I’ve done the on again, off again weight loss rollercoaster thing since I was a teenager. I have no problem eating healthier foods and cutting out junk. Exercise is something I’ve always enjoyed and is easy for me to do. But for all the times I’ve lost weight, I could never lose as much as I wanted. I would reach a plateau, maintain for a while and then would lose focus and the weight would creep back on. This was always the case when losing the baby weight after the birth of each of my daughters in 2004 and 2006.
In early 2008 I found that my weight had crept back up 165, my post-baby weight. Having NOT just had a baby, I knew it was time to get serious. At 5í3î, 165 was bordering on obese! I was about to to turn 29 (ACK here comes 30!) and I thought if I was ever going to have the body I always wanted, it was now or never. I was really going to do it this time!
Before - 165 lbs.
Like so many times before, I cut out junk food, focused my diet around healthy, whole foods and began running regularly again.
And again like so many times before, I hit my plateau of 150 and the scale stopped moving, despite maintaining my healthy eating and exercise habits.
Plateau, May 2008, 150 lbs
I complained to my very wise mother about the stubborn scale and she asked me how many calories a day I was eating. I had no idea. I was eating healthy foods though, isnít that all that mattered? She suggested I count calories for one day to see where I ended up.
This was all well and good but how many calories a day was I supposed to be eating? With a little digging around on the web I found what my calorie range should be to maintain weight and what I should be aiming for if I want to lose weight. Check.
After a day of calorie counting and food journaling I was SHOCKED to realize I was eating the exact amount of calories to maintain my weight.
Amazing! I now had the answer to the question Iíd asked so many times before. Why was I no longer losing weight?? Because I was eating too many calories! It didnít matter if they were healthy calories. Calories are calories and they still add up.
I spent the next 2 months journaling everything I ate. I started paying closer attention to portion sizes, listening to my hunger cues and stopped eating when I was full. If I slowed down and listened to my body about about how I was really feeling, I was able to stop the ìboredomî eating and the ìjust because it tastes goodî eating. Food journaling made me more aware and held me accountable for the quantity of foods I was putting into my body.
I kept up my exercise routine and with my new found way of life, the pounds fell off. Within 2 months I lost an additional 20 lbs, reaching my naturally healthy weight of 129. That same summer I trained for my first marathon. After breaking through my plateau and losing an additional 20 lbs, I started to find that running was getting easier and I was getting faster too. In the fall of 2008 I completed my first marathon in 4:14:59.
Marathon 2008, 129 lbs
Post Marathon
Getting a hold of my unconscious eating was an amazing accomplishment for me. It was a problem I didnít even realize I had! Food journaling and calorie counting for a couple of months allowed me to take a closer look at how unbalanced my eating was. It was the wake up call I needed and helped me solve the weight loss plateau mystery.
Today
Today I write a healthy living blog called Mama’s Weeds, which I use to write about my life as a mother and how I maintain my healthy weight through proper nutrition and exercise. A special thanks to Shannon for letting me share my story as a guest blogger.
