I lost 40 pounds and I didn't realize it....

Yeah, I lost 40 pounds and I didn’t even realize it. I watched the scales, I realized when I hit another number that ended in zero and started at nine again, but I didn’t really add up the pounds. Why didn’t I realize? Because I was so caught up in the fact that I had been a lower weight before, that I forgot to congratulate myself on losing.

When I was a senior in college, I started to go to the gym daily, swimming, doing elliptical whatever. I started moving. Along with this I cut a lot of crap out of my diet and started eating lots of small meals, drinking a ton of water, and watched the pounds just drop. I was in awful shape then.  Now however, I’m in pretty good shape. My husband is constantly shocked with how strong I am (sorry for punching you baby!) and when we were moving I shocked myself with how easily I could pick things up. 

So here I am around 230-240 and I met the man of my dreams. Suddenly I’m going out to eat all of the time, I don’t have a gym out of my front door and I start gaining…and gaining and gaining.  So after all that hard work I ate myself up to 307 pounds. That is one scary ass number. 

I went to the gym 3x a week with a trainer, I was doing spark people and tracking food. I didn’t do enough cardio, but I wasn’t living a sedentary life. But I didn’t lose anything really. Mayyybe 5 pounds, that I could gain back if I ate spaghetti or didn’t take a poo before I weighed myself.  I just wasn’t losing and I started to get more and more frustrated. So I started taking phentermine.

Anyone that knows me knows that I’m all about going green and taking the toxins out of my body, but seriously people—I’ve got NO metabolism.  I would be great in a famine, last one to starve to death and nummy to eat if I died of something else first.  The thing is…the drugs worked.  Not because they made me eat less (although they do) but because for the first time in my life, I had energy. I could clean my house, I could go to the gym and do cardio, I could live without naps. 

Having that energy gave me the up I needed to really work hard at the gym, to make better food choices etc.  The first month I lost 11 pounds and released enough estrogen to have a period for the first time in six months.  The next month I only lost 5, but it was still 5! I haven’t taken the medicine in almost a month because of the surgery.  First I allowed myself to eat a lot of red meat (which normally I wouldn’t) knowing that I needed to pass an iron test to have the surgery. I have been known to frequently flunk those, and frankly…I wanted some damn steak.  I also, for the first time in my life just didn’t care about what I ate, so obviously I gained like 5 lbs.  I lost that during surgery and more getting down to about 266. 

Next week I start yoga classes, I am investigating gyms/trainers, and I am going on lots of walks with my friend.  I am good with myself.  I feel like this surgery really put me on the track to good health.  Not having a systemic strep infection does that to ya ;). 

Peace and good health to all in this upcoming year. 

What is your weight loss journey/goal?