I have always been overweight. In high school I would try fad dieting on and off, but I could never stick to a plan for longer than a few weeks. Junior year of college my mother started going to Weight Watcher meetings and she had great success with the program. She told me about it and suggested that during the summer break I start the program and go to the meetings with her. At first I said no... no way! To me, going to those meetings was admitting to everyone that I was overweight, that I had a problem with eating and portion control and although I knew that, admitting it to the world was another story entirely. It was like if I didn't think about it or say it out loud that maybe the rest of the world wouldn't realize I had a problem.
I started dieting and exercising at school. Determined that I could lose weight on my own, I went to the gym 2 hours a day and ate Wheat Thins for most of my meals. In 2 months time, I lost 20 pounds and was delighted although I realized I had a lot more weight to lose and was rapidly feeling like I needed more than Wheat Thins to sustain my diet.
I started dieting and exercising at school. Determined that I could lose weight on my own, I went to the gym 2 hours a day and ate Wheat Thins for most of my meals. In 2 months time, I lost 20 pounds and was delighted although I realized I had a lot more weight to lose and was rapidly feeling like I needed more than Wheat Thins to sustain my diet.
When the summer rolled around I let my mom convince me to go to a Weight Watchers meeting with her. I was really afraid it would be like a convention of heavy people and
I had nightmares that there would be a big scale with a huge weight readout on it for everyone to see (kind of like on the biggest loser). When I finally got there and got weighed in, I was really impressed with the discreetness of it all. No one except for me and the woman weighing me knew what I weighed. They wrote the weight down on my weight card and gave it to me. I didn't even have to share the numbers with my mother if I didn't want to. I found the program relatively easy to follow and that first week I lost 6 pounds. The next week I lost 4. Only 2 weeks to lose 10 pounds when I had been starving myself for the last 2 months to lose 20. I keep going to the meetings that summer and when I went back to school, I looked for meetings to attend there. Luckily one of my college roommates had started the program that summer as well and we were able to work together making dinners and weighing out portions. We went to separate meetings, but were a real source of inspiration and motivation for each other.When I got to my lowest weight, I had lost 75 pounds and was down 7 clothing sizes. I was thrilled with how I looked and felt. I really only had 10 pounds more to lose, and then I got sloppy. I went only Spring Break with my friends and it was like a free-for-all. I had forgotten how good food could taste and not being able to weigh everything I put in my mouth was a treat. I tried to be good at first, eating fruit off the buffet for breakfast, but by the time lunch rolled around I was eating mac and cheese, veggie burgers, fries, desserts... who could not stuff themselves on a cruise??
I got off the cruise weighing 10 pounds more than I did when I got on. Now I had 20 pounds to lose to get to my goal weight and I was overwhelmed. I had gotten to the point in my weight loss where I was only losing fractions of a pound a week (or sometimes losing nothing at all) and to have an extra 10 pounds added to myself in only a week was depressing. I went back to the meetings, but I found it was hard to get myself back into an eating routine. I would lose a pound, then gain 2 the next week because I wasn't really following the plan anymore. I was embarrassed to get weighed in... I thought the women at the scales where laughing at me behind my back and asking themselves why I was even coming to meetings when I clearly wasn't trying to lose the weight.
After I graduated college, I started dating one of my best friends from school. I moved to MA to start my new job and he moved with me. Justin was always supportive of my weight loss, but it was hard to say no when he wanted to go out to eat or cook meals together. I got more lenient with my diet and was up 25 pounds when I decided to officially end my journey with Weight Watchers.
They say that Weight Watchers isn't a diet... it's a lifestyle. I couldn't agree more. Once I changed my lifestyle the numbers started adding up fast. I found that getting rid of my scale was an easy way not to think about it. It's a good thing I didn't get rid of all of my "fat" clothes, but I did need to buy a lot of new clothing along my journey back up the scale. Losing weight was one of the hardest things I ever had to do and here I was, destroying it all.
4 years later, I was back up to my original weight. I had gained back all 75 pounds. I was mortified, but what could I do? I started going to meetings again on and off. I would lose a couple of pounds, but then an obstacle would come my way and I would bail out on the program and gain the weight back. As the relationship with my boyfriend progressed, I realized that he would probably propose soon. As my loving grandmother told me, "you don't want to be a fat bride". The thought of going back to Weight Watchers was daunting and I just couldn't do it. That's when I learned about a website called SparkPeople.
Spark People is a free, on-line program that helps you determine how many calories you should be consuming a day based on your current weight, how much you want to lose and how frequently you exercise. It helps you track how many calories you have consumed for the day and it lets you know how many you have left. They encourage you to eat healthy fats and whole grains and to make sure you get to all of your calories so that you don't starve your body. I figured it was worth a shot.
Spark people allows you to lose up to 2 pounds a week to maintain a healthy lifestyle. In a few weeks time I was down 20 pounds... a good start. I felt like I wanted to mix up my diet a little and I was sick of counting vegetables on SparkPeople (a food that is 0 points on Weight Watchers) so I switched back. I lost another 10 pounds and then my boyfriend proposed. I was so thrilled to already have 30 pounds under my belt so to speak, and that took a lot of stress off me. With my renewed resolve I lost another 10 pounds. Being down 40 pounds and having a year until my wedding excited and motivated me... but the pounds weren't coming off as fast as they once were. I switched back to SparkPeople and after several months lost another 12 pounds.
Here I am, down 52 pounds and stuck in a rut. I diet and exercise (although I don't belong to a gym, I take kick-boxing, aqua aerobics, Zumba and step aerobics classes there). Weeks go by where I don't deviate from my calorie range at all, avoiding social situations where I might have to eat away from home. There are other weeks where I will go off the plan, but no matter what I do, the scale won't drop past that 52 pound weight loss mark.
I'm trying with all of my being to be a skinny bride. I would like to get down to my original goal weight and I have about 35 pounds left to go. I am more than half way there, but with my wedding only 7 months away, I am scared. I know that should be enough time to lose that amount of weight, but my body hasn't responded to anything I do in 6 months. I recently switched back to the Weight Watchers plan and am hoping the change with shake things up in my body. My fiance and I bought mountain bikes last weekend and want to start riding on trails when the weather gets nice. I am determined to lose the weight once and for all, and when I do, I'm never going back.
