Start where you're at

First, I just want to thank everyone for being so supportive, encouraging, and loving. Your words mean more than you could imagine!! I promised I would share with you what I’ve been doing so far to lose the weight, so here it goes. You know, it's this crazy thing called diet and exercise. If you ask a doctor, nurse, nutritionist, athlete they all give the same answer, “diet and exercise!” Even though I am a nurse I still roll my eyes when I hear that because there has to be more than that! Well, I’ve gone from eating around 3,000 calories and a rather sedentary lifestyle and now count the calories of every single item I eat now! I consume about 1600-1800 calories a day and I try to get my heart pumping about 4-5 times a week. I use an app on my smartphone (also available at www.myfitnesspal.com) and track my calories and exercise. Depending on your weight loss goal (mine is set to -2 lbs/week) it calculates the amount of calories you need to consume each day to lose weight. It also guesstimates the calories burned during your workout based on your weight.

But it’s not that easy… I have a terrible habit of binge/emotional eating. If I become stressed, happy, bored, angry, etc. I could seriously down about 1500 calories in one sitting. My greatest weakness is ice cream. If it’s in my house…it’s not in my house for long because I can eat it like it’s going out of fashion (which luckily and unfortunately for me it is not and does not seem to be going out of fashion now or anytime soon)! So before I started counting calories a simply thing I did was quit buying the ice cream! If I do buy ice cream I buy the pint and share it with someone because even though it’s just a pint it can pack almost 1,000 calories in it! Yikes! However, my binges are not subject to simply ice cream, if I’m being honest I will eat anything that I can lay my hands on and I can mindlessly eat until everything is gone, and then I freak out realizing I just ate a carton of ice cream, a bag of chips, and three granola bars (even though they didn’t taste that great to me)! Then I would throw up my hands, decide that I’m a failure, and know that I am never going to succeed. I now have to consciously think and then decide if I really want to down empty calories that in the end will not make me feel better, will not be my friend, will not bring me the comfort that I’m looking for, and will only make me feel worse about myself. Even though it seems like a no-brainer to put the cheese dip down, it’s not! I particularly have an urge to eat whatever is in my refrigerator the instant I get home from work! One thing that has helped me a lot is before I eat anything pulling up myfitnesspal and entering the foods I want to eat into my diary and seeing if I really have enough calories to spare and if what I’m about to do is really going to benefit me in the long run. I’ve been doing well on controlling my binges that way and have been binge-free since I really committed to my weight loss in November.

Another big change I’ve made is the frequency at which I eat out. I used to eat out about 7 times a week and I now eat out maybe 1-2 times a week and I look at the restaurants nutritional guide before I go there to get an idea of the amount of calories I am going to consume! I have been doing a lot more eating at home! I think this is another thing that has helped me a lot, I like eating at home because I’ve made the food, I know exactly what I put in it, and I know exactly how many calories I’m consuming. I have a food scale and I think it’s one of the best investments I’ve ever made…and it was only like $15!! I still eat what I used to, just not as much, I think I eat a little healthier because healthy foods (like spaghetti squash, apples, greek yogurt) are all low in calories but packed with nutrients.

Exercise is harder for me. I can always use the excuse that I don’t have time to workout. I go to work full-time. I go to school full-time. I attempt to have a social life (hahaha)…and there’s just no time for exercise in all of that right?! Well, if you make is a priority then time you shall find. I literally have to plan exercise into my day and commit to going when I set the time aside to do it. Right now I’m mostly just walking/running (the farthest I’ve run without stopping to date is one mile) I’m currently doing a 10 week training plan for a run/walk 10k because I’m going to be doing a relay half-marathon in March in Dallas. My brother, David, is going to be running another half-marathon where he hopes to PR (personal-record) and I’m going to do the relay with my sister-in-law, Elise! She will run the 6 miles and I’m going to run/walk the 7.1 miles! So my current exercise regimen is running/walking 3 times a week (40-50 minutes), 2 days of cross-training (normally zumba, I’m trying to like yoga, and I love lifting weights, also elliptical, and swimming in the summer) and then I get two days of rest! I am fortunate to work three 12-hour shifts so I make sure that I schedule one day off in the middle of my work week…however when I wake up this afternoon I will have to run/walk before I go into work! Right now I wear a heart-rate monitor when I workout and I try to get my HR from 160-170 *please remember this is for me, I’m not recommending these numbers to you as a guide, merely sharing what I am doing* It’s not always fun, but I do notice that I feel so much better after I’ve worked out. I am more confident, I’m in a better mood, and I try to eat better (so I don’t undo the hard work that was just done)!

So a couple things that have helped me:

-       Finding an awesome pair of running capris from REI that fit me perfectly and help prevent chafing while running (very important)…once I found the perfect pair I bought 3!

-       Purchasing workout shirts that I like…because if you like it you’re more likely to use it

-       Signing up for runs to keep me going and to give me something to aim for!

A few goals of mine:

-       Complete the 7.1 relay in less than 1:46:30 (that’s a 15 minute/mile pace)

-       Run my first 5k at the Run For The Zoo in May!

-       Run a half-marathon by the end of the year!

One last thing, I weigh-in on Wednesdays, so every Wednesday I will “check-in” and y’all can see how it’s going! That’s it for now....and remember...