Lose It! Update

Exactly three months ago today made a post titled New Beginnings in which I made a commitment to myself to cut calories from my diet to finally get the weight loss I've wanted for so long that exercise alone just wasn't giving me. I started using the Lose It! app on my iPhone on April 1 as the tool to track my daily calories and stick to a calorie budget and hopefully lose some weight. In my post back on April 1, I also said I wasn't going to do any diet or weight loss talk on my blog here but on my fitness blog See how she runs... Well, I changed my mind. I have had fantastic results with this tool so far and hope to motivate or inspire someone else to do the same.

Since April 1, I have lost a total 26.5 lbs. (12kg)!!

I have done this by exercising nearly every day and by using the Lose It! app to help me stick to a daily calorie budget. I am not an expert on weight loss, but I have learned a lot in the last three months that may help you do the same.

Sometimes it's just a matter of hearing or seeing someone else succeed at something and you deciding you want that, too. So you go for it and you just do it. That's what I hope to inspire by posting my success so far.

I have come up with a list of, I don't know what to call it-- advice? words of wisdom? --that might help you achieve a weight loss goal, too.

1-Determination

You have to want to lose weight. You have to want to be healthy, live healthy, feel and look good. Do you want it? If you do, you can do it.

2-Commitment

You have to live with yourself every day as long as you live. Make a commitment to yourself to make yourself better in the things you can change. There are a lot of things about ourselves and our lives that we have no control over and cannot change. Your body weight? You can change that. You can do it.

3-Educate yourself

Do a little research online, read a book, download the Lose It! app and find out how many calories you need to consume every day in order to lose weight at a safe rate. There is no one magic number since your current weight and activity level is a contributing factor to your calorie budget. It's always a good idea to consult with your doctor first.

4-Will power

I'm not going to lie. The first ten days were brutal. I was hungry pretty much all the time, even when I was sleeping. I just kept thinking how badly I wanted a healthier body. I figure I wasn't suffering when I ate what I wanted and enjoyed all that food that led to weight gain. I could suffer for nine months to lose it. I would do it because I really wanted it, and I found the will power. You have to find the will power and you can do it, too. If you're feeling weak resolve, enlist someone to help you (see last point below).

5-Exercise every day

The truth is that you have to work very hard to burn a good number of calories through exercise. A 150 lb. woman walking at a brisk pace for 30 minutes burns about 90 calories. That's barely an apple.

The best way to determine how many calories you burn during exercise is with a heart rate monitor because it bases your caloric burn directly from your heart rate that's tied to oxygen consumption. And we know to burn fuel (from food you just ate or stored fat), you need oxygen. But a heart rate monitor is not practical for everyone as it is an investment of upwards of $100 or more. There are some great websites out there that have online calculators for various activities. The one I like to use is at fitday.com: http://www.fitday.com/webfit/burned/calories_burned.html

Note: I think the calories burned for exercises in the Lose It! App are a bit inflated.

6-Count everything and make everything count.

Count every bite of food you take and every beverage you drink. It all adds up very quickly. Also, choose foods that are healthy for you and you'll feel fuller longer. One small cookie isn't going to make you feel as satisfied as one large apple. Plus the apple has health benefits, the cookie doesn't.

7-Measure your foods.

Measure foods by volume (measuring cups) or weight (using a kitchen scale) based on the serving size for that particular food. I found I had to re-educate myself on serving sizes and the approximate number of calories in a lot of basic foods.

8-The achievement factor

Know that if you stick it out for a week or two, you will get results and then you can feed off your own achievement. In other words, your own success will motivate you to keep going. It's all on you, but you can do it.

Kind of for fun, but really very true for me:

9-Don't read any cooking magazines, flip through cookbooks or visit any cooking blogs or forums when you are hungry or if you think it will make you hungry or just want to eat food even if you're not hungry.

I basically read my cooking magazines while I'm actually eating breakfast or lunch and that's it. Any other time it makes me want to eat. But it's getting better. My body is adapting to fewer calories and is happy this way. :)

10-Have a support person or team in place.

It helps if you have at least one person who is in on your personal mission and is supportive. My husband and daughters have listened to me talk diet and exercise day in and day out and I am very grateful for their patience. And also for their support when I announce my latest total pounds lost... or when I put a moratorium on their favorite restaurant because I can't get anything remotely healthy to eat there. And for their encouragement when I tell them how much more I have to go and they think I can do it before my target date.

In conclusion, I'll just add that if I can do this, you can too. I literally decided on April 1 that that was it. That was the day I was going to do it. And gosh darn it, I'm doing it!

If you want it, then decide to do it.

Decide it, then do it.

I know you can. :)