Getting Started

After posting progress on my facebook status several times about how I'm losing weight, I have decided to start a blog documenting my progress and keeping my facebook status open for other expressions. This way I can also go into detail about all the fun experiences that go along with losing a significant amount of weight. It's going to be a fun time!

My name is Lindsay, I am 25 and am wrapping up my master's degree in history. For the past 3 years I have sacrificed my body in order to complete this degree. The first year didn't hurt too bad, but around the end of the second year was when the damage really piled up and as I'm wrapping up the third and final year of this, I am working on getting back on track. I started grad school in June of 2007 at about 185 lbs (during which time I already thought I was fat), but as of the beginning of January 2010, I was at a whopping 230 lbs. Quite an accomplishment, I know.

The fun side of all of this is that last summer, my sister found out about a Disney Princess Half-Marathon in the middle of March and told mom and I about it. I was on board thinking I definitely could use some motivation to lose the weight. Mom decided to go with the 5K version, which my sister and I also signed up for. The other fun part of this story is that I had planned to be completely done with school by December, but school has extended into one more semester, however, I won't be taking any classes, which is a HUGE relief, though I will still have some projects I need to wrap up along the way of this weight losing adventure.


So let's get started with the progress. I started dieting a little over 2 weeks ago. I weighed myself at home this weekend and am at a strong 220 lbs! Ten pounds! Yay! I just joined a gym on Tuesday of this past week and am getting the hang of working out again. I like taking classes because that is more motivating to me, but I'm still trying them all out to see what best fits me. Here is what I've learned so far:

-Kickboxing is a lot of fun, but the lady teaching it is crazy and particularly enjoys repeating the same move that makes me want to hurl. I might have to wait and get my endurance up a little before I come back to this class.

-Step (Plus Abs) is taught by the same crazy lady, but must be some advanced class because after about 25 minutes I found myself staring at everyone else doing these combos that were making me cross-eyed and trip (like the rhythmless white girl I am). I left early, probably missing the abs part, and ran on the elliptical machine for the remaining 30 minutes.

This week I plan to tackle one of the Cycling classes (also called Spin classes), and Tai Chi. Cycling/Spin classes supposedly can help you burn up to 800 calories. It sounds extremely painful, but I am looking forward to it. Tai Chi will hopefully bring some grace into my otherwise klutzy life and hopefully help me calm down when I'm stressing. I also plan to meet with one of the gym people and they are going to go over some of the weightlifting stuff with me so I can get comfortable with the weight machines.


So now let's talk a minute about my favorite thing on Earth: food. The diet I'm loosely trying to stick to is low fat and about 1,200 calories a day. I have found charts online showing a scale of what your current weight is and how many calories you are supposed to have a day. I am somewhere in the 1,600-1,800 range, but if I shoot for 1,200, I can go a little over and I'm still ok. Keep in mind, I'm eating veggies and fruit and doing my best to drink plenty of water, which is hard to keep up during the day at work since I am not allowed water at my work desk. So, I think it is a healthy diet considering I'm getting more nutrients now than on my greasy, fatty diet I was on for the past 2 1/2 years, and I feel full most of the time. Here's a typical day with the diet I've been on the past couple of weeks or so:

Breakfast - 90 calorie special K granola bar OR 140 Fiber One granola bar (this one can be explosive, so be warned!)

Lunch - Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers OR Lean Cuisine (whichever is on sale) with fat free publix yogurt and a weight watcher's desert cake

Snack - granola bar (once again, watch out for those Fiber One bars, especially when working out later!) OR tangerine OR a leftover weight watcher's cake I skipped at lunch

Dinner - several different recommended options here. One night I had Light Progresso soup (not particularly tasty). Another I had fat free refried beans (very filling, but also can be explosive later). My favorite so far has been half a piece of grilled chicken with a baked golden potato (which are smaller) with fat free sour cream and I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Butter spray. Fantastic. I still have a couple more tricks in my hat for dinners as well. I will share them as I go along.


In the end, I am excited to keep this blog as a sort of diary to go with my progress so I can look back and see how I've changed along the way. I also hope this can be entertaining to someone. I relate many things in my life to movies and songs, so that will probably frequently come up...maybe some youtube videos. I also want to make a point that even though I've put on the weight of a fully-grown, anorexic Paris Hilton since I first started college back in 2003, I'm wanting to become healthy in my habits and size more so than I care about how much I actually weigh. I do have a goal weight of 140, and I enjoy gauging how much I've lost as I go, but my prime focus is simply living healthily while enjoying the benefits of weight loss along the way.



I welcome any comments, questions, advice, or suggestions at any time! I need all the help I can get!