My New Goal for 40!

Since January, I have been wanting to blog about our journey to a healthier lifestyle.  I blog frequently about this subject and I usually get some questions.  So I thought, maybe if I try to do more frequent posts about this then it will be a better help to some.  

Last month I entered the last year of my 30’s.   I am not sure what that means exactly.  It seems as I get older a birthday is just another day.  Anyway-At this point, I am not fearing approaching my 40’s. I decided in January that I was going to approach a new decade in a positive way.  Getting older is a way of life.  It is what it is, literally.  We get more aches and pains, we start forgetting things. But yet there is still so much more to learn and enjoy!  

I have struggled with a low self-esteem most of my adult life.  And like most women learn as they get older, your body changes.  I know mine has.  If the image of Cindy Crawford floating around with untouched photos is real, she is my hero.  Why?  Because it is reality for many many many women out there. That is our perfection, and maybe, just maybe it will help all of us women accept that our bodies are perfect the way they are meant to be.  If I am writing this blog post for any reason, it is because I know I am not the only woman who has had these issues.  There is so much hype from the media now and days that it’s a little insane.  There is and always has been intense pressure on women to look a certain way.  And at one point I was not immune to wanting to look and feel a certain way in public, and I most certainly have not been happy with the way my body looked.  I think about the evolution of my body and I have literally put it through hell, it honestly makes me cringe.

My high school teen years-I was an athlete, and I had the physique of an athlete.  I played softball, basketball, and was a pretty avid weight lifter.  The year I graduated, I weighed 115 lbs, and had about 10% body fat. I wore a size 4-6.  Truth be told, even though I was in my prime, I was self-conscious because I thought 115 lbs was too heavy, because most every other girl weighed less.  I didn’t realize why though until college.

Freshman Year of college (18-19 years old) - I still worked out, but didn’t play sports.  Scarily I dropped to an all-time low of 104lbs and a size 0-2.  Drugs, alcohol and depression played a role in the weight loss.  I look at pictures and I was way too thin, but yet, I thought this was a normal weight.  

19-22 years old- I came home from my freshman year of college, and got married literally within a year, and started at a new college focusing on a degree in Human Performance and Sport.  In this time frame, I put on about 30 lbs and jumped to a size 8, which of course bothered me. Since my degree focuses on aspects of health and fitness, this time frame was very educational for me. My 5’2 frame was not petite like I had always thought.  I learned by doing all the body testing that my ideal weight is actually 128lbs, and my weight range should be between 118lbs to 138lbs.  So I realized that at 135lbs I was really on the higher end of right where I should be.  Comparing myself at my ideal weight vs. what I thought was normal, I LOOKED way to thin and my perception was way off!  And for the first time ever, I was fine with my weight and fine with my body. Then I got pregnant. 

Kids and Pregnancy-Let me just say this.  Pregnancy totally reshapes a woman’s body.  It is the most glorious, most beautiful thing I have put my body through.  But it is also the ugliest, most horrendous thing I have ever put my body through. AND I do NOT regret it at all.  However, unlike most women, pregnancy shoots my metabolism so out of whack that I lose weight, not gain it.  With my son, I lost 15lbs the first half of the pregnancy but gained them back.  At his birth I weighed exactly what I did when I got pregnant with him.  I walked out of the hospital weighing 121lbs.  But just because I lost weight doesn’t mean I wasn’t immune to the rest of the wonderful things that pregnancy offers, my hips spread (as if I needed that,I already had big hips!), my boobs grew, and I got stretch marks.  And the weight didn’t stay off long, I quickly jumped right back up and then some.  Then baby #2 came.  Again, I lost weight (almost 20lbs), but this time I didn’t gain it back, and I was on a high fat, high caloric diet half way through my pregnancy to try and put weight back on to no avail. AND to top it off I got so big with her that people often asked me if I was having twins.  I walked out of the hospital weighing 115lbs, and also had twice the stretch marks.  My stomach looked like a map of rivers running through it and none of my tops fit. I did not feel attractive!  In two years I went from having a very slender athletic body to what I call a “Mom” body.  I often tell people that I had the most expensive boob job in the world (the cost of raising two kids!).  And of course instead of putting just the weight I lost back on, I added another 20lbs on top of that, and also moved up to a size 10.  So let’s recap thus far- in a 7 year period my weight fluctuated by 50lbs. I had lost a grand total of 75 lbs and gained a grand total of 102lbs.  I had went up 2 bra sizes,  6 sizes in clothes and my body looked like it had went to war.  And the ONLY positive I could find within myself was that since I was late developing on the top, gravity wouldn’t take over as quickly!  Feeling more self-conscious than ever before, everything I learned in college sort of flew out the window.  I stopped exercising, didn’t care what I ate.  I figured I was already over weight, so it didn’t matter.  Occasionally common sense would kick in and I would start exercising again, but life happens.  With 2 busy kids it isn’t that easy to keep on track.  

However, by mid-30 my weight seemed to had stabilized and not exactly where I would have liked it.  I was overweight from my “ideal” weight by about 15lbs.  We ate pretty well but no matter what I did my body was just “happy” at that weight.  Knowing that part of the reason my body was “happy” at that weight was because I did nothing exercise wise to help the situation, we joined a gym.  I became more determined than ever to get back down to my “ideal” weight.  I think my first 6 months in the gym I lost 2 lbs.  Then life happened yet again, and I had just a really bad few years…depression set in for the 2^nd time in my life.  This time the opposite happened.  I gained weight.  When I am stressed out I tend to NOT eat consistently.  Since my eating habits became horrid, my body began calorie hoarding, causing the weight gain.  3 years ago I hit the highest weight I had EVER been in my life, 170lbs!!!!  And when I reached that weight, I honestly almost had a panic attack! I couldn't take it anymore..... And with my husband being the highest weight that he had ever been, we decided to do something about it, as I have previously blogged about it before.  At first it was for us to lose weight.  But then we noticed that we were feeling TONS better.  When all was said and done I dropped back down to my normal 153lbs, but then couldn’t drop any farther.  And frustration set in AGAIN.  This is NOT my ideal weight. For years I had it in my head to be healthy, I needed to be at my ideal weight, so my frustration levels with my weight were at an all-time high.  Nothing I was doing was getting me at my ideal weight! I knew being a former athlete that I would lose fat and gain muscle.  And muscle weighs more than fat, so in theory, once you lose water weight, the rest of the weight may not come off as quickly. But that’s not what I wanted, I wanted it to come off yesterday, instantaneously! I could care less that inches were melting off my body.  I wanted the pounds off! Finally about a year ago I decided I needed a self-intervention.  I need to focus on feeling better, NOT looking better.  I also needed to learn a bit of self-acceptance and self-love.  

So that has been my goal.  In January, I was walking on the treadmill at the gym, and realized that I wanted to be able to say that I was healthy and fit as ever for my 40^th birthday.  Why?  Because looking good doesn’t necessarily mean that you are healthy!  And being healthy will get me much farther in life.  So I have stopped focusing on my weight.  Inches ARE coming off, and I feel so much better.  When I was 18, I could bench 150lbs and squat close to 300lbs, and that was the best I had ever felt! While, today, I am not necessarily shooting for those numbers, I am shooting for feeling good, inside and out.  I want to hit 40 and be able to say that I feel great!  And I have a little over 47 weeks to achieve this goal.  To get the party started I recently went in for my physical, the Dr. and I had a serious conversation about not being able to lose weight. I told him my concerns, we decided since I have never had a blood work done (cholesterol, thyroid, etc.) it would be a good idea.  My blood pressure was the lowest it had been in years, and my blood work came back 100% normal, with a message from the Dr. saying that I needed keep doing what I was doing because my health couldn’t be better. So I will just stay the course. Which means much of my nonexistent free time will be spent at Planet Fitness on 92^nd, or walking around Stanley Lake while my daughter is practicing softball, or in the gym at work, or hiking some trail in the mountains…………So I welcome you to come with me on this journey, if I can do it (with an insane schedule to top it off) anyone can!

I will share my tips and trick and recipes and views on what healthy means to me!

Next installment……….why I don’t believe in supplements (for weight loss or body building).