Old Habits and New Ones

Well, I'm less than a week into this journey and I've lost two pounds! Don't get it twisted, I'm sure it's just the pure shock I've put on my body with the change in my eating - I barely would count it as success, but I'll take it even still.

My hope is to blog weekly, however I was compelled to write earlier this time, partially for my sanity, partially - I hope - for your entertainment.

During the season premier of The Biggest Loser; watching contestants talk about how they got to where they are today; seeing many of them uncomfortably sitting in their cars eating fast food, it was as if I was looking at myself. I reflected on how I used to pull up and order food for myself, my son then pretend I was ordering for someone else too. Sadly that someone else was simply my stomach, my emotions, my insecurities. I fed them well. I'd eat more than some NFL line backers and sometimes not even feel full. I could consume 6-7 pieces of pizza in one sitting. I started to believe I really might have a disorder where I didn't have the sensation of being full. I believe now that I'd simply stretched my stomach to a point that it took so much more to get full!

Though I've tried everything, Alli, Phen-phen, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Adkins, soup diet, grapefruit diet, air diet, praying diet, I've come to the conclusion it's not a diet I need, prayer maybe, but truthfully it's not a diet any of us need. This is a life change; a chance at re-birth - simply starting over, eating right, exercising, and being conscious of EVERYTHING we consume.

We need to start a new revolution and know that it took time to get here -it'll take time to change. One program that's really worked for me in the past is journaling, writing everything down. Initially I'd walked around with a small note pad and wrote down everything I ate and the calories they held. I'd made a decision to not consume more than 1800 calories - why...because I made it up! I mean I knew one pound of body fat contains approximately 3,500 calories. Which means, in order to burn 1 pound of fat, you must have a calorie deficit of 3,500 calories. Therefore, to lose 1 pound of fat per week, you need to have a 500 calorie deficit each day. I figured I'd up my chances in losing more by eating WAY less.

I've since become more educated, conducted more research and it turns out you really do need to eat to lose - careful, I didn't say run to McAnywhere! I still track everything I consume but now use a tool called Daily Plate from www.livestrong.com. This is part of the Lance Armstrong foundation and really has been a Godsend. There's tools to set goals, track literally anything on this planet that you'll consume with full nutritional breakdown. With your goals you'll chose how many pounds a week you'd like to lose and the program will tell you how many you're allowed to consume daily. Additionally you can log your fitness - here's where I wish they'd upgrade. When you log a workout the system give you back the calories you burn, so be mindful to keep them subtracted in your head or just add your work outs at the end of the day. There are groups and challenges that help you keep in touch with like-minded people after similar goals. There's even a feature called "Loops" where you can put in your location and the distance you want to walk/run, and it produces a loop or three to get you going. Oh and THERE'S AN AP!

Well I'm off to get physical! Finally, I'm AMPED - I missed this feeling, I think it was hiding under wrappers and calories! Watch out folks!