This year I'm getting serious about weight loss. I've fluctuated a lot since high school. When I graduated high school I weighed around 145 lbs. Not huge by any means but I sure felt fatter than a lot of girls. Now that I weigh 185 lbs. That's right you read the correctly. I've put on 40 lbs in the last 10 years. I'm not super tall, 5 foot 6 inches, but I seem to carry my weight better than some. Whenever I've told people how much I weight they don't believe it.
One year after high school I had lost around 10 lbs and looked pretty damn good. Though looking back at some of those pictures I think that might be a little too skinny for my age. Two and a half years ago, when I got married I weighed only 155 lbs. I've decided I would really like to get back to a weight of 145 - 150 lbs. In an effort to do so I've done two things.
1. I asked my mom and dad for a gym membership for Christmas
2. I'm watching what I eat
In regards to the gym membership - I started going to Planet Fitness as a guest with my mom last year. We usually went twice a week. She asked back then if I wanted a membership for Christmas but I wasn't sure if I would use it enough. Well after a while I found there were days when I wanted to go to the gym but Mom couldn't go. And if she wasn't there I couldn't go. So now that I have my own membership I've been going twice a week but I want to try and up it to three times. I've started with mostly cardio. My usual routine is 30 minutes on the elliptical machine and then 60 minutes on the arc trainer. I average 4 miles and almost 700 calories with this routine. I plan to start adding in some weight/strength training too.
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| Cybex Arc Trainer - not exactly the same model I use at the gym but close - source |
To help me watch my weight I joined My Fitness Pal. I know several people who use this and swear by it. I didn't think I could because I don't have a Smart phone (yes I'm behind the times - but I don't have any money for a data plan). Well while looking for a recipe on Monday I was directed to My Fitness Pal. I found out that you don't have to use the program on just a Smart phone. You can use the website on your computer. I also haven't been very good in the past about tracking my food daily, but right now I'm kind of obsessed with this site. When you first sign up you enter your starting weight, height, date of birth, goal weight and level of daily activity. It will then calculate your daily calorie allowance. You can gain more calories by doing exercise each day. My Fitness Pal has a huge catalog of foods. You enter what you eat each day and how much and it will tell you how many calories you have used for the day. Also once you enter all your food for the day and any exercise that you have done it will tell if you eat like this everyday for the next 5 weeks you will weigh X lbs. Sometimes I like to put my food in for all my meals early to see where my numbers are at and that way I can adjust in case I'm over or under my daily calories. You can weigh in on whatever schedule you want. I think I'm going to try to do it once a week. My Fitness Pal also creates a little ticker for you based on your goals. It can either say your actual weight and you work toward your goal weight or you can display pounds lost. Here is what my ticker looks like right now hopefully that little ladybug will start moving to the right over the next weeks/months.
Two of my problems when it comes to food is portion size and fatty foods. I love candy and many things that are just plain bad for you. Now I'm on my way to making better choices. So here is to moving FORWARD with my weight loss goal! I'll let you know how it goes.
