gwennefarrell

I have decided I will post my blogs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. These are the days that I do my running training and quite frankly, I have yet to find my ‘zone’ when doing running intervals. Instead, I try and talk myself out of continuing and then chant mantras to try and keep myself going. Today, I spent the training time writing this post in my head which took away my ability to think about wanting to stop running. So, if that works for me going forward then these are good days to post (or maybe some day those mythical endorphins will kick in an I will enjoy running).

I thought I would spend this and the next post talking about some significant learnings I have experienced along this journey. The first is that standard saying, this is a marathon not a sprint. You have to look at how long it took to gain your weight. It is highly unlikely that you gained significant weight in a short period of time. Why then do we search for quick ways to lose that weight? Ever searched the Web for diets? You’ll see thousands of them espousing that they will help you drop weight in an amazingly short period of time. My thoughts on those is yeah, and then I will just gain it back as quickly. So I say start with a mental change before you even begin your journey. Give yourself a realistic goal of weight loss and more importantly a realistic time frame to lose the weight. It is great to get to the final goal, but start thinking about if you get there slowly and safely you are more likely to have success in maintenance and quite frankly, what is the point of losing the weight if you can’t maintain it. I’ll be honest, that is now my ultimate goal. And guess what? If you fall a bit short of your goal the world does not stop. As a matter of fact life keeps moving forward so you need to do the same.

While the consensus seems to be that a safe weight loss is 1-2 pounds per week, at the beginning you may fall into a mindset that is a trap. If you are trying to lose a considerable amount of weight like I have (nearly 40% of my peak weight) then the start of the journey may go really well. Once I started serious walking I dropped more like 4-5 pounds a week for the first few weeks and I started thinking well, wasn’t that easy. DO NOT GO THERE! Yes, at first your body may drop those pounds quickly but remember, it has held that weight for a long time and it really doesn’t want to give it up. At first the weight may be shed fast but then your body may fight back and make some changes as it tries to protect you from starvation mode. Don’t be discouraged by this just push forward and your body will re-adjust but that likely will mean a much smaller weight loss each week (note, plateaus will be written about in a later post).

The second learning I want to discuss today is making sure you have support in place to help you on this journey. Because you are going to be working on both your physical and mental health, you need people in your corner who will support your successes and failures (oh, you are going to have failures but that is OK). I know with the isolation the pandemic has caused many of us have found creative ways to still be able to connect with our people. Take advantage of any source of contact you have whether that be calls, texts, emails, social media or virtual meetings and make sure it is filled with those that are 100% on your side. I know some who have been detractors of what I am doing (comments such as yeah, but she won’t be able to keep the weight off) and I just turn that volume down in my head and turn up the volume on those that use words like inspirational. The bottom line is I believe my success has occurred because of the mental support that I have received and I thank everyone who is in that corner of mine.

I’m going on a bit of a tangent here but above I mentioned isolation and the pandemic. Other than walking I have barely left my home in a year and trust me, it can get to you. However, I found a small way that gives me a lift each week. I have a list of isolated seniors that I have been assigned through a volunteer organization and each Friday I spend several hours phoning them and allowing them to have some form of contact. That volunteer work has kept me in the mental space that I need to be in so I suggest if you can, give it a try.

My final thought on support is having medical professionals on this journey with you. I have been very fortunate to have both my GP and my chiropractor working with me on this journey. I cannot stress enough that especially if you have any sort of health issues it is imperative that you have your medical professions involved. When I first started working on weight loss it was my GP who gave me some great tips to make simple changes to get things started. My chiropractor has helped me develop a core strengthening routine (and gives great advice on the best workout clothing) as well as reined me in when she thought I was pushing things soo far. While I love Dr Google, the reality is I don’t have a medical degree so the advice I have been given has helped me do the journey while improving my health and being injury free. If you can do that as well, your chances of success only grows. I also want to stress that while I have been removed from my medications, that was done at my GP’s direction. These medications had slowly been lowered over the past year but always on the advice of my doctor and not by me just determining I was feeling good so it was ok the change the dosages. Listen to the professionals and let them help you find your success.

My Journey With Weight Loss, The Beginning

I didn’t really set out to lose weight. I am a middle aged woman and I had been obese for a long time. But, in the fall of 2018 I had decided to leave my job and go on pre-retirement leave. I was the Vice President of a union and to say my job was stressful is an understatement. It also involved very long hours and a lot of travel. Eating happened whenever time allowed and was usually done by going to a restaurant. International travel often meant eating at strange times and no home cooked meals. So, when I left my job it was an easy change in lifestyle, no eating out and keeping my meals to a fairly rigid schedule. On top of that, my brother had developed serious health issues that put him on a very restrictive diet. To help him maintain this, I agreed to to follow his diet. That resulted in me cutting out sugar and reducing both potassium and sodium intake (you would not believe the food that is high in potassium). That 1st year went really well and I lost 37 pounds. That put me at a weight I hadn’t seen in over 25 years and I was happy. I truly believed it was a much healthier weight for me and it was one that I could maintain. But, I was still obese just not quite as bad as before.

And then the pandemic hit, what a blow that was. For the first 3 months of the pandemic I barely left the house. I also admit there was far more wine consumed than normal and the isolation started to get to me. So, last June I thought I’ve got to get out of this rut. I decided it was time to start taking daily walks and try and get myself up to 10,000 steps a day. I started small, walking for about a mile but after a week I thought, this is too easy. I then started adding more steps each day and within a couple weeks I realized I was doing 12,000 steps a day and I got on the scale. My mouth dropped when I saw the number, I had lost 5 pounds! That is when it hit me, if I kept doing this maybe I could lose another 20 pounds and get my BMI within the overweight category. Wow, I thought, that would be so great an maybe improve my ongoing health issues. And so I doubled down, increasing my walking every few days until somehow I was walking 10 miles a day most days and hitting 25,000 steps. I got myself to the point where it became just part of my life to walk 3 hours a day. In addition I added weights and core strengthening exercises to my daily routine. I have now kept that up since last summer and when I hit the 25 pound weight loss mark I decided if I came this far (62 pounds in total) why can’t I go further, why can’t I get myself into a normal BMI category and be a weight I hadn’t seen in 30 years? I set my new goal of losing another 20 pounds and just kept moving. By Christmas 2020 I had done it, 82 pounds down and my BMI was considered normal. I was so proud of what I had accomplished.

But that is not the end of the story, it is only phase 1 of my journey. As 2021 hit I realized that this pandemic was going to be hanging around for a while longer and maybe I could take advantage of it and get myself to the best place I have been both physically and mentally than I have seen in a very long time. So, I upped the ante, I set a new weight loss goal of an additional 10 pounds and that by the end of the year I would be able to run 10k. I hooked up with a fabulous running coach who keeps my patience in check as she guides me through slowly building up endurance while making sure I stay safe and injury free.

So, here I am today. I am down a total of 88 pounds with only 4 more to go. When I get to that weight I will weigh what I did at 18. 2 weeks ago my doctor removed me from my medications which just blew me away. I do running interval training 3 days a week and have yet to have any injuries. I have a very arthritic knee which has been basically pain free for months as it no longer deals with the stress of my weight. Even better, my chronic back and neck issues have not caused me a single day of pain for the last 6 months as my core has become strong and supportive.

I decided to start this blog to help motivate others to start their own journey to losing weight and getting healthy. I’ll be posting about my learnings and the things I have done to just give me a better life. I know what I did may not work for everyone but maybe something in what I write about will give you what you need to be successful in your own journey.