Hello there. 5’6” F, 30 yo. SW 140 lb CW 126.9 GW 125. I started out wanting to just lose weight, being tired of my “skinny-fat” figure, and most importantly trying to improve my overall fitness. I noticed last year that whenever I had to go up a couple flights of stairs with coworkers I was the only one extremely out of breath, red, and flustered! I would even be sore the next day if I had gone up more the 4 flights of stairs in one day!!! I avoided hikes because I was afraid I would ruin it for everyone by being slow :/ . I’m close to my goal now, and I’d like to share my slow progress over the past year.
Diet:
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Jan-October: avoided regular soda, avoided sugary drinks (except for natural fruit juice), chips, tortillas, excess bread. Focused on not buying crap at the grocery store more than anything, did not completely cut out any one thing, but tried to avoid the fattiest cafeteria meals when possible.
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November-December: Started tracking calories with goal of 1200 cal, but I actually averaged 1320 cal per day over the two months. Tracked every single day on MFP even when I messed up by having 4 drinks on one night which led to 3 chocolate cupcakes and late night sushi :’( , etc. Holidays were harder than expected, went over 2K cal a couple times, but that made me be extra careful the days around it.
Exercise:
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March-October: got a gym membership in March! I started out pretty slow, only walking on treadmill and occasional low weight machine exercises. Only 2x a week in average.
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Nov-Dec: decided I HAD TO make time for the gym, had to plan my day better, and I averaged out 4x per week. I picked up running, started with one slow-ass mile every other day, now averaging 8 miles a week at a respectable pace. I started doing squats, but have been pretty slow to increase weight. Since I’m near goal weight, I’ll start getting more serious about strength training and plan my gym time around that instead of cardio.
Other:
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Alcohol: I started tracking how much I drink, turns out I was drinking about 10 drinks per week (lots of end of shift beers, social outings, dates, drinks with the roomies, etc). I have lots of work to do with bringing this down further, but last two months I restricted to 6 drinks a week and I didn’t get the shakes, so I’ll go down to 4/wk for next couple months and see.
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Sleep: While I haven’t officially tracked my sleep, I overall have made better decisions (like not going out for a drink on a Wednesday) leading to more sleep. Also gym is exhausting, so my insomnia issues are practically gone.
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Appearance: noticed clothes fit better, my jeans go up more easily, and just over past month I feel my extremities are visibily more toned and my mid-section (where all my troubles are) is slowly but surely getting smaller and now I think I have a little bit of a but 🤣
Overall, I’m happy I developed better habits and I hope I can keep it up beyond my original goal end point. I feel a lot more confident, I don’t feel out of breath with minimal exertion, and my goal is now to get stronger and continue to wean down off my bad habits. Overall, I think starting slow was important for me to not quit when the scale wasn't changing or when I had a couple bad days of drinking and over eating. I also tried over restricting and it ALWAYS back fired, so beware. For this next year, I plan to drink less, cook more and see where things go.
LET’S THIS BE A SUCCESSFUL YEAR FOR ALL OF YOU PEOPLE NEW TO THIS WEIGHT LOSS THING, AND FOR ALL OF THOSE WHO ARE RE-STARING OR MAINTAINING AND GETTING STRONGER. Happy new year <3 🤗
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