Kim’s Journey to a Healthier Place

You guys rock! Thanks for all the support!

I had an unexpected opportunity to speak with my WW leader at our meeting last night. I think I discovered what I needed to do to get out of this viscious cycle. I needed to talk to someone. It’s one thing to type on here but actually saying the words out loud, “I’m having trouble with binging” made something really click. I don’t talk to WH or family about this type of stuff cause it just freaks them out. They don’t understand- nor do friends who aren’t stuggling with the same issues. My leader could relate and really talked some sense into me. She reiterated how good I was looking and how much harder it is to lose the weight a second time. She reminded me that I know what I need to do and what I have to “lose” if I don’t do “it.” I binged yesterday before that meeting. After talking with her at the meeting I went straight to the gym for the first time in weeks. It felt great. What I needed to do was talk. My whole attitude changed with one short conversation.

My advise to all of you that have been facing similar issues with motivation or finding the wagon to jump back on, talk to someone. There’s just something about sharing your fears and concerns with someone who is compassionate and understands where you’re coming from. Give it a try. I know as much support as WH and others are in my life, they just wouldn’t know how to help. They don’t understand what I’m going through. Talk to your fellow WW members at meetings and your leader. Hopefully it will be just what you need like it was for me!

I’m not a nutritionist or professional in the area of diet or exercise. I don’t claim to do everything right, but I’m glad to share some of my experiences in losing these 40 pounds. I admit, it’s been super fast with huge weight losses. I’ve often wondered if I’m losing too fast. I guess being young and making some good choices have helped my body lose quickly. I DO eat all my daily points, and quite often, eat some if not all my extra weekly allowance points.

What are you eating? 

Notice my title is ”Kim’s Journey to a Healthier Place”, not “Kim’s Journey to a Skinnier Place”. This includes making wise food choices. One observation I’ve notice is the trap we fall into about our points. What we eat is just as important as how much we eat. A lot of people want to buy tons of 100 calorie packs and live off them. While they’re staying in their points range, they don’t lose much weight. Most 100 cal pks are still junk food, just smaller amounts. (Of course they’re fine on occasion.) Our bodies don’t work efficiently on that kind of stuff. I got in that rut too and didn’t feel as well or lose as much. I stopped buying 100 cal packs completely and replaced them with grapes, part-skim cheese sticks, bananas, whole grain crackers, carrot sticks, sugar-free pudding, yogurt, etc. These foods at least have some nutritional content whether it be fiber, vitamins, or calcium. Our bodies respond best to whole foods (i.e., minimally processed foods.) Changing these food choices made a big difference for me.

Avoid becoming ravenous 

One of my weaknesses is the bottomless pit syndrome (i.e., overeating). To combat this I started eating 3-4 small meals before dinner. My husband and I like to make dinner a heavier meal than lunch, so lunch for me is broken down into mini meals. I’ll eat breakfast before I get ready for work which usually consists of a high-fiber cereal (Fiber One Oat Clusters is my fav), with 1% milk, a Breakfast Lean Pocket, or a Smart Ones breakfast sandwich. My first snack at about 10:00 is something 1-2 points from the foods I listed above. I then eat lunch between 12:00-1:00 which is usually about 2 serving of soup (1-3 points), a frozen meal, or leftovers, and then a third snack shortly after lunch or about 3:00. Then for dinner I cook something more substantial. To manage my points I typically divide the number of points I have available in half (for example, if I have 22 points, 22/2 = 11.) I’ll eat half of my points in the morning/afternoon and save the other half for dinner. Of course there are days where is doesn’t balance out that way and I make adjustments.

Move! 

I try to work out between 2-4 days a week. I’m currently training for a 5K and doing a lot of cardio and stretching. I really need to start weights, but I just don’t like doing them. I’ll get there!

 The Ultimate Challenge

If you’re like us, you eat out quite a bit. At restaurants, I pretty much never eat everything on the plate. If you’ve ever seen how many points are packed into restaurant fare, you’d understand. Dotti has a great resource of restaurant menus and their point values. It’s SHOCKING! I always take some home or just leave some on my plate- even if I think it’s something healthy. Turns out, most of the time I’m not hungry anymore. I’ll even drape my dirty napkin over my plate so that I stop picking when I’ve reached the point I’m satisfied. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy hamburgers, wings, pizza, etc, just a lot less often. Maybe 1-2 times a month using my method of madness I just described. You’ve already paid for the food whether you eat all of it or not. It can go in the trash can or on your trunk. You decide! (I live by this motto when I eat out.)

Summary 

So to summarize, these are my daily notes to myself. Eat nutritious foods. Stay away from empty calories, even if they’re within your points, approach eating-out with caution, move, and drink water. That’s how I’ve gotten this far!

My name is Kim, and I’m a 28 year old on a journey to a healthier place. All my life I’ve struggled with my weight. Even in grade school I can remember being larger than the other kids. My first memory of being overweight was my first day of kindergarten. I remember sitting in a circle on the floor with the other students while parents dropped of their kids. Looking around the room I felt like the big monster in comparison to the other kids- the “big monster!” It’s unbelievable to me how self-aware I was  at such a young age. I can’t believe that was the image I had of myself in kindergarten. In the third grade I remember a habit I had of putting my hands up under the bottom of my shirt and holding onto the bottom of it so that it wouldn’t cling to my stomach. I thought it would make me look smaller if people couldn’t see my belly roll. I did this for years. In middle school and high school I began yo-yo dieting. I stayed active in high school with after school activities and went to the gym pretty regularly, but I still never lost much. In college I joined Crew as a freshman and lost a few pounds from running laps in an orange orchard while inhaling gnats. Good times. I only stayed with if for one season because I saw there was a lot more to college than 4 hours of Crew, six days a week. It was fun while it lasted.

The spring semester of my sophomore year, I found out that I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). While it sounds like an issue of having cysts on the ovaries, that’s only a symptom. PCOS is really a hormone disorder that causes sporadic menstrual cycles, hair growth, weight gain, cysts on the ovaries, etc. Excess body weight makes the symptoms more pronounced. My biggest concerns were that PCOS is the number one cause of fertility issues (because of the cysts and bizarre menstrual cycles), and more than 50% of women with PCOS will have diabetes or pre-diabetes before age 40 (www.4women.gov). My family tree is riddled with cancer, heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes. For me, PCOS sounded like a guarantee that I would get diabetes some day or another. I was determined not to let it get me. I lost about 30 pounds through exercise and eating right. That’s when I met my wonderful husband.

That was about 7 years ago. Since that time I’ve lost and gained the same 40 pounds. I always ask myself when I’m healthier and leaner, “Why do I always gain back the weight I lose when I feel so much better, and I really don’t miss eating everything in sight?” I think I may have discovered why. I honestly feel that I have an eating disorder.  Roni recently posted about binge eating as an eating disorder and I know I have one! I would eat far beyond feeling full until I felt overstuffed or sick, and I would eat alone because I was embarrassed of the amount of food I would consume. I never knew what hunger was because I was eating as much as I could every single meal. I don’t know how I didn’t weigh more. I guess I stayed just active enough that I didn’t weigh as much as the house.

Since marrying my wonderful husband, I’ve graduated from grad school, started a new job and joined Weight Watchers. I’m very proud of how far I’ve come. Everyday I’m making new strides. One of the biggest is realizing that I really don’t some of the foods I binged on. I don’t like most french fries and tater tots after all. I always thought I did and ate them because they were “bad.” They’ve received negative attention due to their greasy reputation; therefore, I wanted more of them. Now I just don’t care for them. What an enlightening moment. I don’t miss them. It’s amazing what you find out when you really taste your food.

So here I go. Check out my Progress page to see how I’m doing. Feel free to send me a virtual “kick in the butt” or “high-five” for a job well done. I’m well on my way with my journey to a healthier place. Won’t you join me?

For the past 4 months or so I’ve been reading weight loss blogs to help me in my weight loss journey. Roni has been a true inspiration for a 28 year old who has been trying to lose 60 pounds and get to a healthier place in her life. What intrigued me the most about Roni was our similarity in age, our similar starting weights, and Roni’s ability to maintain her weight loss for about 2 years. I figured if she could do it, I could do it, too. Since June, I’ve lost 38.5 lbs, and I’m still pushing forward. Because of the inspiration that I gained in reading about other successful people, I thought maybe I could be an inspiration to someone else. So here are my best efforts to record some of my ideas, hopes, and dreams to motivate myself and maybe help someone else along the way on my journey to a healthier place.