Weight Loss Journey

So I have been on Pinterest a lot lately and I keep coming across all these weight loss blogs. Women who either have whole blogs dedicated to their weight loss goal or stories about how they lost weight and are keeping it off and post recipes. It got me thinking that even though this blog was meant for me to try new things, I should also give people a background about me and my journey. So here it is. My weight loss journey blog post.

I am going to start with a before and after for dramatic effect. In case you don’t notice I have an identical twin sister. This was my sister and I on the left our freshman year of college in 2004 and on the right post weight loss in 2010. Mind you we did not attempt to loose weight freshman year so it didn’t take 6 years to loose weight, but more of that later.

When we were little we were blonde and little cuties. My mom would dress us alike all the time. One of us would wear one color and the other a matching outfit in a different color. To this day I am not sure how she found so many matching outfits.

When we started getting a little older we started putting on more and more weight. Nothing crazy at first. I guess when we were in grade school you could call us pudgy but not very overweight.

This was when we first started grade school. See matching outfits. My mother really liked it haha. We also were active kids. We ran around the neighborhood, we played sports like softball and swimming and were even on the cheerleading squad. I think the main problem was our poor eating. We got school lunches every day followed by after school at the local Boys & Girls Club where we loved the vending machine. Then our parents would pick us up and we would eat dinner but never cared about portion control. My parents also never called us fat or anything like that. I love them for letting us be who we were and not judging us, but now I wish they had made more of a stink about our weight. I don’t think we were ashamed of gaining weight because of that and because most of the women in our family gain weight. I can say it’s in my genes but that’s just an excuse.

Also when we were younger we went to catholic grade school which meant uniforms. I had hideous clothing back then. I wore a lot of rompers which nowadays are cute but back then hideous haha. I just never had to wear much but a uniform and dress down on weekends. My friends to this day hate my style but I like the way I dress now.

In high school we were part of the stage craft club, choir and majorettes in the marching band. So we were never the sit at home and play video games and eat bad type. We did lots of activities and I guess rewarded ourselves with bad food which doesn’t work out. In high school I noticed going through pictures that I took a lot of pictures of my friends. Not as many of my sister and I. We gained a lot more weight in high school and didn’t have the highest self esteem. Don’t get me wrong we had a great group of friends. We were always out doing stuff and I was never bullied, but just lacked self confidence.

Then at some point in high school (probably after we joined majorettes and had to wear a short skirt on the football field at half time) we decided to join Weight Watchers. We did pretty well. I think I lost 20 or 30 pounds. We followed that up with a cruise to Bermuda (horrible idea) and never went back once we got back from the cruise. Our weight kept going up.

Then after we graduated from high school our next life move was college. My sister and I went to the same college (it was honestly easier with move in and such) but wanted to be “individuals” and lived separately until senior year. The first picture with the side by side was our freshman year. I tried to go to the gym at school and eat healthy but seriously most people gain the “Freshman 15” because the food is so bad for you. We went back and forth all 4 years of college, gaining and loosing weight on and off. We had a bunch of breaking points. Most people only need one, but it didn’t click yet.

Our 22nd birthday (80’s themed) was one of my “lower” points. We had a great group of friends and no one really judged each other or made fun of each other. So the comfort of that didn’t really force us to act. I had a tendency to eat cans of green beans for dinner one night followed by a night where I would eat my weight in Wawa.

It wasn’t until we graduated (which I regret somewhat to this day) that I got disgusted with myself and decided to make a change. This wasn’t until May 2007. Since we had been on Weight Watchers in high school I decided to dig up my old books and do it on my own. I didn’t really have the money to pay for weekly meetings (I had an internship that summer) and I also could not afford a gym. Two of my best friends had taken up running so I decided why not. I started running with them in the summer after work and slowly began to see the weight drop off. My sister didn’t start the same time I did. She worked in the city and had a lot more temptation than I did. She also took longer to get home and it was dark and I was done running by then so she didn’t work out as much.

That January she made a resolution with my mom because she decided she did not want to be the “fatter twin” and joined Weight Watchers. I had hit a major plateau at this point and decided to suck it up and start attending meetings at WW for motivation. We started exercising regularly (I also sucked it up and joined a gym) and eating properly as a family (except my dad he is hopeless). Our mantra was it definitely didn’t take us a few months to gain all the weight, there was no way it was going to come off easy.

We started running A LOT. We got into racing which is much more exciting then just running around the block. We started with local 5K’s then joined the NYRR (New York Road Runners). Our first half marathon was the Philadelphia Distance Run in 2008 (now the Philly Rock and Roll Half). We run that every year. We have run a lot of half marathons. I have completed 3 marathons (including 2 NYC) and my sister just finished her first (NYC) in November.

Loosing weight is hard. People sometimes get frustrated and give up because they expect results overnight. I mean the amount of “Loose 10 pounds in a week” posts I see is disgusting. Yes, eating just tomatoes everyday for a week you will loose weight. Or all these dumb cleanses where you just eat hot sauce or cabbage soup. None of that is healthy. The day AFTER you go back to eating normal food you will probably overindulge and gain the weight back or your body will store whatever it can as fat in protest.

All I can say is what you put into something is what you get out. I’m not perfect. I slip up A LOT. I go out and drink and eat with my friends and I love Taco Bell. But that’s life. You aren’t going to be perfect every single day, but if you can try and be as good as you can most of the time and exercise as much as possible, then that’s going to get you ahead. If you told me in high school that when I was older I would love to run I would have said you were crazy. One of my favorite activities is getting out and running outside. It’s not for everyone, but it’s something I love. If you find something you love to do then weight loss will become less of a chore and more of a lifestyle change. I also love Weight Watchers because counting calories is too many numbers to remember. The points system works for me, but even going a week measuring out your portions you will start to understand how much you are eating and how much of it you really don’t need.

Having a good support system is also so important. I was lucky I had my sister to go on this journey with. Having someone to be able to talk to about the struggles is so helpful. Another reason Weight Watchers is so great is because if you don’t have that support at home you can get it in other members to inspire you.

In the end I lost around 60 pounds my sister lost 80 pounds. I am comfortable with my weight now. I don’t need to be super thin. I honestly don’t think I could be super thin since I love food so much. I have learned how to eat what I want (in moderation) and maintain a healthy weight. One of the best decisions I ever made in my life was lacing up my sneaker and stepping out the door. It was the run of my life.