Turning Point

Part Deux
(see Part I Here)

By March, I started feeling antsy for change. I felt empowered as I consistently ended each week having eaten two or fewer desserts and no "fast food."

Janssen suggested I exercise more regularly, so I committed to three trips to the gym per week. All I had to do was wake up thirty minutes earlier than usual. [More on my exercise routine later this week]

After a few weeks of that, I felt even more empowered. And I could feel my health and motivation returning. How had I allowed myself to be so inactive for so long? Was I just too busy and unsure of how to make progress when it came to fitness?

Whatever it was that had been slowing me down a little bit more, year after year, was falling by the wayside, and I was starting to remember the enjoyment of disciplined, regular exercise and more health-conscious habits.

But I was still 169 lbs. and my six-pack was still on vacation. Then one day, for some reason, for the first time in many, many years, I was suddenly very open to the idea of changing my eating habits altogether in favor of healthy living.

I had hit what I guess I'll call a turning point. I've personally known several people who have seemed to hit a similar turning point, after which they lost weight and kept if off permanently by changing their eating and exercising habits for good. They were just done being overweight, and that was all there was to it.

I never thought I'd hit that point because I never thought I'd "let myself go." But as I was filled with renewed energy and enthusiasm for healthy living, I started to feel like I really had "let myself go" over the past few years, and the desire to fight against that and to get back on track suddenly hit me like a panda on horseback riding by (just making sure you're still with me). I was ready to change.

On March 25th, as Janssen and I drove home from school, I told her that I was going to start counting calories to gain better control over my body. I didn't want to be in the dark anymore when it came to what I should be eating, and how much of it I should be eating. She suggested I use FitDay.com, which proved to be a helpful tool (I've recently been told that Nutrition Data is equally, if not more, useful).

Counting calories is not something I ever thought I'd do. But it worked like a charm. And I'm now a full and complete convert to the "calories in, calories out" train of thought.

Granted, that description is overly simplistic. I know that not all calories are created equally, and the body has impressive mechanisms for adapting to differing levels of caloric intake and exercise. But by limiting my caloric intake, I started losing weight immediately, which was very encouraging.

And the process of limiting my calories each day made me take a much more serious look at the nutritional values and comparative satisfaction levels of what I was eating. Importantly, such scrutiny helped me develop a much deeper appreciation for healthy food choices [more about counting calories later this week].

I knew I had a few extra pounds. But I wouldn't have guessed that in a little over 2 1/2 months I'd have lost 20 pounds. Twenty pounds! Who knew I was lugging around a toddler worth of extra weight? (to be fair, I readily admit that my body has gotten rid of BOTH fat and muscle, and possibly water, ligaments, and whatever else it felt like it could spare).

Here's my weight-goal graph from FitDay:

It was really gratifying to watch this graph form, week by week. My initial goal was 154, but when I surpassed that last month, I lowered it to 150. Now I've gone below that by one pound, and even now I have some fat left to lose (I'm not talking unhealthy loss, either. It really is amazing how our bodies hide extra weight by distributing it everywhere AND in particular areas).

I don't plan to lose more muscle, though. [More about that later this week]

In the meantime, let me know if you have any questions or comments. I hope I'm not coming across as a know-it-all about this stuff. I'm not an expert by any means.

But I feel like I've made some major breakthroughs in understanding health, fitness, and fat loss, and it's exciting to have developed a new perspective that makes a healthy lifestyle seem much more attainable and sustainable in the long run.