity this time around.
I started calorie counting. I know, I know, it seems like over-doing it to a lot of people and seems like its tedious. But, it wasn't until I started doing this that I realized just how much I was overeating. I limited myself to 1200 calories max a day. Some days I'd barely break 1000. I used the MyFitnessPal app to count everything that I ate. And wow, did it work.
As far as food goes, I started using protein shakes and protein meal bars as meal replacements (each about 200 calories). I'd have a small banana and protein shake for breakfast. A small snack before lunch. A protein meal bar for lunch. A small snack when I got home from school. And then a Lean Cuisine frozen meal for my dinner.
I'd be lying if I said this wasn't hard. But unfortunately that's just part of it. For the first month or so, I often went to bed hungry. It wasn't comfortable, but I knew it wasn't supposed to be so I endured on because it was helping drop that number on the scale.
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| Left: August 2013 Right: March 2014 about 19 pounds lighter |
In addition, I picked up running again. But this time, instead of using my Couch to 5k app, I just started going for longer distances. There's a nice 5 mile loop trail very close to where I live. I started jogging it/walking it/jogging it or whatever I could do. As long as my legs didn't feel like they were about to fall off or that I was going to collapse because I felt like I couldn't breathe, I was running. And when I needed to stop, I stopped and walked. This would usually take me about an hour to do and I was doing it at least 4 if not 5 times a week. My heart rate monitor told me that I would burn somewhere between 600 and 700 calories each time.
Once I started this combined with my new eating plan, the weight literally just started falling off. I'm pretty sure I lost another 10 pounds in the course of just 2 to 3 weeks. By the time the school year was done, I was down a total of 30 pounds.
It's been almost 3 months since then and I've dropped another 10 pounds since. I'm not quite as strict on my diet anymore but instead have tried to maintain the mindset of "everything in moderation". Like, yes, I do want that ice cream when I'm out with my family or friends, but I'm going to order the small size and enjoy it. I figure if you let yourself have small treats every now and then, you're going to be less likely to binge later and eat everything in site on account of going crazy from restricting yourself so much.
Another mindset I've been trying to adopt lately, and as cliche as it might sound, is "Eat to Live and not Live to Eat." I'm pretty sure I've always been an emotional eater since the start and I was definitely the type to grab something to eat if I was "bored". Now, simply I'm just trying to eat for the purpose of sustaining myself and keeping my energy where it is needed. Again, it's not an easy thing to adapt to, but I am leaps and bounds ahead of where I was a year ago and because of that, I am super happy with how far I have come.
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| One more comparison Far right: About 38 pounds lighter than from the far left |
I'm still running a lot when I can. I did a 10k (6.2 miles) at the start of July and finished it in just barely over an hour at about a 10 minutes a mile pace. It was a pretty tough course with running up rocks/jumping over water/etc. so I think that time was pretty decent considering where I was at 6 months before that even. However, right now, I'm just ready for cooler weather! The highs are still well in the 100s in Phoenix, meaning that if I want to run, I have to do it super super early in the morning when it's still only in the mid 80s. I am SO ready for fall! Haha.
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| About a mile into my 10k race in all my sweaty glory, haha |
And that's about it! I am still working at dropping my body fat percentage just a little bit more and attempting to build up some more muscle. Easier said than done because in order for muscle to be gained, you need to eat more, which is the opposite of what I've been doing. It's a learning experience for sure.
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| Left: White Coat Ceremony October 2013 Right: Friend's Wedding Reception August 2, 2014 |
If you're reading this for the purpose of wanting to lose weight yourself, then I hope it helped! I know that everyone's body and metabolisms are different and what worked for me might not work for you and vice versa, but this was my own personal story of what worked for me. Honestly, it's a lifestyle change overall. You have to be able to be okay with the fact that it might take a little while to get to where you want.
It might be hard, but trust me when I say that it was all worth it in the end. I honestly have never had so much energy and have never felt so good before which makes me just want to keep it up.
It might be hard, but trust me when I say that it was all worth it in the end. I honestly have never had so much energy and have never felt so good before which makes me just want to keep it up.
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