How I learned to drop the "weight"

A lot of people have new year’s resolutions when it comes to fitness… you hear it all the time.. oh starting Jan 1st I’m going to go to the gym every day so I can lose 40lbs finally!!! For many people who are in the battle to be “skinny” it’s a reason to reset the clock and buckle down and get “serious”.

My resolution hasn’t been any different than the resolution I made with myself that day I was standing in the dressing room of Ross with a size 16w dress in my hand…. I was going to “do something about the way I looked”. At the time I didn’t realize how in sync I was with modern day fitness professionals. To us “normal” or unfit people making a goal of losing a certain number of lbs the only goal we really think about…there is so much focus put onto weight… how do you calculate your BMI (body mass index)?? Weight and height… if you have a BMI of 25-29.9 you are considered overweight… anything over that you are considered… OBESE my current BMI is 29.5… I’m considered overweight… and I’m told by many fitness websites I need to get to a “healthy weight” what does that even mean?? What does my weight have to do with it?? How am I at an unhealthy weight at 194lbs?? I can run for 13.1 miles without stopping… I can swim for 750 meters, then bike 12 miles, then run 3 miles without stopping… I can do bicep curls with 25lb dumbbells without much of a struggle… how is that unhealthy? The truth of the matter is from a technical standpoint… how much you weigh has NOTHING to do with how healthy you are OR how good you look case in point- look at the picture… do I look like I weighed 196lbs in this picture?

Truth is I did.. and I am still over 190lbs at this very moment.. if I was a MMA fighter I would be a light heavy weight for crying out loud!! Honestly it took me awhile to get over watching the scale day after day, waiting to see the results of each workout… it drove me mad… is it really necessary to step on the scale every day?? NO is it really practical to expect to see results within a day or two?? HELL to the NO… in fact I maintain the scale was invented by a man that had an extremely nasty wife and he wanted a way to torture her while diverting her ruthless nagging away from him. The truth of the matter is the scale has nothing to do with how healthy you are, how good you look or how great you feel… well that’s not true.. the scale can make you feel like a horrible fat failure of a person when really you are a fit and hot looking individual…
Luckily without knowing it I somehow managed to make the perfect fitness goal. Rewinding back to April I made my new fitness goal completing a Triathlon..That was my ONLY goal… a goal I made on my own using critical thinking skills I picked up as an analyst.. I had deducted that after many trials and errors trying to “lose weight” by trying to fit in workouts in my busy schedule I was going to “complete a triathlon” by doing that I was going to be doing something about the way I looked…. Weight loss became a byproduct of my journey to get fit and not the main focus. By doing that alone I felt lighter already!

A end state of being x weight is the most frustrating impractical way to go about it… who cares if you weigh 120lbs on a 5’7” frame if your belly skin jiggles and your arms are little toothpicks you can’t even use to open a jar of pickles with?? During the time it takes you to get to that weight you will face constant disappointment with each week that goes by as you watch and wait for the scale to get closer and closer to your goal weight… the best way is to pick a fitness goal! It doesn’t have to be as extreme as mine.. completing a triathlon.. but it can be something simple like running a 5k race, there is a c2k (couch to 5k run) program out there anyone can do.. you don’t like to run? No problem pick a aerobics class that looks fun and make that your goal.. ie going to zumba 3 times a week, or I will take up step classes and my goal is to go from no risers on my step to two in 2 months… or finish my awesome workout video without stopping to catch my breath in 3 months… there is an exercise goal out there for everyone…

How do you measure your success without the forsaken scale???




Special K said the best way to measure how great you look is by how you look in your favorite pair of jeans… FYI I do not recommend the special k diet it is one of the most unhealthy ways to lose weight.. they just have a really good commercial ;)

Take before and after photos.. take your measurements once every two weeks…even if the scale hasn’t moved in 3 weeks, you will surprise yourself.. case in point… I participated in a weight loss contest, it was 6 weeks long.. in this 6 weeks I lost a total of 2 lbs… but I lost a total of 8 inches from my waist, chest and hips….


Bottom line… you don’t walk around with your weight tattooed on your forehead… nobody can look at you and judge how you look based of what your hidden at home scale says… they are going to judge it by “how you look in them jeans!” and even at 194lbs I can say I totally rock them jeans!