For me I found I am the most comfortable with counting calories. No foods are off limits by doing this, which makes it easy to mixthings up. It’s a very simple theory, if you consume less calories than your body is use to then you will lose weight. Obviously this is something that is easier said, then done. I started counting calories before I had a smart phone…. Now that was a pain in the ass! But with a smart phone and all the apps they have now it makes things soooo much easier. My app of choice is the “Lose it!” app and the best part about it, its free! Lose it does all the work for you, all you do is enter your information, weight, sex, age, how much you want to lose (max 2lbs per week) and Lose it will calculate how many calories you can have per day. Once your all set, you enter in all the foods you eat. The app includes a list of restaurants, brand name food, and allows you to search different generic foods. My favorite part is the bar code scanner, anything with a bar code, you can scan and all the information goes right into you phone! God I love technology.
I still find myself looking up foods on websites of restaurants that I can’t find listed on the app. When that’s the case, I choose “Create food” on the app and enter in the informationI found on the website. I find myself doing this often for Saladworks, every time I go Iget a different create your own salad. Lucky for me the website has a nutrition page that always you to create your own and it will calculate the calories for you. Best. Thing.
I have struggled with weight for as long as I can remember. Even though I was an active child always running around and playing, I was still the “chubby” kid. As a teenager, I would think how unfair it was that my friends could eat junk food and stay skinny, yet I would eat it and see the scale climb up. I first started dieting when I was 17, and for the next 6 years I would try every diet I could think of. My weight would go down 20-30lbsand then back up 40-50lbs. But on March 17, 2009, age 23, weighing in at 259lbs, I decided to take control of my life.
I started to focus on small changes in my diet, like not eating carbs at dinner time, and trying to eat a lean cuisine everyday at lunch. I went to the gym more frequently, and working harder when I was there. I love the way going to the gym and eating healthymakes you feel, but despite how great that feeling is, it’s still easy to fall into a slump. Iwould work out consistently and eat right, then all of a sudden fall off the wagon. That cycle repeats its self often, it’s been 4 years and I still do this. Weight control is something that will always be a battle for me. But when I started this journey, I came up with a theory, and it has been something I have lived by for the past 4 years, “You'll never fail if you never give up.” Every time I go off track, that saying gets me right back on track.
When I started my weight loss journey I thought I would lose a 100lbs in a year. Its over 4 years later and I weigh, 169lbs, exactly 90lbs loss since the start. I still haven’t reached that weight, but I still haven’t given up and now I am closer than ever, and look and feel better than I ever have. I will be the first to admit I am not the healthiest Icould be. I love greasy takeout food, sweets, beer, wine… all the foods that our “unhealthy’for you, but somewhere along the way I have learned to manage it. This blog will be about the ways I have learned to manage my weight, try and find ways to be healthy and most importantly maintain happiness through it all.
Here are some pictures that will show all the process I have made. It's been a slow progress but I've come far.
Weight about 245lbs (I couldn't even find a pic from my heaviest!)
