An Anniversary of Sorts

I am celebrating a year of successfully maintaing my weight loss. Here are some current pictures, with my story to follow:

After losing so much weight, I think it confused Eli because he started to call me Angela, which who is Laurel's sister. After he knew it was me, he still did it because he thought it was funny and it is. I became this new person, I remember picking him up after I had lost 30 pounds and thinking I just lost a whole "Eli."
Me in October 2008.

One year ago, I reached my target goal weight of 140 pounds. My body fat at 20%. I dropped from a size 20 to a size 6. Shopping is fun now, but some days I find it overwhelming because there are so many more choices and I had to get out of the mindset of wearing baggy clothes. I never wanted to show off my body before, but now I can. For the past year, I have succesfully kept the weight off. In November 2007, after moving back home for a year, I decided to lose weight with the help of a medical weight loss program called Lindora. At the time, I weighed 220 and my body fat was close to 50%. I was not healthy to say the least and i decided I wanted to make a change in my life.

Losing weight was one of the hardest and most rewarding challenges of my life. It involved suchdiscipline, which all my family can say I did. I gave up carbs. No bread, no pizza, no pasta, no cheese and replaced it with lean proteins, fruits, and vegetables, and 45 minutes of exercise each day. With Lindora, you go into their clinic everyday and are weighed. Plus, I kept a food journal that kept track of what I ate and how many carbs I consumed. I was eating between 50 to 70 carbs per day. You ate three small meals and had three protein snacks. You put your body into ketosis, which burns fats. This was measured each day at Lindora through the use of keto sticks ( you pead on them and they turned a dark red color). The darker the color the better.

It was not easy at first. I felt I was starving to death and your body just has to adjust. I gradually leaned into exercising. Every morning, I would go to the park and I began by walking/jogging for 45 minutes a day. Soon, I began to jog more and just kept the goal of 45 minutes. Today, I can now run 3 miles in 28 minutes. If you asked me two years, if I could do this, I would have laughed at you. I love exercising. The high after running or hiking is great. Plus, I love my legs now. They are awesome and muscular. This past summer, I hiked all over Arizona and Utah with my family and I could not have done it if I was still heavy. I am thankful I was able to do this.

However, no one tells you about how to change your mindset once the weight is loss. I was told by many that now I have to start thinking like a "thin person." What did this mean? Like I said before, it starts with changing my dressing habits. Buy clothes that fit the body. I still struggle with that. Next, I had to increase confidence in myself, especially around boys. They were now looking at me differently and this freaked me out. I had always lowered my standards about guys because I thought I did not deserved a great guy. Being overweight, i would have taken anyone, but now I did not have to do that. I found myselt struggling to change this though and I am still working on it. If this does not make sense, it is difficult to articulate fully in words how hard this change is and still continues to be. I am trying and getting better each day. The mental change is taking time.

I am writing this to show that you can make this change in your life. Just do it a little at a time and what you feel comfortable with. It is possible because if I can do it, then anyone can. Some days, I do not like talking about my weight loss. I feel I had some extended family members, who jealous of it (I think, I have not figured this out after lengthy discussions with my parents), have put me done from my dressing habits (in front of others) to telling my sister I am "anorexic." There is always this two-edged sword, but rely on those closest to you. I have a great immeadiate family who have been nothing but supportive. They are so great and I love them for it. I could not have made it to this point without them, especially my parents who encouraged me to do this. I would post a picture of the old me, but I do not have one on my computer.