November 18, 2011

• “Charm”ingly Motivated

  It’s time for me to get serious about weight loss.

  My struggle with weight started a long time ago – right around the end of high school.  I was in a sledding accident one winter – I slid headfirst into a tree.  Needless to say, I had a major headache that day.  Unfortunately, I had a major headache for many days afterwards.  In my journals I stopped keeping track at Day 300 something.  All the medications and doctor’s visits and remedy attempts have become a bit fuzzy for me now, but I remember that it was linked to the severe TMJ I have (possibly connected to the head to tree incident) and that I was put on certain medicines for it.  During that time I was highly active – I was playing volleyball, I was playing tennis, doing lots of active things, but I was gaining weight at kind of a surprising rate.  At the same time, however, someone close to me was going through a severe eating disorder, and the last thing I wanted to think about was dieting or keeping track of what I was eating or how many calories I was burning.  I just let it go. 

  We eventually found out that one of the side effects of the medication was weight gain.  We weaned me off of it, but by then the damage was done.  I was quite a few sizes bigger than I had ever been before, and I was heading to college.  That first year of college I became very serious about working out, eating carefully, everything I was supposed to do, but the weight only came off in tiny little stages and I got frustrated.  And I still didn’t want to talk about it much or make a big effort towards weight loss, because of the person close to me who was battling her eating disorder and finally starting to gain some weight.  It’s hard to try to lose weight when losing weight is the enemy to someone you’re around and they are desperately trying to do the opposite.  I let my issues fall out of mind. 

  Since then its been an on again off again thing for me.  I go through spurts where I lose 10 or so pounds and then I get stuck at a plateau, or my birthday comes (with cake, of course), or the holidays show up again with all their deliciousness, or I’m so busy that fast food becomes the norm, and up I go again on the weight scale. 

  BUT NO MORE!

  For the last year and a half I’ve had the goal of completeing a triathlon.  I trained very hard for it in Virginia, but wasn’t able to sign up for a race.  I then moved to this very high altitude city and realized that I was in no shape at all!  It’s hard to breathe up here!  Not to mention I was starting new jobs and getting married.  Triathlon training just didn’t happen.  We recently joined a gym to help me get over the high-altitude issues and I’m finally back to being able to work out without absolutely dying.  The triathlon is next June, so I have until then to get into tip-top triathlon shape.  But in the course of starting real training, I realized how out of shape I really am, and how overweight I have gotten.  And it’s not okay with me anymore.  So along with the goal of becoming a triathlete, I’ve added the goal of losing 40 pounds.  AND I came up with a really great way to keep me motivated.  Here it is.

  

  That’s a charm bracelet.  I’ve alwasy wanted a charm bracelet – one with charms that really meant something for me specifically.  My mom has one from when she was younger, and I used to love wearing it and playing with it.  But I’ve never had one of my own.  Until now.  You’ll notice that there are no charms on it – yet.  I lost almost 3 pounds, which put me at the starting weight for this 40 pound loss process.  Now, for every 5 pounds I lose, I get to put a charm on the bracelet!  I’m so excited!  I worked very hard to get to the point where I could wear the bracelet, and now I am extremely motivated to keep working that hard so that I can put on my first charm.   I’ll post pictures when I do!

  I’m now going to the gym 7 days a week – and I’m really enjoying it!  I do a mixture of things, from Zumba, to Spinning, to Volleyball, to Running, to a yoga/dance class called WillPower & Grace, with a bit of strength training thrown in.  A co-worker of mine belongs to the same gym and she and I have been going to Zumba and WillPower together.  Andrew comes with me sometimes too, for volleyball and strength training, and it’s fun to do parts of it together.  He has been such an encouragement with this, and was right on board with the charm bracelet idea when I asked him about it.  The journey of losing 40 pounds begins with a single step I suppose, and my journey starts now!

   

  • 1:55 pm
  • 3 Comments