Weight loss challeges

I cannot tell you how many times I have made a new year's resolution to lose weight. I always intended to follow through, but somehow, somewhere along the line, I get distracted and unmotivated. Early this year, I decided that I was not going to be anything other than the weight I wanted to be by 2009, New Year.

It is awful when you do not feel good about how you look. It does not even matter what you look like to other people. The issue is how you feel. I hated the weight I had gained in the last few years and it was affecting my self-esteem. On the outside, I was chipper and extroverted, but I was unhappy on the inside. There were days that I was so unhappy with my look/weight that to fix the problem, I ate more! I felt great as I ate, but soon after I was done, I felt awful. There were other days that I would take clothes out of the closet to wear to work and they just would not fit. I started looking for ways to "hide" my protruding stomach. I am 6 feet tall and sometimes I would wear heels to try to "hide" the weight. In retrospect, I am not sure that people saw me as being as fat as I thought I was, given my height, but when you don't feel good about yourself, that is all that matters to you. We are often our worst critics.

I knew I had to make changes, and I did. Motivated by my friend's weight loss, I joined a local weight loss challenge that lasted for 10 weeks. I was so motivated by then. I was committed to doing better for myself. In 10 weeks, I lost 20 pounds.
You also have to know that I had the worst eating habits of anyone I knew. I think I averaged 6,000 to 15,000 food calories a day and drank anywhere from 8-10 sodas a day. There were times that my soda intake was more than that!. The first week of the challenge, I lost about 8 pounds by eliminating the soda and reducing the food I ate. I was not concerned about what I ate that week, but rather, how much.

What are some of the things you have done to loose weight? Did they work? Why or why not?

photo: courtesy of www.lifedynamix.com