If you are reading this, there is a good chance you will not have a hard time believing how I gained 50 pounds in three years during college after graduating high school. You are probably more interested in how I lost it over the course of one year while I was a full time college student, working a full time job and volunteering. I feel it is important to start from the beginning to fully understand my thought process (I will try to keep to the point).
I was a swimmer in high school which meant I was on a competitive swim team and water polo team that kept me active all year every year. I would say I was fit but never skinny. Actually looking back I hated my body at the time but now I realize I was very muscular which did not give me a dainty look but I also wasn’t fat. The muscle kept my figure thick and I had a layer of fat over that muscle that kept my stomach from being flat. Being a swimmer I could easily average three hours of swimming per day. That is a lot! Swimming makes me hungry. After swimming I decided I deserved to eat something filling. I didn’t want salad. I wanted meat. I wanted pasta. And being in high school, I wanted it fast. My cooking skills in high school were subpar so fast food was a top choice for my friends and I after a practice or swim meet. Somehow I convinced myself that if swimming three hours per day was not enough to give me the body I desired, nothing ever would. As you can tell I had a slight body image problem at this age (although a high schooler not liking their body is probably not a new discovery).
So what happened? After high school I went to college to become an engineer. No more competitive swimming, just studying = new rule I set for myself. I made it to the pool for a swim about twice a week after moving in to the dorms. But you know what did not change? My eating habits. I was not swimming as much as I used to but I was used to eating giant portions of food. What’s worse is that I was used to eating whatever I wanted. You’ve heard of the Freshman 15? Well let’s just say that definitely happened to me. I had lots of excuses at the time. It’s not like I didn’t know eating so much fast food and sweets was bad for you. But I was living in a dorm. No kitchen to cook food, no sink to wash dishes and no pantry to store food making things. By the time I got out of the dorm things were in motion and habits are hard to break so I continued down a path that was less than desirable.
How did I turn things around? I had to decide for myself that I was not going to have an easy or quick answer. I also had to understand that my mindset was the problem. Watching my body deteriorate really put things in perspective. I went from a water polo powerhouse to a person who had a hard time lifting her backpack in to the bed of her own truck. That was embarrassing.
Desperate to not let my health get out of control I started doing research (engineers are good at this). I realized the research I was doing I had never done before. I never truly tried to understand what foods were good for me and what was harming me. It seems like that would be obvious but my emotions always trumped my logic… until now. I found a book. A book that I love. It is called the Abs Diet by David Zinczenko. Why did this book hit home for me? Maybe it is the engineer in me but it was the numbers. He did a great job explaining why some foods are different than others. He explained why different exercises are better than others (depending on your goal).
The most important thing I tell everyone that will sound like a cop out (but I promise it is not) is that it truly depends on you. You have to have the mindset that is ready for the discipline to change the way you eat. And when I say this, I don’t mean that it has to change for the worse. I actually loved the change! And I don’t even like cooking! I started making all my meals and snacks so that I was in control of what was going in to my body. I was saving so much money because I could make more food with less money than I was spending on fast food. “But you were a sucker for fast food partially because of convenience!” True. But knowing myself and how much I disliked “cooking” I started spending time on Sundays meal prepping. I would shop for the ingredients, go home and make enough food to last me the week, bag and box up all the portions and voila! I had to admit that it would take me more time in the drive thru each night than just going home and popping my pre-made meal in the microwave for 2 minutes. I found a way to beat myself at my own game. It took some reflection to find all the little things that were taking me down an unhealthy road. Once I knew what they were and had the dedication to stick to my new plan I was able to turn myself around and wear smaller sizes than I wore in high school!
“Whoa! Wait. So you lost 50 pounds in one year just by eating different foods??” No, not just by eating different foods. But I did find out I did not have to swim for three hours per day to lose 50 pounds. Actually, not even close. Again I followed the principles in the Abs Diet book and to kick things off I only followed the book. Then I branched out in to workout videos that use isometric movements. More specifically workout videos from Gold’s Gym. The book taught me to focus on strength training. And the workouts that I did during that year I lost 50 pounds averaged 30 minutes per day. 30 minutes! When my own family asked me what I was doing they didn’t believe me. I bought them all copies of the book because they seemed interested and they never read it. I learned something valuable. First, that it absolutely maters what you eat and second, work smarter not harder.
In closing I hope you were not looking for a step by step plan on everything I ate and every exercise I did. If enough people comment that they would like to see that I would be more than happy to post it. The main point I want to make is there has to be a turning point for yourself to really want to make a change and understand the change does not need to make your life more difficult or less fun. The fact is, if I tell you that a major ingredient in many of my dishes was black beans and you can’t stand black beans then it will not necessarily help you. We are all different. Different likes, dislikes, different metabolism and different life situations. I am thankful for finding the Abs Diet book because it gave me a better understanding of how to select foods so that I can pick the foods I enjoy vs just copying what worked for someone else. I hope this has helped you too. Please post your success stories below! If I can do it, I know other people have done better and so can you!
