Six Secrets

People who have seen me when I was heavier (either 40 pounds ago or 90 pounds ago, depending on when they met me) often ask, “How did you lose all the weight?”  My standard answer is the same:

“I ate less and exercised more.”

Most people don’t like that answer. 😛 I think they don’t want it to be something so simple, even though everyone knows that method isn’t simple at all.  It took a lot of work, dedication and determination to get me where I am, but I know that will all pale in comparison to the amount of work, dedication and determination it will take to keep me here.  I do have a game plan though, and it centers on the six “secrets” to my success, which really aren’t secrets at all.  They’re just things that I found worked for me.  They may or may not work for someone else.

1. Track what you eat every day. Every. Day.

I put this first for a reason.  I have been on and off Weight Watchers for many, many years, and up until I began this most recent (and last!) phase of my weight loss journey, I wasn’t fully committed to the idea of “tracking” what I ate.  I would usually do it for a few days, and then I’d stop (usually right around Friday night…).  As soon as I stopped tracking, I’d start eating like I didn’t care about my weight.  Then I’d “start over” again on Monday…on January 1^st…after my birthday…etc. etc. etc.  And I wonder why the weight didn’t come off!

When I began tracking every day (every day), the weight came off.  Even though I am in the “maintenance” program of Weight Watchers, I still track what I eat every day.  Once in a while I might eat something late at night and not feel like tracking it, but I mentally track it, and then I physically track it the next morning before I start on that day’s tracking.  I have tracked every day since November 2011 (even when I was sick and ate nothing but a piece of bread!), and I have no plans to stop. I hold myself accountable, plain and simple. And by God—it works!!

2.  Exercise.  A lot.

I know that exercise is not popular, especially for those who have a lot of weight to lose.  I won’t lie—it’s work!  But it doesn’t have to be hard work if you find the right type of exercise for you.

When I decided I wanted to finally lose the last 15 pounds, I started walking.  I walked every day, at a pretty quick clip.  I did it for 20-25 minutes each day for over 100 days.  And in that time, I lost not only the “last” 15 pounds, but another 15 on top of that!  The hardest part about walking for me wasn’t the actual exercise, but finding the time to do it.  That’s actually why I chose walking—I could fit it in pretty much wherever I was, and I didn’t need a bunch of fancy equipment to do it.

Eventually, I began to love exercise and especially how it made me feel.  I also enjoyed the challenge of seeing if I could walk faster each day.  Eventually, when I got so fast that going faster was kind of overkill, I decided to start running.  Because I had a good, solid 5-month base of cardiovascular exercise from all that walking, running was actually easy to get into!  Now I have a new, fun challenge that I love, that keeps me healthy and also allows me to eat more than I would if I just sat on the couch. 😉

3.  Drink Water. A lot.

I am one of those lucky, freaky people who loves water.  I rarely drink anything other than water, and I am pretty much always thirsty, so I drink a lot of it.  Eight glasses a day is easy for me.  (The resulting numerous trips to the bathroom, not so much.)  I firmly believe that all that water was a big factor in helping me lose the weight.  There are a whole bunch of studies out there that say drinking water helps you lose weight, and based on my experience, I believe it!

4.  Eat fruits and veggies.  Enough to satisfy you.

I’m not a huge veggie fan, though I do have some favorites (green beans, corn, carrots in any form).  I would eat my veggies most days, but I would rarely go crazy over them.  Fruit, on the other hand, was something I always disliked.  Not the taste so much, but the work behind it.  It’s not all that fun to just eat an apple, or an orange, or a peach—it’s actually a lot of work. 😛 But when Weight Watchers made fruit “free” (ie, zero points), I took a good, hard look at fruit.  And I discovered that fruit can satisfy you when you’re hungry! And it actually tastes pretty good, too.

To get over my hang-up regarding the effort involved, I initially realized that they make fruit for lazy people—ie, pre-cut, pre-washed, ready to go!  I will shamelessly admit I still sometimes spend way too much money on packaged, pre-cut fruit, but it makes it easy and sometimes you just need easy.  However, over time, I began to enjoy fruit enough that I wanted it in its most pure form.  I actually love apples and I have become that person who eats “an apple a day”–and I actually look forward to it, despite the work and mess. 😉 I also discovered that bananas can be tasty (and easy), though they’re not my favorite, and I even decided that berries, specifically strawberries, are almost always worth the effort involved!

The good news is, now that we have fruit in the house all the time, my kids are eating it regularly, too!  A regular “dessert” in our house is a bowl of cut-up strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries with a small amount of Redi-Whip and granola.  Way better than cake or ice cream!

5. It tastes just as good in smaller quantities.

True confession:  I am a dessert lover.  I love to bake it, and I especially love to eat it.  But what I have finally been able to teach myself over the course of my journey is that I can have a small portion of dessert, and it still tastes as good as having the whole thing—without the guilt and regret afterwards!  I’ve learned that one dessert split among our family of four can satisfy my craving and is still very manageable when it comes to the points.  And, by the way, it’s way cheaper!!

6. Put yourself first.

I suppose I should have probably put this one first, but I wanted it to stick in your brain as the last thing you read here.

I don’t want to act as though I am the martyr of the universe, just waiting on the finishing touches to my statue in the middle of the town square, but…I do a lot of things for other people.  I’m a mom, a wife, a sister, a daughter, a friend, a co-worker, a hockey-team manager, a school volunteer…and a whole lot more!  Most of the time, I want to be a person who helps and gives freely of myself in everything I do.  As I grow older, I’m learning there are a lot of people out there who can say the same.  Good, conscientious people just tend to help others before they help themselves.

Over the course of my weight-loss journey, I have finally discovered that I have to put myself first.  I had given too much of myself to others and my health was suffering because of it.  So, I began to forcibly take “me” time.  I decided my family could weight an extra 2 minutes before dinner each night while I logged the food in my online tracker.  And you know what—they were fine with it!  I also decided that I could spend 25 minutes a day at lunch to walk in the mall.  And no one at my work complained!  I also started saying “no” more often when asked to do things, so that I wasn’t constantly overwhelmed with “volunteer” jobs.  And, to my surprise—people understood!

Once I made the conscious decision to carve out time for me, I ended up being better at all of my other “jobs” because I was healthier and, more importantly, happier.  The most important thing I believe that my lifestyle change has helped me do is to set the best example I can for my kids, teaching them that taking the time for your health has great rewards.

That’s it—those are my six secrets!  Thank you for reading them, and I hope you develop your own “secrets to success,” too.  If you do…come back and share them with me! 🙂