At the age of 25, I knew I was suffering from high blood pressure which was common in my family. And on the verge of inheriting diabetes. I had always suffered as a child with my weight and was always teased in school about being the “butterball”. I would try to diet for a couple weeks or months, then I was right back to my same eating habits. I was tired of constantly having to shop online for clothes because it took so much energy to walk into a store and try on clothes. And mind you, clothes never fit the way I wanted them to. You never heard good things come out of my mouth about the “skinny girls”, and I knew it was due to me being jealous and wanting to be their sizes. I had skinny friends which did not bother me, but it brought down my self-confidence…. ALOT. I knew that I was not happy with myself and was extremely depressed. Of course it did not help at the fact that my family sometimes would harp on me about my weight. I had it in my head that it did not matter what they told me, I would do the opposite. I had also tried to have relationships, but it was always in the back of my mind that they were continuously searching for a woman that was smaller than me and I knew that I was always doing any and everything to make them happy but I was not happy. Of course, just as anyone will tell you… you have to love yourself before anyone else can. Now please do not get me wrong, I did not lose my weight for a man. I did this completely for myself, health and well being. But just as any woman, I wanted to be noticed and recognized. As one night sitting in my apartment, I was actually on Facebook looking through pictures of myself which I did every now and then just to see which ones I wanted to get rid of. Until I started coming across pictures from my 24th birthday and my best friends wedding. I sat there just absolutely disgusted with myself and all that stuck in the back of my mind was “you look like a huge cow” and “it looks like you have 3 stomachs”. I know that is so horrible to think about, especially about yourself but that is exactly how I felt. So I made a decision for myself right then and there, I did not want to be depressed and down anymore. I wanted to be my usual cheerful self and look good when being that way. I had decided that it was time to no longer diet, but instead make a life-style change for myself. See this is where so many people start and give up so fast. Many people have it in their head that “oh it’s a diet” and it’s not. If you want to look and feel a certain way, you have to make a life-style change and continuously maintain it too. When I first weighed myself, I started out weighing in at 236lbs. So I began with cutting out the soft drinks and sweet tea. I drank strictly NOTHING but water and yes this worked for the first maybe 10-20lbs I lost, which I knew this would happen. So at this point it was time to shock my body and I completely cut out the fast food. Working in the business I do, majority of everyone will leave to pick something up. Well, I was determined and head strong that I would lose more weight and not stop and knew this had to be cut out all the way. So at this point, I was drinking nothing but water and cooking each night and bringing my lunch to work. I ended up dropping more weight and hit a plateau. I then had a conversation with my mother who had lost around 85lbs and asked her for some advice, she advised me to start eating high fiber. Which mom is always right and that’s what I did. But yet, your body eventually will get used to the same thing and stop burning off the fat. I was now 6 months into losing weight and lost a great deal of weight. And my body decided it was going to stop. So at this point, it was that time, the time that everyone hates. I now needed to begin exercising, oh how everyone despises those dreadful words. I would walk the neighbor hood at night after dinner for about 30 minutes. Then eventually it picked up to an hour and so on, until I was outside for anywhere to 2 – 3 hours of walking. And I noticed the weight to start to fall off more and more, but I still was not satisfied with myself. One day just searching around the internet I had seen more blogs and comments on Dr. OZ and weight loss magazines that people had the tendency to drop more weight by running. So yet again, with me being so head strong about losing this mass amount of weight I started walking every morning and running at night. Yes I had to learn to not be scared to sweat, it was bound to happen. By this time I really noticed the weight to fall off. Then one day, one of my best friends suggested that he was going to give up carbohydrates for lint. Which I agreed I would give up the carbohydrates for 30 days too. Except when I put my mind to something, I sometimes have the tendency to extend or go a little further. I decided I was going to go for two months instead of one. I then realized how much lighter I felt by not always eating carbohydrates and I had so much more energy! Eventually just like all the other times, my body shut down and did not want to shed anything else. I then started to incorporate carbohydrates back into my eating habits… remember it’s not a diet. Another reason I had to bring these items back into my daily routine was running also stopped working and my Aunt introduced me to Tony Horton that performs the P90X series. Oh man was I in for it. Not only did I hurt so much, but I wanted to cry after the first DVD. But I was determined I would push through it and make it to the end of the 90 days and I succeeded! Then I knew it was time to switch up again for I could tell my body was getting used to these specific workouts each time. So I joined Pinterest and started researching different exercises that I found. Each different one I tried out and focusing on certain specific areas of my body. Then just when I thought I was in the clearing, I began to gain weight. I was to say the least, not a happy camper. Now don’t get me wrong, we all falter and sometimes sway back or take steps back. And for that split moment, I had a hard moment of weakness. Needless to say, that moment of weakness did not last very long. I jumped right back into it and continued working out and eating healthy. However, one key point of information I really gained was…. if there is something you want, then eat it. The biggest falter why so many people quit is because they completely cut themselves off from those indulges that they crave. Just as, if I wanted a hamburger I had a hamburger. However, I cut it in half and ate only half of the burger and threw the rest away. This journey I have experienced has truly been life changing to say the least. I have been on this journey now for 18 1/2 months and I have lost 108lbs total bringing me down to a weight of 128.8lbs!. I have stopped trying to lose more weight for the simple reason people tell me every day that I’m small enough and some even say that I’m too skinny. Well I do not see this on myself, but I keep thinking about what I would look like with just a few more lbs gone and I might end up looking like a skeleton. So at this point in time, it is now time for me to maintain and tone everything up. I have set a new goal for myself this year and it may take that long, but I am determined that I will have a 6 – pack, strong legs and arms. No that does not mean I want to look like the muscle bound girls in the gym, that to me is disgusting, but I want to have a good amount of muscles on myself. If you want to know some more ideas, maybe just pick my brain about my weight loss you can contact me at lvandell@ymail.com. I would be more than happy to share some little tips and tricks I learned on my journey that may help you on yours too. And again……. IT’S NOT A DIET, IT’S A LIFE-STYLE CHANGE!!!!! If you can keep that in mind, you will succeed further and continue on your weight loss!
This is for all the girls that are bullied in school or even as adults for being overweight and getting called horrible names and horrific acts being done towards you. Don’t you worry, there are some of us out there that went through the same things you are going through right now. You just have to be ready to stand up and say ENOUGH is ENOUGH.
Source: iReports
