GOOOOOOAAAAAAL!

After already having lost 110 pounds, July 2006 saw me break the 190 barrier. As I was getting smaller, inevitably, the weight loss slowed down. I had been losing 3 -4 pounds per week but I noticed that I would be lucky if I lost 2 a week once I reached that threshold. I had fully prepared myself for this and understood it was likely to happen. I did not want it disheartening me so I carried on exercising as I had before, focusing on my strength and fitness as much as I could.

The dreaded scales

During the midst of my weight loss, I must admit I was weighing myself once every 3 days or so. Some might frown on this and I would too. I definitely do not advocate daily weigh ins as the number on the scaledoes not represent the full story. For women, your menstrual cycle can affect that figure because of water retention, hormonal fluctuations mean that you may be retaining more water one week whereby it could be gone the next. This can make the difference between 2 - 4 pounds. Nevertheless, I have a head for statistics and so kept detailed logs of weight loss throughout the 18 months as I knew I could look back and see exactly what I had achieved.

Ditch the scales, get that tape measure out!

Taking your body measurements is a far more representative gauge of what is happening. Inches tell the true story. This was something I did once a month, again keeping a detailed log of my shrinking vital statistics. In my previous post, I outlined my starting stats and finishing stats; minus 82 inches is A LOT of surface area! Get those tape measures out, try to move away from more than once weekly weigh ins. If you do weigh yourself daily, try to stop that if you can. Once a week should be more than ample and the less time you spend distracted by the scale, the more time you can put into exercising and really improving your health.

The scales can become obsessional, they should only ever be used as a guide. We all know that you can step on 2 different sets of scales and get wildly different readings. They do have their place as you lose weight, you just have to be mindful of the fact that they can become your worst enemy if you allow them to be.

I don't weigh myself at all now. I have an idea of what I weigh as I have learnt so much about my body and can listen to it successfully whereas I totally ignored it before. I can feel subtle changes in weight, fitness and impending illness. More importantly, I really do know when I am hungry now and I eat when I am. This might be midnight sometimes but it is a sensation I have become familiar with. Before, I was so out of touch with everything organic about me.

I work solely on how my clothes feel now. I will sometimes take my measurements but that only happens once a month or so. Having been in maintenance for so long, my attachment to the weighing scale is another unhealthy tie I have severed.

Almost there

As we moved into Autumn 2006 I had broken the 180 pound barrier. My weight plateaued for a few weeks during September of that year but an increase in my cardiovascular routine kick started a renewed loss. Plateaus are common, I view them as a chance for the body to take time to re adjust. You cannot consistently lose weight, especially starting where I did. From experience, breaking through a plateau requires a shake up of the exercise routine.
When you train seriously at sport/fitness, the hardest, most gruelling , tear inducing sessions will be the ones where you gain the most fitness. Taking your body out of it's comfort zone works wonders.

When I reached a plateau during my loss, especially when I was near 180 pounds, I pushed myself a little harder at the gym or went on a longer bike ride or a longer, hillier walk.

No more tears

With my smaller body came so many new and exciting bonuses; clothes shopping had become a joy rather than a chore, instead of feeling desperately depressed and getting down about it, I walked away excited about my size 14 skirt and top. Sitting next to people no longer worried me, my overspilling thighs were a shadow of their former selves and my upper body was much reduced. I could walk down the street and no one would pass comment, I swear I continued to listen out for it, even though I knew that it was not likely to happen. My social life was far improved, instead of being a virtual recluse I would actively suggest evenings out with friends, whether it be pubs or clubs. All in all the benefits far outweighed any draw backs, which were few.

Keep on runnin'

So Christmas came and went and we entered 2007. My weight stuck at around 175 for a little while but this was when I discovered something that would become a massive feature in my life and has been ever since

I walked a 2 mile route around where I lived at the time, this route was used more for speed walking sessions initially. This one afternoon, I returned from work and decided to head out as I had been sitting on my bum all day and needed to move. I set off, keeping up my usual pace for a few hundred yards but then something inside my head said, 'try a slow jog.' I listened to that voice and broke into a slow jog, managing to complete the 2 miles remarkably comfortably. I got back to the house and felt very pleased, I could run! Albeit slowly.

That would certainly not have been anything I could have contemplated doing before, the excess weight coupled with poor cardio conditioning would not have allowed it. But there I was, just under 180 pounds and I had just run the furthest I had ever run in my life! I felt elated! I think the consistent walk and gym work I had done for 16 months had really assisted in bringing my cardio fitness up to a level where I could handle running.

My older brother is an athlete and he has always been my inspiration, I have witnessed him do some hellish events and been in awe; marathons, triathlons, duathlons.

So this new love of running kicked in. I started to train most days, only short distances at first but I absolutely loved it. It was heavy going on my lungs initially but they started to respond as I found my comfort zone. Any weight plateau I was experiencing was smashed out of the water, by April 2007 I had reached goal. it was a momentus feeling, I had done it. I recall the morning I stepped on the scale and the red marker was bang on 160 pounds. It really was quite an emotional day, I had spent the best part of 2 years working my arse off (literally and figuratively); tears, tantrums, hundreds of miles of cardio, mostly careful food choices and there I stood, 141 pounds down, fitter than I had ever been and on goal.

So that was the easier part of the process complete. I would then face entering maintenance, the final part of it that would see me implementing for the rest of my life. Maintenance has not been easy at times and 160 pounds was not my finishing weight by any means, but more about that later.

Next time I will explain how the first part of maintenance panned out and the challenges that presented. I will also outline some exercise related physical challenges I took on that pushed by renewed body to the limit.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, wherever you might be in the world!

Rainy xx