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Not Chubby Anymore: How I got off my butt and lost 50 pounds Part III

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October 25, 2007

In case you missed them, get caught up by reading Part I and Part II

So for my Biokinetics and Conditioning class I had to make a plan and it had to actually work and be proved by my results. Pretty sneaky way to make sure students don’t cheat! I decided that was as good a motivation as any to start losing weight. We were learning all about the exercise side of things in class and I did have a pretty good idea of what a good workout consists of from my years of weightlifting for cheerleading and distance training for soccer. But the food part…oh the food part…

Seriously, doesn’t ketchup count as a vegetable? With fries…that’s two veggies right there! Right? RIGHT???

Yeah, I really didn’t know what I was doing. So I just decided to continue eating similar to how I was, but to cut everything in half. Instead of eating a whole bagel with cream cheese for breakfast I only ate one side of it and ate the other side for lunch. Instead of ordering the medium smoothie for dinner, I had the small. And so on, and so on, you get the picture.

Also, I started cutting back on drinking. At first I just started drinking lower cal cocktails like rum and diet coke, or disgusting low carb beer. Eventually a good workout became even more important to me and I cut drinking out completely because I realized it makes it so much harder to be healthy when you’re drinking so many calories!

For class we did workouts twice a week, each one student run. A lot of them were tough because the athletes would take things they did with their strength coaches and turn it into their own program. And I started running/walking at night on the school’s track. I told myself that at the start I would go on the track for at least an hour and of that hour I would run as much as possible. In the beginning I could run about 20 minutes, then I would walk the last 40. But that quickly changed. I began to notice results weekly in the distance I could go. Pretty soon I was running the full 60 minutes. I think because I was so athletic in high school and I had only taken less than a year off, it really didn’t take my body too long to adjust to higher intensity activities again.

Running became an OBSESSION for me. I made sure to fit it into my day no matter. Even if I didn’t get home from work until 2am in the morning, I’d still drag my tired feet to the track to fit in my hour’s worth of workout. In two months I lost about 10 more pounds on top of the 10 that I had already lost from stopping consumption of regular pop. My body was also becoming more muscular and I was loving the changes I saw in the mirror. I felt so good and people really began to take notice. Then the real deciding factor came.

I tried out for the UT cheerleading team. I made it, quite easily, as the team wasn’t established or at all competitive. I saw the uniforms we were going to have to wear. They were your typical belly bearing cheer skank uniforms. I was horrified. I may have lost twenty pounds but I wasn’t ready to prance around in something that small with my stomach hanging out. No way Jose!

My resolve was now twice as steely. I would go to cheer practice (not very hard at all with this new team) and afterwards I would go to the track. I started running longer distances, between 8 and 10 miles a day. Getting in shape felt SO good. And oddly enough it inspired me to eat a lot better too. I wanted to be able to run faster, and I knew that I was able to do that when I was properly nutriated and hydrated. My own body that had never wanted to touch anything green before, began craving veggies. I no longer felt the urge to eat greasy foods like hamburgers or fries because I knew I would feel sick and sluggish when I ran with that food in my belly. So I guess you could say that I never technically went on a specific diet. Running became like a totally addictive drug to me and to feed the habit I had to eat right. The pounds continued coming off. I lost at a steady rate of about 6-8 pounds a month. My body changed completely. For starters I had cheekbones. That was a shocking discover. But the most crazy thing was the day I realized that I had boy muscles. You know, like a shadow where the hip bone sticks out a little bit. Mine weren’t jutting out like a crazy anorexic model or anything of the matter, but you could see definition there and in the rest of my stomach. I also had a two pack. Woohoo for the line down the middle of my stomach! I felt SO hot! I don’t have that line anymore and I want it back.

In cheerleading, I was finally able to do backhandsprings again. I started coaching a soccer team and I would practice all the drills with them. I loved being a hands on coach in better shape than her high school aged girls! My body felt so amazing. I was only sleeping like 6 hours a night yet I still woke up refreshed every morning. Now I need 9 hours and I still don’t feel half as good in the morning. Seriously, it’s incredible how well the body functions when you take good care of it. Besides feeling great, I looked great too!

Of course there were days when I still struggled with old eating patterns. I would binge eat massive amounts of food and not even taste it as I shoved it into my face. I still do that sometimes and I don’t know why. I would skip workouts, but I made sure to never beat myself up over it. If I didn’t go Wednesday, I just had to make sure to go to the track on Thursday. You really can’t expect perfection from yourself in a diet and exercise plan or you’re just setting yourself up to fail.

And in my class, I got an A+. When we did the two mile run again, I beat every single girl in my class by a looooong shot, even the ones who were college athletes. I lapped the smokers during the run and I even finished ahead of several of the guys. I was so proud.

Losing 50 pounds was hard. But, not that hard. Sure, I did have to completely dedicate myself to a workout program and healthy eating habits. But, I didn’t deny myself food that I wanted. I didn’t freak if I skipped a day of running. In the end, everything I did fit into my lifestyle. And I kept up the crazy physique and fitness for about a year and a half. Then I came to Chile for study abroad and quickly regained about 20 pounds. I’ve lost that weight and gained it back and lost it again like three times now, but every time I gain, I gain back less and I lose a little more. I see them as small battles that I occasionally lose. But, I’m definitely winning the war.

Right now I have a mission. I want to get back to running 8-10 miles a day again. I want my body to feel that good. Then I want to train for and run a marathon. It’s on my life to do list, and right now it’s looking like the most doable thing on that list (yeah, I have tough goals for myself to meet).

I’m also losing 15 pounds with a blog friend, Rachel. Having support is the best way to do anything! I actually wish my husband were more supportive. I have the same problem as Ordinary Girl. Our spouses don’t like to eat healthy. If I want to make a fruit smoothie for dessert with frozen unsweetened strawberries and lowfat milk, he wants to add a cup of sugar to the thing. If I want Subway for lunch, he wants Chinese food. And so on, and so on. Btw, does anybody know why Chinese people are so skinny when their restaurants serve such bad for your food?

I’ve noticed that my traffic has really gone up with these last three posts. Apparently people are obsessed with weight loss, who knew? Anyways, lurkers, if you’re reading and not commenting, I hate you. Just kidding! But if you’re here just for the weight loss, I have to admit that it’s not a subject I frequently blog about. My advice to you would be to check out what is hands down the best weight loss blog in the world, PastaQueen. I didn’t know of PQ and her Half of Me blog when I started losing weight. But I have a feeling that if we had been friends at the time she would’ve said, “I’ll see your 50 lbs and I’ll raise you 100 lbs.” She’s impressive people, go read her blog now, thank me later.

And if you still need more reading, check out my diet/fitness/health/celebrity/weight loss blog here.

View Comments

  • anjilprincesa
    another great post! i'll have to figure out how blogger works and subscribe to your blog or something... or maybe i will just bookmark your site for now...


    p.s. chinese food in US restaurants isn't real chinese food! it's "chinese-american" food, which is chinese food altered to american tastes (think lots of fat, salt, and msg)
  • Maeskizzle
    Wow, sabia perspectiva, you are winning the war. I like that. The other day I was taking a break from writing my thesis and I turned the TV on and there was a weight loss program for obese people and it was weigh-in day. And so the "animador" and like a panel or something was giving advice to the weight loss contestants, and I noticed that almost all of the weight loss advice I could apply to my personal situation as "get your thesis done advice". Like taking the task as a process, and not expecting to finish next week yada yada yada. And once again..weight loss advice applied to the thesis. You can lose some battles but still win the war. Sabio.
  • Comrade GoGo
    Thanks for sharing your weight loss story--I really loved reading it, especially about the high you got from exercising. Very motivational!


    P.S. I'm a big fan of Pasta Queen, too ;).
  • Sally Parrott Ashbrook
    I randomly popped in and really enjoyed your weight loss/exercise/health story. Very inspiring! :)
  • katieo
    What an awesome story! I found myself nodding all the way through it. So motivating to read! (ketchup as a vegetable, lol!)
  • PastaQueen
    Aw, thanks for the compliments! Signing up for a class is a genius way to lose weight. I wish I'd thought of that in college. There's no way I would have let myself get anything less than a B.
  • alphawoman
    Very inspiring! And spo down to earth advice. I wish I had the knees to run again....but, I think that just may be an excuse. Congrats on your perserverance.
  • Chickenbells
    Congrats girl! Doesn't it feel amazing to FEEL that good about yourself? I lost 65 lbs. after my divorce (and I've yo-yo'd a bit) well...295 if you count the hubby (hahaha) and I can't ever remember feeling as good as I did when I was at my smallest...age...age and perspective...
  • Tara
    I didn't get to your blog through a weight loss search; I have actually been lurking around for about a week or so since I googled "married with roommates" because we are probably going to still have roommates after getting married in June. Everyone tells me it's a terrible idea, but I think we can handle it.


    Anyway... so that's how/why I ended up lurking on this blog.
  • mexpat
    My hubby, oddly enough named Hans (a la evil restaurant owner in your wedding post) lost 60 lbs last year doing the same sort of version of things, but swap running for mountain biking. The weigh just peeled off him when he made a decision and changed his ways. Pretty cool!


    I wish I could run 8 miles! I tried to run a 1/2 marathon with my sis a few years ago and my knee just didn't like it. I seriously injured it doing gymnastics and it's never been the same.... sigh...
  • ordinarygirl
    I have to say that your story also really touched me as I was reading it. I think all women have felt what you felt at one time or the other. Sometimes it's hard to know what's healthy. Sometimes it's hard to resist the temptation of what's unhealthy. Sometimes you just don't want to obsess over food. :)


    But it really is a great story. You should look to publish it in a magazine.
  • Rachel
    Isn't it funny how you start to lose weight and get more physically fit, and at first it is a struggle, and then it seems as if your body takes over and everything is much easier? You actually crave fresh foods and physical activity. It shows how our bodies are actually designed to be active and healthy. It is just a matter of allowing them to be!
  • ordinarygirl
    My brother-in-law travels to Hong Kong twice a year for a month. He tells us that the Chinese food there isn't even recognizable compared to the Chinese food here. Really in America Chinese food should be labeled 'American'.
  • Anonymous
    "belly bearing cheer skank uniforms" hahaha...too funny!


    And as for the Chinese food...



    I worked in a Chinese restaurant back at college and was always entertained by the fact that the family who owned the restaurant never ate the food from the menu. Too greasy, they'd say. Anything "Chinese" in the west seems to really westernized. On an all-Asian food diet, I'm so much leaner...during my 40 days in Australia, I noticed some of the weight/fat coming back...back in Malaysia, though, I can already tell a difference in just five days.



    Jayna
  • Amanda
    I've had to read it on my phone since I've been on the road the last few days! Fabulous story & so inspiring. I wish my husband encouraged me to eat more healthy too.... I'm running the marathon in January. I can't imagine 8-10 miles a day though! I can help you with some training schedules if you need.
  • Melsa
    That must've taken some resolve!! Well done chicky, i'm inspired.
  • Kristy
    What an amazing story!
    I was just talking the other day to a friend who has recently had a baby about weight loss. Its unhelpful to try and lose weight and say things like "i can´t eat, this that etc" "Oh I shouldn´t" it has to be that you don´t want to. Not only with weight loss but with anything in your life you have to control it, not let it control you. YOU are the boss! Putting on a bit of weight is fine, but if you want to lose it, you need to know what your body wants/needs and you need to want that too!

    It sounds like you are in control of things! Which is admirable in any circumstance.



    Can we see any pics of before and after? Sounds like an amazing trasnformation!

    xx
  • Jennifer
    Lurker here!


    Actually, I clicked on the blogher link to your first post in the series just this morning and read them all the way through. I recently started running again (30 minutes every other day - I do time rather than distance) to feel better and look better, and was curious to see how that worked for you.



    I've got about ten pounds to lose.
  • EvilJoy
    I didn't know you took a class on health... stuff.
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