Works For Me Wednesday: Getting Healthy

By MAD21

Most people who read my blog or have hung around me on Twitter for very long know that I used to be terribly over weight.  At my heaviest, I was 240 pounds, and miserable, to say the least. After my second daughter was born, I made a concerted effort to not just lose the weight, but to get healthy. I know several skinny people who aren't very healthy, so it had to be about more than just losing the weight.

I did a ton of research over the 18 months it took me to get to a healthy body. I did not want to "diet." I did not want to just follow the latest fads regarding weight loss, most of them make you cut certain foods out of your diet, and I didn't want to do that. I like food too much. Plus, I personally don't think it's healthy to cut anything completely out of your diet. Our bodies need everything in moderation.

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Important Things To Remember

By MAD21

During my journey of losing 100 pounds, I learned a few things along the way. I thought I would share them with you:

• Nothing worth having is ever easy.
• You didn’t get to be your current size in a few weeks, months or years. Give yourself a break and set realistic expectations. If you mess up one meal, one day, or even a week, just start again. If it takes you 2-3 years to lose all the weight and get to the level of health that you want, so be it. Those years are going to pass anyway, so you might as well keep up the work. It is SO worth it.
• NOTHING tastes as good as being slim and healthy feels. Ask yourself every time you want to eat that extra piece of cake, donut, or candy bar if that will taste better than how you will feel being able to buy a size 6 pair of jeans.
• It's cannot be a 'diet,' it has to be a lifestyle, a new way of living. In order for you to be successful at losing weight and getting healthy, you have to have a full understanding that this is a lifestyle change. Not just something you do for a little while or until you fit into that certain size. You have to make a lifetime commitment to do this for yourself. Fill your life with activity, not food. Find something to be passionate about, a purpose.
• Remind yourself that food’s real purpose is only to make our bodies function. Yes, the junk tastes yummy. But if it’s too much of a temptation to over eat, ask yourself why do you even want or need to eat it. And when you eat it, ask yourself how you feel (I think we miss that part, I found that eating some foods made me feel tired, or just plain icky). We don’t keep junk food in our house. No jelly treats, no fruit rollups, no candy, no cookies. If there is no nutritional value, we don’t have it in our kitchen. Does this mean we never eat it? No way! (Not with my sweet tooth!) Just that we only have it on special occasions. As Cookie Monster would say... “It’s a sometimes treat.”