My Weight Loss Story

When I was pregnant with Jane, I gained 18 pounds. After staying in the hospital for four days when she was born, I had lost 25 pounds by the time I got home.

When I was pregnant with Megan, I gained 19 pounds. When I left the hospital 27 hours after she was born, I had lost 17 pounds. I only had two more to go.

When Chris and I lived in different cities, I gained, ahem, more weight than I had with either pregnancy. I was overly stressed with single-parenting two kids, working full time, and single-handedly packing my entire house and classroom. I was feeding myself and a very picky two-year-old. It was easier to eat out just about every day, sometimes more than once, rather than put in the effort to cook something neither of us really wanted to eat.

Yuck.

Once we moved into our new house together, Chris and I both wanted to lose a bit of the stress weight. The initial plan was to just count calories--figure out how much would be a good daily intake for each of us and simply count everything that we ever ate.

That was way too much work. Basically, it just didn't happen. We didn't have quite enough motivation to figure all that out from scratch while we were still adjusting to living in a new house in a new city while suddenly being married again. Mostly we just thought about it a lot and still ate whatever we wanted.

Not working.

Then my sister asked me if I wanted to join Weight Watchers with her.

Problem: I have always thought of Weight Watchers as a program only for older people who were more significantly overweight. I believed that I was too young and not heavy enough to warrant participation.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

I would like to publicly apologize now for all of my stereotyped opinions. I feel bad about it now. Weight Watchers (shameless advertising here!) is a very good program that is designed to work around individuals at any level of weight-loss. I never once felt like I was "dieting". I didn't feel like I was being told what I could or couldn't eat. Rather, I was learning how to pay attention to what I was really eating and making better choices. Not dieting.

Result: In the last five months, I have lost everything I gained and more.
I now weigh less than I did when I got married.

Here is my before picture:


I didn't zoom in because I think I look bad. Although, it does make me a little sad that the picture where I think I look the heaviest happens to have been taken at Disneyland, but, what can you do.

After:

I may not be stick-thin, but dang, I think I look pretty good.

I would also like to mention that Chris has lost over 30 pounds. He didn't join Weight Watchers, but he started watching what he was eating, too. And it worked!

What worked for me...

1. Tracking

This is part of the Weight Watchers plan, but it really works with anything. To put it simply, I write down every single thing I ever eat. Just paying attention to what goes into my mouth automatically made me eat less because I had to be accountable for everything...every bite, lick, and taste. Writing it all down kept me from eating less healthy food and from eating too much of what was healthy.

2. Cheesy Workout Videos from DI

I have never liked exercising. I do it now because I really do want to be healthier (and let's be honest, skinnier). I was having a really hard time figuring out how to exercise with my kids around, though. I worked nicely in the summer to go for walks in the morning, as long as we left early enough that it wasn't too hot. When the weather wasn't cooperating, I got up early and did workout videos that I bought at DI. Cheesy 80s videos...they were even videos, not dvds! But, it got me moving and gave me some strength training as well that could all be done while my kids were still in bed. No babysitter required!

3. Going to Class

This is probably the part of Weight Watchers that made the biggest difference to me--I needed that weekly accountability of weighing in. I also really enjoyed going to the class and hearing other people's ideas and tips. And it was cool every once in a while when I had something to share, too. I liked the leaders and knew they would be supportive if it was a good week or a bad week. Also, the awards were fun...who knew stickers could be so motivating?

I don't know that I would say that I'm done...I'd like to take off a few more pounds before I'm really content with my weight. But, even now, I know that I am in a much better place than I was six months ago. Yay!