A lot of normal weight people really love say to overweight people, and I’m no different, “Well, I don’t understand what the problem is, all you have to do is eat right and work out.” For the first time in my life, I can say I fully understand how hard it is. I have tried and succeeded in bringing fitness and an exercise regimen into my life but, I have never tried to lose weight. I have never tried to make the numbers on the scale go down. This is my story of trying to lose 10 lbs in 3 months, regaining my health, rebuilding my strength and surprisingly, gaining a deeper understanding and greater empathy of the struggles people go through to lose weight.

1.     Keeping Track

When the doctor told me about my cholesterol I was upset and offended when he suggested I lose weight. How could this be? I workout every morning at 6am for an hour. He looked at me puzzled like he didn’t believe me. There was no reason someone who works out like I did should have these high numbers. Technically speaking (by whatever chart they were going with that week), I was within normal weight range for my height but, I was dangerously close to going out of bounds. My body measurements were improving, my pants fit nicely, I was doing lots of cardio and weights and firming up all over, what was the problem? It just didn’t make sense. The answer was simply put, I was eating too much.  I had the mindset that I’m working out like a mad woman, so I can pretty much eat as I always have.  I’ve come to find that this line of thinking, quite common among gym goers, only does one thing for your body weight, it maintains it.  You will neither lose or gain, just stay the same.  The answer was painfully obvious, in order to lose weight and I had to cut calories.

In order to cut calories safely, I started keeping track of what I was eating and how much I was burning during my workouts. And to be completely honest, I wasn’t happy about the prospect of having to do this. I am really BUSY. I don’t have time to look-up food nutrition facts and calorie burn reports to log into a journal and calculate daily. Who has time for that? So a friend turned me on to an app for my phone that would do it all for me. It is utterly GENUIS!

MyFitnessPal.com (http://www.myfitnesspal.com/) is the free app I downloaded to my Droid phone (I am certain it is also available for the iPhone).  For those of you who do not have a compatible phone, you can use MyFitnessPal on your regular computer.  MyFitnessPal will help you create a profile of what your weight loss (or weight maintenance) goals are.  It will calculate your daily caloric intake and your daily caloric burn based upon the foods you enter and the exercise minutes you log.  This way you can see how much you’ve eaten for the day, how much you’ve worked out (or need to work out) and if you can reward yourself with that glass of wine at the end of a hard day.  And if you are interested in watching your cholesterol (or sugar, sodium,  fat, etc.), it will tabulate that as well. MyFitnessPal has a giant database of foods (including brand names) and exercises already installed.  The greatest part about MyFitnessPal app is that it remembers my most recent meals so I do not have to search for them everyday.  I can also create and save meals under “My Meals”, for every time I have that particular dish for dinner.  It is so easy and convenient I can hardly believe it!  I could really go on and on about the perks of this app, hands down, MyFitnessPal was the indispensable tool for my successful weight loss.

On average I burned roughly 300-500 calories and consumed 1300-1500 calories per day.

2.       Body Fat Measurements

At the same time I decided to take my health seriously, my office started a Fit Challenge for its employees.  I won’t go into all the details but, they offered a little healthy competition with a cash prize to the winner (No, I did not win.) and the opportunity to have our Body Mass Index (BMI) and Percentage of Body Fat (PBF) in measured  4 times throughout the competition.  If you have not read the reports on the correlation between diabetes, heart disease, infertility, cancer, etc. and high BMI and PBF, you definitely should.  If possible, contact your doctor and find out where you can have your  BMI and PBF measured.

In my case, the gym Equinox sponsored the use of a  machine called InBody 230  to do the job. Don’t ask me how it works because I have no idea. 

The goal was to get my BMI under 25 and my PBF under 28, anything over is considered obese by the US Department of Health and Human Services .  Here were my revealing results of my 4 measurements over the course of 3 months:

1^st BMI 25.4
PBF 32.8 Obese

2^nd BMI 24.8
PBF 29.7 Obese

3^rd BMI 24.2
PBF 28.1 Almost there

4^th BMI 24.0
PBF 26.9 Finally in normal range Yippee!

3.       Eating

 I focused primarily on portions and serving sizes.  This was my biggest challenge and my biggest learning curve.  I found that I had to retrain my brain to eat smaller and to accept that 1 cup was good enough.  My brain was programmed, much like brushing my teeth, to eat certain portions of food.  For example, after I’d have my first slice of pizza my arm went on auto pilot to reach for the 2^nd and 3^rd slice.  My brain and my stomach started growling as I walked away from the pizza box after only 1 piece.  In reality my body was satisfied with 1 piece but,  I’ve been eating 2 to 3 slices for most of my life and now all the sudden I wasn’t, so it was revolting against the change.  It didn’t take long to change my wiring but I did have to be aware and conscious of it to combat the automatic pilot from kicking in.

I read the packages of food and I would only eat the serving size on the label.  If it said 1 cup, I only had 1 cup.  If it said 7 pieces, I only ate 7 pieces.  If it said 5 oz. I would pour only 5 oz.  My 1 and ½ cup measuring cups became my best friend until I could eye-ball my food without them.  This did not take long to get accustomed to.

I did not deny myself anything.  I had pizza, chocolate (pretty much everyday), pasta, wine, burgers, cupcakes, chips, everything that you think you shouldn’t be eating on a “diet”.  But I wasn’t dieting, I was just being mindful of my portions and I did a lot of cutting-in-half.  One day we got Magnolia’s cupcakes at the office.  They are beautiful, delicious and gigantic at 420 calories!  Normally I’d eat the whole beast.  Instead, I cut it in half and saved the rest for the next day.

 I know I just mentioned a bunch of junk-foods above that I ate but I also want to be perfectly clear, so there is no misconceptions, in addition to those junk foods I mostly ate good healthful foods.  Whole grain breads and pasta, lots of fruit and veggies, chicken, turkey, lean beef, brown rice, low-fat cheeses, almonds, dried fruits, etc.  Make no mistake, you should not fulfill your caloric intake with garbage.  Eat clean and balanced and measure it out.

4.       Exercise

 This is were I get serious readers.  I work full time (with a commute), I am a wife and a mother of a toddler, I am a step mother to a 6 year old, we travel a lot,  I have and elderly cat, daily household chores, I write daily and operate LadyBowTie (obviously), I am fashion show consultant, I work seasonally for a wholesale accessories showroom, I’m reading a 3-book book series, I’m participating in a 30 day fitness challenge online, and a I have a variety of side projects and obligations that fill every free moment of my life.  The reason I tell you all this, is because “I don’t have time,” is not an excuse or an option when it comes to fitness.  Are you busier than me? I doubt it.  If I can fit in some work-outs so can you.  Your body can not survive without movement.

During this 3 month period  I exercised 70-90 minutes per day; usually in short bursts, 15 minutes here and 30 minutes there.  I stretched EVERY morning and did calisthenics or short circuit training routines using dumbbells or a kettle ball.  On my lunch hour I walk, ran and climbed stairs.  On the weekends I did more circuit training but mostly put my kid in the stroller and did a lot of walking and housework.  You have the time, as the great Liv Tyler once said in the movie Empire Records “There are 24 usable hours in every day.”  Which of course is just an exaggeration, I do sleep.  I make sure I get in my 8 hours every night, if I don’t I can’t do what I do every day. Oh and PS. I quit the gym.  I did it all with no gym and all at home or outside.

And I made sure logged every minute of exercise on my MyFitnessPal app.

My new favorite exercise regime and what I’ve been doing for the last month is called BodyRocking (http://www.bodyrock.tv/).  BodyRocking is a work-out blog created by a couple of fitness nuts (and I say that in the nicest way possible) that has started an at home fitness phenom.  They create short and intense interval training videos using an interval timer.  They create a new workout every day, video tape it, break it down so you understand their form and post if for the world to see.  I’m hooked and I’m very excited to share them with you.  BodyRock.TV has completely changed my shape and increased my strength dramatically in just the last 30 days.  Men, these workouts are not just for women, their guy host Sean creates some killer routines!

I must put in a disclaimer about first time viewers to BodyRock.Tv. Some consider the hosts impressive figures “too sexy” or become intimidated by their level of fitness.  Please don’t let yourself get hung up on that, work past it and just get into their site for a few minutes.  Read their philosophy and watch a few of their workout videos.  They break down all the videos and modify the workouts for individuals with different fitness levels and without equipment, etc.  I find their videos completely motivating, challenging and I’m completely into it.  I drank the BodyRock kool-aid! I can’t wait for what the next 90 days of BodyRocking will do for my body.

The key piece of equipment you will need for BodyRocking is an interval timer.  I down loaded a free app to my phone (Droid) called HIIT Interval.  All it needs to be able to do is time your work period, your rest period and the rounds or number of exercises within your routine.  High intensty interval training, also called Tabata, it is the latest fitness craze in which BodyRocking is based on.  The best part about BodyRock.Tv is that each workout is anywhere from 7 – 20 minutes long.  That’s it, and I’m done for the day.  Can’t beat that!

My results:

First I would like to share with you measurements.  Using a soft measuring tape, I took monthly measurements of my neck, waist and hips to help gauge my progress.  And here is what I lost:

Neck -  ½ inch  in the first month and then it flat-lined

Waist - 4 inches WINNER!

Hips - 2 inches Good stuff!

Next, I want to show you the rate in which I lost weight over that three month period.  I weighed in 4 times:

1st – 2.5 lbs

2nd – 3.5 lbs

3rd – 2.9 lbs

4th – .9 lbs

Total = 9.8 lbs

Lastly, I went back to my doctors and here are my cholesterol scores:

Bad Cholesterol down 21 points (normal is below 130).  Woohoo!

Good Cholesterol up 3 points (normal is around 46).  Yeah me!

Triglycerides down 10 points (normal is below 150).  Still needs work but not bad.

Its been four months now and I lost a total of 12 pounds! And no weight loss story would be complete without before and after pictures.  Just so you know, I was terrified to do this and reveal so much of myself but I’m committed to helping people make positive changes for themselves.  I want to inspire change in you.  I want you to care for yourself, love your body, build up your self esteem and confidence and live a fit and full life!  Here they are:

Before

After

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