Happy 2010! Hope you all had a fun night filled with celebrations (and hopefully not quite as much "fun" as we did...there is a bit of recovery happening around here...)
Have you ever been one to make a resolution for the new year? I've never been, but apparently my friend Rebecca is!
Now, before you run over to her site, let me give you an idea as to why I'm so impressed.
In college, I definitely struggled with my weight. That supposed "freshman 15?" Well, I added to that number...a lot. At one point I weighed around 45-50 pounds more than I do now. The fact that I stopped dancing after highschool was part of it...and the 2 am beer & pizza probably didn't help either :) I'm pretty sure that Casey threw up in his mouth a little bit when I pulled out some of those pictures...Put it this way, I weighed more but still tried to wear my old clothes...yuck.
Losing the weight was not much fun. I am a soda-aholic, love eating out and I loveee Mexican food. I had to give it all up. It was hard, and not so fun...but luckily, after several months of "dieting" and exercising, I was able to get myself back to normal...and all of that learning experience definitely helped me lose that dreaded baby weight! (I gained 50 with Gavin)
It's not hard to see how weight can creep up on you...just a pound a week ends up being 52 pounds in a year. Oftentimes women don't really notice weight gain until they see themselves in a picture. I would blame the mirrors when I thought my reflection looked fat, and would blame my pants not fitting to being bloated. Can we say denial?!?
But, moving on...I met Rebecca while working with kids at the YMCA while I was pregnant. We laughed as we realized that our due dates were only a week apart, we were both newly expecting. We also realized we both had lost our dads much too soon, were both (unintentionally)doing the baby before marriage thing, and were both looking to rake in some money with a part time job before the baby arrived. Needless to say, we hit it off from the start.
And then for Rebecca, things headed downhill...and quickly. She was diagnosed with severe hypertension and had her baby, Jaleah, via an emergency c-section at 26 weeks. To make a long story short, they spent over 100 days in the NICU with her but she is thriving today!
Back to the weight thing...Rebecca has been brave enough (trust me, this girl has got some balls to do this) to share her battle with weight...publically. Think Biggest Loser type outfits for before and after pictures...and she posted them. I cannot get over how excited I am to follow her journey, and I cannot be more in awe that she was able to post these. I mean come on, I won't even walk around my house letting it "all hang out"...much less let Casey take a picture...much less post it online!
So please, head on over to Rebecca's site to follow her on her journey and cheer her on!
Hey I just checked it out. I couldn't leave a comment though. Tell her I said "good luck and I know what she is going thru." When my daughter was 2 months old(I had also gained like 50 lbs), I started a blog just about my new diet plan. I think the blog is what really helped me achieve my goal...oh yeah, and I had my 10 year HS reunion coming up;-) lol
ReplyDeleteAnyway, what I did was made myself run on my treadmill for at least 5 min EVERY day. I didn't miss one day for about 130 days straight!! I lost 30 lbs and 6 inches off my waist in that time. Since then, I have continued to loose, and my total now is 36 lbs and 6 inches. My goal is 40. I haven't been trying as hard lately, b/c I don't have the money to keep buying new pants;-) LOL My trick was to NEVER miss a day and to challenge myself to do something extra everyday.
Having a partner will definitely help her too. My husband joined me for a month or 2 and it really pushed me to do more so I could beat him:) LOL Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I did a point system too. I think it helped. You can tell her to check out my blog at www.thechallengediet.blogspot.com
Ok Jen! Seriously this was the nicest thing of you to write! Thank you so much!!! I'm glad we are friends and able to keep up with each other even though we don't see each other anymore! which speaking of..we should change that! :) Thank you again!
ReplyDeleteTo lil Chris' mom.. I don't know why you had a problem commenting, but thanks for the comment on here anyways! I will check out your site - thanks for the support!