2013 Already?
So I recently rediscovered this blog of mine and with it being the new year I thought I’d reintegrate myself into blogging. Also, I seem to get much better results with weight loss if I post to the blogosphere regularly (and it hits two of my New Years Resolutions; rekindle blogging romance by posting at least once a week and reach Lifetime with Weight Watchers before August 11, 2013.) To start off this year, I’ll nutshell the good and bad that has passed in the last 4 (omg, really?) years since my last post.
Sadly, I have not yet met my goal with Weight Watchers, even after putting in an amazing attempt while writing this blog. At 5lbs from the top of my healthy weight range I fell off the bandwagon, hard. Turmoil and unpredictability caused me to fly off the rails and I ended up gaining a lot of weight back. About a year after the derailment, I crawled back and fell off again not losing any significant amount of weight, but again gaining more back once I was free of tracking.
Then everything changed in August of 2011. I was recently unemployed (again) and I decided that with all my spare time, I was going to get healthy. I told myself that this time was it, I’d been doing a bootcamp-esque class 3 times a week and I was keeping it up even better now that I was able to go to morning classes (really, so nice to work out at 9:30am not try to squeeze in an hour after work when I had three other evening commitments or have to miss classes because I was going away for the weekend) so I knew I could keep up the exercise portion. Tracking was thing that I knew killed my drive. It was all those times were I would feel totally deprived and start binging on non-healthy foods and then feeling horrible and not tracking which would lead to not caring anymore. So I devised a plan, for every month that I tracked everything, I would reward myself with something; new earrings, new shoes, etc. Arguably not the best option while unemployed, but it was a start. I also told my boyfriend that I wanted him to help me by just reminding me to track, not asking me what the points were or trying to only suggest things that would be healthier (things which in the past made me want to rebel and therefore choose the worst option, just out of random spite.) And with that, on August 11, 2011, I walked into Weight Watchers and signed up for what I am hoping will be my last time. To make things even more serendipitous, the leader for my meeting of choice was the same leader as I’d started my first Weight Watcher journey with four years previously and at a different location!
That day I weighed in at a whopping 240.9! I hadn’t weighed that much since early 2007, but it was a place to start and I used it as motivation. In my first week I lost 6.7 lbs (I’m pretty sure I lost a daily point as well, which made me happy) and I created the most awesomest spreadsheet to track my progress. Not only does it show me my weight with WW in table and graph form, each week it takes my weight and calculates my BMI (that’s colour-coded to show obese/overweight/healthy), my weight loss for the week, my average weight loss over all weeks AND based on that average an estimate on when I’ll reach goal! I also made up a similar sheet that shows me weight, loss, average loss and BMI for my daily weigh-in (another key to my weight loss journey successes, daily scale time before breakfast.) It is my favouritest weight spreadsheet ever, and I still use it daily!
December of 2011, my life changed again. On our anniverary, my boyfriend proposed. So very cute, he was so nervous about it. The whole week leading up to the evening he kept talking about changing our relationship (enough that I eventually asked him if he wanted to break up with me, just to get him to realise that he wasn’t doing a great job of keeping it secret.) Then all through dinner he kept grabbing and playing with my hands, not wanting to do it during dinner because he knows I don’t like a whole lot of attention. Finally after dinner, just as we were about to head back down to our car, he brought out the ring and asked. Now I had even more motivation to lose weight and get healthy!
In January, I found out that the bootcamp I was going to cancelled the 9:30 class. Arguably there were three regulars in that class, so it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to keep up. But that meant I was on the hunt for a new 9:30 am class to keep up my routine. After trying a few local gyms and having a few weeks of doing nothing, I stumbled upon a Groupon for a bootcamp that looked fabulous and was offering a deal on a month trial. Not only did they have a dedicated gym for the sole purpose of offering bootcamp style classes, they offered SEVEN class times every weekday and a Saturday class as well. The only “catch” was that for the Groupon deal you had to join the 8:30 class, something which didn’t bug me too much because it just gave me an extra hour in my day (I’d never do anything before bootcamp other than FB and breakfast, too much effort.) At the very end of January I started my month with The Bootcamp Effect and I was hooked after the first class. Exercise routine down!
The rest of 2012 was pretty much devoted to wedding planning although a few notable points must be shared. After 5 years of living in Metro Vancouver, my fiancé and I hiked the Grouse Grind, something I’d been wanting to do every summer since moving here. He has a birth “defect” which causes him to go slow with many breaks (which near killed me in the beginning when I had drive to keep going) but we made it too the top (I was really glad for those breaks in the upper half when I got super dizzy/nauseous and could only focus on what was right in front of me.) Once I felt human again, we celebrated by having pizza at the top, which I tracked of course, and I felt an amazing sense of accomplishment.
My other awesome accomplishment came from my wedding dress. My mom and I purchased it at a Boxing Week Sale, it was the first dress I tried on with my mom and Maid of Honour, it was on the clearance rack, but every other dress that day was compared to it. It was sold as is, obviously, and was slightly small, but the corset back offered a lot of freedom and the sales lady told us we could fix that by using a larger modesty panel at the back. We didn’t even have a wedding date yet and the dress was ours! After a few months we had the first fitting with the seamstress. I put on the dress and the seamstress asked us what she was supposed to be doing, the dress fit PERFECTLY! Of course it helps that I’m tall and the dress didn’t need any hemming, but the corset back did up perfectly and it looked amazing. I was so proud that I’d kept up with my food and exercise that I’d been able to lose so much. There were a few small broken elements that needed fixing, so we booked a second appointment with the seamstress to check the dress once they were done. Another few months and we were back, I tried on the dress and … it was TOO BIG! Again, the corset back gives a lot of freedom, but the sales lady was concerned because the lacing was done up so tight it didn’t give the preferred “V” anymore. This gave me even more happiness because those months I had seen less movement on the scale, so bootcamp was applauded for getting me so toned! We ended up having to take in the dress by almost 3 inches! I’m still so proud of myself for buying a dress a tad too small and having to take it in so much. And I looked amazing on the big day.
September was wedding month. We didn’t really want a long engagement, and the world was supposed to end in December (actually, on what would have been our 5th anniversary) and I didn’t want to die unmarried! (More-so 12 is my favourite number and I was determined not to have a 13 in a significant date.) I kept up my weight loss and reached 50 pounds lost right before the wedding. I even made it a point of going to my meeting 2 days before my wedding and again the following week before we left for our honeymoon. The honeymoon has been my biggest set back since this journey began. We were taking a 12 day cruise to Hawaii and I decided that I wanted to enjoy the cruise, the place and my brand new HUSBAND, so I was going to take a break from tracking and apparently reason. First meeting back (four days after arriving home), I was up 14.6lbs! Not totally discouraged, I got right back on track and then just before Christmas arrived back at my pre-wedding weight (spot on it actually.)
Now it’s 2013, I’m a new wife, still going to bootcamp 3 times a week (at least), tracking everything (even with my 7lb hiccup over the 2 weeks of pre-Christmas and Christmas and then New Years Eve where I tracked but didn’t count points), and aiming to add more awesomeness (like more snowshoeing and more Grouse Grind hikes!) My biggest goal for 2013, weight-wise, is to reach my Lifetime so that I can start working for Weight Watchers and helping others reach their weight goals (I’ve already been sudo-recruited by my leader and store coordinator as well as one of our receptionists and even the regional director!)
So we’re all up to date, watch out for more posts and updates to the loss page!
Goddess Undefined 