As I’m sure most of America can relate, being a healthy weight has been the biggest struggle of my adult life. After high school, the college sorority life which consisted of late night drinking and snacking, then fast forward to child bearing two 9 pound babies didn’t help my girlish figure.
For the past 20 years I was a size 12/14. I wore the same clothes so I figured that as long as I maintained that size, I was ok. I was in denial for a long time. I would crop and hide behind my kids in photographs, turn backwards on the scale at the yearly doctor appointments, and wear baggy clothes.
Last July though, I had another (what I thought would be) routine yearly checkup. The doctor said the words that rocked my world that led me to my lifestyle change. She told me that even though I went on the scale backwards, she’s going to tell me my weight. I was 204 pounds and in the obese 2 category for my BMI. (Body mass index.) That news shook me to my core.
She told me if I couldn’t lose the weight on my own she would put me on diet pills. It was at that moment that I knew my life needed to change. And it would’t start with a “diet.” It needed to be much more than that. I need to start over. I needed a lifestyle change. This would be a new way of life in which I needed daily exercise and clean eating.
That doctor’s appointment was all of the motivation that I needed. And that motivation was going to be the key to my success. My mom could tell me until she’s blue in the face to lose weight. I had to want it for myself badly enough that I would wake up early every morning to work out for an hour, and 99% of the time I would eat “the right foods.”
People ask me, “What are the right foods?” Now I’m not a nutritionist. We all know what we should or shouldn’t eat. But if you truly have the self motivation, those tempting moments of wanting the cookie, turn into wanting to be healthy more than eating that cookie.
It doesn’t happen overnight. In fact it took me nearly a year to lose 65 pounds and be in the normal range BMI and a size 2/4. It’s a lot of small daily good choices that lead to a great result over time. In high school I was probably a size 8, so in my mind, it’s hard to comprehend how far I have come. If I can do this, anyone can. If you work hard enough, anything is possible!
