me minus 42.6 pounds

My Facebook friends know that I've been busy on a new project since March, and it doesn't involve lil' man's adoption. It's for me. I've been calorie counting, joined the YMCA, and have made several lifestyle changes. Hannah goes to the YMCA with me and is participating a tumbling class and in a Zumba class for preschoolers. She loves it, and asks all of the time, "Are we going to the Y tomorrow???" When she's not in a class at the Y, she's in child watch playing with the other kids. She loves it, and going to the Y has been great to help her break out of her shy little shell.

I've learned that it's easier to do this when I talk about it, but haven't talked about it on the blog... so there it is.

Because people ask me all of the time, I'll share what I'm doing.

I got the best success from calorie counting with the help of the Livestrong app for my iPhone. It has a huge database and made it really easy to count calories and make good decisions, especially when eating out. Now, I pretty much know that to stick to the calorie counting guidelines. I only want to eat out at Subway and get the 150 calorie Chicken Soft Tacos Fresco style at Taco Bell. Everything else, even grilled chicken sandwiches other places... still have so many calories. And I don't do salads well. It doesn't stick with me and I'm so hungry just a few hours later. My favorite low calorie foods and snacks are sugar free fudgesickles, anything ice cream by Skinny Cow, prepackaged sugar free gelatin cubes from Kroger (can eat the whole bag for something like 35 calories!), yogurt, Baby Bell cheese and grapes, Southwestern Egg Beaters with 35 calorie diet bread toast with Laughing Cow cheese.

I weigh myself every morning when I first get up, and record my weight on my Livestrong app. As weight fluctuates during the day, this allows me to see real changes and celebrate very 0.2 pound lost. When I screw up and fall off the wagon for a week, I see it right away with my daily weigh in... and having a scale gets me to jump back in the game plan before too much weight has been regained. It's such hard work to get it off, and so easy to put back on.

The Livestrong app also allows you to record exercise, but I'm not very good about that. I can also go the Livestrong web site and print off graphs of my weight loss. I bring this into my doctor appointments with me so they can see the changes as we're charting my success.

I must admit now that my wake up call with a fasting blood test and A1C that was borderline diabetic when I was at my heaviest weight. This came as quite a shock... and now I look at it as one of the best things that could have ever happened to me. After making these lifestyle changes and loosing 20 pounds in about 3 months, my A1C dropped into normal healthy levels with diet and exercise ALONE.

I needed to join a gym, but I was so scared too. I didn't want to be the lone fat girl surrounded by athletic women in sports bras and spandex. I made Kevin go in to sign up our family for a yearly membership, and felt physically sickened the first time I went because I had so much anxiety about it. No big deal now. I go about three days a week, no makeup, haven't showered yet, but I have my hair brushed and my power walking shoes on! It hurt a lot when I started going, and I even worsened my plantar fasciitis, and I hobbled around on my feet in lots of pain. I went back to my podiatrist who sent me to physical therapy. Six weeks of SASTM physical therapy (man did those sessions hurt!) and a bunch of medical bills later, my feet are nearly cured.

My workout routine lasts about an hour. I power walk for at least 30 minutes, getting my heart rate into the aerobic zone. I started out at 2.8 MPH and I'm at 3.3 MPH now, working into 3.4 MPH stretches. It's neat that I'm having to walk faster and faster to keep my heart rate up. I experienced my first runner's high in my life after about two months of power walking. I've found that I can't get to the runner's high until I've gone at least 35-40 minutes. For anyone who's never felt that... it's amazing, and I didn't want to stop power walking at the 60 minute mark... but felt that I'd better because I was really thirsty and starting to get dizzy. I still dislike power walking and would much rather eat Cheetos and sit on the couch, but... tough. I've got to do this. Anyway, after power walking at least 30 minutes I lift weights for about 20. Then I finish up on an Arc Trainer. When I first started, I could only go 3 minutes. I'm up to about 10 minutes now before my feet start hurting and I've got to stop. I learned that I go faster on the Arc Trainer when I close my eyes. When my eyes are open I want to look at the timer and keep thinking, "Can I get off this thing yet?!?!?!" the whole time. Now I'm bringing a post it note pad to cover up the timer on the machine.

Three months after I made these lifestyle changes, I asked my primary care provider if I could try Victoza for weight loss. She agreed we could try, but thought I was doing great on my own and really didn't need it. It is an injectable diabetes drug not approved for weight loss, but is helping me because it decreases gastric emptying, slowing down the rate that food moves through me. This makes it so I can't eat much more than a fist at one time, and I feel fuller longer. I have had problems with nausea, but just had to work through it. This is no magic shot and wouldn't help on it's own. I still have to do all of the exercising, sweat like a pig on the tread mill next to the blonde in her spandex running much more than twice as fast as I'm walking, make good choices, drive past McDonalds and their McGriddles and Lattes and choose flat bread egg and ham sandwiches at Subway, and yell at Kevin when he brings home Little Debbies (that makes me soooooo mad!) because I have very little will power when something chocolate and glorious is right in front of me. Victoza just makes it so I'm not so hungry all of the time, reminds me that I need to stop eating when I've reached the size of my fist, and makes it so I'm not witchy because I'm hungry all of the time.

For people that say that they can't afford a gym membership because it's too expensive... you need to prioritize. Cancel your cable or satellite TV and join the gym. You don't need 300 channels, but you need to be healthy. We canceled our satellite, joined the YMCA, got Netflix and Hulu subscriptions, and we're still saving money. We're getting fit, watching WAY less commercials, and loving it!

Please, no flames. It was hard for me to lay all of this out there, but somewhere... there's someone else out there reading this that needs to do this too. Needs to make a change. And something's stopping you. You can do it, too. If there is a road block that can't be lifted, you can find a way around it.

P.S. Old Navy makes great yoga pants for exercisin' plus size chicks for less than $20. :)