I can truely say that I have never been considered a petite woman. I am taller than most women and I have large hips, and a little more "junk in the trunk" than most women. I am not considered model material, but I have never truely considered myself as ugly either.
My story begins when I underwent a back surgery. The surgery was a success, and for that I was thrilled. I did not consider the long term affects or the amount of time it takes to heal. For the first four weeks I was on bed rest, and only allowed
up to use the restroom. I enjoyed the time off of work and the extra time it gave me with my children. What I did not enjoy was getting on the scale at the end of that four weeks.When I was finally allowed up to move after surgery on an impulse I stepped onto my bathroom scale and waited for the digital number to tell me what I had gained. I was shocked and very embarassed to say that I had reached 204 pounds. That is the heaviest I was when I was pregnant. I was shocked to say the least, and disgusted with myself for becoming this heavy.
So now the real kicker came, how was I to lose weight when I still was not allowed to exercise outside of physical therapy and was still only allowed on my feet for an hour at a time? I didnt know what to do or even where to start. So I did what any person does when they have a question, I googled it.
There is no big shock that googling weight gain or weight loss will bring up billions of sites. So then I had to get a little more specific. I googled exercise that would not further injure my back, I googled healthy foods, and yes I even clicked on a few diet "miracles."
The biggest thing that I came across was that perhaps my calorie intake was too high. So I bought a small notebook and began tracking everything that I was consuming, because I did not consume that many food products I expected my calories to be low. Much to my surprise I was taking in on an average day more than 3500 calories.
My food calorie intake was not bad at all, it
was what I was drinking. Over 1/3 of my calories came from liquids. I did not realize that the wonderful Starbucks Frappucinos that I enjoyed drinking throughout the day were 350 calories per bottle. Mountain Dew was another high calorie beverage on my list, as was Apple Juice. All three of these were beverages that I absolutely loved, and still do, but with the weight I had put on it was time for a change.The first week of my journey I cut out the soda and limited my delicious coffee beverages to one a day. By the end of week one I had taken my calorie intake from 3500 calories to roughly 1800 calories. I didnt really exercise other than walking up and down the steps in my house to put away laundry. On Sunday night I stood in front of my scale and dreaded stepping on it. I didnt feel any lighter and I was not sure if I truely wanted to see the numbers. I finally took a deep breath and stepped on. Much to my surprise my weight had dropped two pounds. While it was not a huge loss I was still happy to see the numbers dropping and it motivated me even farther.
Week two began and I got really serious about my eating habits. I reasearched and found out that the average female needs to take in at least 1200 calories a day. So I started cutting even more calories out of my diet. I bought low fat milk, special K cereal, and more fresh fruit. By the end of week two I was steadly under 1500 calories a day. Again Sunday night rolled around and I was excited to see another small loss in body fat. I was a little disappointed to see that I had only lost one pound. After the initial disappointment though I was again excited to see that I was still making progress.
Today I am still watching what I eat and counting calories. I have a goal to be around 175 pounds by Christmas. Currently I am standing around 192 pounds, but the important thing is that I have not lost any faith that I will continue to lose weight.