Weight loss - Almost to the Finish Line

At the beginning of 2015 I decided to work on trying to lose weight.  At that point I was wearing a size 16, and they were starting to get a little snug.  My goal was to get to a size 8 by September 2015.  Well, I made the original goal and then kept right on going.  I’ve currently lost about 75 pounds and now wear either a 0 or a 2 in clothes.  The cancer treatments did slow my progress down a bit, but all in all, didn’t affect it too much.

There wasn’t any kind of magical pill, or special diet plan, it was hard work and a major lifestyle change.  I’ve had to relearn how to eat, what foods are good for me, and what foods I need to either avoid, or to have only in moderation.  Basically, I count calories.  I base my decisions on what I’m going to eat by how many calories something has.  And let me tell you, when I was starting out, I was really surprised by some of the foods that were high in calories.  I also have a Garmin VivoFit that I wear all of the time.  It keeps track of my activity level and I can “earn” extra calories with it.  Right now I net between 1200 and 1280 calories a day.

A couple of things that I’ve learned through this journey

• Rice is really high in calories
• Have a plan in place for when the munchies strike
• Baby carrots fill you up, without a lot of calories (just make sure to skip the dip)
• While I can wear clothes a size too big, once they are two sizes too big they don’t look so good J
• You can’t exercise your way to losing weight – you have to change your eating habits
• Once you hit your final weight you can’t go back to eating the way you used to or you will gain it back.
• Make sure to provide room in your daily calories for fun stuff like cookies.

I am just about done with the weight-loss and will be transitioning to maintenance, probably during fall.  That’s going to be a whole different adventure and learning curve.