Losing Weight
Not sure for everyone, but for me, I have two modes on or off. If I’m on, I’m unstoppable – when I’m off, not even a cattle prod can get me moving. In January, I decided to start losing weight. I wasn’t really serious about getting it done until two things happened; our wedding anniversary and we bought tickets to take the family to Aruba.
When our anniversary rolled around in May, AlienDaddy and I took some time to actually look at our honeymoon pictures. When we were married, I wished I was thinner, but in looking at the pictures, I actually looked pretty good. It’s been 7 years, one amazing kid, a couple of almost kids and I’d gained SIXTY pounds. God bless him my amazing husband never said a word, he just loved me for who I was, not my size. After seeing those photos and comparing them to the photos from our last vacation. there was a spark, not yet a fire, but a a spark of what I could be, how I could change.
The fire was lit once we picked Aruba for my Mom’s birthday adventure. When I saw the pictures of women dressed in cute outfits on the beaches or in town. I decided that was it. I wasn’t going to look the same as I did the last time I was on vacation. I had to worry about just the right angle or what was in front of me so I didn’t look too bad. I wanted to go shopping in Oranjestad, wear a bikini on the beach, play with YoungMasterV in the ocean and feel beautiful in my skin again.
So it started. The fire was lit. I know low carb/Atkins is the way for me. So I started out fixing my diet. Since I’m a stay at home Mom, I can get out with my son, but I can’t really get to the gym until after 11pm – so I started back on my exercise videos. From January to May, I lost a total of 10 pounds. Which is, in a nutshell pathetic. What’s that like a little over two pounds a month? Ugh.
Now, if you know nothing about me, know I’m not really the slow and steady type. When I’m on fire, I want the fastest distance between point A and B. So I created a weight loss burn chart, realized if 3500 calories equals a pound lost a week and I wanted to lose more weight, I was going to have to be a little bit drastic and figure out how to get my calorie difference around 2500 a day. Yeah, I looked at 3500 a day, but even for my ambitious self, I thought that was too much.
The original appeal of Atkins what I didn’t have to ever track anything. Eat as much meat and vegetables as you want and every so often you can splurge on some fruit or dairy as long as it stays under your ideal carb count. But when you have a limited time frame, every calorie counts. So, I started counting calories and let me say, EYE OPENER.
When I tracked the calories in and out (thank goodness for Fitbit) I started seeing progress but again, I’m impatient and about two weeks ago, I explored an idea my husband had floated of trying intermittent fasting.
With an intermittent fast, you basically eat the same amount, just in a specific window. There’s some nifty medical terminology about why this works that you can find a million different places on the internet. I started on a 16:8 (fast for 16 hours: eat for 8) and then cut it back to a 20:4. All I can say is Wow. Since starting with the magic combination, I’ve been dropping 6-7 pounds a week.
Since the end of May, I’ve lost 40 pounds. It hasn’t been all that difficult. Yeah, I have to exercise three times a day, I eat Atkins in a 4 hour window and I have a Fitbit daily step goal, but I also got to go to the opera feeling more beautiful than I have in 5 years. I was able to go ‘shopping’ from the storage clothes and every pair of jeans I have – EVERY PAIR I can pull off unbuttoned. I have gone down 3 pants/dress sizes and am giving away more clothes for being too big every day.
We head out on vacation towards the end of September and I am 7 pounds away from my wedding weight, the original goal I set. There’s a very good chance I may even get back to the weight I was when I met my husband. So close.
