About
In September of this year, I had my first appointment with my new doctor. I almost fainted after getting on the scale.DH and I had just gotten married in June... and I had gained over 40 lbs!!!
I called him crying (the scale at the BX wasn't broken!) and as soon as he got off of work we bought a scale and attacked the diet aisle. We went with the semi-expensive Bowflex because instead of using the commonly used (and commonly wrong) height-to-weight equation to calculate the amount of body fat, it runs a harmless electrical current through your body to determine your physiological makeup. This is called Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis. Simply put, it's a more accurate way of determining your Body Mass Index (BMI).
And according to my BMI, I was obese.
Yes, OBESE! I, who had for so long been fit and healthy had ballooned without knowing it... because I didn't look it. For, you see, the fat had crept up internally, effectively making me a "skinny-fat" person.
What's "skinny-fat"?
It's when someone's a healthy weight but is fat. As in, they're thin and weigh an appropriate weight, but the fat in their body is the majority of their weight. I'm doing a horrid job of explaining this, so click here and here and here and here for more information.If you prefer video, click here.
In extreme cases, a person can resemble a skeleton yet have more fat inside of their body than someone who weighs over 300 lbs.
I tried finding the original article that educated me about this a year or so ago (hence why this post is late), but alas, I could not.
Why am I sharing such personal information online with strangers?
One word: MOTIVATION. What better way to stick to a plan than to make it publicly available and myself publicly accountable?My Progress
Starting Weight: 197.0 lbsStarting BMI: 35.0 %
Current Weight: 181.4 lbs
Current BMI: 31.9 %
Weight Lost: 15.6 lbs
Fat Lost: 3.1 %
Goal Weight: healthy
Goal BMI: under 24.9%
Considering how "half-assedly" I've been following my diet, I'm pretty damn happy.
The Diet & Exercise Program
Supposedly I'm following the Slim Fast Diet, but with the outrageous amount of pancakes, cupcakes, cookies and Starbucks I've consumed this week I'm surprised I didn't gain those 15.6 lbs right back.
I mean, sure, I do ride at the stable 3x / week, for more than an hour each session, and sure my trainer is very inventive when it comes to new ways to make me feel like an out-of-shape fattymcfatfat... but the past week she went relatively easy on me. Yes, I did have to balance on one stirrup on Monday like some sort of Cirque du Soleil performer, but it wasn't too bad, especially when the difficulty level is being based on how often I reached for my water bottle (barely at all).
The only explanation I can think of is that maybe my metabolism is finally starting to behave age-appropriately.
Good luck :)
ReplyDeleteBeen losing weight aswel.
Hitting the gym 4 days a week and sticking to strict diet.
One thing I can say is, don't focus on dieting, focus on changing your food intake permanently.
Pick a few foods that are particularly bad for you and simply say to yourself, from now on I don't eat that. When people offer you the food/drink simply say, "no thanks, i don't eat/drink that".