Oh Summer! It’s the time of year when you realize you have been putting off that New Year’s resolution to lose weight and now that hot new bathing suit you bought yourself at the beginning of the year and had promised yourself you would fit into by now doesn’t fit at all. For some, it might have seemed to have magically shrunk from when you bought it. For me, it was never about the swimsuit – that’s just a general goal I think most women have. No, this year it is about three things:
1. My brother is getting married in November and I am a bridesmaid which means I am going to be wearing a dress up front where a couple hundred people – most of which I don’t know – will be at some point staring at me;
2. I am leaving for London in about two weeks for three weeks and would like to be in some form of shape for all of the walking I will be doing and have an idea of to eat well and still enjoy all the wonderful food I want;
3. And the most important reason: I am not happy with the way my body is right now.
And that’s what matters above all – what you think and how you feel about your body, not what society would have you think. The example that I use the most is Marilyn Monroe who was a size 14. There is something important to remember with Ms. Monroe. I am a size 14 –ish but I am in no way as healthy or good looking as she was. You can be a 14 or 16 or 18 without being overweight or unhealthy. I am overweight and I am not a very healthy person. This is both easy and hard to fix.
Last month I began going to the gym and meeting with a personal trainer. I never thought of myself as someone who would use a personal trainer. I had always associated them with people who were not me. Trainers are expensive but if you can spare the money for the gym and the trainer it helps. My trainer is someone I have known for a few years so I feel comfortable around her. She knows her stuff and knows when to push and when to mix things up. The first day I met with her we had a conversation about the best way to lose weight. I told her I knew losing weigh quickly was not the way to go because rarely are you able to keep that weight off. So many diets nowadays are popular because they offer quick results. This is not how you do it safely. Rapid weight loss can be just as bad as rapid weight gain. She was happy to hear that I knew the reality of working out and getting healthy – not all at once and not a fad diet.
I say that last part but at the same time as working with her my family decided to do the South Beach diet. I would put this in the fad diet category which is not to say it doesn’t work or is an unhealthy way to lose weight but it popped up around the same time when the “get healthy fast” diets began to crop up. It promises that if you follow their plan you will lose 10 pounds in the first two weeks. I have lost 10 pounds in the last month. I have cheated. I admit that much but at the same time I have been working out and building muscle; however I know I probably should have lost more than that and would have if I had been faithful to the diet.
This is another problem with dieting and exercise for a lot of people who want results now: it takes a while. It may take me three months to lose 30 pounds but I’ll get there. I’m in no rush – although November has become my goal. You can’t expect that one day you will wake up and suddenly you’ll be a size 10 – once again, my goal – without having to sweat for it. I work out three times a week – Monday, Wednesday, and Friday - with the routine that my trainer has laid out for me. Sometimes I’ll go on Sunday just to use the elliptical machine. Even with just one machine I have a routine I have worked out for myself. I vary the levels that I work on. I may start at 1 but then move to 3 after a few minutes back down to 2 then up to 4 back to 1 and then up to 4 again. Then I go backwards for a minute and then forwards again which is something you can’t do on a treadmill. I do this until I hit a mile and then I stop.
Another thing that my trainer has had me do is keep track of what I eat. This is not a food diary. I have done those and never saw the point. Yes, you keep track of what you have eaten but beyond that it doesn’t really make you think about it. The way my trainer has had me do it makes you think about what you are putting in your body. It’s in the shape of a food pyramid – the old one, not the new one that was put out recently – with bubbles in each section for the number of servings you are suppose to have of each food group. Instead of writing down what you had you bubble in the amount of servings. My trainer even wrote off to the side what a serving is for each group. This has been more helpful for me because just by glancing at it and I can tell, “Yea, I cheated on that day and on this day I should have not had that thing…” Easy. The hard part is keeping up with it which is the hard part of the whole losing weight thing to begin with – you have to be vigilant with it or it won’t work. You can’t blame the diet if you know you haven’t been faithful to it and you can’t blame the workout when you know you haven’t been doing it correctly or going as much as you should. It takes time but it’s possible.
The other thing I have been doing is drinking more liquids which include tea, naturally. Homemade iced tea is just about the best thing you do rather than the restaurant teas that have a pound of sugar in them. Don’t use real sugar; use Splenda or something like it. Here is my personal iced tea recipe:
4 bags Constant Comment (Bigelow brand)
2 bags of a lemon tea
4 bags of a fruity tea
10 bags Splenda
Boil water. Add tea bags and take off heat. Steep. A lot. Put in iced tea container. Fill to top with tap water and ice. Refrigerate. When you steep the tea you have to let it sit until the steam is almost gone. If you don’t let it steep enough it will be watery when you had the other water and ice. That’s it. For some hardcore Southern tea drinkers this is not going to be sweet enough and for hardcore Northerns it will be too sweet. I try to put in one bag for each tea bag I use but you can change it to suit your needs.
There ya go. That’s what I have to say about losing weight. It may be something you have heard before or something you never have. You may agree or disagree. I actually encourage you to disagree because what works for me is not going to work for you just like sweetening iced tea.
