About a year ago I decided 'again' to embark on a weight loss journey. This time around my strategy involved changing my food habits, developing a workout regime and just basically adopting a healthier lifestyle. This was about 7months after the birth of my second son, so I still had a decent amount of pregnancy weight to get rid of. I wasn't new to dieting, I have had my fair share of yoyo dieting pretty much for as long as I can remember. You see, I have had to watch my weight most of life because I tend to add weight very easily, If I say much as look at a piece of cake, the calories goes straight under my skin :), and losing it is usually a very very tough call.
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I have gone through several weightloss programs, where I would start a diet and exercise regime and then stop after a couple of weeks when the weights come off, so I'm no newbie to the whole yoyo dieting, work hard lose some weight and then go back to your old ways. But I have chosen to blog about this particular experience because this is the longest I have ever been on a healthy lifestyle routine.
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| This was the way I looked after forcing myself into a BodyMagic girdle, January 2013 |
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| Singing....Look At me now! February 2014 |
Although, overall I consider this to be successful, it wasn't all smooth sailing, I had several periods within the year when I neglected my routine. One of such periods was during the christmas season, I went over my daily allowed calories for the most part and excercised probably about every other week. But come January I dusted my running shoes and got back on track, this ability to pull myself together and get right back on track whenever I lost traction was one of the reasons I was able to carry on for a whole year.
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Personally I think its fine to let your guards down sometimes, the most important thing is to pick up where you stopped and get back on track, When you are able to do this, it becomes a lifestyle and can be easily maintained.
At first my intention was to lose some after baby weight, but it has since grown beyond a weight loss tactic and is gradually developing into a lifestyle. I have since reach my weight loss goal but I still watch my diet and exercise at least 3 times a week, this is because my goal now is to stay fit and be healthy hopefully for the rest of my life.
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So, why even bother to lose weight or attempt to stay healthy and fit?
I believe we owe it first to ourselves to take care of our bodies because its the only body we would ever have and nobody can do a better job of taking care of it! And then to our creator we owe a duty to take care of whatever he blesses us with, or don't you think so? I mean if God has blessed us with healthy bodies to live in, we owe him a duty to take care of it. This is my personal opinion and I'm not about to judge anyone but I believe we appreciate God when we nurture and take care of anything he blesses us with and this includes our bodies.
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Now, beyond appreciating God by taking care of our bodies, we also extend this appreciation and love to our loved ones as they are usually the ones that are primarily affected when we have to deal with any sort of negative situations in our life be it health or otherwise.
On a personal level, I'm fitter, healthier, my mind is more alert, I sleep better and clothes look, feel and sit better on my body! seriously this clothes fitting better really gives me a new high, I have had to amend most of my clothes and the feeling is awesome!
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My energy levels are also better, speaking about energy levels I would love to continue to run around and do sport activities with my boys well into my old age. I don't want to be that mum that cannot participate in actitivies with her kids all because I choose not to take care of my body, nah!
I am not a fitness guru or weight loss professional, this post is just about sharing my personal journey and strategies in the hope that someone will benefit from it, so please consult your health care manager for profession help. So guys here is what worked for me.
Decide on what you want to achieve, Decide to put in the work and Decide to stay committed.
To be honest there is no voodoo pill out there for weight loss, if you put in the work and focus, you would get the results. You really need to psyche yourself because wining this battle starts first in the mind.
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Decide you really want to do it and let your mind be focused on doing it. trying to lose weight by dieting and working out is hard, i'm not going to kid you. At the initial stage, most days I didn't want to work out! but I had to really mentally condition my mind to do it even when I didn't feel like it. As time went by it became a daily routine such that I didn't feel good when I didn't work out. I believe what ever the mind sets out to do, it can achieve as long as you are willing to put in the work.
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If you can, get a good support system or a work out buddy to help you through the journey, this would make the journey easier and give you the much needed motivation when you don't feel motivated. I have a fantastic network of friends and family, and I made it a point to let everyone know I was trying to get in shape, so they would some times workout with me or call me to order when I was eating more than I should be eating. I also would sometimes put up display messages on my Blackberry phone profile letting them know when I was about to work out, how long I worked out, my progress, the kind of fitness activity I was engaged in that day and in some cases what I was eating. What this did for me subconsciously, was it kept me on track because I was conscious that some of these people were interested and sort of keeping up with my progress so it indirectly kept me motivated.
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| My sis and I sweating it out. |
Portions Portions Portions
With respect to my diet, I made little changes like replacing my consumption of white bread and whole milk with whole wheat bread and skimmed milk, and this is primarily because I consume these food items in copious quantities, and that was it!
The biggest change I made to my diet was in controlling my portions, and this is precisely the reason I have been able to carry on for so long, no food is off limits for me. I mean I would have a piece of cake, If I wanted some. I always satisfied my cravings, and on instances where I overdo it, I usually make sure I balance out the calories consumed that day such that it doesn't exceed my maximum daily allowance. This way I eat everything I craved and didn't feel deprived or like I was missing out.
The biggest change I made to my diet was in controlling my portions, and this is precisely the reason I have been able to carry on for so long, no food is off limits for me. I mean I would have a piece of cake, If I wanted some. I always satisfied my cravings, and on instances where I overdo it, I usually make sure I balance out the calories consumed that day such that it doesn't exceed my maximum daily allowance. This way I eat everything I craved and didn't feel deprived or like I was missing out.
Controlling my portions had a big impact on my weight loss journey, I was able to manage and measure my meals easily with the help of Sparkpeople. Sparkpeople is a great online tool for managing your weight, setting your weight loss target, managing your work out target and routines, and you can also customize your food preferences or build your own recipes with all its calorific content on one platform! Using sparkPeople helped me to keep a log of everything I was eating and easily adjust my meals based on my weight loss goals. On sparkpeople you can check the nutritional content of practically every food item known to man! Jollof Rice, Efo riro soup, Pounded yam, almost everything is there, and where its not available there is usually a close substitute.
Apart from spark people, I got myself this arsenal of measuring tools, and I kept tabs of both the quantity of the food I was consuming and kept a weekly weigh in record, in which I recorded my weights and proportions.
These tools were very useful in keeping track of my portions initially, with time I got used to measuring my food such that I could figure out the quantities easily by eye balling them, so I didn't need to measure anymore. They were also useful for tracking my progress, which was a huge motivator in itself, because at first the weights came off really fast.
Now, Like I mentioned earlier, this is what worked for my personal journey. For some people the best approach might be to cut out certain fatty foods, or to eat only proteins and veggies but that didn't work for me. Study yourself and decide what best suits you and your lifestyle, the most important thing is to make sure it is healthy and it is something you can keep doing hopefully for the rest of your life.
Work Out....Move That body!
I cannot over emphasize the importance of working out to my journey, there is no miracle to weight loss, its simple addition and substraction. You eat too much...you add weight if you do not subtract the excess by working out, its as simple as that. Working out is tough most times, there's always so much to do its almost impossible to fit it into a daily routine, but I made it a priority because it was very important for my journey. Beyond losing weight, there are just so many benefits obtained from putting a weekly fitness routine, too many good long term benefit that you cannot but make the time if you really want to take back your body.
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In conclusion, I have lost a good amount of weight, I have dropped two full dress sizes and I'm actually lighter than I was pre pregnancy. But now, my goal has changed and I still have to peep talk myself into hitting the gym regularly. Nothing good comes easy really, we just have to remain committed and stick with it.
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Its been a truly worth while journey, I love my new body already, I love the way I feel after a good work out, nothing gives a better high than when you get those endorphins going by working out. I'm looking forward to the way I would look this time next year!
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