A Healthier Me {1, 16.5 Pounds}…

Guess what, it’s Valentine’s day! Not only does that mean that I am basking in the array of being *so* loved, but I am also officially marking the end of my 7-week drinking sabbatical! It wasn’t a cold turkey quit, I think I had about 5 drinks over the past 7 weeks. However, those cocktails were 1/2 water, 1 oz citrus vodka and fresh lemon juice. So, I’m in need of a fabulous glass of wine or a rum and coke, stat.

But yes, my 7 week sabbatical has ended  and so I have decided that this is a fabulous time to share an update on another New Year’s Resolution: Losing 10 Pounds. I feel like as women (or maybe just as people) we tend to shy away from discussing weight loss or weight gain. Will people think I’m lazy for gaining the weight? Will people think I’m conceited for being on a diet? What if it doesn’t work?

Concerns aside,  my Valentine’s Day Mantra is about loving yourself, and so I decided to push all that aside and share the facts with readers as candidly and openly as I can, in the hopes that it might help anyone, everyone, love themselves a little more through good health and self-esteem.

Well, first off, I’ve done it, and not only have I done it, I’ve *nearly* doubled it with a 16.5 pound weight loss since December 28th. It feels great to say that, but I think I should also insert a disclaimer that weight loss, no matter how little, isn’t easy. If you’re doing it right, it’s slow and those overwhelming urges to enjoy that brownie aren’t easy to ignore (especially for someone with a sweet tooth like mine and a severe love for cooking and baking).

This past summer and fall I gained 5 pounds, which meant I weighed about 10 pounds more than I weighed in High School (I now weigh 6 pounds less than I did back then). What caused the gain? Well, I tried to blame it on my 25th Birthday and having my metabolism slow down, but I think happiness can cause weight gain, and (fortunately) I’m guilty of a lot of happiness. Combine a great relationship with securing a 40-hour a week desk job, and the number on the scale started to increase.

I’m a big sit-up fanatic, if you know me, you know this, and one snowy day in December I realized there was a bit more tummy peeking over my jeans than I would like. After visiting a nutritionist I was shocked (no seriously, I was shocked) to find out that a 19.75 pound weight loss would put me at my ideal weight for my height and frame. Silly me, here I was thinking it’d feel great to lose 10 pounds, come to find out that was only half of what I should lose. A 19.75 pound weight loss would put me at the far end of the spectrum for my “ideal weight” as I was just a few pounds above what was considered “average” for a 5’3 female…but I figured I might as well challenge myself and see how it went.

I’ve always been a huge advocate for the curvy girl, and becoming stick thin is the last thing on my to-do list, so trust me when I say that if 19.75 pounds means I start to look too thin, I’ll stop. (In fact, I’m quite obsessed with measuring my ba-donk to make sure it’s 36 inches stay in tact, squats squats, squats).  However, one simple fact that the nutritionist told me kept resounding in my head as I contemplated whether or not to go for the 19.75 pounds…

“For every extra pound of weight you carry, your heart pumps blood to over half a mile of extra blood vessels.”

A half a mile of of extra blood vessels, per pound. Isn’t that fact just astounding (this fact isn’t 100% true, by the way, it changes from person to person)? No wonder a few extra pounds can make you feel like plopping down on the couch to gain a couple more. That fact was what made me say “Okay, I’m going to do this”, and I can’t tell you how much more energized and healthy I feel.  It’s amazing and hopefully that fact reinforces that I am doing this for overall health, not to ‘be skinny’. I didn’t use medication, a fad diet or calorie counting, just a few simple rules and a change in my daily menu.

Unfortunately for everyone, I have a hard time limiting what I say, and so fitting this journey into one simple blog post is just not possible. I’m going to split it into a few over the next couple days. That way, if it interests you, you can read them, if it doesn’t, you can skip right on by.

Alright, so now that I have been painfully (and very publicly) honest about both weight gain and weight loss, it’s your turn. Do you want/need to drop a few pounds (not sure, check here)? Are you loving your curves but interested in improving your eating habits and overall health? Are you perfect just the way you are? Whatever your answers to these questions might be, improved health is a benefit to everyone, and so is being completely honest with yourself about your health and goals.  Whether losing weight is on your to-do list or not, I hope you’ll find my insight helpful or at the very least entertaining.

Let me conclude this initial post with a very short educational segment. Are you currently asking yourself ‘what the h*ll is this sick image she is torturing me with at the top of this post’? Or are you fully aware of what 15 pounds of fat looks like? Well, if you haven’t seen one of these 5-pound replicas in person you don’t really get the full effect. Click here to see it to scale, enjoy, and come back tomorrow (you know, if you want).