Getting it done

Well, well, well. As you will notice, if you look to the right, I am down 23 pounds now!  And that means I'm only two pounds shy of my goal!  I have amazing friends and several of them asked me to share "how I did it."  Well, the truth of the matter is that I will keep on "doing it" for, well, hopefully forever!  What I mean is that once I hit my goal weight (which should be in the next two weeks), I will be actively maintaining my current state of health/weight.  I don't ever want to let myself get back to the place that I'm content with dis-contentedness.  I was overweight and I was unhappy with how I looked and felt, but I didn't have the strength, physically or emotionally, to simply get up and do the work needed.  

If you know me, you know that the last several years have been full of transition.  If I'm brutally honest with myself, I could really say that my weight gain started when I got married.  That was nine years ago, and I was barely past my 21st birthday.  I made meals for Daniel and me that my mom made for our family as a way to cope with the fact that I was no longer with my family.  The only problem with that was that my family had six people in it, and Daniel and I were only two!  We definitely didn't need that much food (and, in our defense, we always ate leftovers for lunches for a day or two), but it made me feel better to have familiar home cooked things.  That was the first year.  The second year we were in North Carolina, completely separated from everything and everyone familiar.  We were apart from each other a lot, too, because of Daniel's job as a high school band director in a program that had so many extra curricular practices and activities.  And I HATED my job.  So, food was a comfort again.  Years three and four were much better, because I had a new job that I loved (I will always think of Laurel Hill with such fond memories!), and I started traveling with the band so I saw more of Daniel, but that meant, along with our home cooked meals, we were both eating a LOT of fast food on the weekends.  After football games on Friday nights, all day Saturday away at band competitions, and then often on Sunday again on the way home from church (that was a half an hour away). 

And then we joined the Army.

Since then, we've had Lucas and I've gotten more familiar with the Army lifestyle (I'm not sure one can ever say that they're comfortable with the Army lifestyle.  At least, I don't know that I ever will.)  I've adjusted to and love staying home with Lucas.  And I've grown up.  I'm not that insecure, terrified little girl I was when I got married.  (Don't get me wrong:  I love Daniel and I'm glad we married so young.  We've grown up together.  But looking back now, I realize how young I really was.  It's by the grace of God alone that we made it through those first few years.)  Now I'm just shy of 30.  I'm a mother.  I'm more confident than I've ever been.  The only problem was, up until about a year and a half ago, I didn't feel that same confidence about my body image as I did about the mom/wife part of me. I realized that I needed to convince myself that I was the woman other people saw. 

The first step to my physical transformation didn't actually have anything to do with exercise or diet.  The first step, for me, was meeting a challenge that I felt I never would have done "before."  Summer of 2010, I started the Bible in 90 Days reading program.  I read.  And read.  And read.  I got behind and caught back up.  Twice.  But I finished in 90 days.  The "old" me would have started out on that goal and given up so easily.  It truly was a milestone for me to see myself stick with something difficult and finish it as intended.  It was during the end of that process that I started training for my first race, the Jingle All the Way 10k.  I got my training plan and I was so consistent.  We joined the Y earlier that year, and I taught myself to run.  I finished the race.  After a bit of a rest, I started training for a second race.  Last year, on my 29th birthday, I ran my second race.  Seeing myself set and complete goals was the first part of my transformation. 

I started to believe that I really could do something hard and finish it, even if it was just for me.  Since becoming a wife and, particularly since becoming a mother, I've gotten very good at doing things I don't like or want to do if they're for someone I love.  But I wasn't able to do those things for myself until about a year ago.  As I would run through the pain, I'd tell myself  "you are worth this effort."  Several times, I sobbed through my runs.  It took a while for me to believe it. 

Last summer, about 30 weeks ago, to be more specific, I decided it was finally time to do something about my weight.  Now that I'd figured out how to do the exercise piece, I wanted to see physical results of the work I was putting in and I knew that my diet was the piece that was missing.  I signed up for myfitnesspal and set myself up to lose a pound a week.  I wasn't sure at that point what my goal should be, so I set it for 20 pounds.  And I started tracking my calories and exercise.  Every. single. day.  Every. single. meal.  I was so consistent.  (I would like to insert here that Daniel was so supportive and encouraging.  I could not have done it without him.)  I planned my meals around my exercise schedule.  Days that were rest days had low calorie meals so that I wouldn't feel bad about eating.  I kept certain foods out of the house.  I went over two months without touching a french fry or a potato chip or soda.  (That was a seriously different life than I'd been previously living.)

By my brother's wedding in November, I'd lost 18 pounds.  I wore a smaller size dress to his wedding than I'd seen since my first year married.  I was feeling good about things after that, and didn't have a race to train for.  So, until Christmas was over, I decided to take a break from losing the weight and to just maintain my weight.  There were so many meals during the Holiday season that I knew I'd have no control over.  So, I gave myself a much needed break from extreme vigilance and let myself enjoy all the festivities.  But I realized I'd changed drastically over the course of the last several months.  I chose water over other drinks, because I preferred it.  I ate what I wanted, but knew when to stop.  I knew how to balance things so that I wouldn't feel out of control or disappointed in myself.

Come January, I decided to get back on the band wagon and lose the rest.  But things were slower.  I wasn't as motivated to get to the gym with no race coming up.  I was missing my work out partner, who'd been away.  We had sicknesses and were getting Daniel ready to go to ALC.  And then February came, and Lucas and I were in Maine for the month with my parents.  I had very limited access to the gym.  So, in those 8 weeks, I lost about 3 pounds total.   Coming home and getting back into the routine of working out and tracking calories has been great.  I lost two pounds this week, putting me now just two shy of my goal (which, as I stated started out at 20 pounds, fluxed up to 28, and settled at 25).  I'll put up before and after pictures when I actually hit my goal.

So, to answer The Big Question, What Did You DO?, I stuck with it.  I exercised.  I tracked calories.  I changed my mind about myself.  I became an athlete.  I subscribed to and read Runner's World, believing that I have a "right" to read an athlete's magazine.  It was slow.  And it wasn't glamorous.  But I changed my own life.  And I'm pretty darn proud of it.