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I’m now three months in on trying to lose almost 40 lbs. It’s definitely not an overnight transformation, but I didn’t expect it to be either. As I’ve lost more and it became noticeable I’ve gotten the same question over and over again. I’ve even gotten it in email and facebook messages from readers…
“How are you losing weight?” “What are you using/doing?”
Quickly I’ve realized that this used to be my question too for friends that were successfully losing weight. It seems like a logical question, but really it shows where most of are mentally with weight loss. We are all looking for what is working, and most are hoping there is a quick and easy way to fix their problems (isn’t that the solution we want for everything?). Market reports show that the weight loss industry made 600 Billion in revenue for 2015, that includes everyone from Weight Watchers to all the pills, bars, etc. sold in every grocery and health store across the globe.
While there may be a place for pills, and even paying for programs I also want you to realize that weight loss can cost absolutely nothing with no magic pill needed.
What am I doing?
I am using a free app (MyFitnessPal) to track what I eat and free apps (Sworkit and C25K) to help me exercise. No special diet, no paid gym membership… It’s not the glamorous quick fix, it’s the age old answer your doctor has told you for years — You need to eat less and exercise more.
We don’t like that answer though do we.
A few weeks ago I answered a friend with “I’m just watching what I eat and trying to exercise” and her response was the honest truth we all feel. “Oh, I don’t want to do that.” She went from excitement thinking this might work for her, to disappointment in a split second.
It’s not glamorous, but it works. Turns out the reason I gained weight was me… the magic pill doesn’t change the problem, or the fad diet. I will always love Chick-Fil-A peach milkshakes and Krispy Kreme donuts, and I even eat them from time to time now, but have realized the consequences of eating too many calories.
Using my RN degree I feel confident in saying 95% of us don’t need to join a gym, or a weight loss program to start losing weight. There are the exceptions to this, but they are pretty rare. We just need to follow the age old wisdom and eat less and move more.
If the programs and gyms help you do this, then great. But for most just going for a walk at night around the neighborhood is better than what you have been doing. We don’t need to get fancy, we just need to do it.
Okay that’s my pep talk to all of us (myself included).
This weeks weigh in numbers:
Starting Weight (13 weeks ago): 202
Two Weeks Ago: 182.6
Current Weight: 180.4
Goal Weight: 165
I’m down 2.2 lbs. It’s really re-losing what I gained on vacation and the slump week afterwards. I’m glad to see it disappear again though! I had a goal last week of exercising 5 days, it took getting up early on Saturday to get the last day in but we did it. We being the sweet 11 year olds I wake up and have go running with me, kids are great accountability. I ran 3 times and did workouts in our garage two days. We are up to about 1.5 miles on our runs now, the goal for this next week is to hit 6 miles for the week. I also signed us up for another 5K in a few weeks to help me stay focused.
My challenge for us all this week: Track, even if you aren’t dieting, see just how much you really are eating.
