Hmmm, what an odd week. I guess I should start first and foremost by informing you fine ladies that I am feeling a lot better than I was when I posted on Friday night. I’m not really sure what was going on there, but after crying to my mom on the phone and getting a bit of motherly perspective I am feeling pretty damn good. It didn’t hurt that it was an absolutely beautiful weekend…God I LOVE the fall! Anyway, I’m back to feeling like myself which is a comforting fact.
Having said that, down to business. Last week you posed a question for us Jenny and wanted to know what successes and failures we’ve had in the past in regard to our weight loss attempts. I can only think of 2 real successes that I’ve had, one intentional and one not. The one time that I had some real success with an intentional weight loss program was when I did the Weigh Down workshop at a church with my 2 best friends in high school. The program focused on breaking the bonds we have with food and turning that love and devotion to Christ. It took away all of the dieting aspects of dieting that have not and will NEVER work for me. It wasn’t about cutting out the foods that I liked to eat. It wasn’t about forcing myself to eat HUGE amounts of really healthy foods that taste like cardboard. It was all about listening to my body, eating when I was hungry and eating what I was hungry for whether it was broccoli or cheetos. In this program there were no good foods or bad foods, so to speak. If you ate when you were hungry and only ate until you were satisfied (not bloated and stuffed) you were eating good foods, regardless of what it was. If you ate when you were not hungry, and I’m talking physiological, my stomach is growling kind of hunger, then you were eating a bad food…even if it was a food deemed righteous by the dieting community like cabbage. When I did this program I was incredibly skeptical. As a 280 lb. 17 year old I had tried to lose weight several times and now this crazy lady was telling me that I could eat what I wanted and still lose weight…right. Well, it worked. When you listen to your body and do what it tells you things tend to work out quite well. Sure at first I tested it and ate all of those naughty foods that I’d been denying myself, cookies, chips, burgers etc. But when I really listened to my body I found out that it lead me in the right direction and I got the foods I need. My body soon tired of eating only crap and I started to crave veggies and fruit and wholesome foods. Sure I had cake, but only if I was hungry for it. When I was eating like this I think I lost 20-25 pounds…I didn’t weigh myself ever while doing this program. The pounds lost were not the main focus, it was the discipline of listening to the body…the pounds lost were just the icing on the cake...pardon the pun!
The other time that I know I really lost weight was when I was starting my sophomore year of college. I started my program in athletic training at the very end of my freshman year. When I showed up for preseason before my sophomore year I found out what a physically challenging major it actually was. You’d be surprised how quickly you can drop pounds when you spend 13 hrs. a day lugging around 10 gallon coolers of water and chasing football and soccer players all over God’s green earth. I know that I dropped almost 25 pounds in three months when I started as an athletic training student. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Boredom is my biggest downfall when it comes to weight gain. If I have nothing to do but sit around and eat that’s what I tend to do. When I have lots of stuff going on around me, that’s what I do. When I was in athletic training I spent all day in class and then went to work until sometime in the evening. If my eating habits had been better at the time I could have lost some serious pounds when I was being as active as I was.
So, I guess my take home message from this blog entry is that I have had some success in the past. However, not enough…obviously. I think the one thing that didn’t work for me was that I always do things alone. With Weigh Down it was all about dieting. When I was in college it was being more active. I need to now tie these 2 things together and see what I can accomplish. Also, in the spirit of full disclosure, I really have been giving this weightloss/liftestyle change attempt a half-assed attempt. So, my only goal this week is to really find a way to give this more priority in my life. Ok, I’ve prattled on enough for now.
2 comments:
I remember something about the Weigh Down movie that involved a silver bullet or something? You, Tiffany, and I laughed our butts off about it. But yea...good mention of that program and it's goal of not withholding the foods we love so dear.
I know that when we attempted to do weigh down it was bad but I really had some success with it when I first tried. I think part of the problem was that the videos i got off of e-bay were her originals and so ridiculous. When I did it with Rachel and Melissa it was the actual finished product that was marketed and there were good videos, audio tapes and workbooks.
But the shooting our inner werewolf was pretty amazing that night!
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