After 130+ Pounds

 Last year at this time, I weighed about 300 pounds. I don't have any great before photographs because I never let anyone take my picture. I felt awful about myself. And I felt powerless to change it.

Then, we made plans to go to Disney World as a family. I didn't feel excitement. I felt dread. What if I didn't fit on the plane seat? What if I couldn't fit comfortable in the rides? All I could think about was how being obese would spoil the vacation.

So I decided to try and lose some weight.

And I lost. And I lost. And I lost. By the time I went on vacation in November of 2013 I weighed 115 pounds less than I did when I started on this quest in February. Now, I've lost over 130 pounds. For the first time since high school, I'm just plain overweight and not obese. With just another 25 pounds, I'll be "normal" weight. Something I've only been for a very brief period in my life. What's best about it is that I know I'm going to get there.

Lots of people ask what I did. So here's a look:

What I Did

The short story about what I did is I ate less calories than I burned. Every day. EVERY DAY. I haven't gone over my daily requirements. Not on vacation. Not on my birthday. Not as a reward for something special. It was just consistently creating a calorie deficit every day that has done this. No weight loss surgery, no herbs, no nothing. Just the science behind weight loss that I never understood before. Now, specifically, here are some of the things I did.

1. I calculated my Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). That's the number of calories you burn just by being alive and then I used a calculator to try and gauge how many calories I burn by doing the things I do. Want to find yours? Use this WebMD calculator.

2. I figured out how many calories I needed to eat each day based on my calculator number. You lose 1 pound for every 3500 calories of a deficit you create. I wanted to lose 2 pounds each week so I created a 1,000-calorie deficit every day.

3. I tracked my calories and ate the exact number every day. At first I used paper. Then, I got the MyNetDiary App for tracking.

4. I eat recipes from Eating Well and Cooking Light for dinner most nights. You can find the recipes on my Pinterest page.

5. I eat nonfat Greek yogurt and Nature Box granola for breakfast every morning.

6. All of my snacks are usually Nature Box foods. They taste great and they're developed with the help of a nutritionist so they're sensible, healthy solutions. If you head over to the site and check it out, use the promo code SHARE10 to save $10.

7. I ate sensible lunches. Salads, sandwiches on whole wheat bread leftovers from dinners and so on.

8. When we ate out, I looked up nutritional information before we got to the restaurant and decided what I would order.

9. I let myself have things like ice cream when I wanted them, but I found out their calorie content and added it to my day.

10. I walked 3 miles per day 5 to 7 days per week beginning in April until about November. With cold weather I've been walking less often, but I'm still losing.

11. I realized I was responsible for how I looked. I accepted that I was obese because I ate too much too often. When I realized I was the one who was making the bad choices, and I could control my weight easily just by counting calories, it became easy.


About This Blog


So now to this blog. Being that I'm getting close to my goal weight, I'm starting to build a whole new wardrobe as literally nothing fits me, having gone from a Size 26 to now a Size 12. I wanted to start this blog to help share some of my fashion finds and so on. Here's what you can expect:

1. Reviews of some subscription box and fashion stylist services I've hired to help me find the style that's perfect for this new body.

2. Bargain sightings on Daily Deals sites that I'm excited about and want to share.

3. Outfit and style ideas that use basic pieces and build from there. I plan to devote each month to a different piece. For the rest of January and February, it's going to the chambray shirt.

4. Vintage style icon outfits. Each month I'll toss in some vintage inspired outfit ideas based on some of my personal style heroes. For the rest of January and February, we'll be styling after Audrey Hepburn.

5. Weekly Favorite Things posts about what I'm obsessing over at the present time

6. What I Ate Last Week posts. These are merely meant to be informational because people keep asking me what I eat. I'll highlight a couple of my favorite recipes from the week and give you links to them.

7. Other things that strike my fancy. I'm probably not going to talk much about weight loss on this blog. I feel that I'm not a weight loss expert and really shouldn't be giving advice about how to lose weight to anyone else. I just did what worked for me.  I don't know what will work for you or for someone else.

What I do know is that anyone can do what I did. If you're overweight or obese, you have the power to make the healthy changes in your lifestyle and reap their benefits. I didn't believe I could for the longest time, and I think that's what made me gain weight more than the food I put in my mouth.

Anyway, that's it for this intro post. Sorry it's 1,000 words. For those of you who I lost:

TL;DR version: I lost some weight. Now I'm ready to find some new clothes and talk about it on the Internet. Yay.

P.S. I'm a professional writer so I spend all day writing stuff. This blog is for me. So I won't be proofreading much. Please excuse any typos. ;)