In adolescence, I was always skinny. I never had to worry about eating right or working out. My mom warned me that it would one day catch up with me but I was in denial. I'll just start working out when I'm older. Yeah....riiight.
Between my 18th and 19th birthday, I gained 20 pounds. I felt comfortable the size I was so I didn't make any dietary changes nor did I workout except once. Seriously. By the time I was 20, I gained another 10 pounds. I felt fat and I had fat therefore I started a diet and signed up for a gym membership. I lost 10 pounds and was proud of myself. I still worked out and hired a personal trainer for a month but I stopped my diet and ate whatever I felt like.
Hard times came. Gym membership cancelled. 20 more pounds gained.
When I saw that number, 176, on the scale. I was mad at myself, how did I let myself get this big. Still nothing changed. I would constantly battle with myself loosing 5 pounds here and there and gaining the 5 pounds back.
I don't know what clicked but it just did. It could have been a ton of stuff I was going through at the time or it could have been nothing at all. I don't know. I just know I was determined to get healthy.
I changed my eating habits dramatically. I cut out all drinks except water. I started this journey in November 2013 and was drinking 4 water bottles a day with this eating plan:
Monday:
Breakfast- cereal Bar & a banana
Lunch- leftovers
Dinner- chicken, brown rice and veggies
Tuesday:
Breakfast- cereal bar and a banana
Lunch- leftovers from dinner the previous night.
Dinner- tuna and cucumbers
Wednesday:
Breakfast- cereal bar and a banana
Lunch- leftovers
Dinner- chicken, brown rice and veggies
Thursday:
Breakfast- cereal bar and a banana
Lunch- leftovers
Dinner- tuna and cucumbers
Friday:
Breakfast- cereal bar and a banana
Lunch- leftovers
Dinner- whatever we had but in moderation
Saturday & Sunday:
Whatever we had but in moderation.
The workout we chose is silly but it worked for me. We played Just Dance for an hour and I would wear a sweat belt around my waist. Since it was winter the heater would be on to ensure I sweated a lot.
By January 2014, I lost 16 pounds and 7.5 inches around my body. I felt amazing but was terrified. I was scared of gaining it back after working so hard. I kept on track with my eating habits, I only took a two week break but was sure to eat whatever I did in moderation. However, I was getting bored with Just Dance so I wanted to try Insanity.
We borrowed it from my sister and tried it out for about two weeks but I have a bad knee from track so a lot of the stuff I wasn't able to do. I stopped working out and wasn't as strict on my meals but I only ate in moderation. I was able to maintain my weight and in April I got back on track with my meal plan following it 80% of the time and I decided to do the squat challenge
I was hoping the challenge would help strengthen my knee while toning my booty. I also did leg raises.
I completely took out cardio to see if it would boost my weight loss the next month when I added it back in.
By mid-April, I lost another 4 pounds totaling weight loss to 20 and I lost an inch off my waist. In May, I tried alternating running and Insanity but I still wasn't feeling it so I kept to running alone so I wasn't able to determine if taking out cardio for a month benefitted. I started the Nike+ 5K Program for beginners which is an 8 week plan and I am now on week 4. I have been following my meal plan 70% with some alterations these past 4 weeks and have been maintaining my weight loss and measurements.
Now, I have created a new meal plan for myself and I will be adding light weight training to my workout plan which will go into effect next week along with my running (more on all this in another post).
I wasn't planning on sharing this process so my current progress pictures are private. I will be sure to start taking progress pictures with more covering so I may share it as I tackle these last 15-20 pounds.
Highest weight: 176
Current weight: 156
Goal weight: 130s
Height: 5'2 I think.
